Page 56 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - November 2013 Edition

The Silly Science of Near- Death Experiences There's no way to prove whether or not someone's had an out of body experience, but that hasn't stopped scientists from trying to study the phenomenon. by Katie Heaney Al Sullivan, then a 56-year-old truck driver, almost died on January 18, 1998. A few days earlier he had experienced an irregular heartbeat and was rushed to the hospital for diagnostic testing, during which one of his coronary arteries became blocked. Doctors were forced to administer an emergency quadruple bypass surgery. It was at this time that Sullivan felt himself leave his body. In an account two years later, Sullivan would describe what he came to described by Sullivan are one of the more arrest in the year of study was interviewed in think of as—and some researchers came to label culturally recognizable elements of what we hospital, with researchers evaluating survivors’ as—his near-death experience, or NDE: think about when we think of the phrase “near- memories, using Greyson’s scale to assess “I began my journey in an upward death experience,” though by no means are they whether or not the survivors had undergone direction and found myself in a very thick, the only. Bruce Greyson, psychiatry professor at NDEs. Of 63 patients, 56 had no memory recall black, billowy smoke-like atmosphere … I rose the University of Virginia and, according to of their unconsciousness. According to the to an amphitheater like place … I was able to many, the “father of research in near-death Greyson scale, four of the seven who did grasp the wall and look over it into the area the experiences,” developed a 16-point scale remember something met the criteria for an wall was blocking. To my amazement, at the enumerating the traits of a “classic NDE.” In NDE. Still, these were stories given afterward, lower left-hand side was, of all things, me. I was order to “pass the test,” a reported experience even if soon. How could it be proven? laying [sic] on a table covered with light blue typically needs to feature seven or more of the The researchers, aiming to test the sheets and I was cut open so as to expose my 16 items on the list. veracity of any claims of out-of-body chest cavity. It was in this cavity that I was able Most of the 16 are familiar, especially to experiences, hung a number of boards from the to see my heart on what appeared to be a small anyone who spent time as a pre-teen in Religion ceilings of the hospital rooms prior to the study. glass table.” class reading Chicken Soup for the Soul: a sense On the sides of the boards facing the ceiling This beginning, on its own, is a generic- of being dead is probably the most important were “various figures” not visible from the enough surgery scene. It’s one that anyone with qualifier, but there’s also seeing a tunnel, floor. The reason, researchers wrote, was that a television has likely seen, in high drama and immersion in a powerful light, feeling “anybody who claimed to have left their body vivid gore, 20 times over. Whether one has had unconditionally loved, witnessing a review of and be near the ceiling during resuscitation real life experience witnessing (or undergoing) one’s life, and more. (One unexpected standout attempts would be expected to identify those a surgery or not, the stage is set and familiar. on the scale is “the notice of unpleasant sound targets.” This is great. So charmingly clinical! Were this all that Sullivan had remembered, it or noise.” Most researchers find that patients Listen: Don’t think being temporarily dead is would not be an especially intriguing account. reporting NDEs consider them entirely pleasant, necessarily going to excuse you from some But there was more. but there have been a few exceptions.) It is a academic expecting you to perform like a lab “I was able to see my surgeon, who just distinctly spiritual-sounding list; unsurprisingly, rat. moments ago had explained to me what he was many people who claim to have experienced an Unfortunately, none of the four going to do during my operation. He appeared NDE are somewhat religious. Though not all: survivors reported out-of-body experiences as to be somewhat perplexed. I thought he was Former atheist Howard Storm famously wrote having been part of their NDEs. The boards, flapping his arms as if trying to fly.” about his NDE, and subsequent conversion to meticulously decorated and hung, were for Sullivan goes on—his deceased mother the United Church of Christ, in his book My naught. and deceased brother-in-law are there, and so is Descent Into Death. The good news is that someone else is a tunnel lit in a “golden hue,” and so, too, a There are a number of neurobiological planning to give a version of this study another pervading general sense of euphoria and and chemical theories that have been put forth go. Sam Parnia, director of resuscitation peace—but, at the risk of sounding callous, it’s as possible and non-supernatural explanations research at State University of New York at that weird part about the arm flapping that really for NDEs: that it has to do with drugs Stony Brook, is the recipient of one of 10 means something. That’s the part that Sullivan, administered during surgery (a theory that fails awards given as a part of the “Immortality were he as unconscious as one is surely meant to account for NDEs in people who haven’t Project,” a research initiative that aims to to be during a quadruple bypass surgery, should been given anything and may not have even answer questions about NDEs as well as other not have been able to see. That was what been hospitalized), or the release of endorphins, questions pertaining to life after death. For his Sullivan’s surgeon, Dr. Takata, looked like (as or anoxia (or oxygen depletion), or temporal research design, Parnia plans to project a variety he later admitted) before putting on his gloves. lobe stimulation. None has been definitely of computerized images and sounds into He was in the habit of holding his hands to his proven to account for NDEs. And because patients’ hospital rooms and, when they’re chest—to keep himself from touching NDEs are, by definition, accounts given after conscious again, ask them to tell him what (if anything—and giving instructions to his the fact, it is extremely difficult to consider their anything) they saw and heard. Were there assistants, using his elbows to point at various potential causes in any meaningful way. feelings of joy and peace, a vision of your loved surgical instruments. Try it right now or, if you This is not to say it has proved any ones wearing white robes, and a warm, are embarrassed, picture yourself trying it. easier to bolster the more supernatural side of comforting light that first held you but then let However inexplicably, does it not kind of look reasoning. In 2000, a group of researchers you go? This only matters so much. What will like you’re trying to fly? published the results of a yearlong study of count is if it’s all that plus, say, a rabbit wearing OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCES like the one cardiac arrest survivors in Southampton boots dancing to Star Wars’ Imperial March. www.xzonepodcast.com General Hospital. Every survivor of cardiac Then it will be scientific. []