Near death experiences are not evidence for life after death

[DoomMetal]

I have recently been reading the book Is There Life After Death? by the clinical psychologist Robert Kastenbaum. Here are some important points I have adapted from his book which show how NDE is not evidence for the survival hypothesis:

The case for the NDE experience of survival is weakened by a fact readily acknowledged by investigators and scholars. The mental state characteristic of the core NDE also occurs under other circumstances. One does not have to be on the verge of physical death to witness the blinding light, encounter spirit beings or have the sense of wandering away from one’s body. Such a state often occurs in the sacred literature of the both the East and the West and among individuals who have attained ‘mystical’ experiences independent of any religious belief. Furthermore, people have often sought and attained such a state through hallucinogenic drugs (as well as through fasting, withdrawing into the wilderness and other actions). Medical psychologist Ronald Siegal has shown that imagery similar if not identical to the NDE can be produced by commonly used anaesthetics in the operating room as well as by peyote and other established hallucinogens.

Who should be more likely to have an NDE the person who objectively is very close to death, or the person who is in less extreme jeopardy of his life? By definition and usage, the closer to death, the more impressive the NDE. A study has addressed this question specifically and found that survivors subjective sense of being close to death was not related to the depth of completeness of their NDEs. Furthermore people who objectively had been in less perilous situation were more likely to report NDEs in the first place! In effect this study distinguished between near and very near death experiences - and the results indicate that fewer memories are reported the closer the individual actually has been to death. The survival hypothesis of the NDE is certainly not strengthened by results which show that people who are very close to death have fewer experiences to report.

Ten thousand cases of vivid NDEs tell us nothing dependable about what experience, if any, a person has when death ‘lives up’ to its reputation for finality. Nowhere in all the available statistics on NDEs is there one scrap of evidence for similarity or identity between the experiences of those who return and those who do not. One cannot advise researchers to continue to waste their time in the hope that more cases; more numbers will change this situation. This is a fundamental flaw in NDE research – namely that we learn only from the returnees – and no viable alternative has been suggested.

We must remind ourselves that all the nearly-dead did, in fact, have viable physical bodies remaining to them. No authenticated reports have come from people whose bodies were absolutely destroyed by say, explosion, avalanche or fire. The expression of mind has invariably depended on a relatively intact, if jeopardized, body. Were the ‘spiritual body’ really as free as some believe, then this strict dependence on an intact physical body should not be necessary.

There is a problem which seems to have escaped all the researchers and advocates of NDEs as evidence of survival. No NDE study has pinned down precisely when the experience actually occurred. Most studies think they have – when what they have settled for is really only the period of time when the person’s life was in greatest jeopardy. This will not do. While what we actually know about the NDE is limited, it comes to us as a form of memory – and much is known about memory in its psychological and even its biological aspects.

 

[Tristan Chi]

Good points on an interesting topic.

To me, the last one is vital (lethal?). All testimonies are recorded well after the 'ND'. There's no way of telling when (if at all) the retold experience actually occurred.

 

[DoomMetal]

Kastenbaum also mentions something which most people have ignored. Let's just assume for a moment that the NDE is evidence for survival, well if it is evidence for survival it is not evidence for immortality. Immortality and survival are not the same thing. If we survive death it could be for 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years, 100 years or 1000 years who knows?! But when you go to paranormal or NDE forums or read modern NDE books all the proponents of the NDE say the NDE has proven immortality. It has proven no such thing!

The NDE experiences are brief, you won't read about someone having an NDE for a week or a year! Some further comments from Kastenbaum:

How could we transform a brief experience 'in' death into an eternity after death? The state of survival, in other words, might be precisely what the NDE reveals - an exotic but short adventure. This is all, repeat, this is all, that the NDE can possibly demonstrate. Strange, isn't it, that this point of has eluded both the believers and the scientists who have slipped into acceptance of the NDE as proof of survival.

Immortality! This concept, if it means anything, bespeaks existence without interruption, existence without end. And yet we do not even possess evidence for long-term survival. Furthermore and this of critical importance we could not acquire evidence for permanent survival. This would require somebody hovering at the very end of time who has the capacity and interest to observe all that transpires and who is also willing to share the knowledge with us. in other words, it requires both God and the end of time to prove immortality. And the end of time, of course, would also be the end of existence and therefore the death of immortality. One must assume a permanent observer in order to give any meaning to the claim for immortality. Observations and evidence available to the human mind can never demonstrate it. Logically speaking, one cannot hope to prove immortal survival.

Nobody is saying survival is impossible but NDE's are not evidence for survival, and even if they were evidence they would not be evidence for immortality.

 

[Recovering Agnostic]

I don't know if Kastenbaum covers the physiological explanations for NDEs, but they're fairly obvious and easily demonstrated as natural outcomes of extreme trauma. The standard tunnel of light, for example, is a result of oxygen depletion causing peripheral vision to narrow as non-essential functions start to shut down. It's been demonstrated in experiments with astronauts and fighter pilots under multiple Gs of pressure.

