Near Death Experiences

The authors present both unconfirmed and externally confirmed cases of Pre-Existence Memories with paranormal aspects that cannot be explained by childish fantasy. The anomalous phenomena mostly comprise Extra-Sensory Perception, but there is also one case involving Psychokinesis. Such aspects are similar to and convergent with paranormal aspects of Near-Death Experiences and point to a common, non-physical origin of both types of experiences. - Published in Journal of Near-Death Studies, Winter 2015, volume 34, issue 2.

This article reviews mainstream scientific publications on near-death experiences (NDEs). We searched near-death experience in titles, key words, and abstracts at the Web of Knowledge database published between 1945 and 2013. We identified 266 relevant documents, the oldest from 1977. There was a strong predominance of opinion articles (book reviews, commentaries, and editorials), review articles, phenomenological description articles, and articles that originated in the United States. Since 2000, the number of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies has increased; there has been a diversification in the countries that have published on the subject and more articles that discuss the implications of NDEs for the mind-brain relationship. The results indicate that most scholarly publications on NDEs are recent, usually have no original empirical data, and are concentrated in North America and Western Europe. Future studies should focus on increasing the cultural diversity in the field and on testing explanatory hypotheses based on high-quality empirical data.

One of the main reasons that near-death experiences have gener- ated so much interest in recent years among the general public is because they seem to provide evidence that consciousness survives the death of the physical body. It is puzzling, therefore, that most researchers - both those interested in NDEs and those interested in survival research - have neglect- ed

Inducing out-of-body experiences in hypnosis (H-OBEs) offers an almost unique opportunity to investigate them in a controlled condition.OBEs were induced as imaginative task in resting conditions (I-OBE) or in hypnosis (H-OBE) in 15 high hypnotizable subjects. A 32-channel EEG was recorded and the spectral power and imaginary coherence were calculated. At the end of each session, the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI) was administered to check the phenomenological aspects of their experience.Significantly higher scores in the Altered State, Positive Affect, Altered Experience and Attention subdimensions of the PCI were reported in H-OBE than in I-OBE, which were associated to a significant decrease of power in beta and gamma band activity in right parieto-temporal derivations. Our result suggest that H-OBE may be an appealing model of “true” OBEs, including an alteration of multisensory integration in right parieto-temporal brain areas.

In this article a concept of non-local consciousness will be described, based on recent scientific research on near-death experiences (NDEs). Since the publication of several prospective studies on NDEs in survivors of cardiac arrest, with strikingly similar results and conclusions, the phenomenon of the NDE can no longer be scientifically ignored. In the last thirty years several theories have been proposed to explain an NDE. The challenge to find a common explanation for the cause and content of an NDE is complicated by the fact that an NDE can be experienced during various circumstances, such as severe injury of the brain as in cardiac arrest to conditions when the brain seems to function normally. The NDE is an authentic experience which cannot be simply reduced to imagination, fear of death, hallucination, psychosis, the use of drugs, or oxygen deficiency. Patients appear to be permanently changed by an NDE during a cardiac arrest of only some minutes duration. According to these afore-mentioned studies, the current materialistic view of the relationship between consciousness and the brain as held by most physicians, philosophers , and psychologists is too restricted for a proper understanding of this phenomenon. There are good reasons to assume that our consciousness does not always coincide with the functioning of

Following Linda Hutcheon’s definition of parody as “repetition with a difference”, this essay exposes how a contemporary Canadian novel parodically responds to seminal Early Modern English pre-texts. Eric McCormack is not only a Canadian postmodernist (and postcolonial) writer born in Scotland but also a specialist in Early Modern English literature and thus an ideal representative of the intertextual situation of Canadian writing between literary tradition and the challenges of postmodern/postcolonial writing. The essay interprets McCormack’s sexual gothic novel First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women discussing the way in which a literal or even literalist—rather than metaphorical—interpretation of literary and religious texts of the Early Modern period can make an important and sometimes harrowing difference in the lives of somewhat unsophisticated literary characters. McCormack’s ominously named character Andrew Halfnight literally interprets religious...

EMO youth subculture bases its subcultural identification mostly on symbols of death, dying, suicide and other kinds of morbid content. The main goal of the present study was to explore attitudes towards suicidal behavior and self-injury in EMO adolescents. Semi-structured in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 14 EMO adherents, accompanied by the analysis of EMO web discussion forums. Participants reported attitudes including high acceptance for suicidal behavior and self-injury. The identification with the EMO youth subculture is considered to be a factor strengthening vulnerability towards risky behaviors.

