{"id":231649,"date":"2021-04-13T06:20:44","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T06:20:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=231649"},"modified":"2021-04-15T05:42:40","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T05:42:40","slug":"what-do-near-death-experiences-mean-and-why-do-they-fascinate-us-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=231649","title":{"rendered":"What Do Near-Death Experiences Mean, and Why Do They Fascinate Us?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Moshakis \u2013 The Guardian March 7, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n

When Gregg Nome was 24 years old, he slipped into the churn beneath a waterfall and began to drown, his body pummelled against the sandy riverbed. What he saw there surprised him. Suddenly, his vision filled with crystal-clear scenes from his childhood, events he had mostly forgotten, and then moments from early adulthood. The memories, if that\u2019s what they were, were vivid and crisp. Was he reliving them? Not quite. They came at high speed, almost all at once, in a wave. And yet he could process each one individually. In fact, he was able to perceive everything around him: the rush of the water, the sandy bed, all of it brilliantly distinct. He could \u201chear and see as never before,\u201d he recalled later. And, despite being trapped underwater, he felt calm and at ease. He remembered thinking that prior to this moment his senses must have been dulled somehow, because only now could he fully understand the world, perhaps even the true meaning of the universe. Eventually, the imagery faded. Next, \u201cThere was only darkness,\u201d he said, \u201cand a feeling of a short pause, like something was about to happen.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Nome recounted this story at a support group in Connecticut, in 1985, four years after the experience. He had survived, but now he hoped to understand why, during a moment of extreme mortal crisis, his mind had behaved the way it did. The meeting had been organised by Bruce Greyson, now a professor emeritus in psychiatry at the University of Virginia. (Some of the group\u2019s members had responded to an ad Greyson placed in a local newspaper.) As Nome spoke, Greyson sat in a circle of 30 or so others, as if at an AA meeting, listening intently, nodding along.<\/h4>\n

Greyson had been hearing of events like these for years. A month into his psychiatric training, in the 1960s, he had been \u201cconfronted by a patient who claimed to have left her body\u201d while unconscious on a hospital bed, and who later provided an accurate description of events that had taken place \u201cin a different room\u201d. This made no sense to him. \u201cI was raised in a scientific household,\u201d he says, over Zoom. \u201cMy father was a chemist. Growing up, the physical world was all there was.\u201d He felt certain someone had slipped the patient the information. He also thought, \u201cWhat does that even mean, to leave<\/em> your body?\u201d<\/h4>\n

For years, he tried to put the account behind him, but repeatedly he faced heady stories of people experiencing other-worldly events, either when they had been pronounced clinically dead or thought they were close to it, before being wrestled back to life. In the 1975 best seller Life After Life<\/em>, the psychiatrist Raymond Moody, once a colleague of Greyson\u2019s, labelled these episodes \u201cnear-death experiences\u201d, or NDEs, a term that stuck. \u201cIt occurred to me for the first time that this wasn\u2019t just one patient,\u201d Greyson says. \u201cIt was a common phenomenon.\u201d He became fascinated by the qualities of the episodes and the questions they raised, including perhaps the biggest of all: what actually happens when we die? \u201cI plunged in,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd here I am, 50 years later, trying to understand.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Greyson is 74 as of the time of this writing. When we talk, he is at home in Charlottesville, Virginia, waiting out the pandemic in a pressed shirt and tie, kind and affable. Over the years, he has collected hundreds of near-death experiences, he says, either from people who, aware of his research, have volunteered their stories, or from patients who happened to have episodes in hospital. In those cases, Greyson\u2019s process is nearly always the same: he sidles up to the bedside and gently withdraws information. \u201cI ask: \u2018What\u2019s the last thing you remember before you blacked out?\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cThen: \u2018What\u2019s the next thing you remember after that?\u2019 And finally: \u2018And what do you remember between<\/em> those times?\u2019\u201d Not everyone reacts well to the questions; most people stare at him blankly. \u201cBut around one in five will say, \u2018Well, you know, I thought I saw my father, who died 20 years ago,\u2019 and I say, \u2018Tell me about that\u2019 \u2013 and I let them go\u2026\u201d<\/h4>\n

Greyson presents his research in a book, After<\/em>, which is bound by a series of case studies. The accounts are mystical, like those we know from TV and books, but there are common themes. After a bad reaction to anaesthesia, one patient recalled: \u201cI found myself in a meadow, mind cleared, identity intact.\u201d The meadow, she went on, was \u201clit with this glorious, radiant light, like no light we\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d and \u201ca gentle, inner glow shone from each and every plant.\u201d Most episodes involve similar feelings of wonder, mental clarity and bliss, Greyson says. Some people recall out-of-body experiences, or report travelling through a long tunnel; others meet entities they think of as God or Allah or long-dead family members; some feel time bend and warp, as though it were elastic. Once, a policeman who almost died during surgery asked Greyson: \u201cHow do you describe a state of timelessness, where there\u2019s nothing progressing from one point to another, where it\u2019s just all there<\/em>, and you\u2019re totally immersed in it?\u201d Another person recalled: \u201cThe energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria.\u201d<\/h4>\n

