Ever since Raymond Moody’s book Life After Life, published in 1975, the subject of Near Death
Experiences (henceforth NDEs) has been at the forefront of speculations
regarding the nature of consciousness and the afterlife; in fact, before these
experiences became widely publicized, all we could do, at the moment, was speculate. However, the nature of NDEs
has brought new information and research to shed light on the aforementioned
topics. While those who consider themselves mind-body dualists have zealously
encouraged such information, those who consider themselves part of the skeptic
community have been, well, skeptical.
One such well-known skeptic is none other than
atheist Michael Shermer. Shermer believes that NDEs are nothing more than
tricks of our brain, and that all aspects will eventually be absorbed into a
materialistic worldview. Yet, before we examine Shermer’s supposed refutations
regarding the validity of NDEs, we need to examine exactly what characterizes an
NDE.
According to professor of psychiatry and
neurobehavioral sciences Bruce Greyson, “Near-Death Experiences are profound
psychological events with transcendental and mystical elements, typically
occurring to individuals close to death or in situations of intense physical or
emotional danger.” While the events
experienced during an NDE vary, there are aspects that are common to many of
them (the following list was formulated with assistance from Moody’s Life After Life):
1) The
ineffability of the experience
2) A
feeling of peace and quiet; pain is gone
3) The
awareness of being dead
4) An
out-of-body experience
5) A
tunnel experience
6) The
perception of an unearthly environment
7) Meeting
and communicating with deceased relatives
8) Seeing
a bright light or a being of light
9) Experiencing
unconditional acceptance and love
10) A
panoramic life review
11) A
life preview
12) The
perception of a border that cannot be crossed
13) The
conscious return to the body
There are other aspects reported during NDE’s, but
the above are the most commonly
reported. Now, it stands to reason that anyone who claims that such NDEs can be
accounted for in naturalistic terms must be able to account, even in principle,
for all of the above characterizations of NDEs.
Let us now see how Shermer attempts to evaluate
these characteristics—all of Shermer’s contentions will be taken from his book The Believing Brain, of which he devotes
a total of 13 pages to NDEs. Shermer begins by attempting to account for 1),
2), 5), and 8) by analyzing the findings of studies undertaken to fight g-force
induced loss of consciousness in pilots:
[T]he majority of
pilots experienced[…] brief episodes of tunnel vision, sometimes with a bright
light at the end of the tunnel, as well as a sense of floating, sometimes
paralysis, and often euphoria and a feeling of peace and serenity when they
came back to consciousness.
In order to explain the advent of the feeling of
peace and serenity, Shermer claims (quoting a medical doctor and
neuroscientist) that these “are likely to have been produced by the increased
release of various neurotransmitters such as endorphins, serotonin, and
dopamine.”
Shermer then brings forth scientific studies
performed by Swiss neuroscientist Olaf Blanke, who was able to produce quite
lucidly seeming out-of-body experiences—perhaps a potential explanation of 4).
The patients of the studies claimed to be able to see themselves lying in bed
as they floated towards the ceiling.
Moreover, Shermer looks to discoveries by
neuroscientists whereby damage to the posterior superior parietal lobe--what is
called the orientation association area (OAA)--can cause people to experience
feelings of spiritual transcendence. The reason for this is that the OAA is
responsible for orienting the body in physical space. Therefore, damage to the
OAA makes it difficult for individuals to differentiate between themselves and
something separate to them. Moreover, it leads to a “blurring between reality
and fantasy, between feeling in body and out of body” Shermer claims.
Shermer’s last line of argumentation is to take a
look at hallucinogenic drugs. Shermer lists a number of said drugs (e.g., MDA
and DMT) and claims that they can produce effects such as the sense of floating
and flying, out-of-body experiences, and the bringing back of long forgotten
memories—perhaps accounting for 10).
Shermer has, no doubt, kept up with the scientific
literature. He seems to have provided quite plausible explanations for many
aspects of NDEs; and while many of these explanations only explain aspects of
NDEs one at a time, it is not far-fetched to say that whatever is going on
neurologically, these aspects could all be accounted for by one neurological
process. Yet, this might only be the case if science could explain all aspects of NDEs, albeit even
piecemeal. However, I maintain that Shermer’s findings have not done this—for
at best Shermer has only accounted for half of the aspects listed above--and
that Shermer has side-stepped the most cogent and compelling arguments in favor
of the validity of NDEs. It is to these arguments, along with some qualms
regarding Shermer’s contentions, that we now turn.