: The professional near-death literature contains cases in which near-death experiencers reported that during their experiences (NDEs), they perceived phenomena in the material world that, based on the condition and position of their physical bodies, they should not have been able to perceive, and yet these perceptions were subsequently verified as accurate. Only a few of these cases of apparently non-physical veridical perception during NDEs have been carefully researched. In this article, we report a case described originally by cardiac surgeon Lloyd Rudy in a YouTube Internet video. We describe our process of following up exhaustively on all avenues of investigation available to us and our conclusion that this case is among the most evidential in which perceptions during an NDE were confirmed as completely accurate by objective observers. KEY WORDS: near-death-experience, veridical perception, cardiac valve resection surgery As early as 1882, the professional near-death literatur...

Aus wissenssoziologischer Perspektive beschäftigt sich eine ‚Soziologie der Anomalien' mit einer spezifischen Klasse von Störungen der Wirklichkeitsordnung. Um zu verstehen, worum es bei diesen Störungen geht, ist ein kurzer Rekurs auf das wissenssoziologische Wirklichkeitsverständnis notwendig, wie es von Berger und Luckmann (1966/1991) in " Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit " entfaltet wurde. Ihre wissenssoziologische Theorie geht von der Annahme aus, dass jede Kultur über eine für sie charakteristische Wissensordnung verfügt, zu der eine oder mehrere konkurrierende Weltanschauungen, eine Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Wissensbestände und alltäglicher Handlungsanleitungen gehören. Jene Wissensbestände, die sich auf die Beschaffenheit einer als ‚real' verstandenen Umwelt (philosophisch: die ontische Ordnung) beziehen, kann man als geltendes Wirklichkeitswissen einer Kultur bezeichnen. Die Gesamtheit dieses Wirklichkeitswissens nennen wir hier, im Anschluss an das Denken von Berger und Luckmann, Wirklichkeitsordnung. Dieses Wirklichkeitswissen sagt den Mitgliedern der betreffenden Kultur, in was für einer Welt sie leben, wie sie als Menschen darin ihren Platz finden und auch, welche Handlungsoptionen sie in bestimmten Situationen besitzen. Hierzu gehört auch die Beantwortung von basalen Fragen nach den Grenzen des Wirklichen: Was kann in der Welt, in der ich lebe, geschehen und was ist unmöglich? Welche Dinge existieren und welchen Wesen kann ich begegnen? Was kann mir schlimmstenfalls widerfahren, was aber auf keinen Fall? Moderne Gesellschaften zeichnen sich dabei dadurch aus, dass die dem Menschen äußerliche Welt gedanklich in eine ‚natürliche' und eine ‚kulturelle' geschieden wird. Entsprechend bezieht sich die symbolische Repräsentation von Welt, die gedachte Ordnung der Wirklichkeit, auf zwei unterschiedliche Referenzsysteme: die vom Menschen vorgefundene ‚natürliche Welt' und die durch kollektives Handeln erschaffene ‚künstliche' Sozialwelt, in der andere Basisregeln gelten als für die natürliche. Der Unterschied hat nicht nur, aber doch in erster Linie mit der Wirkungsmächtigkeit menschlichen Handelns zu tun. Während die 1 Dass die Wirklichkeitsordnung in komplexen Gesellschaften normativ verbürgt ist, ist nicht nur theoretische Erwartung (vgl. Berger/Luckmann 1991: 59), sondern entspricht der Alltagsevidenz und kann auch empirisch in vielfacher Hinsicht beobachtet werden. Verstöße gegen die Wirklichkeitsordnung ziehen regelmäßig soziale Sanktionen nach sich.

: The professional near-death literature contains cases in which near-death experiencers reported that during their experiences (NDEs), they perceived phenomena in the material world that, based on the condition and position of their physical bodies, they should not have been able to perceive, and yet these perceptions were subsequently verified as accurate. Only a few of these cases of apparently non-physical veridical perception during NDEs have been carefully researched. In this article, we report a case described originally by cardiac surgeon Lloyd Rudy in a YouTube Internet video. We describe our process of following up exhaustively on all avenues of investigation available to us and our conclusion that this case is among the most evidential in which perceptions during an NDE were confirmed as completely accurate by objective observers. KEY WORDS: near-death-experience, veridical perception, cardiac valve resection surgery As early as 1882, the professional near-death literatur...

The Academy of Spiritual and Consciousness Studies, Inc, will hold its annual conference on "Aspects of Consciousness" in Raleigh, NC, on the 4th, 5th and 6th of October, 2018. We are inviting scientists, experimenters, experiencers, practitioners and others to submit abstracts for presentations. We cover ALL aspects of consciousness without any prejudice against those lying along the fringe area front lines  of science. We expect that those chosen to present, and possibly even those who submit abstracts but don't present, will complete publishable papers for a Proceedings of the conference.