It has been Greyson\u2019s role as a psychiatrist to provide a space in which \u201cexperiencers\u201d feel comfortable retelling often incomprehensible stories \u2013 though even when patients discover the courage to try, they can struggle to find the right language. \u201cWhen I talk to near-death experiencers, one of the first things they say is: \u2018I can\u2019t put it into words. There\u2019s no way to express this.\u2019\u201d A frustrated experiencer once told him that when he tried to recall events, \u201cI always fall short.\u201d Another explained it would be difficult to describe her experience because we live in three dimensions, and what she saw on the border between living and dying seemed bigger somehow. Greyson has found that sometimes people turn to painting or music to recall events, as if true meaning can be shared non-verbally. But even that\u2019s insufficient. A subject once told Greyson that recalling his near-death experience was like trying \u201cto draw an odour with crayons\u201d, which is to say, basically impossible.<\/h4>\n

Given that near-death experiences happen with limited warning, they are almost impossible to test. \u201cWe\u2019re dealing with a very short space of time,\u201d Greyson says. A swimmer is trapped underwater, a roofer falls from a ladder, a bystander, peering down at their phone, is struck by a car. In After<\/em>, Greyson points out that his career has coincided with advances in brain-imaging technology, including the emergence of fMRI scanners, which help neuroscientists observe thinking in action. But equipment like that requires compliance: an appointment is made, a patient agrees to sit still. What happens when an experience occurs randomly, nowhere near a hospital? How do you capture a moment as fleeting and unannounced as the point of near-death?<\/h4>\n

When I ask Greyson why he decided to publish After<\/em> now, after all these years, he explains that \u201cwe had to wait until we had enough knowledge about near-death experiences to be able to understand what was going on,\u201d by which he means not that we know what NDEs are, but that advances in science have allowed us to rule out a heap of things they are not. \u201cThere are physiological hypotheses that seem plausible theoretically<\/em>,\u201d he says, but none have stuck. Are feelgood chemicals, like endorphins, released into the body at the point of peril, creating euphoria? Does the brain become starved of oxygen, prompting real-seeming fantasies? Do various areas of the brain suddenly begin to work in concert to create strange, altered states? Nobody knows for sure. \u201cWe keep thinking, \u2018Oh it\u2019s got to be this,\u2019\u201d Greyson says. \u201cNo, the data doesn\u2019t show that. \u2018Oh, this<\/em> then?\u2019 Well, nope, the data doesn\u2019t show that, either.\u201d<\/h4>\n

At the University of Kentucky, the neurologist Kevin Nelson, who, like Greyson, has spent years recording NDEs as a kind of academic side-gig, thinks of the experiences as \u201ca blending of two states of consciousness \u2013 wakefulness and REM sleep \u2013 during a time of great physical or emotional danger,\u201d and argues that many NDEs are \u201cdream-like\u201d, existing in a neurological \u201cborderland\u201d. (Fainting, he added, might bring about similar experiences.) Other researchers, including the late neurologist Oliver Sacks, have thought of NDEs as \u201cextremely complex\u201d hallucinations, an idea that, if nothing else, seems culturally accepted.<\/h4>\n

When Greyson mentions his research to colleagues, he receives \u201ca variety of reactions, from, \u2018Are you out of your mind?\u2019 to \u2018Oh, let me tell you about my<\/em> near-death experience.\u2019\u201d To formalise NDE research in the 1980s, he developed a survey, the Greyson Scale, which has been translated into over 20 languages and is still in use. (Did you suddenly seem to understand everything? Did you feel a sense of harmony or unity with the universe?<\/em>) And he has been published widely in respected medical journals. But he can have quirky ideas. In After<\/em>, Greyson writes: \u201cI take seriously the possibility that NDEs may be brought on by physical changes in the brain,\u201d though he also accepts that the mind might be able to function \u201cindependent\u201d of it. There have been reports of people experiencing near-death episodes while their brains are inactive, he says, and \u201cyet that\u2019s when they say they have the most vivid experience of their lives.\u201d This doesn\u2019t make sense to him. Partway though our conversation, he asks: \u201cAre these the final moments of consciousness? Or the beginning moments of the afterlife?\u201d<\/h4>\n

These kind of theories put Greyson on wobbly ground among neuroscientists, who mostly agree the mind to be a product of the brain. Of the afterlife, Nelson told me: \u201cThis claim is the most extraordinary in science, and there is no ordinary, let alone extraordinary, scientific evidence to support it.\u201d (He added: \u201cThese are matters of faith.\u201d) Sacks called claims like these \u201canti-science\u201d. Daniel Kondziella, a neurologist affiliated with the department of neurology at Copenhagen University Hospital, told me that if \u201cpeople are able to describe and report their experiences, even many years later\u201d, then surely \u201cthey have been processed by the brain and stored in its memory centres.\u201d (Like Nelson, Kondziella believes NDEs are somehow related to REM sleep.)<\/h4>\n

