Near Death Experiences: An Outline

Dr. Michael Sudduth

Near Death Experience (NDE) refers to alleged experiences of persons on the boundary between life and physical death. These experiences are sometimes called “after life” or “after death” experiences. However, in most of the cases only some of the conditions necessary for physical death have been satisfied. In the typical case, a person’s heart has stopped for some period of time. The subjects are thus unconscious, but the brain continues to function. However, in some cases there is a disruption or suspension of other vital signs, some related to brain functioning.

Brain death, which is a necessary condition for being declared “legally dead,” is typically defined as the irreversible loss of brain functioning. There are three indications of loss of brain functioning: (a) lack of blood flow to the brain (as established by blood flow measurements), (b) no electrical activity in the brain (measured by an EEG), and (c) absence of functioning in all major parts of the brain (determined by various clinical tests, e.g., no movement, failure to respond to external stimuli).

In the Pam Reynolds case, for example, in addition to having her heart and breathing stopped, blood was drained from her head, core body temperature was reduced to 60 degrees, and brain waves were flattened. Pam Reynolds appeared to be brain dead according to all three criteria above.

Note: By definition it is impossible for any reported NDE to involve irreversible loss of brain functioning since the individuals live to tell about their experience. Technically, then, these experiences are not experiences of those who have died in the legal or complete medical sense of the term. The experience is thus best described as near death experience, not after death experience. The crucial aspect of NDEs is not that they happen after death (as defined legally or even medically) but that they involve conscious states when vital signs are compromised to varying degrees and where this is arguably incompatible with the former. What is at issue here is the relationship of consciousness and brain functioning. To the extent that NDEs provide evidence that consciousness is independent of brain functioning to that extent it provides evidence of survival.

I. Common Characteristics of NDEs

A. Out of Body Experience: Subject experiences himself departing or becoming detached from his physical body.

B. Sense of Being Dead. Subject reports vividly seeing his body on the operating table or laying unconscious at an accident scene. Subject realizes that he or she is dead or dying.

C. Meeting other people: Many individuals claim to encounter beings of light. Sometimes these are described as deceased relatives. In some cases, these beings have religious significance (e.g., angels, Jesus).

D. Life Review: Individuals are given a quick review of their entire lives, typically being confronted with the (good and bad) effects of their actions on other people.

E. Reluctance to Return: While some NDEs are negative in nature, most are positive and individuals are reluctant to return to their bodies.

II. Statistics on NDEs

Results on the numbers of people who have had NDEs during a physical crisis and impending death vary, roughly between 40% and 70%. Sabon reports that 42% of subjects interviewed claim NDE. Fred Schoonmaker (an American cardiologist) reports 78% of 2,300 subjects interviewed had NDEs.

NDEs are cross-cultural experience, and children are often the subjects of NDEs.

III. Comparison with Afterlife Descriptions in Religious Traditions

A. Similarities

1. Bardo World in the Tibetan Book of the Dead describes a white light, a person assuming a new body during the intermediate state that resembles their former body, and encountering personal beings. Experiences can be positive or negative, or both.

2. “Being of Light” encountered in NDEs is similar to the afterlife experience in Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam, and the Bahai Faith where the soul encounters a Supreme divine being after death.

3. “Life review” suggests a system of justice according to basic moral principles of various religious traditions, east and west. Typically, life reviews in western religious traditions are associated with negative afterlife experiences of those who do not obtain paradise but experience punishment of some sort in the afterlife.

B. Differences

A. Positive and Negative experiences during NDEs don’t seem to match the detailed descriptions of after life rewards and punishments in different religious traditions. It doesn’t look like NDEs provide an account of heaven and hell that is entirely compatible with how these places or states of being are conceptualized in the major world religions.

B. The positive NDEs don’t match very well with the highly physical descriptions of heaven or heavenly realms in certain religions (e.g., Islam, Buddhism) where rewards are explained as physical pleasures of various sorts.

III. Effects of Such Experiences

Individuals who have NDEs report a lack of fear of death subsequent to their experiences and a new sense of meaning or purpose in their life. Behavior seems modified by the experience. More “other oriented” and less egocentric.

IV. Non-Survival Explanations

A. Fraud Hypothesis: It might be contended that all people who claim to have such experiences are consciously or unconsciously making it up. However, the near universality of a common core experience and its frequent veridical character make this fairly unlikely.

B. Mental Illness Hypothesis: While it might be argued that all NDEs are the products of mental illness, this is highly improbable since a majority of the subjects exhibit no other signs of mental illness. (Also, the veridical nature of many of the cases is inconsistent with the experience being the product of delusion or some sort of mental illness).

C. Natural Physiological Explanations: The primary non-survival hypothesis attempts to explain the NDE in terms of physiological causes surrounding the disruption of vital signs: (a) release of endorphins, (b) temporal lobe seizure, (c) brain hypoxia, and (d) hypercarbia. Many of the features of NDEs are produced by these conditions. NDEs are thus hallucinations induced by physiological processes. However, NDE type experiences induced in these ways involves several qualities not present in putative NDE cases.

1. Release of endorphins relieves pain for a longer period of time than NDEs.

2. Temporal lobe seizures produce various illusions, hideous hallucinations, and feelings of despair. The overall negative experiences are not consistent with positive NDEs.

3. Brain Hypercarboa (high doses of carbon dioxide) tends to produce a sense of bodily detachment, perception of bright lights, revival of memories (much like NDEs). However, they also produce perceptions of geometric figures, animation of fantasized objects (e.g., musical notes floating by), a compulsion to solve mathematical puzzles, and horrifying images. The latter are not compatible with NDEs.

4. Brain Hypoxia (produced by deprivation of oxygen to the brain) tends to produce greater degrees of impairment of cognitive faculties, mental lethargy, and mental confusion. This seems inconsistent with the clarity of perception in NDEs.

V. NDEs and the Case for Survival

A. Argument from Testimony: If a large number of people from different backgrounds and education testify to experiencing something, then absent sufficient reasons to the contrary, their testimony makes it likely that what they describe is roughly as they describe it.

B. Argument for Dualism: If NDEs provide evidence for dualism (separate nature of mind and body), then NDE provides evidence against physicalism. Since physicalism is frequently used against survival, NDEs would remove a common objection to survival. NDEs will provide evidence for dualism if the experiences show that individuals are capable of conscious states apart from an adequately functioning brain.

C. Argument from the Veridical Nature of the Experiences: Some of NDEs involve subjects who were capable upon being revived of providing information about the events that took place while they were unconscious. If NDE involved the actual survival of the human person, then we should expect the experiences to be veridical. Since a common feature of the NDE is an experience of the local environment from a position outside one’s body, the subjects should be capable of providing of accurate information concerning the local environment. Many such cases involve precisely this: Accurate description of surgical procedures, medical instruments, content of conversations held by doctors, nurses, or family members (in and outside operating room), names of attending nurses.