Despite advances in technology and medicine, death itself remains an immutable certainty. Indeed, the acceptance and understanding of our mortality are among the enduring metaphysical challenges that have confronted human beings from the beginning of time. How have we sought to cope with the inevitability of our mortality? How do various cultural and social representations of mortality shape and influence the way in which we understand and approach death? To what extent do personal beliefs and convictions about the meaning of life or the notion of an afterlife affect how we perceive and experience the process of death and dying? Steve Paulson, executive producer and host of To the Best of Our Knowledge, moderated a discussion on death, dying, and what lies beyond that included psychologist Lani Leary, professor of philosophy and religion Jeffrey J. Kripal, and sociologist Allan Kellehear. The following is an edited transcript of the discussion that occurred February 5, 7:00-8:30 pm, at the New York Academy of Sciences in New York City.

Historically, NDEs have been the subject of several psychological or psychoanalytic interpretations. However, they are now in competition with neuroscientific and medical approaches. Since Heim’s first observations, NDEs were discussed in the general framework of clinical practice and trauma by philosophers such as Victor Egger and by psychoanalysts such as Oskar Pfister and Sandor Ferenczi. Surprisingly, until the work of Russell Noyes and his collaborators in the 1970s, the findings focused on elements that were no longer phenomenologically in line with Moody’s work. OBE, panoramic memory, elation, and transcendental elements were in fact narrated by a portion of the experients; yet, a majority claimed to have first felt a form of hyperalertness and automatism and to have been capable of acrobatic and intellectual performances thereby facilitating their own life-saving rescue efforts. Heim’s own testimony, here partially reprinted, describes such efforts. In an attempt to build a psychodynamic model to reconcile these different aspects without falling into a form of reductionism, we begin with a diachronic exploration of the literature regarding the rescue actions during NDE. This process indicates both the traditional description of passing into a disembodied consciousness while, simultaneously, encountering a new concept we call hyperembodied consciousness. Noyes et al. interpreted this process as an almost universal reaction to life-threatening danger and a basic adaptive pattern of the nervous system akin to Cannon’s fight-or- flight reactions. To integrate their ideas in a new psychodynamic model, the second part of this article discusses in a synchronic axis both old and new literature on NDEs, focusing on several conceptual issues: the psychological versus biological triggers of NDEs, the notion of “Fear-Death Experiences”; the description of the disjunction between a disembodied and a hyperembodied consciousness; the complementarity of the processes of focalization (“fight”) and distanciation (“flight”) through the contribution of the Bergsonian theory of the body-mind relationship; and the psychodynamic functions and nature of the survival scenario experienced through the distanciation. We propose to reconsider the NDEs as part of a more general process: an adaptive psychosomatic response to the perception of imminent death, while discussing a case of drowning. with Chloé Toutain & Jacob W. Glazier

Building on the groundbreaking research of Irreducible Mind and Beyond Physicalism, Edward Kelly and Paul Marshall gather a cohort of leading scholars to consider the significance of extraordinary experiences for our understanding of reality. Currently emerging as a middle ground between warring fundamentalisms of religion and science, an expanded science-based understanding of nature finally accommodates empirical realities of spiritual sorts while also rejecting rationally untenable overbeliefs. The vision sketched here provides an antidote to the prevailing postmodern disenchantment of the world and demeaning of human possibilities. It not only more accurately and fully reflects our human condition but engenders hope and encourages ego-surpassing forms of human flourishing. It offers reasons for us to believe that freedom is real, that our human choices matter, and that we have barely scratched the surface of our human potentials. It also addresses the urgent need for a greater sense of worldwide community and interdependence—a sustainable ethos—by demonstrating that under the surface we and the world are much more extensively interconnected than previously recognized. Co-edited with Edward F. Kelly. Published by Rowman & Littlefield, 2021

This book is a compilation of the work published by the present authors in various scientific journals mainly focused on understanding how quantum physics could decipher the experiences observed and reported during near-death and end-of-life situations. The authors claim that various theories and models proposed herein (though not propounding to be a complete one) are just an attempt to understand few aspects associated with such experiences connected to the phenomenon of death. They investigate the possible role of the quantum phenomenon in the occurrence of these events and call for a detailed scientific investigation to validate any hypotheses made.

The professional near-death literature contains cases in which near-death experiencers reported that during their experiences (NDEs), they perceived phenomena in the material world that, based on the condition and position of their physical bodies, they should not have been able to perceive, and yet these perceptions were subsequently verified as accurate. Only a few of these cases of apparently non-physical veridical perception during NDEs have been carefully researched. In this article, we report a case described originally by cardiac surgeon Lloyd Rudy in a YouTube Internet video. We describe our process of following up exhaustively on all avenues of investigation available to us and our conclusion that this case is among the most evidential in which perceptions during an NDE were confirmed as completely accurate by objective observers. It is discussed in a response by Woerlee: http://www.neardth.com/lazarus.php We consulted Rudy's assistant surgeon about this response. He st...