near death studies

Altered States
Scientists analyse the near-death experience
Lee Graves
Rocky collected money for the Mafia. A typical bagman, he was immersed
in the material world of fast cars, quick cash and getting ahead by
butting heads
One day, he was shot in the chest and left for dead on the street.
He survived, though, and lived to tell of an experience that changed his life.

"He described a blissful, typical near-death experience—seeing the
light, communicating with a deity and seeing deceased relatives," says
Bruce Greyson, a U.Va.-trained psychiatrist who interviewed Rocky
after the shooting.
"He came back with typical near-death aftereffects. He felt that
cooperation and love were the important things, and that competition
and material goods were irrelevant."
That change in attitude didn't sit well with Rocky's Mafia friends,
but they let him leave the family circle. It was his girlfriend who
screamed bloody murder when he changed careers and started helping
delinquent children and victims of spousal abuse.
"She was just disgusted with him because, as she put it, he no longer
cared for things of substance, meaning money and jewelry and fast
cars. She couldn't believe what happened to this guy," Greyson says.
So it is with hundreds and hundreds of people, those who have had
near-death experiences and those who have been close to them. For 30
years, they have been the subjects of research that has taken Greyson
and other scholars in U.Va.'s Division of Perceptual Studies deeper
into a field where the raw material of spirituality, the fundamentals
of consciousness, the ethereal realm of the afterlife and the scrutiny
of science intersect.
Over those three decades, Greyson, who directs the Division of
Perceptual Studies, has witnessed an evolution in our knowledge about
near-death experiences. "Back in the early 1980s, when we would
present information about these experiences at medical conferences,
after the conference was over doctors would come to us individually
and say, 'I had one of these experiences. Let me tell you about it.'"
Several factors made them reluctant to speak publicly. The experiences
are intensely private, and people had yet to learn how common they
were. In addition, the field of study had yet to gain wide acceptance.
As knowledge has grown, reticence has waned. "Now they're more willing
to say that during the conference in front of an audience," Greyson
says.
About one person in 20 has reported having a near-death experience,
according to one study. The International Association for Near-Death
Studies estimates that 12 percent of people who have had a close brush
with death will later report having a near-death experience. The
elements of that phenomenon are so consistent that Greyson developed a
systematic scale of 16 items to gauge the depth of the event.

A classic example would begin with a person in an accident or medical
emergency having a sense of physical death accompanied by an
out-of-body experience—feeling like he is floating, possibly seeing
his own body and surroundings. The sensation is not alarming and
generally is peaceful. Some senses, such as hearing, become
heightened.
A period of transition, many times described as moving swiftly through
a tunnel, follows. The individual enters a realm of indescribable
radiance, where he is met by deceased relatives and friends. A central
being of light, often interpreted as a deity, emanates profound joy
and unconditional love. The individual then undergoes a life review,
where the actions of a lifetime unfold in a vision. He is told or
decides that it is not time to die and returns to his body, not always
willingly.
The power of the experience often is life-altering. Fear of death
vanishes. Love of life blossoms. Spirituality strengthens. Compassion
and connectedness become central principles.
"[Experiencers] feel they're part of something greater than
themselves. They feel that they're all part of this universal whatever
you want to call it—nature, the godhead," Greyson says.
Though the research is modern, the phenomenon is ancient. The
afterlife has fascinated mankind since he was wrapped in the swaddling
clothes of civilization. Egyptian lore and spiritual texts such as The
Tibetan Book of the Dead abound with accounts and descriptions of the
passage from life to death. In the Bible, St. Paul describes a
mystical experience "whether in the body or out of the body I do not
know."
One ancient text in particular piqued the interest of Raymond Moody
while he was a student at U.Va. Plato's Republic ends with the story
of Er, a warrior who "dies" in battle only to be revived after 10
days. He describes, among other things, a towering band of
otherworldly light that serves as a passageway for souls.
Moody, whose studies at U.Va. led to a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1969,
initially found little practical connection between classical text and
contemporary experience. In 1965, however, a colleague related details
of his own near death. When Moody later taught at East Carolina
University, a student who had been severely injured in an accident
stopped him one day after class.
"I'll never forget it. He said, 'Dr. Moody, I wish we could talk about
life after death in this philosophy class.'
"I said, 'Why do you want to talk about that?'
"He said, 'About a year ago, I was in an accident, and my doctors said
I died. I had an experience that has totally changed my life, and I
haven't had anybody to talk about it with,'" Moody relates.

