Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (5 page)

The second category covers the description of objects and events that transcend the earthly dimension (
transcendental
characteristics), described by 54 percent of the NDErs as a stay in a dark space or void, accompanied by feelings of peace. This was usually followed by an encounter with a brilliant and nonblinding light at the end of a tunnel, after which people found themselves in an unearthly or heavenly environment. Here approximately half of the NDErs engaged in nonverbal communication with deceased friends or relatives or with a “spiritual entity.” Their communication usually centered on the decision to stay or go back to earth, that is, return to the physical body left behind. There were also some reports of a life review or the perception of a border.

The third category included patients who reported a combination of the first and second categories in an uninterrupted sequence of the various elements. This was recorded in approximately 20 percent of the NDEs.

The term
autoscopic,
as used by Sabom, is actually incorrect for an out-of-body experience. In the event of an autoscopy, a patient (usually with psychiatric symptoms) observes a kind of double of the self from the vantage point of his or her own physical body. In the event of an out-of-body experience, however, people see their body, including verifiable details, from a position outside and above the lifeless body.

Greyson’s Four NDE Components

From a total of eighty characteristics, Bruce Greyson reduced the constituent parts of the NDE to sixteen elements, grouped into four clusters: cognitive, affective, paranormal, and transcendental.
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The
cognitive
component includes losing one’s sense of time, having accelerated thoughts, the life review and preview, and the possibility of universal knowledge. The
affective
component covers feelings of peace, joy, cosmic unity, and the perception of or inclusion in a brilliant and nonblinding light.
Paranormal
refers to all those phenomena that defy explanation with our normal physical laws and universally accepted concepts. The paranormal component may include a hyperacute auditory and visual sense, the conscious experience of remote events, premonitions and prophetic visions, and an out-of-body experience.
Transcendental
literally means “climbing or going beyond.” The transcendental component involves traveling to an unearthly realm, meeting or sensing the presence of a mystical being, seeing and communicating with deceased persons or religious figures, and reaching a border. The affective and transcendental components were reported most frequently, the paranormal and cognitive components less often.

Retrospective Versus Prospective Scientific Studies

There are two scientific approaches to the study of empirical data.
Retrospective
studies feature interviews with people who come forward in response to advertisements, articles, readings, or radio and TV broadcasts. These people present themselves randomly and voluntarily, which means that an NDE study can include people whose experience dates back ten or twenty years and whose medical and other circumstances can no longer be ascertained. We do not know why people volunteer or not. Presumably many people are afraid or unwilling to come forward or else they are unaware of the study. The results of retrospective studies are therefore less reliable. The four best-known and most important NDE researchers, Moody, Ring, Sabom, and Greyson, all based their NDE classification on findings from retrospective studies, although Sabom’s study was in part prospective.

In a
prospective
study, researchers approach all consecutive patients with a predefined diagnosis within days of their coma or cardiac arrest and ask them whether they have any memories of the period of unconsciousness. This allows all medical and other data to be carefully recorded and lends a prospective study much greater scientific value. A prospective study is possible only among patients with an objective and life-threatening medical indication. As mentioned, in the past nearly all NDE studies were retrospective, but in recent years some prospective NDE studies among cardiac arrest survivors have been published.

The Depth of an Experience

Definitions are important scientific tools for describing and judging the depth and complexity of an experience. If research subjects report memories of their period of unconsciousness, their NDEs are coded with the help of an index based on the number of reported NDE elements. The more elements are reported, the deeper the NDE and the higher the total score. Some elements are given a higher score than others.

In order to determine the depth of an NDE, Kenneth Ring developed the WCEI score, the Weighted Core Experience Index.
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In his retrospective study a score of 0 to 6 was deemed too low for the experience to merit the label NDE. An experience scoring between 7 and 9 was called a moderately deep NDE, while a score between 10 and a maximum of 29 was labeled a deep to very deep NDE.

Bruce Greyson adjusted the WCEI scoring system because as well as measuring the depth of the NDE, he wanted to create the possibility of eliminating certain NDE-like (false positive) elements in retrospective studies. This new Greyson Scale provides a better overall picture, is easier to use, and makes it possible to distinguish between NDEs and experiences resulting from brain damage, from other stress responses, or from an altered state of mind caused, for example, by the use of drugs. Greyson uses a scale of 0 to 32, in which a score of 7 or higher marks the cutoff point for genuine NDEs in retrospective studies. The WCEI is best for determining the depth of an NDE while the Greyson Scale is useful for screening a population to identify NDEs.
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In both scoring systems, experiences with a score of 6 or lower in retrospective studies are not seen as real NDEs. I am convinced, however, that in the more recent prospective studies, in which all patients are monitored from the moment they regain consciousness or wake from their coma, each reported memory of the period of unconsciousness, even an experience with just a single element (that is, with an extremely low score), merits the label NDE. I say so because in the Dutch study all people with a low score—with a so-called superficial NDE—displayed in later interviews the classic personality changes associated with an NDE, which we will look at in more detail later.

