Near Death Experiences

David Lorimer

The near-death experience first came to public notice in 1975 with the publication of Raymond Moody's best seller Life after Life. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's 1969 book On Death and Dying paved the way, and she herself became a vociferous champion of the significance of NDEs. The International Association for Near-Death Studies was founded in the USA in 1980 and more scientific studies of the NDE began to appear at the same time. The first was Kenneth Ring's Life at Death (1980), which laid out a five stage understanding of the NDE - feeling of peace, detachment from the body, tunnel, encounter with a being of light, entry into the light. The UK IANDS was founded in 1984, and Margot Grey's book Return from Death appeared the following year. Melvin Morse's studies of children's NDEs came out in the late 1980s, by which time a few 'celebrity NDErs' were doing the chat show circuit in the USA. Books by Betty Eadie and Dannion Brinkley further popularised the field. More recently, mature studies of the implications of NDEs have come out, culminating in Kenneth Ring's Lessons from the Light.

The NDE is a sequence of subjective experiences that occur most frequently close to death and highlight the distinction between the first-person perspective from the inside-out and the third-person view from the outside-in. Most science has been based on this latter perspective (which finds its reductio ad absurdum in behaviourism) with its concomitant assumption that brain processes give rise to consciousness and that the death of the brain therefore represents the extinction of personal consciousness. Following William James and others, this view can be termed 'productive' and can be contrasted with the 'transmissive' view whereby consciousness is mediated or filtered rather than actually produced by the brain. The productive views are materialistic, physicalist and reductionist, whereas the transmissive view implies a functional dualism, predicting that death may be better understood as a transition to a new kind of consciousness.

It cannot be sufficiently stressed how strongly interpretations of the NDE are coloured by prior understanding of the mind-brain issue. For physicalists the NDE must by definition lend itself to a physical interpretation - and this is the majority view among neuroscientists, philosophers and cognitive psychologists, so much so that few of them are aware of the extent of NDE literature. One of the key areas of controversy is the veridical out-of-body experience (OBE) where experiencers ostensibly witness a scene from above and can accurately recount a sequence of events that can be independently checked with a third party present at the same event. A good example was the Dutchman who was unconscious during the whole period of his resuscitation but who subsequently recognised one of the nurses (whom he had never met in person) and correctly challenged her about where she had put his false teeth!

For those who take a transmissive view of consciousness, the NDE may point towards survival of death, a case that I made in my 1984 book Survival? At any rate such a view leaves the question open, rather than pre-emptively striking it out by strict adherence to a materialistic interpretation. The most vigorous defence of such a physicalist position has been made by Susan Blackmore in her book Dying to Live (1993). A variety of physical arguments have been advanced to account for the NDE but none has in my view been able to provide a comprehensive explanation: notably cerebral anoxia and hypercarbia. Sceptics also use the term 'hallucination' both loosely and dismissively without really analysing its appropriateness to NDEs and more particularly to veridical OBEs. . Psychologists have put forward wish-fulfilment arguments but these likewise fail the universality test. The NDE is certainly a complex phenomenon and it would be foolish not to investigate cerebral correlates (such as the role of the right temporal lobe) but the evidence seems to me to point beyond the limits of physicalist models of consciousness.

A good deal of study has been devoted to the spiritual implications of the NDE - for instance in my own Whole in One (1990) and other investigators apart from myself such as Carl Becker and Ian Stevenson have considered the relationship between NDEs and survival of consciousness. I hinted at this possible connection above, but each reader has to make their own judgement based on their reading of the evidence. The real difficulty is in maintaining an open mind and a critical self-awareness of one's own philosophical assumptions and the way in which they may bias one's interpretations.

David Lorimer is Development Director of the Scientific and Medical Network, past Chairman of the International Association for Near-Death Studies and author of Whole in One and Survival?

Key texts

Bailey, L. W. and Yates, J. (Eds.) (1996). The Near-Death Experience: A Reader. New York/London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-91431-0.
A very good starting point for the reader who wants a wide angle view to open up the subject. The book contains 24 essays by many of the leading figures (scientific, philosophical and experiential) in the field that can serve as introductions to their work. There are extracts from experiences by Brinkley and Eadie (see below) and a truly extraordinary account by Mellon-Thomas Benedict. Psychology is represented by Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz and the possible relevance of NDEs to the survival of consciousness question is considered. Ian Stevenson (see also his work on reincarnation) contributes a piece on this.

Greyson, B. and Flynn, C. P. (Eds.) (1984). The Near-Death Experience: Problems, Prospects, Perspectives. Illinois: Charles C. Thomas. ISBN 0-398-05008-2.
An early book that brings together a variety of scholarly views on the NDE. The volume falls into four sections: dimensions of the NDE, theories about the NDE and clinical aspects of the NDE. Contains some essays that take diametrically opposed views on, for instance, Sagan's view that NDEs are a rerun of birth, or that NDEs indicate (or do not) survival of consciousness. Many of these views have been further developed in the Journal of Near-Death Studies over the intervening period.

