| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Neuroscience Struggles to Explain Near Death Experiences
Near death experiences (NDEs) have been reported through the ages by those who were near death—or thought they were—and then return.
Though these experiences are not all the same, they have many distinctive hallmarks: seeing a tunnel of light; seeing loved ones who have passed away; feeling bliss or euphoria; having a heightened sense of cognition; feeling a sense of great love; reviewing one’s whole life, often in a very short period of time; and feeling as if the soul has left the body. NDEs also tend to transform the lives of those who experience them—leading them to try to become better people.
These rich, interesting experiences have provoked the question of whether we truly do have souls, or if our consciousness is only a product of the brain. As brain science advances, there are an increasing number of claims that NDEs can be explained by neuroscience alone, thus obviating any need for an explanation based on the soul.
Explaining NDEs
But how well do these explanations from neuroscience hold up?
One very important piece of information is that about half of NDEs occur when individuals think they are going to die, but are not actually medically close to death. So for example, if someone fell off a building, and thought they were going to die, but only sustained minor injuries. This means that if we’re looking to the brain to explain all the different elements of NDEs, we need an explanation that accounts situations where the person is actually dying, and those where there is no real threat of death, in terms of one’s medical condition.
A common explanation that has been advanced by some scientists is that when the brain is deprived of oxygen, you can expect various patterns of response, particularly a sense of bright light in your center of vision. This kind of experience can indeed be induced by a lack of oxygen, but the problem is, not all NDEs involve anoxia, yet many still have the sense of a tunnel of light.
Furthermore, when the brain is out of oxygen, it starts firing rapidly in a disorganized fashion—it’s not working properly. From our knowledge of the brain, we would not expect organized experience in this state, but a jumble perhaps akin to what one might find in seizures or in mental illness—other examples of the brain not working correctly.
But what we get are vivid, organized, transformational experiences—people report that their NDEs feel “more real than real,” they feel free, that they understand the universe at a deep level, and have never been happier. This can happen both when the brain is not in immediate danger, and when it’s under severe duress because of a life-threatening situation.
Mind Power
Interestingly, when the brain is close to death, there is a higher incidence of cognitive enhancement—the mind feels unfettered and able to process more thoughts than usual. That we would find enhanced cognition under deprived conditions for the brain does not square with our understanding of brain function.
Another brain-based explanation is that the out-of-body experience (OBE) portion of NDEs is caused by a misfiring at the temporal-parietal junction, a region of the brain thought to be responsible for forming one’s body concept.
—————————
Having had my heart and respiration functions cease for an extended period of time I can tell you that you, or what makes up you, leaves the body. It is the greatest experience you will ever know. I would like to tell everyone just how I felt but we, in our current physical form can neither fully express it nor if we could still not be able to comprehend even the barest minimum. I can tell you that on our best days, as happy and content or comfortable as we may feel our lives are excruciatingly painful, lonely and devoid of sensation in comparison to what awaits when you leave your body. The biggest disappointment I have ever felt is when I was literally sucked away from where I was and back into my body. Like a giant vacuum cleaner I was just snatched away. I can still remember my first thoughts. The first was “Oh my God I’m back”. The second was “Oh God please, it hurts”. The pain I felt was not from dying but rather from living again. I am human and thus fear dying, or more like fear of the circumstances and pain of my eventual death. I have the inherent self preservation instinct and it is strong. But what I also have now is the knowledge of what awaits when all the unpleasantness of shedding this body is past. I pray that the next time it is permanent. To feel that disappointment again would be devastating. In the blink of an eye you will go from an agony that you have literally felt all of your life and thus become accustomed, to a peacefulness, clarity, vividness, a sense of well-being and the only word that I can describe it but a feeling of both being loved and loving. But it is so much more. My words trying to describe my experience are like a cave man trying to explain with rock paintings how to build and fly the space shuttle. You scientist trying to figure it all out. Don’t push yourself too hard, you’ll find out the truth soon enough, we all will.
I agree with everything you said…except my experience wasn’t when I was dying or sick or anything close. It was everything you said and more and simply can’t be explained in the words we have here. I recognized it as HOME and am sad i am stuck here.
The two things science has yet to begin understanding about the brain are consciousness and emotion because neither has an organic explanation. But those are exactly the two things that make up all the universe that physics has yet to explain. When the body (organic matter dies) the only thing that survives is the love people have for us and the love we have for them. A bond that even death can’t break.
To those who have never had this experience there are no words to make them understand but since we all leave this rock sooner or later someday they will.