Near-death studies

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Near-Death Studies are an interdisciplinary field of medicine, psychology / psychiatry , sociology, philosophy and theology, in which the physiology , phenomenology and the aftermath of near-death experiences ( NDE , English NDE for near-death experience ) are investigated. The field was originally associated with a separate group of North American researchers who built on the initial work of Raymond Moody and later founded the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) and the Journal of Near-Death Studies . Since that time around the mid-1970s, the research area has expanded to include contributions from a wide range of researchers and commentators around the world.

Near death experience

The near-death experience is an experience reported by people who have come near dying in a medical or non-medical situation. The trauma and physical crisis aspect is also seen as an indicator of the phenomenon. It is estimated that near death experiences are reported by five percent of the adult American population. According to IANDS, surveys (in the US, Australia, and Germany) suggest that 4 to 15% of the population had NDEs. Researchers are studying the role of the physiological, psychological, and transcendent factors associated with the NDE. These dimensions are also the basis for the three major explanatory models for the NDE.

Some general characteristics of an NDE include subjective impressions: floating outside the physical body; Visions of deceased relatives and religious personalities; Transcendence of the ego and spatial-temporal boundaries. NDE researchers have also found that NDE is not just a Western experience. They found that several elements and features of the NDE appear to be similar in all cultures, but that the details of the experiences (shapes, beings, landscapes) and their interpretation vary between cultures and are significantly influenced by the prevailing cultural models.

Elements of the NDE

By the NDE standard, a near-death experience can include some or more of the following 16 elements:

  • Time speeds up or slows down.
  • Thought processes accelerate.
  • Reliving situations from the past.
  • Sudden insights or understanding.
  • A feeling of peace or wellbeing.
  • A feeling of happiness or joy.
  • A sense of harmony or oneness with the universe.
  • Encounter with a shining light.
  • The senses feel more alive.
  • An awareness that things are evolving elsewhere (such as through extrasensory perception) (ESP).
  • Experience future events.
  • A feeling of being separated from the body.
  • Experience a different, extraterrestrial world.
  • Encountering a mystical being or presence, or hearing an unidentifiable voice.
  • Seeing the dead or religious beings.
  • Reaching a limit or a point from which there is no return.

A study published in The Lancet van Lommel and colleagues lists ten elements of the NDE:

  • The awareness of being dead.
  • Positive feelings.
  • Out of body experience.
  • Move through a tunnel.
  • Communication with a light.
  • Perception of special colors.
  • Observation of a skyscape.
  • Encounters with deceased people.
  • Life review.
  • Presence of a limit.

However, these lists fail to recognize or cover up the fact that up to 20% of the NDE are characterized by negative content.

aftermath

An NDE is often associated with after-effects or life-changing effects. The effects affect a number of changes in values, attitudes, and beliefs, and a new view of life and death, human relationships, and spirituality. NDEs can result in radical personality changes. Many of the effects are considered positive or beneficial. Van Lommel and colleagues performed a follow-up study for NDEs and found a long-lasting transformational effect after such an experience.

However, not all after-effects are positive. The literature describes situations in which changes in attitudes and behavior can lead to alarm, psycho-social or psycho-spiritual problems. Often the problems have to do with adapting to the new situation after a near-death experience or with integrating it into everyday life. Another category, called worrying or nasty near-death experiences, was explored by Greyson and Bush.

Explanatory models

Explanatory models for the phenomenology and elements of NDEs can be broken down into a few categories: psychological, physiological, and transcendent. Agrillo, who introduces a more concise overview, notes that the literature reports two theoretical frameworks: (1) a "biological / psychological" interpretation (in-brain theories / the explanation is sought in the brain) or (2) a "survival "Interpretation (out-of-brain theories / the explanation also includes a possible survival of the soul, its separation from the body). Research on NDEs often includes variables from all three models. In a 1990 study, Owens, Cook, and Stevenson presented results that supported all three interpretations.

Each model contains a number of variables that are often mentioned or summarized by commentators:

Psychological theories have suggested that the NDE may be a result of mental and emotional responses to the perceived threat of dying or to the expectation of dying. Other psychological variables that are considered by researchers are: imagination, depersonalization, dissociation, imagination, and memory of childbirth.