Let us begin with Shemer’s claims that the feelings
of peace and bliss can be accounted for by neurotransmitters such as endorphins.
While this might seem prima facie plausible, it turns out to be misleading.
Cardiologist Pim Van Lommel explains:
Endorphins can indeed
get rid of pain and cause a sense of peace and well-being. However, the effects
of endorphins usually last several hours whereas the absence of pain and the
sense of peace during an NDE vanish immediately after regaining consciousness.
So while Shermer’s explanation seems to be
plausible, it has a very difficult time explaining why all the individuals who
experience NDEs often retain none of those experiences (e.g. peace and bliss) after
they have “been brought back to their body”, so to speak.
Let us now look at aspects of NDEs that Shermer
ignored, and which provide the most compelling case for the validity of NDEs. I
see no better place to begin than with, probably one of the most famous NDEs,
the case of Pamela Reynolds. Reynolds was diagnosed with an aneurysm and
underwent brain surgery in 1991. During the operation her body temperature was
lowered to 50 degrees Fahrenheit and all the blood was drained from her head. The
electrical activity of her brain was under full observation during the whole
surgery, and there was no activity whatsoever. Cardiologist Michael Sabom
explained that Reynold’s “brain was found dead by all three clinical tests.”
Reynolds also had “clicking devices” put in her ears to help monitor the brain,
and therefore could not hear even if she was, per impossible, conscious.
Now, during the operation Reynolds experienced an
NDE, which began with an out-of-body perception. During the latter experience
she witnessed the surgeons working on her and, subsequently, witnessed a drill
that she described looked like an electric toothbrush , that was used to during
the operation. Then Reynolds witnessed the surgeons discussing a problem
regarding the size of her arteries, followed by the surgeons moving toward the
lower half of her body to work. All of these experiences Reynolds witnessed
were confirmed by her neurosurgeon, as well as a confirmation that it was
simply impossible for Reynolds to have been able to see or hear anything she
described during her surgery. Her neurosurgeon Dr. Robert Spetzler explains:
I don’t have an
explanation for it. I don’t know how it’s possible for it to happen,
considering the physiological state she was in.
These types of veridical experiences regarding NDEs
are very common. In Pim Van Lommel’s book ConsciousnessBeyond Life--which was largely based on his own comprehension eight year
study of Dutch NDEs whereby he investigated 344 patients, with controls, who
had undergone cardiac arrest resuscitation--he describes case after case of
individuals who had NDEs whereby they explained events during their cardiac
arrest that were later verified. Moreover, in the book The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences, it was found that out of 93
reports of potentially verifiable out-of-body experiences, “92 percent were
completely accurate, 6 percent contained some error, and only one was
completely erroneous.”
Notice that the above hypotheses of Shermer fail to
account for such facts. He claims to account for the experience of out-of-body
perceptions, yet these hypotheses cannot explain how an extremely high percent
of these experiences are veridical and have been verified by doctors and nurses
et al. But NDEs have even more cogent evidence to put forth, namely, that of
individuals meeting relatives that they had no idea were deceased, or had never
met before.
Here are two accounts of individuals that had NDEs
which were recorded as part of Lommel’s comprehensive study:
During my NDE following
a cardiac arrest, I saw both my dead grandmother and a man who looked at me
lovingly but whom I didn’t know. Over ten years later my mother confided on her
death-bed that I’d been born from an extramarital affair; my biological father
was a Jewish man who’d been deported and killed in World War II. My mother
showed me a photograph. The unfamiliar man I’d seen more than ten years earlier
during my NDE turned out to be my biological father.
At the age of sixteen I
had a serious motorcycle accident. I was in a coma for nearly three weeks.
During that coma I had an extremely powerful experience…and then I came to a
kind of iron fence. Behind it stood Mr. Van der G., the father of my parents’
best friend. He told me I couldn’t go any further. I had to go back because my
time hadn’t come yet…When I told my parents after waking up, they said to me
that Mr. Van der G. had died and been buried during my coma. I couldn’t have
known that he was dead.
