Are NDEs real? A thesis on NDEs
Doctor François Lallier wrote his medical thesis on NDEs. He has written a fascinating book about it: “Near-Death Experiences – can we really talk about death? In particular, it details the various hypotheses for medical explanations of NDEs. Dr. Lallier concludes that none of them can explain all the components of NDEs. Here’s a brief summary of his work, which I encourage you to read in full.
Hypoxia
Hypoxia is a drop in oxygen levels in the blood and therefore in the brain. This is the most common explanation today. But it cannot be retained. In fact, some people experience NDEs without suffering any physical harm. In addition, a study of people resuscitated from cardiac arrest showed that those who had experienced a NDE had higher oxygen levels than those who had not.
Hypercapnia
Hypercapnia is an increase in the level of carbon dioxide (CO²) in the blood. However, no conclusive study has established that this can be the cause of an NDE. Moreover, this would not explain NDEs in physically healthy people.
DMT
DMT is a powerful drug. Its effects are similar to those of an NDE : a feeling of unconditional love, a vision of luminous beings and entry into a mysterious world. According to this theory, the pineal gland naturally produces DMT when life is at risk. This would lead to an NDE. But it remains to be proved that the quantity of DMT produced would be enough to trigger an NDE. And, once again, this wouldn’t explain NDEs experienced out of the blue.
Ketamine
Ketamine has an anaesthetic and analgesic effect. Some people on ketamine have described visions that partly resemble NDEs. The hypothesis would be that in a life-threatening situation, the body would produce a substance with identical effects. But this substance has yet to be identified. And, most importantly, visions on ketamine never include life reviews or visions of deceased loved ones. Finally, they do not lead to any change in subsequent behavior. This hypothesis cannot explain NDEs.
The secretion of endorphins
Endorphins are anaesthetic substances similar to morphine. They are produced by the body in the event of intense pain or prolonged physical exertion. They bring well-being, pleasure and relaxation.
The hypothesis is that in situations of intense stress, the body produces these endorphins. These stimulate the area of the brain associated with emotions and memory. This would explain the well-being felt during an NDE and the life review. But this cannot explain the other effects of a NDE. And, above all, not the presence of one or more entities during the life review.
Cerebral electrical anomaly
In this hypothesis, the NDE would be due to a form of epileptic seizure. But this could not explain the large number of NDEs that occur during cardiac arrest. During this pause, the brain has no activity.
The increase in Gamma waves
A 2013 study on rats showed that, when cardiac arrest is induced, an increase in a type of brain wave called Gamma waves occurs 30 seconds later. Then brain activity stops for good. The researchers concluded that it is this wave peak that produces NDEs. However, the rats could not be interrogated to find out if they had indeed experienced a NDE… Moreover, this would not explain NDEs that occur outside of cardiac arrest.
The fact that NDEs cannot be explained by current scientific data does not mean that they are hallucinations. This simply means that our models are insufficient to explain them, and that we must continue to study them scientifically. It’s not the object of research that’s scientific or not, it’s the approach used.
Bruce Greyson’s work
In his book “After”, Dr. Bruce Greyson points out that the model that sees the mind as a product of brain activity explains a large number of phenomena. But it doesn’t work for NDEs. In his view, this model needs to evolve, be refined and made more precise, if we are to be able to give a scientific account of what happens during a NDE.
For the moment, this new model does not exist. But many researchers are working on this subject. We can therefore look forward to the arrival of a new theory of consciousness to explain NDEs.
A reality for experimenters
In the meantime, one thing is undeniable: the experience of those concerned is, for them, perfectly real. They totally distinguish it from a dream or hallucination. What’s more, its effects on their psychology are perfectly measurable.
Media influence?
It’s sometimes said that experiencers are influenced by the IME stories they’ve read or heard in the media. They’d just be repeating them. But the stories collected before the publication of Raymond Moody’s book in 1975 are identical in every respect to those of the later period. Similarly, this hypothesis does not explain the accounts of NDEs experienced by very young children. As a matter of fact, they’ve never heard of it before.
The relationship between the brain and consciousness: an enduring mystery
In the current state of science, we know that consciousness and the brain are connected. We also know that the state of the brain influences this consciousness. But we don’t understand exactly what’s going on in this connection. Bruce Greyson explains: “The association between the brain and the mind is a fact. But the interpretation that the brain creates the mind is not a scientific fact. It’s a theory developed to explain this association and how it works.
Under ordinary conditions, this theory works. But in certain circumstances, such as NDEs, it can no longer explain what is happening. When a person’s heart stops, within 10 to 20 seconds there is no detectable electrical activity in the brain. The person is then clinically dead. However, 10-20% of people in this situation experience a NDE. What’s more, some of them accurately report events that took place while they were clinically dead.
If the mind were merely the product of brain activity, then NDEs should be impossible. In that case, how can we explain what happens during an NDE?
Is the brain a filter?
According to Bruce Greyson and many other researchers, the theory that best explains NDEs is that the brain functions as a filter. It selects the information we need to live and blocks all others.
A first metaphor for this theory is that of a radio. It selects one frequency and filters out all others. If he didn’t, we’d be hearing all the shows at once. This would produce an unlistenable cacophony.
Another metaphor compares the brain to our telephone. It receives signals and translates them into sounds we can understand. But he doesn’t create these sounds, he merely makes them audible for us.