In physiological theories, researchers tend to focus on somatic, biological, or pharmacological explanations for the NDE, often with an emphasis on the physiology of the brain. Variables considered by researchers include: anoxia, hypoxia, hypercapnia, endorphins, serotonin or various neurotransmitters, temporal lobe dysfunction or seizures, the NMDA receptor, limbic system activation, drugs, retinal ischemia, and processes associated with REM sleep (rapid eye movement sleep) or phenomena that arise at the border between sleep and wakefulness.

A third model, sometimes called the "transcendent explanation," looks at a number of categories that normally do not fall within the realm of physiological or psychological explanations. This explanatory model considers whether NDEs could be related to the existence of an afterlife, altered state of consciousness, or mystical experiences. The concept of a separation of mind and body is also considered.

Several researchers in the field have expressed reservations about purely psychological or physiological explanations when examining variables from all three models. Van Lommel and colleagues have argued for including transcendent categories as part of the explanatory framework. Other researchers such as Sam Parnia , Peter Fenwick and Bruce Greyson have advocated an expanded discussion of the mind-brain relationship and the possibilities of human consciousness.

Research - history and background

Individual cases of NDEs were already reported in the literature in ancient times. In the 19th century, some effort was made to go beyond the study of individual cases - a private study of Mormons on the one hand and one in Switzerland on the other. Until 2005 it was documented that NDEs were mentioned in 95% of the world's cultures. From 1975 to 2005, about 2,500 self-reported individuals in the United States were reported in retrospective studies of the phenomenon, another 600 outside the United States in the west and 70 in Asia. Prospective studies that examine groups of previously defined participants to determine which of them had an NDE after the assignment - which is much more time-consuming - found 270 people with an NDE. About 3500 individual cases were examined in at least one study between 1975 and 2005. All of these studies were carried out by approximately 55 researchers or teams of researchers.

Research on near-death experiences is mainly limited to the disciplines of medicine, psychology, and psychiatry. Interest in this field of study was originally stimulated by the research of such pioneers as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (psychiatrist) and Raymond Moody (psychologist and MD), but also by autobiographical reports such as the books by George Ritchie (psychiatrist). Kübler-Ross, who was a researcher in the field of thanatology and who had great influence on the establishment of the hospice system in the United States, first reported on near-death experiences of patients in her book "Interviews with dying people", published in 1969. Raymond Moody took an interest in the subject early in his career. In the mid-1970s, while serving as a medical assistant as a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia, he conducted interviews with patients with near-death experiences. He later published these findings in the book Life After Life (1976). In it, Moody presented the various elements of the NDE that were picked up by later researchers. The book paid a lot of attention to the subject of NDE.

In the late 1970s, the Association for the Scientific Study of Near Death Phenomena was formed, an early group of academic researchers including John Audette, Raymond Moody , Bruce Greyson , Kenneth Ring, and Michael Sabom who laid the foundations for the field of near death studies , and did some of the earliest post-Moody NDE research. The association was the immediate predecessor of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS), which was founded in the early 1980s and whose headquarters were at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. This group of researchers, most notably Ring, was responsible for starting Anabiosis, the first peer-reviewed journal in the field. The journal later became the Journal of Near-Death Studies.

However, although the above mentioned people introduced the NDE topic into the academic framework, the topic was often met with disbelief or was considered taboo. The medical community has been hesitant to embrace the NDE phenomenon and research funding has been rare. However, both Ring and Sabom made contributions that were influential to the newly established field. Ring published a book in 1980 called Life at Death: A Scientific Study of the Near-Death Experience. This early research was followed in 1984 by a book entitled Heading Toward Omega: In Search of the Meaning of the Near-Death Experience. Michael Sabom's early work also drew the attention of the academic community to the subject. In addition to articles in scientific journals, he wrote a book called Recollections of Death (1982), which is considered an important publication in the introduction of this research area.

