Spiritual reality and near-death experience

The near-death tunnel experience. Graphic from Dr Janice Holden's website.

YouTube has a continually growing number of accounts of near-death experience. These are not accounts of what people experienced when in an extremely dangerous predicament, but where they relate what happened to them when they were clinically dead, loosely known as brain dead. Go here for the video record. However, as well, knowledge of the field is being boosted by medical research based on the latest equipment and expertise. That's what we will look at.

That this experience is evidence for the reality of the spiritual dimension of human life is the focus of a fascinating overview by journalist Lindsay Rudegeair. She quickly gets into the science:

Scientists use specific parameters to determine what incidents they study as NDEs and veridical data [data coinciding with reality] to determine the veracity of these accounts.

A near-death experience occurs when a patient undergoes clinical death. This means they have a flat EEG (electro encephalogram), indicating an absence of electrical activity in the cerebral cortex (generating higher cerebral functioning), the absence of gag reflex, as well as fixed and dilated pupils, indicating a significant reduction of lower brain functioning.

In this state, sensory organs are non-functional, both in themselves and in the brain’s capacity to process their signals. Furthermore, higher cerebral functions such as thinking, processing memories, and linguistic functions would either be completely absent or reduced to insignificance. Lower brain activity is also minimized, though there may be some sporadic and minimal “sputtering” of pockets of deep cortical neurons in those areas.

Personal experience of a neurosurgeon 

Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, and at that time, professor at the University of Virginia Medical School, who [in 2008] underwent a severe coma from encephalitis and was monitored throughout his comatose state, described it as follows:

My synapses—the spaces between the neurons of the brain that support the electrochemical activity that makes the brain function—were not simply compromised during my experience. They were stopped.

Only isolated pockets of deep cortical neurons were still sputtering, but no broad networks capable of generating anything like what we call ‘consciousness’. The E. coli bacteria that flooded my brain during my illness made sure of that.

My doctors have told me that according to all the brain tests they were doing, there was no way that any of the functions including vision, hearing, emotion, memory, language, or logic could possibly have been intact.

Existence continues apart from the body

The most profound aspect of Rudegeair's article comes in its consideration of the "transphysical" component of near-death experiences. She explains:

In 1982, a Gallup survey indicated that approximately 8 million adults in the United States had had a near-death experience (NDE). Those surveyed reported the following eleven characteristics:

• Out-of-body experience
• Accurate visual perception (while out of body)
• Accurate auditory perception (while out of body)
• Feelings of peace and painlessness
• Light phenomena (encounter with loving white light)
• Life review
• Being in another world
• Encountering other beings
• Tunnel experience
• Precognition [foreknowledge of an event]

A body in a state of clinical death is unable to have these experiences, which means that there must be some transphysical aspect to the person to account for these occurrences. By transphysical, we mean some incorporeal part of us that can exist independently of the body. This is supported by the evidence that a person can be capable of seeing and hearing without the biological organs associated with those functions.

This transphysical component retains all its memories and appears to have acute recall and memory functions (without the use of the brain). It is aware of itself and its identity and its distinction from others, but it is more than self-consciousness.

Subjects of scientific studies have claimed that this transphysical component is not limited by physical laws (such as gravity) or the restrictions imposed by physical mass (such as walls or roofs). It can be called into a spiritual or heavenly domain in which it can encounter spiritual beings like itself (in human form) as well as wholly transcendent beings greater than itself (such as a loving white light). It can also communicate with these beings without the use of voice and sounds.

Personal account continued

This is what Dr Alexander writes about his near-death experience:

If one had asked me before my coma how much a patient would remember after such severe meningitis, I would have answered “nothing” and been thinking in the back of my mind that no one would recover from such an illness, at least not to the point of being able to discuss their memories. Thus, you can imagine my surprise at remembering an elaborate and rich odyssey from deep within coma that comprised more than 20,000 words by the time I had written it all down during the six weeks following my return from the hospital.

My older son, Eben Alexander IV, who was majoring in neuroscience at the University of Delaware at the time, advised me to record everything I could remember before I read anything about near-death experiences, physics or cosmology. I dutifully did so, in spite of an intense yearning to read everything I could about those subjects, based on the stunning character of my coma experience.