The Twelve NDE Elements, with Some Striking Examples

Moody’s classification is a useful starting point for discussing the various aspects of an NDE. I understand full well that this is an artificial division and that while these elements may be distinct, they cannot be isolated because the NDE constitutes a continuous experience. It is a practical division, however, because each of the twelve elements raises different questions about a possible scientific explanation for an NDE. How is it possible for people to observe their own resuscitation from a position above their lifeless body? How can they have clear thoughts and retain their memories without a physical body? How is it possible for them to meet and recognize deceased relatives? How is it possible to experience a life review or a preview in mere minutes, as if time and distance do not exist in this other, unearthly realm?

The various elements will be discussed individually in the order in which they are usually experienced. All elements will be illustrated with typical examples. In some cases I include several quotations to better illuminate the various aspects of the element in question. Most of the quotations are taken from experiences that were shared with me in person or in writing by people I met in the course of my research. I reproduce the experiences anonymously and have made them as unidentifiable as possible. Translations follow as close as possible people’s original words, even where this results in somewhat unwieldy language.

1. Ineffability

What happens in a life-threatening situation is often totally unfamiliar and indescribable and lies outside our normal sphere of experience. It is not surprising, therefore, that people run into difficulties when they try to put their experience into words.

2. A Feeling of Peace and Quiet; the Pain Has Gone

For many people, the overwhelming feelings of peace, joy, and bliss constitute the first and best-remembered element of their experience. The intense pain that usually follows a traffic accident or a heart attack is suddenly completely gone.

3. The Awareness of Being Dead

It is often confusing to hear bystanders or doctors declare you dead at a moment when you feel extremely alive and whole. If a sound is heard at this point it is usually a buzzing or whistling sound, sometimes a loud click or a soft murmur.

4. An Out-of-Body Experience

During an out-of-body experience people have verifiable perceptions from a position outside and above their lifeless body. Patients feel as if they have taken off their body like an old coat, and they are astounded that despite discarding it they have retained their identity, with the faculty of sight, with emotions, and with an extremely lucid consciousness.

The out-of-body experience begins with a patient’s sensation that his or her consciousness is leaving the physical body but continues to function unchanged. Sometimes this is accompanied by fear, followed by a (futile) attempt to return to the body, but patients often feel liberated and are amazed at the sight of the lifeless or seriously damaged body. The most common vantage point is from the ceiling, and because of this unusual position some people initially fail to recognize their body. People experience their new weightless body as a spiritual or nonphysical body that can penetrate solid structures such as walls and doors. It is impossible to communicate with or touch others who are present. To their utter amazement, people go unnoticed even though they can hear and see everything. The range of vision can extend to three hundred sixty degrees, with simultaneous detailed and bird’s-eye views. Blind people too have the faculty of sight while deaf people know exactly what has been said. While this is happening, people discover that all it takes to be near someone is to think of that person.

This out-of-body experience is of scientific importance because doctors, nursing staff, and relatives can check and corroborate the reported perceptions and the moment when they were supposed to have taken place. “In a recent review of 93 reports of potentially verifiable out-of-body perceptions (or ‘apparently nonphysical veridical perceptions’) during NDE it has been found that 43 percent had been corroborated to the investigator by an independent informant, an additional 43 percent had been reported by the experiencer to have been corroborated by an independent informant who was no longer available to be inteviewed by the investigator, and only 14 percent relied solely on the experiencer’s report. Of these out-of-body perceptions, 92 percent were completely accurate, 6 percent contained some error, and only 1 percent was completely erroneous. And even among those cases corroborated to the investigaor by an independent informant, 88 percent were completely accurate, 10 percent contained some error, and only 3 percent were completely erroneous.”
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This proves that an out-of-body experience cannot be a hallucination, which is a sensory perception that is perceived as real by the hallucinating person but that does not correspond with reality. Just like a psychotic episode or the effects of hallucinogenic drugs, a hallucination is not rooted in objective reality. It is neither a delusion, an incorrect interpretation of an actual perception, nor an illusion, an apparent reality or a false sense of reality. This raises the question whether the out-of-body experience may be a form of extrasensory perception.

The scientific importance of out-of-body experiences prompts me to include quite a few, very diverse examples. First up is the account of an out-of-body experience as told to me by a nurse at a coronary care unit. The account, taken from our article in
The Lancet,
was verified by us, and we asked the nurse to write it down as objectively as possible.
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