Anita Moorjani uses another metaphor in her book Revenue guérie de l’au-delà. Imagine you’re in a huge warehouse with no lights, and all you’ve got is a small flashlight. You can only see what is illuminated by its little ray. Now, if someone turns on the light, you see the whole warehouse. You discover a world you had no idea existed before.
The mind works better during a NDE
Many experiencers report that their brains functioned with infinitely increased speed and capacity during their NDE. They could see, perceive and understand totally new things. Then, once they had returned, they regained their “ordinary” capacity. They only remember that they experienced something radically different, but not its content. As if our purely human brain couldn’t integrate all this information. To use Anita Moorjani’s metaphor, it’s as if the general light had been turned off and we were left with just our little flashlight.
Stunning cases of terminal lucidity
This theory of the brain as filter also helps explain cases of “terminal lucidity”. These are people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. After a certain period, their brains suffer massive, irreversible damage. None of their “higher” functions, such as memory or language, are operational, sometimes for years.
However, some people find them for a few minutes or a few hours. Most often in the hours or days preceding their death. At that point, they can hold perfectly sensible conversations with their loved ones, have a full memory of their lives and express emotions appropriate to the situation.
Inexplicable lucidity
There is no medical explanation for this terminal lucidity. The theory of the brain as a filter could explain them: the brain having lost its ability to filter the spirit, the latter would be able to express itself briefly before the person’s death.
In addition, brain imaging studies have been carried out on people taking psychedelic drugs. They showed that mystical experiences under this influence were accompanied by reduced brain activity. It’s the opposite of what was expected. The traditional explanation was that these drugs increased brain activity, producing hallucinations. It appears that they actually reduce brain activity, particularly in its complex functions. The brain-as-filter theory implies that this reduction in activity reduces the power of the brain as a filter. This would give access to this type of mystical experience.
Solid arguments in favor of the non-local consciousness thesis
All these elements are consistent with the idea that the brain is a filter for our thoughts. The variety of these increases as filter efficiency decreases or disappears, as in the case of NDEs. As Dr. Larry Dossey puts it: “We’re not conscious because of our brains, but in spite of them.
This idea of a non-local consciousness and a brain that filters it is perfectly summed up by Dr. Pim Van Lommel. In his book “Consciousness beyond life”, this leading expert on NDEs asserts that “non-localized consciousness is not located in a particular place or time. It would be an infinite consciousness, to be found everywhere. It would be in a dimension unrelated to time or space, where past, present and future exist at the same time and are accessible together.” It’s enough to completely change our representation of the universe!
This infinite consciousness exists within us and around us. It has always existed and always will. Birth is the passage from one state of consciousness to another, like death. Over the course of our lives, our body functions as an interface.
Science advances by questioning its hypotheses
Your first move may be to dismiss the theory of non-local consciousness as a chimera. Before you do, remember that the history of science is full of discoveries that were initially dismissed as absurd, but which have nevertheless profoundly changed our conception of the world.
At the beginning of the 19th century, scientists and doctors considered the idea of the existence of microbes to be a farce.
At the end of the same century, an eminent physicist estimated that there was nothing left to discover in physics, only measurements to refine. A few years later, quantum physics overturned all our representations of reality, and everything was to be done.
And history is full of cases in which hypotheses accepted as absolute truths were totally abandoned and replaced by theories that gave a better account of reality as a whole.
3 proofs of the reality of NDEs
As a non-medical person, I see three elements that seem to me to be tangible proof of the reality of NDE :
Remote viewing
Many experiencers see and hear people in places other than their own bodies. Sometimes it’s in the next room – often the hospital waiting room – sometimes it’s hundreds of miles away. After they’ve woken up, when they tell us what they’ve seen and we check, we realize that it’s totally accurate.
I’m not even talking about experimenters who describe their surgical operation in detail, even though they have no medical knowledge whatsoever. Or reading the names on the coats of carers who enter after their general anaesthetic has begun.
Because there are always skeptics who say that the anesthesia wasn’t complete and that the person was able to understand what was going on, hear the names of the caregivers, and so on. So that can’t be proof enough, even if I find it quite extraordinary.
The blind see and the deaf hear
Experiencers who were blind or deaf, sometimes from birth, see and hear during their NDE. Again, when we check their accounts, they are accurate and precise. “One of the most extraordinary things I experienced in my NDE [said one of them), was that I could see again. I’ve been blind for decades.
Coherent experiences without brain activity
Unlike hallucinations or the effects of certain drugs, NDEs are structured and coherent. Experiencers retain their ability to reason. This is despite the fact that many of them are clinically dead and their brains no longer function. For those who experience an NDE during surgery, this is particularly clear, as they are monitored. The absence of brain function can thus be objectively observed.
To my non-specialist eyes, I don’t see how we can explain all the phenomena linked to NDEs other than by the hypothesis that consciousness is not localized in the brain and that our world is not the only one that exists. But, like any good magistrate, I remain open to proof to the contrary…
To find out more :
François Lallier’s book: https: //www.editionsleduc.com/produit/1657/9791028512637/le-mystere-des-experiences-de-mort-imminente
Bruce Greyson’s: https: //www.editions-tredaniel.com/after-p-9592.html
Anita Moorjani’s website: https: //www.anitamoorjani.com/