My meningoencephalitis had been so severe that my original memories from within coma did not include any recollections whatsoever from my life before coma, including language and any knowledge of humans or this universe. That “scorched earth” intensity was the setting for a profound spiritual experience that took me beyond space and time to what seemed like the origin of all existence.

Follow the link to read the vivid details of Dr Alexander's own experience, who was so enthralled by that experience that he has gone on to promote among his medical peers the wider study of consciouness. 

Data reported that can be verified

Rudegeair's article continues:

As noted above, the transphysical component is self-conscious and can see, hear, and remember. Its memories can be recalled after patients return to their bodies. This allows patients to be able to give evidence of their near-death experience because they can share details of what happened around them when they had no physical awareness.

When these accounts have been verified to be 100% accurate, they are termed “veridical.” Virtually every peer-reviewed study reports multiple instances of such veridical data.

Dr. Bruce Greyson (Department of Psychiatric Medicine at the University of Virginia) also reported several instances of accurate veridical data reported by patients after clinical death. He notes:

". . . [veridical reports concern] only descriptions of extremely low antecedent probability that have been cited, such as one woman’s accurate description of the plaid shoelaces on a nurse participating in her resuscitation (Ring and Lawrence, 1993), or one man’s accurate description of his cardiac surgeon during his open-heart surgery ‘‘flapping his arms as if trying to fly’’ (Cook, Greyson, and Stevenson, 1998, p. 399), hardly the type of behavior typically shown in media portrayals of open-heart surgery.

Both of these examples, incidentally, were corroborated by independent interviews with the doctors and nurses involved. In a specific test of ability of patients to imagine accurate resuscitation scenarios, Michael Sabom (1981, 1982) found NDErs’ descriptions of their resuscitations to be highly accurate with specific veridical details, whereas those of resuscitated patients who did not report NDEs but were asked to imagine what their resuscitations must have looked like were vague and contained erroneous specifics."

These are but a few examples of veridical data reported by patients in virtually every major study of near-death experiences. They corroborate the validity of patients’ claims to have been in an out-of-body state (with sensorial capabilities).

The accuracy of veridical data from multiple studies was correlated by Dr. Janice Holden using the strictest criteria. She determined that the vast majority of veridical data was reported perfectly accurately—with only 8% having some inaccuracy.

Dr Holden, who is the president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS), highlights on her website information that answers the question, Are near-death experiences real? - 

"We now have thousands of documented cases of NDEs that challenge some basic assumptions of mainstream psychology, medicine, and philosophy. For example, many NDErs accurately report events that occurred when they had no detectable brain activity or heartbeat. Often NDErs return with knowledge previously unknown to them. Unlike dreams and hallucinations, NDEs have a consistent internal structure, and cross-culturally they reflect universal elements.

Finally, the aftereffects are enduring and life-altering to a much greater extent than for those who experience similar health crises without an NDE. These observations are further supported by studies of resuscitated patients in hospital settings, indicating that NDEs cannot be explained by physiological or pharmacological causes. This phenomenon has the potential to radically affect every aspect of life, from moment-to-moment personal decisions to far reaching public policy." - IANDS Brochure, What Happens When We Die?

In brief, the evidence that people "some incorporeal part of us that can exist independently of the body" and the person in that out-of-body state maintains its sensorial capabilities, reinforces the experience of humankind over eons that we have moved beyond our animal origins to possess a transcendent nature. As possessors of a soul we are capable of exercising such spiritual attributes as the intellect, the will and free will, and conscience.

One thing more, the loss of a sense of transcendence in our present culture has consequences that cause increasing alarm. Further, a study in the American Journal of Psychiatry indicates that disaffiliation with religion "leads to marked increases in suicide rates, familial tensions, drug use, and a sense of meaninglessness and despondency".*

As always, the option is before us: Grasp hold of reality, or lose our sense of identity, of dignity, and ultimate destiny.

*AJP 161, No 12, (December 2004) 2303-8: Kanita Dervic et al., "Religious Affiliation and Suicide Attempt". Quote from Robert Spitzer, The Soul's Upward Yearning, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press 2015) p14. 

Ω See, too, on Youtube: Near Death Experience - Wisdom from Beyond

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