Kevin Nelson's book The God Impulse deals with this aspect very effectively.

 

[DoomMetal]

I don't know if Kastenbaum covers the physiological explanations for NDEs, but they're fairly obvious and easily demonstrated as natural outcomes of extreme trauma. The standard tunnel of light, for example, is a result of oxygen depletion causing peripheral vision to narrow as non-essential functions start to shut down. It's been demonstrated in experiments with astronauts and fighter pilots under multiple Gs of pressure.

Yes Kastenbaum in the first chapter covers the physiological explanations for NDEs, he even points out how some of the work of Moody, Ring etc has contradicted each other.

Kastenbaum also debunked deathbed visions, fraud mediums, cross correspondences and other supposed pieces of "evidence" for the afterlife. He doesn't reject the possibility of survival, and he has an interesting chapter on his own speculation. As I said it seems to be something which has been overlooked, if survival exists there is no proof it will be for eternity. Kastenbaum just for speculation says that even if something does survive death it probably won't exist forever and would probably fade away with time. There absolutely no evidence for long-term survival according to the research in his book. The NDE is actually one of the weakest supposed "evidence" for survival. It is surprising that some NDE researchers still are claiming it is evidence.

 

[DoomMetal]

Readers may be interested in Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences by Keith Augustine

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html

 

[Fudbucker]

Yes Kastenbaum in the first chapter covers the physiological explanations for NDEs, he even points out how some of the work of Moody, Ring etc has contradicted each other.

Kastenbaum also debunked deathbed visions, fraud mediums, cross correspondences and other supposed pieces of "evidence" for the afterlife. He doesn't reject the possibility of survival, and he has an interesting chapter on his own speculation. As I said it seems to be something which has been overlooked, if survival exists there is no proof it will be for eternity. Kastenbaum just for speculation says that even if something does survive death it probably won't exist forever and would probably fade away with time. There absolutely no evidence for long-term survival according to the research in his book. The NDE is actually one of the weakest supposed "evidence" for survival. It is surprising that some NDE researchers still are claiming it is evidence.

How do you debunk deathbed visions or NDE's? Do you think they don't happen? Or are you saying he debunked the idea that deathbed visions and NDE's are evidence for the afterlife? Kastenbaum can do that by explaining it scientifically. This has been done to a large extent wrt NDE's.

What are the casual factors of deathbed visions, though? I'm having trouble finding anything on Google.

 

[DoomMetal]

How do you debunk deathbed visions or NDE's? Do you think they don't happen? Or are you saying he debunked the idea that deathbed visions and NDE's are evidence for the afterlife? Kastenbaum can do that by explaining it scientifically. This has been done to a large extent wrt NDE's.

What are the casual factors of deathbed visions, though? I'm having trouble finding anything on Google.

Hi Fudbucker, sorry I should have made my post more clear. These things have happened and do happen, I am not disputing the subjects who experience NDE's really experience. I have been researching this field for quite a few years now and I have only come across a handful of frauds in the NDE area who made up their stories for money. I am not disputing their experiences just the interpretation of them. There is no evidence they are evidence for survival. In fact NDE is the weakest evidence for survival, these things are entirely subjective and explainable by psychology. It surprises me NDE researchers still think these are conclusive evidence for survival.

As for deathbed visions, no.. there is not much about them on the internet. I will cover it at some point. I won't be on this forum much longer because I am moving to New Zealand at the end of the month and will be busy with work, but I will try and post up a few links about them before then.

 

[DoomMetal]

Here are some interesting papers on the NDE:

There is nothing paranormal about near-death experiences: how neuroscience can explain seeing bright lights, meeting the dead, or being convinced you are one of them By Dean Mobbs and Caroline Watt

Approximately 3% of Americans declare to have had a near-death experience. These experiences classically involve the feeling that one’s soul has left the body, approaches a bright light and goes to another reality, where love and bliss are all encompassing. Contrary to popular belief, research suggests that there is nothing paranormal about these experiences. Instead, neardeath experiences are the manifestation of normal brain function gone awry, during a traumatic, and sometimes harmless, event.

http://www.koestler-parapsychology.psy.ed.ac.uk/Documents/MobbsWattNDE.pdf


Near-Death Experience: Out-of-Body and Out-of-Brain? by Christian Agrillo

During the last decades, several clinical cases have been reported where patients described profound subjective experiences when near-death, a phenomenon called “near-death experience” (NDE). Recurring features in the accounts involving bright lights and tunnels have sometimes been interpreted as evidence of a new life after death; however the origin of such experiences is largely unknown, and both biological and psychological interpretations have been suggested. The study of NDEs represents one of the most important topics of cognitive neuroscience. In the present paper the current state of knowledge has been reviewed, with particular regard to the main features of NDE, scientific explanations and the theoretical debate surrounding this phenomenon.

http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/gpr-15-1-1.pdf

 

[Frozenwolf150]

The problem with near death is that it's still not close enough to prove anything.