Greyson knows that events in near-death experiences are impossible to corroborate. \u201cWe can\u2019t do research on a deity,\u201d he says, drily. But still, he finds it tough to dismiss wackier theories, even if the data isn\u2019t there. When I ask him what his current logical understanding is, he looks resigned. \u201cIt seems most likely to me that the mind is somehow separate to the brain,\u201d he says, \u201cand, if that\u2019s true, maybe it can function when the brain dies.\u201d Then he adds, \u201cBut if the mind is not there in the brain, where is it? And what<\/em> is it?\u201d<\/h4>\n

—<\/h4>\n

Near-death experiences <\/em><\/strong>are not a new phenomenon. Socrates had one, according to Plato; Pliny the Elder recorded another (in the first century); history is filled with examples of mountaineers falling from cliffs and experiencing bliss rather than terror. But we seem as enthralled now by their meaning as ever, and they continue to be sprinkled liberally across popular culture.<\/h4>\n

In 2020, my four-year-old son and I watched Soul<\/em>, the Disney film, which introduces the near-death experience to a new audience, very young people, and examines consciousness, the afterlife, and the imperceptible stuff that makes us us. (My son is convinced now that when we die we ride an ethereal, very cool-looking travelator toward a blinding light in the sky.) Often in these screen-based times, we are encouraged to celebrate narratives that promote living the \u201cright\u201d way, which tends to involve appreciating and accepting every moment for what it is, and mindfully placing experiences and relationships above the pursuit of power or prestige or material goods. (Broadly speaking, this is the plot of Soul<\/em>.) Most of us do not live like that, not entirely, and yet we feel like we should<\/em>, lest we waste our precious time on this planet. Which is why near-death narratives fascinate us, and why they persist as events of interest in the culture. They ask: \u201cWhat would you do with your life, if you had another chance?\u201d<\/h4>\n

To Greyson, the impact near-death experiences have on people\u2019s lives has been his most surprising discovery. \u201cI make a living by trying to help people change their lives,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not easy to do. But here I\u2019ve found an experience that, sometimes in a matter of seconds, dramatically transforms people\u2019s attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviours.\u201d Often, these changes persist over decades. In most instances, experiencers realise they are no longer afraid to die, which \u201chas a profound impact on how they live their lives\u201d, because \u201cyou lose your fear of life as well \u2013 you\u2019re not afraid of taking chances.\u201d Greyson sometimes asks people to describe their partners before and after an event, \u201cand they\u2019ll say, \u2018Yeah, this isn\u2019t the person I married; this is someone different.\u2019\u201d He adds, \u201cThey see a purpose in life they didn\u2019t see before. I don\u2019t know of anything else that powerful.\u201d<\/h4>\n

I ask for an example. \u201cI\u2019ve spoken to people who were policemen,\u201d he says, \u201cor career military officers, who couldn\u2019t go back to their jobs, couldn\u2019t stand the idea of violence.\u201d I ask why. He says, \u201cThe idea of hurting someone becomes abhorrent to them.\u201d He shrugs. \u201cThey end up going into helping professions. They become teachers, or healthcare workers, or social workers.\u201d<\/h4>\n

I ask if Greyson\u2019s research has changed the way he thinks.<\/h4>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s changed me in terms of my relationships with other people,\u201d he says, \u201cexcept it\u2019s made me more accepting, more open to unusual ideas.\u201d As a psychiatrist, he remains \u201caware of what it means to be psychotic\u201d, but, he says: \u201cI\u2019m more accepting of unusual thoughts that aren\u2019t crazy, and it\u2019s made me much more conscionable with the unknown.<\/h4>\n

\u201cI grew up without any kind of a spiritual background,\u201d he continues. \u201cAnd I\u2019m still not sure I understand what spiritual means. I am convinced now, after doing this for 40, 50 years, that there is more to life than just our physical bodies. I recognise that there is a non-physical part of us. Is that spiritual? I\u2019m not sure. Spirituality usually involves a search for something greater than yourself, for meaning and purpose in the universe. Well, I certainly have that.\u201d<\/h4>\n

After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond, by Bruce Greyson, is out on 11 March (\u00a316.99). Buy it for \u00a314.78 at guardianbookshop.com<\/a><\/span><\/h4>\n

Alex Moshakis is a commissioning editor for <\/em>Observer Magazine.<\/em><\/h4>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor emeritus in psychiatry Bruce Greyson, has spent decades studying those who claim to have had Near Death Experiences. Whatever the cause, they have the power to transform lives, often almost miraculously <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":77263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[65,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Real_Life_X-Files","category-The_Unexplained_esoteric_and_hidden_knowledge"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=231649"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231654,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231649\/revisions\/231654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=231649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=231649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=231649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}