As research in the field progressed, Greyson and Ring developed measuring instruments that can be used in a clinical setting. Greyson also addressed various aspects of NDE, such as the psychodynamics of experience, the types of NDE, the typology of NDE, and the biology of NDE's. In addition, he has drawn attention to the near-death experience as the focus of clinical work because the after-effects of the NDE can in some cases lead to mental health problems.

The 1980s also introduced another observational group in the field of near-death studies through the research of Melvin Morse. Morse and colleagues studied near-death experiences in a pediatric population. They found that children reported NDE in a similar way to adults. Morse later published two books (co-authored by Paul Perry) aimed at a general audience: Closer to Light: Learning Near Death Experiences in Children (1990) and Transformed by Light: The Powerful Impact of Near Death Experiences on People's Lives (1992). Another early contribution in this area of ​​research was the research of British neuro-psychiatrist Peter Fenwick, who collected NDE stories in the 1980s. In 1987, he featured his findings on a television program, which resulted in more stories coming in. The answers from those who experienced near death later served as the basis for a 1997 book The Truth in Light , co-authored by his wife Elizabeth Fenwick. In collaboration with other researchers, including Sam Parnia , Fenwick has also published research on the possible link between cardiac arrest and near-death experiences.

Early research on near-death experiences was also conducted at the University of Virginia, where Ian Stevenson founded the Personality Studies Department in the late 1960s. The department explored a number of phenomena that were not considered mainstream. In addition to near-death experiences, these were: reincarnation and past lives, out-of-body experiences, ghost apparitions, after-death communications, and deathbed visions. Stevenson, whose main academic interest was the subject of reincarnation and past lives, also published articles in the field of near-death studies. In a 1990 study (co-authored by Owens & Cook), researchers examined the medical records of 58 people who believed they had been near death. The authors estimated that 28 candidates were actually close to dying, while 30 candidates who believed they would die were judged not to be in imminent danger to their lives. Both groups reported similar experiences, but the first group reported more core NDE experiences than the second group.

In 2010, Jeffrey Long's work also brought attention to the issue of the NDE in the academic and popular worlds. In 2010 he published a book, co-authored with Paul Perry, called Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences. In the book, Long presents the results of research that has been carried out over the past decade. Research goes into other areas, such as the mental health of military veterans. Goza studied NDE with combat veterans. Among other things, she found that soldiers reported different and less intense near-death experiences compared to NDErs in the civilian population.

The first decades of near-death research were characterized by retrospective studies. However, the 2000s marked the beginning of prospective studies in the field, both on the European and American continents.

In a 2001 study conducted at Southampton General Hospital, Parnia and colleagues found that 11.1% of 63 cardiac arrest survivors reported memories of their unconscious time. Several of these memories were reminiscent of near-death experiences. This study was the first in a series of new prospective studies using cardiac arrest criteria. This was soon followed by the study by van Lommel and colleagues, which was also published in 2001. Pim van Lommel (cardiologist) was one of the first researchers to introduce the NDE study to the field of hospital medicine. In 1988 he started a prospective study that included 10 Dutch hospitals. 344 cardiac arrest survivors were included in the study. 62 patients (18%) reported NDE. 41 of these patients (12%) described a core experience. The aim of the study was to examine the causes of the experience and assess variables associated with frequency, depth and content.

Prospective studies have also been conducted in the United States. Schwaninger and colleagues worked with Barnes-Jewish Hospital, where they studied cardiac arrest patients over a period of three years (April 1991 to February 1994). Only a minority of patients survived, and out of this group 30 patients could be interviewed. Of these 30 patients, 23% reported an NDE while 13% reported an NDE during a previous life-threatening illness. Greyson surveyed patients who had been admitted to the cardiology department at the University of Virginia Hospital for 30 months. He found that NDE was reported by 10% of cardiac arrest patients and 1% of other cardiac patients.

In 2008, Sam Parnia initiated a near-death study at the University of Southampton called AWARE (for AWAreness during REsuscitation ). 15 hospitals in the UK, USA and Austria were involved in the study and 140 patients were interviewed. The subject of the study was to examine the brain and consciousness during cardiac arrest, and to check the validity of out-of-body experiences and claims of mental clarity (the ability to see and hear) by patients during cardiac arrest.

