Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (50 page)

6. Van Lommel et al., “Near-Death Experiences.”

7. For the statistics on children, see M. Morse and P. Perry,
Closer to the Light
(New York: Villard Books, 1990). Ring’s study is K. Ring,
Life at Death: A Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death Experience
(New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1980). Sabom’s study is found in M. B. Sabom,
Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation
(New York: Harper & Row, 1982). For prospective studies among heart patients, see Greyson, “Incidence of Near-Death” also see Greyson’s 2003 study, “Incidence and Correlates.” The Dutch study is Van Lommel et al., “Near-Death Experiences.”

8. H. Yamamura, “Implication of Near-Death Experience for the Elderly in Terminal Care,”
Nippon Ronen Igakkai Zasshi
35, no. 2 (1998): 103–15.

9. Sabom,
Recollections of Death;
Van Lommel et al., “Near-Death Experiences.”

10. G. M. Woerlee,
Mortal Minds: A Biology of the Soul and the Dying Experience
(Utrecht, the Netherlands: De Tijdstroom, 2003); B. Greyson, “Near-Death Experiences,” in
Varieties of Anomalous Experiences: Examining the Scientific Evidence,
ed. E. Cardena, S. J. Lynn, and S. Krippner (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2000), 315–52.

11. B. Greyson, “Biological Aspects of Near-Death Experiences,”
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
42, no. 1 (1998): 14–32; E. D. Kelly and E. W. Kelly, “Unusual Experiences Near Death and Related Phenomena,” in
Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century,
367–421 (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007).

12. Woerlee,
Mortal Minds;
S. Blackmore,
Dying to Live: Science and the Near-Death Experience
(London: Harper Collins, 1993).

13. Blackmore,
Dying to Live;
Woerlee,
Mortal Minds.

14. J. E. Whinnery and A. M. Whinnery, “Acceleration-Induced Loss of Consciousness,”
Archives of Neurology
47 (1990): 764–76.

15. T. Lempert, M. Bauer, and D. Schmidt, “Syncope and Near-Death Experience,”
Lancet
344 (1994): 829–30.

16. L. T. Meduna,
Carbon Dioxide Therapy: A Neuropsychological Treatment of Nervous Disorders
(Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1950).

17. Parnia et al., “Cardiac Arrest Survivors” Ring,
Life at Death;
Greyson, “Near-Death Experiences” P. Sartori, “The Incidence and Phenomenology of Near-Death Experiences,”
Network Review (Scientific and Medical Network)
90 (2006): 23–25.

18. K. Jansen, “Neuroscience, Ketamine and the Near-Death Experience: The Role of Glutamate and the NMDA-Receptor,” in
The Near-Death Experience: A Reader,
ed. L. W. Bailey and J. Yates (New York and London: Routledge, 1996), 265–82.

19. R. Strassman,
DMT, The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences
(Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 2001).

20. Strassman,
DMT.

21. A. Newberg,
Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2002).

22. For DMT, see R. Strassman,
DMT;
for LSD, see S. Grof and J. Halifax,
The Human Encounter with Death
(New York: Dutton, 1977).

23. E. Rodin, “Comments on ‘A Neurobiological Model for Near-Death Experiences,’”
Journal of Near-Death Studies
7 (1989): 255–59.

24. W. Penfield,
The Excitable Cortex in Conscious Man
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1958); W. Penfield,
The Mystery of the Mind
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975); W. Penfield, “The Role of the Temporal Cortex in Certain Psychical Phenomena,”
Journal of Mental Science
101 (1955): 451–65.

25. O. Blanke et al., “Stimulating Illusory Own-Body Perceptions: The Part of the Brain That Can Induce out-of-body Experiences Has Been Located,”
Nature
419 (2002): 269–70; O. Blanke et al., “out-of-body Experience and Autoscopy of Neurological Origin,”
Brain
127 (2004): 243–58.

26. M. A. Persinger, “Near-Death Experiences: Determining the Neuroanatomical Pathways by Experiential Patterns and Simulation in Experimental Settings,” in
Healing: Beyond Suffering or Death,
ed. L. Bessette (Chabanel, Québec, Canada: Publications MNH, 1994), 277–86; M. A. Persinger and F. Healey, “Experimental Facilitation of the Sensed Presence: Possible Intercalatation Between the Hemispheres Induced by Complex Magnetic Fields,”
Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases
190 (2002): 533–41; P. Granqvist et al., “Sensed Presence and Mystical Experiences Are Predicted by Suggestibility, Not by the Application of Weak Complex Transcranial Magnetic Fields,”
Neuroscience Letters
379 (2005): 1–6.

27. W. B. Britton and R. R. Bootzin, “Near-Death Experiences and the Temporal Lobe,”
American Psychological Society
15, no. 4 (2004): 254–58.

28. K. R. Nelson et al., “Does the Arousal System Contribute to Near Death Experience?”
Neurology
66, no. 1 (2006): 1003–9.

29. J. Long and J. M. Holden, “Does the Arousal System Contribute to Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences? A Summary and Response,”
Journal of Near-Death Studies
25, no. 3 (2007): 135–69.

30. The 1930s article is O. Pfister, “Shockdenken und Shockphantasien bei höchster Todesgefahr,”
Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse
16 (1930): 430–55. Translated by R. Noyes and R. Kletti as “Shock Thoughts and Fantasies in Extreme Mortal Danger.” For cross-cultural comparisons, see A. Kellehear,
Experiences Near Death: Beyond Medicine and Religion
(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

31. G. K. Athappilly, B. Greyson, and I. Stevenson, “Do Prevailing Society Models Influence Reports of Near-Death Experiences: A Comparison of Accounts Reported Before and After 1975,”
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
194, no. 3 (2006): 218–33.

