The Near-Death Experience: A Reality Check?
Humanities March 28, 2016 DOI: 10.3390/h5020018 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Critical review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Near-death experience |
| Keywords | Consciousness Nothing Recall Cognitive psychology Epistemology |
| Citations | 33 |
| Key findings | Near-death and out-of-body experiences occur as consciousness returns, not during brain death, and lack empirical evidence for extra-corporeal cognition. |
Abstract
This paper critically reviews assertions that near-death and out-of-body experiences (ND/OBE) offer proof of extra-corporeal existence when the brain is supposedly “dead”. While this field has almost moved away from mere anecdotal recording, the current trend is focussed on demonstrating existence without functional brains. These endeavours have fallen far short of anticipated results—that cardiac patients would report on strategically-placed markers around acute resuscitation units. Two problems arise: a failure to produce corroborative empirical evidence for extra-corporeal cognition (a) when the brain is “dead”, (or “clinically dead”, so-called) and (b) how the memory required for recall could paradoxically be set down at that critical time-point. The view advanced here is that ND/OBE occur as subjects’ states are returning to complete resumption of conscious-awareness and which, from several published accounts, is particularly abrupt but which nevertheless accounts perfectly for memory—and recall. Similar transcendental adventures accompanying returns to conscious-awareness occur with other preceding states of reduced consciousness. Most recollections are intensely geo-physical, anthropomorphic, banal and illogical: their dream-like fantasy provides nothing revelatory about life without a brain, or importantly, about other supposed cosmic contexts. Additionally, it is proposed that since prevalence rates are so extremely low (<1% globally), the few subjects undergoing ND/OBE may have predisposed brains, genetically, structurally or resulting from previous psychological stress. In a somewhat similar vein to post-traumatic stress disorder, subjects with predisposed brains exhibit markedly changed post-experiential phenotypes, so that the ND/OBE itself could be viewed as a transient, accompanying epiphenomenon.
Comparable studies
Other narrative reviews on near-death experience, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distressing Near-Death Experiences | 1992 | Review | |
| Attitude Change Following Near-Death Experiences Individuals who have had near-death experiences | 1980 | Review | n = 21 |
| Near-death experiences. | 2004 | Review | |
| The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences | 2009 | Review | |
| Near-death experiences in cardiac arrest survivors | 2005 | Review |
Citations in the library
Cited by 3
- Persistence of Attitude Changes After Near-Death Experiences The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease March 29, 2022
- Near-death and out-of-body experiences: A case for dialogue between scientist and theologian? Neurology and Religion 2019
- On the Science of Consciousness: Epistemological Reflections and Clinical Implications. Explore 2017
Cites 23
- Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands The Lancet December 1, 2001
- Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Sleep September 1, 2009
- Out-of-body experience, heautoscopy, and autoscopic hallucination of neurological origin Brain Research Reviews July 13, 2005
- Distressing Near-Death Experiences Psychiatry February 1, 1992
- The Spiritual Brain: Selective Cortical Lesions Modulate Human Self-Transcendence Neuron February 1, 2010
and 18 more in the library