Sabom, M. B. (1982). Recollections of Death. London: Corgi. ISBN 0-552-12053-7.
One of the best scientific books on the subject. Sabom is a cardiologist who began with a sceptical view but came round to take the NDE and its consequences very seriously. A unique feature of the book is a comparison of six cases of apparently veridical out-of-body perception with a control group. The results showed that those claiming to have witnessed their resuscitation gave accurate pictures while those who simply imagined it made some major errors. Sabom's more recent study Light at Death takes up the threads with a new study concentrating on a smaller number of Christian cases. Here he takes issue with 'New Age' interpretations of NDEs and wrestles to come to an understanding that does justice to his theology. A highlight of this new book is the Pam Reynolds case, one of the single most interesting ones in the literature.

Fenwick, P. and Fenwick, E. (1995). The Truth in the Light: An Investigation of over 300 Near-Death Experiences. London: Headline. ISBN 0-7472-1186-8.
The biggest UK study, using cases collected by the International Association of Near-Death Studies (UK). Provides an excellent and accessible overview of the field, concluding that NDEs cannot be explained purely as brain events but point beyond. Introduces the idea of the 'paradox of unconsciousness' where the subject looks unconscious or dead from the outside but continues to experience a stream of self-consciousness.

Ring, K. and Valarino, E. E. (1998). Lessons from the Light: What We Can Learn from the Near-Death Experience. New York: Insight Books. ISBN 0-306-45983-3.
A book that sums up Kenneth Ring's twenty years of NDE research by outlining the main conclusions to be drawn about the nature and significance of the NDE. Ring wrote one of the earliest scientific studies in Life at Death (1980) and followed this up in 1984 with a study of the after-effects of NDEs in Heading Toward Omega. Here he collaborates with Evelyn Valarino, whose own earlier book On the Other Side of Life (1997) gives a good account of French thinking on the subject. A remarkable study but one to be read after other introductory books.

Blackmore, S. (1993). Dying To Live: Science and the Near-Death Experience. London: Grafton. ISBN 0-586-09212-9.
The most complete statement of the sceptical view on the NDE. Sue Blackmore takes the view that the NDE can be entirely and satisfactorily explained by brain processes, adducing arguments and evidence to support this view. The key point of contention is the nature of veridical OBEs that suggest that the OBE cannot simply be an imaginative reconstruction of a scene. Blackmore argues that no case in the literature is watertight. She also takes a Buddhist view of the self and says that she is normally attacked for her views both by scientist and intuitives!

Moody, R. and Perry, P. (1988). The Light Beyond. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-45388-0.
The third in Raymond Moody's popular books on the NDE and his most considered treatment. Contains a number of intriguing cases that are hard to explain on the basis of purely physicalist theories. Follows on from Life after Life (1975) and its sequel. A good place to begin.

Morse, M. and Perry, P. (1992). Transformed by the Light. New York: Villard Books. ISBN 0-679-40443-0.
Dr. Melvin Morse has made his name in writing about children's NDEs with his first book Closer to the Light (1990). Here he builds up a 'soul-based' hypothesis of the NDE while at the same time exploring the 'circuit boards of mysticism' in the right temporal lobe. His cases make a good argument for an encounter with the light as the key transformative element in the NDE, and which can be related more generally to mystical experiences. His third book Parting Visions (1994) is also well worth reading as it ventures into experiences that have parallels with the NDE and may throw some light on it.

Brinkley, D. and Perry, P. (1994). Saved By the Light. London: Piatkus. ISBN 0-7499-1404-1.
The first of two books by Dannion Brinkley that give a graphic description of his shattering NDE resulting from a lightning strike. Brinkley's life review turned him round in a major way and makes dramatic reading. Very readable and gives a good sense of the personal implications of an NDE.

Atwater, P. M. H. (1994). Beyond the Light. London: Thorsons. ISBN 1-85538-510-4.
A very thorough and more advanced book by a person who herself underwent three separate NDEs. She then made a detailed study of the literature and the result is a book that combines the vividness and immediacy of experience with a considered treatment of the phenomenon as a whole. The two parts look at aspects of different kinds of experience followed by one of the best analyses of the implications and after-effects of the NDE.

Lorimer, D. (1990). Whole In One: The Near-Death Experience and the Ethic of Interconnectedness. London: Arkana. ISBN 0-14-019258-1.
A book that takes a broader view of the NDE, setting it within a context of the history of religion, philosophy and more particularly ethics. Looks in detail at the life review and its ethical implications, arguing that the Golden Rule can be understood metaphysically as a natural consequence of an underlying unity of consciousness - from which an ethic of interconnectedness can be derived. A demanding read for those who would like to examine the spiritual and ethical implications of the NDE in more depth.

Osis, K. and Haraldsson, E. (1977). At the Hour of Death. New York: Avon. ISBN 0-380-01802-0.
Still the best book, recently re-issued, on deathbed visions. Based on extensive research and with numerous case studies, the book documents the nature of visions at the liminal point between life and death. The experienced reader will have no difficulty mapping this onto the NDE and will see the need for a new myth of death as a transition rather than extinction of consciousness.