32. B. Greyson, “Dissociation in People Who Have Near-Death Experiences: Out of Their Bodies or Out of Their Minds?”
Lancet
355 (2000): 460–63.

33. Woerlee,
Mortal Minds;
Blackmore,
Dying to Live.

34. Woerlee,
Mortal Minds;
Blackmore,
Dying to Live;
Sabom,
Recollections of Death.

35. S. Parnia and P. Fenwick, “Near-Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest: Visions of a Dying Brain or Visions of a New Science of Consciousness. Review Article,”
Resuscitation
52 (2002): 5–11; E. W. Cook, B. Greyson, and I. Stevenson, “Do Any Near-Death Experiences Provide Evidence for the Survival of Human Personality After Death? Relevant Features and Illustrative Case Reports,”
Journal of Scientific Exploration
12 (1998): 377–406; K. Ring and S. Cooper,
Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind
(Palo Alto, CA: William James Center/Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, 1999).

36. Sabom,
Recollections of Death.

37. M. M. Ghoneim and R. I. Block, “Learning and Memory During General Anaesthesia: An Update,”
Anesthesiology
87 (1997): 387–410.

38. For patients under general anesthetic, see E. R. John et al., “Invariant Reversible QEEG Effects of Anesthetics,”
Consciousness and Cognition
10 (2001): 165–83. On fMRI research among coma patients, see S. Laureys et al., “Brain Function in the Vegetative State,” in
Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 550: Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness,
ed. C. Machado and D. A. Shewmon, 229–38 (New York: Kluwer/Plenum, 2004). Also see Kelly and Kelly,
Irreducible Mind,
367–421.

39. D. B. Cheek, “Unconscious Perception of Meaningful Sounds During Surgical Anaesthesia as Revealed Under Hypnosis,”
American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis
1 (1959): 101–13.

40. Kelly and Kelly,
Irreducible Mind.

41. Blackmore,
Dying to Live.

42. Kelly and Kelly,
Irreducible Mind.

43. B. Greyson, J. M. Holden, and J. P. Mounsey, “Failure to Elicit Near-Death Experiences in Induced Cardiac Arrest,”
Journal of Near-Death Studies
25, no. 2 (2006): 85–98.

44. J. C. Saavedra-Aguilar and J. S. Gómez-Jeria, “A Neurobiological Model for Near-Death Experiences,”
Journal of Near-Death Studies
7 (1989): 205–22.

Chapter 7: The Dutch Study of Near-Death Experience

1. These facts are confirmed in a study of heart patients by Schwaninger and associates: J. Schwaninger et al., “A Prospective Analysis of Near-Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest Patients,”
Journal of Near-Death Studies
20 (2002): 215–32. Their investigation into NDE in cardiac arrest patients, which was comparable to our study, included 174 resuscitated patients, of which 119 (68 percent) died. Of the surviving 55 patients only 30 (17 percent) could be interviewed. The other 25 patients were diagnosed as permanently brain-damaged at the time the interview was planned. Another study was conducted by Parnia and Fenwick and others: S. Parnia et al., “A Qualitative and Quantitative Study of the Incidence, Features and Aetiology of Near Death Experience in Cardiac Arrest Survivors,”
Resuscitation
48 (2001): 149–56. Their study included 220 cardiac arrest patients over a period of one year, of whom 62 percent died, and only 63 patients (28 percent) could be interviewed.

2. R. F. Hoffman, “Disclosure Habits After Near-Death Experience: Influences, Obstacles and Listeners Selection,”
Journal of Near-Death Studies
14 (1995): 29–48.

3. K. Ring,
Heading Toward Omega: In Search of the Meaning of the Near-Death Experience
(New York: William Morrow, 1984).

4. P. van Lommel et al., “Near-Death Experiences in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands,”
Lancet
358 (2001): 2039–45.

5. M. J. Sauve et al., “Patterns of Cognitive Recovery in Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survivors: The Pilot Study,”
Heart Lung
25, no. 3 (1996): 172–81.

6. B. Greyson, “Incidence and Correlates of Near-Death Experiences in a Cardiac Care Unit,”
General Hospital Psychiatry
25 (2003): 269–76.

7. Hoffman, “Disclosure Habits.”

8. Ring,
Heading Toward Omega.

9. The American study is Greyson, “Incidence and Correlates” the British is Parnia et al., “Cardiac Arrest Survivors” see also P. Sartori, “The Incidence and Phenomenology of Near-Death Experiences,”
Network Review (Scientific and Medical Network)
90 (2006): 23–25.

10. Greyson, “Incidence and Correlates.”

11. Parnia et al, “Cardiac Arrest Survivors.”

12. M. B. Sabom,
Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation
(New York: Harper & Row, 1982).

13. P. Sartori, P. Badham, and P. Fenwick, “A Prospectively Studied Near-Death Experience with Corroborated Out-of-Body Perception and Unexplained Healing,”
Journal of Near-Death Studies
25, no. 2 (2006): 69–84.

Chapter 8: What Happens in the Brain
When the Heart Suddenly Stops?

1. P. van Lommel et al., “Near-Death Experiences in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands,”
Lancet
358 (2001): 2044.

2. B. Greyson, “Incidence and Correlates of Near-Death Experiences in a Cardiac Care Unit,”
General Hospital Psychiatry
25 (2003): 275.