Alternative explanations.
Naturally, the near death experience cannot be taken simply at face value without examining the following alternative explanations.
Are they making it up? As stated above, those who studied the NDE—scientists, doctors, psychologists, other investigators and skeptics—all now claim with absolute certainty that the NDE does exist.
Some open-minded cardiologist investigators assumed the NDE did not exist but subsequently changed their mind. Michael Sabom, the cardiologist mentioned above, admitted that before he started to investigate he felt sure that NDEs must be 'conscious fabrications' either on the part of those reporting them or those writing about them. However, once he began to investigate he was absolutely staggered by the genuineness of the phenomena.
A cardiologist who was initially skeptical was Maurice Rawlings who states in his book Beyond Death's Door (1978) that he had always believed in death as total extinction until one day a forty eight year old postman dropped 'dead' in his office. As he began to resuscitate him the patient began screaming: 'I'm in Hell! Keep me out of hell!'. At first Rawlings says he told him: 'Keep your hell to yourself—I'm busy trying to save your life’ but gradually he became convinced by the sheer terror of the man he was working on. So absolutely traumatic and convincing was the experience that Dr Rawlings went on to write books about it. If you accept the word of a highly credible and highly qualified cardiologist, his whole life changed after this experience.
Frightening or hell-like near death experiences are quite common and have been the subject of in depth research by Bruce Greyson, MD and
Nancy Evans Bush, MA.
The Pharmacological Explanation? Some suggest that NDE's are caused by drugs administered to the patient at the time of his crisis. Drugs such as ketamine and morphine have been suggested. Moody investigated this hypothesis and rejected it (Moody 1975: 160-161). This was because many of the patients who experienced NDEs had not been given drugs, that drug-induced visions were markedly different from each other and from genuine NDEs in content and intensity and had no profound long-term effects.
Some investigators including R.K. Siegel reported that some of those who have taken hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD have experiences similar to NDEs. But we are also informed that there are distinct differences between the effect of LSD and the NDE. This has been effectively dealt with by Moody and others.
Oxygen Deprivation? It is sometimes argued that the NDE is caused by oxygen starvation and is a normal response of a 'dying brain'. However many people have experienced Near-Death Experience before there was any physiological stress and in some case when there was no physical injury at all (Moody 1975: 163). Sabom, consistent with Dr Fenwick, noted that in genuine cases of oxygen deprivation there is a 'progressive muddling and confusion of cognitive abilities' which is in direct contrast to the clarity and expansion of consciousness reported by those having a NDE (Sabom 1980:176).
There have been various attempts to claim that NDEs are basically 'wish fulfillment'—that you see what you have been culturally conditioned to expect. However Ring (1984) Sabom (1982) and Grosso (1981) have all found that there is no link, no correlation between religious beliefs and experience of a NDE.
Other psychologists like Uri Lowental (1981) have argued, without giving any evidence, that NDEs are 'a reliving of the birth experience'. Their hypotheses are generally considered unhelpful speculation.
Psychologists Kletti and Noyes (1981) have claimed that NDEs represent 'depersonalization and pleasurable fantasies which represent a form of psychic protection against the threat of destruction'. However this explanation has also been refuted by Gabbard and Twemlow (1981) who point out that while depersonalization usually occurs in persons between 15 and 30 it is virtually unheard of in people over 40.
Others have proposed that NDEs are forms of 'autoscopic hallucination'—a rare psychiatric disorder. However both Sabom (1982) and Gabbard and Twemlow (1981) found this implausible on the basis of a number of significant differences.
Neurophysiological Explanations? Moody considered parallels between the past life review of NDE patients and the flashbacks experienced by people with neurological abnormalities. He concluded that both were essentially different in that whereas the flashbacks were random and of trivial events not remembered after the attack, in the life review typical of a NDE the events were in chronological order and were of highlights of the life. They were all seen at once and constituted a 'unifying vision' which gave the person insight into his life's purpose (Moody 1975: 166).
The dying brain? Dr Peter Fenwick is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a neuropsychiatrist with an international reputation—a specialist in the mind/brain interface and the problem of consciousness. He is Britain's leading clinical authority on the NDE and is President of the International Association for the Near-Death Studies.
With his wife Elizabeth, also a Cambridge-trained professional scientist, Dr Peter Fenwick made a thorough investigation of the argument by skeptics and materialist psychologists that a near death experience is caused by the physiological effects of the dying brain (Fenwick 1996).
The argument by psychologists against the NDE has to be seen in the light of their very limited knowledge of the functioning of the brain. Psychologists do not have the necessary depth of academic and practical professional training of neuropsychiatrists like Dr Peter Fenwick to professionally assess the physiology of the NDE. The professional training of psychologists includes only a very basic training in physiology. A look at five standard textbooks on university Psychology shows that study of brain functioning constitutes less than 5% of the overall learning on psychology. Psychologists in training do not practice surgery, let alone the highly specialized field of human brain surgery.
Certainly, someone in the position of Dr Fenwick would have all the technical knowledge to accurately assess whether or not the NDE can be explained by what is happening in the dying brain. Dr Fenwick states that these psychologists write absolute rubbish when they venture into areas of knowledge outside their technical expertise, knowledge they don't have, don't understand and which is outside their everyday work.
He is scathing with the skeptics:
(They) just don't have the knowledge...So much rubbish is talked about Near-Death Experiences by people who don't have to deal with these things on a daily basis. So I'm absolutely sure that such experiences are not caused by oxygen shortages, endorphins or anything of that kind. And certainly none of these things would account for the transcendental quality of many of these experiences, the fact that people feel an infinite sense of loss when they leave them behind (Fenwick 1995: 47).
As a consultant neuro-psychiatrist he constantly works with people who are confused, disoriented and brain-damaged and as Dr Fenwick points out:
What is quite clear is that any disorientation of brain function leads to a disorientation of perception and reduced memory. You can't normally get highly-structured and clearly remembered experiences from a highly damaged or disoriented brain (Fenwick 1995: 47).
He likewise refutes the endorphin argument:
As for that stuff about endorphins, we're boosting the effect they have all the time because thousands of people are given morphine every day. That certainly produces calmness, but it doesn't produce structured experiences (Fenwick 1995: 47).
Closed-minded skeptics are asked to answer the following questions:
• If the NDE is the effect of a dying brain it should happen to everyone who is dying. Why is it that not all of those who are near death whose brain is 'dying' experience a NDE?
• If the NDE is wish fulfillment, why is it that not every NDE experience is a positive one? Why is it that some experience a neutral and/or a horrific negative NDE as documented by Phyllis Atwater (1994).
• If the NDE is caused by the release of endorphins, what objective evidence exists to show that the release of endorphins necessarily elicits a life review in an orderly way?
• What objective evidence exists to show that the release of endorphins leads to the breakdown of a sense of time and its relationship to 'self'?
• Why is it that nearly all those who have a NDE undergo a permanent transformation which is consistent with spiritual refinement, a more refined way of living?
• Why is it that most experiencers relate their newly found intrinsic motivation to the powerful experience they had out of the body?
• What objective proof is presented to show that understanding of the role of the limbic system and temporal lobe can account for the experiences of familiarity, insight and deja vu and the statistically significant increase in psychic experiences that follow NDEs?
• How do the skeptics explain the incredible consistencies between NDEs and OBEs?
TOMADO DE: http://www.victorzammit.com/book/4thedition/chapter06.html