The final report published in 2014 identified nine respondents with NDE compatible experiences. In two of them, based on the auditory perceptions reported, it was possible to conclude that the human brain had a “remaining time” of three minutes.

Psychometrics

Several psychometric instruments have been adapted for near-death research. Ring developed the Weighted Core Experience Index to measure the depth of the NDE, and this tool has been used by other researchers for this purpose. The instrument was also used to measure the effects of NDE on dialysis patients. According to some commentators, the index has improved consistency in the field. However, Greyson noted that while the index was pioneered, it was not based on statistical analysis and was not tested for internal consistency or reliability. In 1984, Ring developed an instrument called the Life Changes Inventory (LCI) to quantify changes in value after an NDE. The instrument was later revised and standardized and a new version, the LCI-R, was released in 2004.

Greyson developed the Near-Death Experience Scale. This 16-point scale showed high internal consistency, split-half reliability, and test-retest reliability, and was correlated with Ring's weighted Core Experience Index. Questions formulated by the scale cover such dimensions as: cognition (feelings of accelerated thinking or "life review"), influence (feelings of peace and joy), paranormal experience (feelings of being outside the body or a perception of the Future events) and transcendence (experience of meeting deceased relatives or experiencing an unearthly realm). A score of 7 or higher out of a possible 32 was used as the standard criterion for a near-death experience. According to the author, the scale is clinically useful in differentiating NDEs from organic brain syndromes and non-specific stress reactions. The NDE scale was later found for the Rasch rating model. The instrument was used to measure NDEs among cardiac arrest survivors, coma survivors, out of hospital cardiac arrest patients / survivors, substance abuse, and dialysis patients.

In the late 1980s, Thornburg developed the Seam Phenomena Knowledge and Attitudes questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of 23 true / false / undecided response items that assess knowledge, 23 Likert scale elements that assess general attitudes towards the near-dying phenomena, and 20 Likert scale elements that assess the attitude towards caring for a client, who has an NDE. Knowledge and attitude parts of the instrument have been tested for internal consistency. Content validity was established through the use of a panel of experts selected from nursing, sociology and psychology. The tool was used to measure attitudes towards and awareness of near-death experiences in a college population among the clergy, among registered psychologists, and among hospice nurses.

Greyson has also used mainstream psychological measurements in his research, for example The Dissociative Experiences Scale , a measure of dissociative symptoms and The Threat Index , a measure of the threat of death.

Near-death study community

Research institutions and academic locations

The field of near-death studies encompasses several research groups that study the phenomenology of NDE. The largest of these groups is IANDS, an international organization based in Durham, North Carolina that promotes scientific research and education on the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual nature and ramifications of near-death experiences. His publications include the peer-reviewed Journal of Near-Death Studies and the quarterly newsletter Vital Signs. The organization also maintains an archive of near-death case histories for research and study.

Another research organization, the Louisiana-based Near Death Experience Research Foundation, was founded in 1998 by radiation oncologist Jeffrey Long. The Foundation maintains a web site, also launched in 1998, and a database of more than 1,600 cases, which is currently the largest collection of near death reports in the world. The reports come straight from sources around the world.

Several academic sites have been linked to the activities of the near-death studies field. These include the University of Connecticut (US), Southampton University (UK), University of North Texas (US) and the Department of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia (US).

Conferences

IANDS holds conferences on near-death experiences at regular intervals. The first meeting was a medical seminar at Yale University, New Haven (CT) in 1982. This was followed by the first clinical conference in Pembroke Pines (FL) and the first research conference in Farmington (CT) in 1984. Since then, conferences have been held in in major US cities almost annually. Many of the conferences have a specific theme that is defined before the meeting. In 2004, the participants gathered in Evanston, IL under the heading: Creativity from the Light . Some of the conferences were held in academic locations. In 2001, researchers and participants gathered at Seattle Pacific University. In 2006, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center became the first medical institution to host the annual IANDS conference.