These types of examples abound. A man from Holland,
Evert Tabeek, had an NDE during cardiac arrest. During this NDE Tabeek had a
panoramic life review and came across a woman and a boy, neither of which he
recognized. Tabeek claims that they told him that he had abandoned them. When
he was released from the hospital, Tabeek thought about the encounter
constantly and tried to dig deep into his memory. Finally he recognized the
woman he had seen; it was a woman he had had a relationship with long ago. He
tracked down the woman and found her grave. Yet, he also found out something
shocking: he had a son with this woman and didn’t even know it. Subsequently he
found out that the son had been dead for thirty years. It was this woman and
his son, whom he had never met nor even knew existed, that he claims he saw
during his NDE.
Notice once more that Shermer’s hypotheses have no
explanatory power regarding instances such as these. His hypotheses might be
able to explain the “illusion” of meeting relatives and experiencing panoramic
life reviews, yet such speculations say absolutely nothing regarding
individuals who learn things during these NDEs that they could not possibly
have known. However, we’re not done with Shermer yet, for there are still NDEs
that are even more compelling than anything we’ve seen so far. Let us now turn
to one of these.
Vicki Noratuk was born blind due an extremely high
level of oxygen concentration in her incubator. This high concentration of
oxygen caused Vicki to suffer atrophy of the eyeball and optic nerve. As a
result, her visual cortex did not develop and, therefore, Vicki cannot see and
cannot imagine, dream, nor hallucinate things visually. Vicki states, “I’ve
never seen anything, no light, no shadows, no nothing…I don’t see anything at
all. And in my dreams I don’t see any visual impressions.” In 1973 Vicki was in a car accident and
suffered a skull fracture which rendered her comatose. During this period she
experienced a NDE.
The next thing I recall
I was in Harborview Medical Center and looking down at everything that was
happening. And it was frightening because I’m not accustomed to seeing things
visually, because I never had before. And initially it was pretty scary! And
then I finally recognized my wedding ring and my hair…As I approaching this
area, there were trees and there were birds and quite a few people, but they
were all, like, made out of light, and I could see them, and it was incredible,
really beautiful, and I was overwhelmed by that experience because I couldn’t
really imagine what light was light.
Vicki’s case does not stand alone. There have been numerous
individuals that have had the same experience as Vicki. While cases such as
this provide one with a sense of awe, they also put to bed hypotheses like
Shermer’s above.
While Shermer has cited many scientific investigations
demonstrating that people can experience different aspects of NDEs, his
hypotheses lose all plausibility in the face of the above accounts. He tried to
account for the vision of the tunnel. Yet, the tunnel vision is usually the first aspect experienced in his example
of pilots going through g-force training, whereas the experience of going
through a tunnel usually comes after
the out-of-body experience in NDEs. Furthermore, while Shermer has given
explanations regarding how out-of –body perceptions can be produced through
scientific experiments and hallucinogenic drugs, his hypotheses cannot, even in principle, account for NDEs
where people have veridical experiences, meet deceased relatives they didn’t
even know existed, and where people without the cognitive faculties for visual
stimuli nevertheless experience visual perceptions. So, while it might have
seemed initially plausible that science might shed some light on NDEs, it
seems, rather, that science is in the dark here.
So, while Shermer’s argumentation initially
accounted for half of the above aspects of NDEs, we now see that Shermer has
nothing to salvage any longer. His hypotheses are weak, and he simply ignores
the most cogent lines of evidence regarding the nature of NDEs. Thus, we are
free to conclude that we have warrant to dismiss Shermer’s contentions as
untenable and illogical.
So, where does the skeptic go from here? Well, there
are usually two options that will be favored by them: 1) dismiss the above
evidence in favor of NDEs as pure anecdote, or 2) insist that science will one day be able to explain NDEs—this is
Shermer’s last refuge: “just because we do not have a 100 percent completely
natural explanation for all of the experiences that people have near death does
not mean that we will never understand death, or that there is some other
mysterious force at work. It certainly does not mean there is life after
death.” Yet, both of these options rest on pure dogmatic naturalistic
assumptions.
For there is a third option: admit the cogency of
NDEs and adjust your worldview accordingly. However, this is the last thing the
skeptic would ever consider. The skeptic, who prides himself as a catalyst of
reason, is no more than an individual with a naturalistic presupposition, who
will do anything to salvage said presupposition. When the evidence is
overwhelming the naturalist does not change his point of view, but, rather,
simply clings to his beloved science and hopes that all will be well in the end
(and only the religious engage in wishful thinking?). Naturalists are stuck
with a box that all their beliefs must fit in; yet, when beliefs don’t fit,
they simply claim that such beliefs are illusory or, rather, that one day they will indeed fit in the box.