The student's story not only paralleled that of Moody's
Charlottesville colleague, but also had echoes of Plato. "At that
point, I realized there had to be more of them," he says. Moody began
conducting interviews and in 1975, while doing his medical residency
as a psychiatrist at U.Va., published Life After Life.
It proved a seminal work. Moody coined the term "near-death
experience" and outlined aspects common to the phenomenon. The book
generated a tidal wave of interest, and Moody was inundated with mail,
far more than he could manage given the demands of his residency.
In 1975, Greyson was an assistant professor of psychiatry at
U.Va. Moody showed him a box overflowing with one week's worth of
letters and asked him if he wanted to follow up. "Of course I couldn't
put them down," Greyson says.
So began a life's work of methodical inquiry into an area little
explored by Western science. Moody's book, coupled with the writings
of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross on the death experience, sparked interest
that now blazes among a host of individuals, groups and interests.
There now is a scientific Journal of Near-Death Studies (Greyson is
editor) and the International Association for Near-Death Studies. The
phenomenon has been mainstreamed to the point that readers can now
turn to reference books such as The Complete Idiot's Guide to the
Near-Death Experience.
Popular acceptance, however, is no substitute for empirical analysis
in the scientific community. Greyson is a skeptic; he believes only
conclusions supported by data. "Science is my game. I can understand
that there are philosophical or theological ways of approaching this,
but that's not my interest," he explains. "My interest is in the
scientific understanding of it."
The cumulative weight of personal stories certainly counts in this
regard, but Greyson employs a number of different studies to test for
veracity. To analyze whether accounts are embellished over time,
Greyson asked 72 patients who had completed the 16-item scale in the
1980s to complete the scale again without referring to their original
responses, then compared the results for variations. To gauge how a
near-death experience affected one's ability to cope with stress,
another researcher studied 18 participants of support groups sponsored
by the International Association of Near-Death Studies, then set up a
control group of 25 people from the same support groups who had not
had a near-death experience.
Greyson's studies, combined with research by others in the field, have
methodically addressed questions such as: Do people of different
cultures report similar phenomena? Do people tend to embellish or
elaborate on their experiences over time? Are reports recorded before
Moody's influential 1975 book consistent with those afterward? Can't
near-death experiences be attributed to other causes—medication,
mental illness, religious preconceptions, wish fulfillment,
hallucinations?
And finally: How can the mind continue to operate—record perceptions,
senses and thoughts—and be conscious if the brain is dysfunctional?
Researchers have concluded that people of different cultures report
similar phenomena but interpret them differently (the being of light
may be God or Christ to a Christian, Allah to a Muslim). Reports
studied over two decades showed no embellishment, underscoring the
reliability of experiencers' accounts. Reports recorded before Moody's
book are consistent with those afterward, indicating that people did
not alter their accounts to conform to his model.
The effects of medication, mental illness, wish fulfillment and other
psychological models are significantly different from near-death
experiences and there is no scientific evidence connecting them,
according to Greyson.

The mind-brain question is particularly absorbing to Greyson and
fellow faculty in the Division of Perceptual Studies. He, Edward F.
Kelly and Emily Williams Kelly (Grad '86) co-authored Irreducible
Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century, published in December
2006.
Emily Kelly writes about F.W.H. Myers, a 19th-century psychologist
whose work supports the view that the mind is not generated by the
brain but is constrained by it. She and Greyson examine how near-death
experiences and other phenomena contravene conventional wisdom that
the brain has to be functioning properly for consciousness to exist.
Current models of mind-brain interaction need to be re-examined,
Greyson argues. Even Newton's laws of physics break down at the
extremes. "I think it's the same with mind-brain," he says. "Our
mind-brain identity model works fine for everyday walking and talking,
but when you're looking at times when the brain is not functioning and
the mind seems to function quite well, you get into that extreme area
where we need to look at some other models."
Such inquiry has profound implications for consciousness and its
relation to the physical body, but it lacks the immediacy or
life-saving potential of research into cancer and heart disease. That
kind of medical research has priority when it comes to funding, always
a concern for scientists in a university setting.
The Division of Perceptual Studies receives virtually no state or
federal money. Founded in 1968 by the late Ian Stevenson as a research
unit of U.Va.'s Department of Psychiatric Medicine, it is housed in a
modest former residence blocks away from the bustle and construction
swirling around the U.Va. Health System. The late Chester F. Carlson,
inventor of xerography who late in life studied Buddhism, was the
division's first and main benefactor, and other private bequests have
fueled the research.
As with other medical advances, lives sometimes do hang in the
balance. Greyson works extensively with patients who have attempted
suicide, and his investigations of near-death experiences inform their
treatment.
Experiencers generally lose their fear of death. Logic dictates that
this would lower inhibitions about suicide, but the opposite has
proved true. "It makes people much less suicidal. It's as if, if
you're no longer afraid of death, you're no longer afraid of living
life to the fullest," Greyson says. People look at their problems
differently, and it's that change in attitude that leverages coping
skills.
Not all near-death experiences are uplifting, however. For some, the
initial aspects—sensing death, floating out of the body—are
terrifying. A few report experiences that conform to traditional views
of hell: fire, brimstone, demons and tortured souls. One researcher
even says that near-death experiences are the work of Satan.
Negative characteristics constitute 1 to 2 percent of recorded
near-death experiences. More may be out there, Greyson says, but
people might not be as eager to share such trauma. Research also has
shown that these accounts do not have the consistency that marks other
reports.
More common are negative consequences among friends and family.
Experiencers are transformed by the light and love they encounter, and
by the review of their actions. They often change attitudes, jobs and
behavior, not always to the approval of those close to them.
Though he is one step removed, Greyson has not been untouched by the
cumulative impact of story after story of transcendent experience. His
scientific objectivity remains unwavering, but his outlook has shifted
subtly. "I don't think I was uncompassionate before this," he says.
"But before I started in this field, I saw things like the Golden Rule
as things we were supposed to try to live up to. People come back from
near-death experiences and say, 'It's not a guideline for you. This is
the way the universe works. We're all in this together. If I hurt you,
I'm hurting myself. There's no distinction between you and me.'
"That sense tends to rub off after you hear it week after week, year
after year, that we are all in this together. … It becomes not a
matter of following a rule, but living your life according to these
principles."
Advances in science—genetic research, magnetic resonance imaging—give
new tools for a field that Greyson believes will inform broader
applications in psychiatry and elsewhere. Acceptance in the scientific
community has come almost begrudgingly, but the landscape is far
different from three decades ago.
"It has been said that science progresses funeral by funeral. I think
we're seeing that as time goes on," Greyson says. "More and more
people are growing up with knowledge about the near-death experience
and accepting it as part of the human legacy."

http://www.uvamagazine.org/site/c.esJNK1PIJrH/b.2704235/k.8958/Altered_States.htm