The first international medical conference on near-death experiences took place in 2006. About 1,500 delegates, including people who claim to have NDE, attended the one-day conference in Martigues, France. Among the researchers attending the conference were anesthetist and intensive care doctor Jean-Jacques Charbonnier and pioneering researcher Raymond Moody. In Germany, the Network Near-Death Experience eV organizes annual specialist conferences that are published in thematic volumes; it sees itself as the German Friends of IANDS.

Relevant publications

IANDS publishes the quarterly Journal of Near-Death Studies, the only academic journal in the field. The journal is interdisciplinary, committed to unrestricted research into the NDE and related phenomena, and welcomes various theoretical perspectives and interpretations based on scientific criteria such as empirical observation and research. IANDS also publishes Vital Signs, a quarterly newsletter made available to its members that contains comments, news and articles of general interest.

One of the first introductions to the field of near-death studies was the publication of a general reader: The Near-Death Experience: Problems and Perspectives. The book was published in 1984 and was a brief overview of the field. In 2009, Praeger Publishers published the Handbook of Near Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Inquiry, a comprehensive critical review of research in the field of near death studies. 2011 marked the release of Making Sense of Near-Death Experiences: A Handbook for Clinicians . The book is a multi-author text describing how the NDE can be treated in psychiatric and clinical practice.

Recognition and criticism

There is widespread skepticism about the findings of the near-death studies and the validity of the near-death experience as an object of scientific research. According to Knapton, in the London newspaper The Telegraph, the issue was considered controversial until recently. Both scientists and medical professionals are generally skeptical. According to commentators on the field, the early study of near-death experiences was reflected with "academic disbelief". While the acceptance of NDE as a legitimate subject for scientific study has improved, the process has been slow. According to the literature, doctors and psychiatrists in particular have played a role in recognizing the near-death phenomenon as well as popularizing the topic and the subsequent research.

Skeptics have noted that it is difficult to verify many of the anecdotal accounts used as background material to outline the characteristics of the NDE.

Internet Infidels editor and commentator, Keith Augustine has criticized near-death research for simplifying the role of culture in afterlife belief. He also pointed out weaknesses in methodology, lack of data and gaps in arguments. Instead of a transcendent model of NDEs that he doesn't find plausible, he suggests that NDEs reports from individuals as thoughts are a transcendent reality. His criticism was countered by Greyson, who indicated that Augustine's preferred materialistic model is supported by even less data than the "mind-brain separation model" favored by many researchers in near-death studies.

The results of NDE research have been challenged by several writers in the fields of psychology and neuroscience. Susan Blackmore has denied the results of the NDE research and has advocated a neurological explanation instead. Psychologist Christopher French has reviewed several of the theories that have emerged from near-death studies. These include theories that challenge modern neuroscience by proposing a new understanding of the mind-brain relationship in the direction of transcendent or paranormal elements. In response, French advocates conventional scientific understanding and introduces several non-paranormal factors and psychological theory that might explain near-death experiences that contradict conventional scientific explanations. However, it does not rule out a future revision of modern neuroscience and awaits new and improved research methods.

Jason Braithwaite, a senior lecturer in cognitive neuroscience at the Behavioral Brain Sciences Center, University of Birmingham, published an in-depth analysis and criticism of the survivor's neuroscience by some NDE researchers and concluded, “It's hard to see what can be learned. The paranormal survival stance, which makes the truth of what it seeks to establish, makes additional and unnecessary assumptions, misrepresents the current state of knowledge from mainstream science, and appears less than comprehensive in its analysis of the available facts. "

Martens presented the “lack of uniform nomenclature” and “the failure to control the examined population by eliminating disruptive factors” as examples of a critical stance against near-death research.

But criticism of the field has also come from commentators within their own ranks. In an open letter to the NDE community, Ring referred to the "question of possible religious prejudices in near-death studies". According to Ring, the field of near-death studies, as well as the larger NDE movement, has attracted a variety of religious and spiritual affiliations from a number of traditions that make ideological claims on behalf of NDE research. In his view, this has compromised the integrity of research and discussion.

Many studies also make a religiously motivated "pre-selection" that declares certain qualities of experience as NDE, while excluding others, so that those required for scientific studies etc. a. necessary quality criteria of validity and objectivity are violated.

Individual evidence

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