‘There is nothing paranormal about near-death experiences’ revisited: comment on Mobbs and Watt

Greyson, Bruce; Holden, Janice Miner; Lommel, Pim van

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2012.07.002

Cited by 24 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…(Mobs & Watt, 2011). However, it has been pointed out by Greyson and colleagues that this article only accounted for those features that could be explained by the authors, while ignoring other features that are regarded as the most defining for NDEs (Greyson, Holden, & van Lommel, 2012). Furthermore, these alternative models must also be understood as speculative, given the lack of experiments performed at time of reported near death.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Neurochemical models of near-death experiences: A large-scale study based on the semantic similarity of written reports

Martial

Cassol

Charland‐Verville

et al. 2019

Consciousness and Cognition

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The real or perceived proximity to death often results in a non-ordinary state of consciousness characterized by phenomenological features such as the perception of leaving the body boundaries, feelings of peace, bliss and timelessness, life review, the sensation of traveling through a tunnel and an irreversible threshold. Near-death experiences (NDEs) are comparable among individuals of different cultures, suggesting an underlying neurobiological mechanism. Anecdotal accounts of the similarity between NDEs and certain drug-induced altered states of consciousness prompted us to perform a large-scale comparative analysis of these experiences. After assessing the semantic similarity between ≈15,000 reports linked to the use of 165 psychoactive substances and 625 NDE narratives, we determined that the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist ketamine consistently resulted in reports most similar to those associated with NDEs. Ketamine was followed by Salvia divinorum (a plant containing a potent and selective κ receptor agonist) and a series of serotonergic psychedelics, including the endogenous serotonin 2A receptor agonist N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT). This similarity was driven by semantic concepts related to consciousness of the self and the environment, but also by those associated with the therapeutic, ceremonial and religious aspects of drug use. Our analysis sheds light on the longstanding link between certain drugs and the experience of "dying", suggests that ketamine could be used as a safe and reversible experimental model for NDE phenomenology, and supports the speculation that endogenous NMDA antagonists with neuroprotective properties may be released in the proximity of death.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Neurochemical models of near-death experiences: A large-scale study based on the semantic similarity of written reports

Martial

Cassol

Charland‐Verville

et al. 2019

Consciousness and Cognition

Self Cite

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“…These near-death experiences (NDE) (8), reported worldwide across cultures (9), are described to be highly lucid and vivid, and are perceived to be "realer than real" (10). Whether and how the brain is capable of generating conscious activity during cardiac arrest has been vigorously debated (11)(12)(13). We reasoned that if NDE stems from brain activity, neural correlates of consciousness should be identifiable in humans or animals after cessation of cerebral blood flow.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Surge of neurophysiological coherence and connectivity in the dying brain

Borjigin

Lee²,

Liu³

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

170

142

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The brain is assumed to be hypoactive during cardiac arrest. However, the neurophysiological state of the brain immediately following cardiac arrest has not been systematically investigated. In this study, we performed continuous electroencephalography in rats undergoing experimental cardiac arrest and analyzed changes in power density, coherence, directed connectivity, and cross-frequency coupling. We identified a transient surge of synchronous gamma oscillations that occurred within the first 30 s after cardiac arrest and preceded isoelectric electroencephalogram. Gamma oscillations during cardiac arrest were global and highly coherent; moreover, this frequency band exhibited a striking increase in anterior-posterior-directed connectivity and tight phase-coupling to both theta and alpha waves. High-frequency neurophysiological activity in the near-death state exceeded levels found during the conscious waking state. These data demonstrate that the mammalian brain can, albeit paradoxically, generate neural correlates of heightened conscious processing at near-death.global ischemia | global hypoxia | near-death experience | consciousness

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“…However, these multifactorial models, in an effort to be comprehensive, invoke untestable speculations regarding unspecified chemicals, and in order to explain "all" features of NDEs they ignore key features of the experience that they do not explain, such as accurate out-of-body perceptions [62,97], a problem that one of these authors acknowledged in a broadcast interview [98].…”

Section: Physiological Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Western Scientific Approaches to Near-Death Experiences

Greyson

2015

Humanities

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Near-death experiences (NDEs) are vivid experiences that often occur in life-threatening conditions, usually characterized by a transcendent tone and clear perceptions of leaving the body and being in a different spatiotemporal dimension. Such experiences have been reported throughout history in diverse cultures, and are reported today by 10% to 20% of people who have come close to death. Although cultural expectations and parameters of the brush with death influence the content of some NDEs, near-death phenomenology is invariant across cultures. That invariance may reflect universal psychological defenses, neurophysiological processes, or actual experience of a transcendent or mystical domain. Research into these alternative explanations has been hampered by the unpredictable occurrence of NDEs. Regardless of the causes or interpretations of NDEs, however, they are consistently associated with profound and long-lasting aftereffects on experiencers, and may have important implications for non-experiencers as well.

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‘There is nothing paranormal about near-death experiences’ revisited: comment on Mobbs and Watt

Cited by 24 publications

References 6 publications

Neurochemical models of near-death experiences: A large-scale study based on the semantic similarity of written reports

Neurochemical models of near-death experiences: A large-scale study based on the semantic similarity of written reports

Surge of neurophysiological coherence and connectivity in the dying brain

Western Scientific Approaches to Near-Death Experiences

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