Keith Augustine interview

And out of curiosity, if she were only burst suppressed for part of the procedure, as you claim is probable, how would that change the results of the NDE?

I assume the goal of the internet skeptic (although, I venture to suggest that Max has different motives) is to find and exploit a perceived weakness in order to discredit the whole experience and, if possible, the whole field. So those who want to challenge the skeptics might cite a case like Pam Reynolds and ask "how could she have reported a conversation that took place while her brain was effectively inactive?".

If the skeptic can, as Woerlee and Augustine attempt to do, show that the brain was actually active and capable of creating hallucinations and/or hearing conversations during the period that her brain was supposedly shut down, then they might believe they have discredited any claim of psi phenomena. 

For me, I prefer to look at the whole experience and apply a little common sense. 

1. How does the experience compare with those reported by others in similar situations? If similar then a consistency is apparent which would be unlikely in the case of crisis hallucinations.

2. How likely is it that Pam Reynolds could actually - rather than purely theoretically - hear a conversation while heavily sedated by anaesthetic drugs? While having hear ears plugged by specially moulded inserts which were then heavily taped thereby further blocking external sounds and while loud noises were constantly fed into her ears. Remember that she reported the conversation accurately but had no memory of those loud "clicks" being fed into her ears.

3. Whether or not burst suppression was active, nobody can determine what the burst waveforms indicate. It can't be determined by the wave shape and frequency whether the patient is viewing an Out of Body scene, listening to an ongoing conversation or any other subjective conscious experience. For all anyone knows, it might be random neurological electrical activity. Maybe it is like the automatic convulsing of dying muscles such as the twitching of feet. 

4. Even if skeptics can show that anaesthesia awareness with accurate memories is possible, it is probably very rare (see below). In Pam Reynolds' case, the precautions to prevent such awareness seem to have been comprehensive. And if we accept that there is still a remote statistical chance that all those precautions were ineffective, we still need to explain why her memories didn't include the inevitable pain and discomfort an "awake" brain would have encountered. Even the noises in her ears have been described as physically intolerable by those who have attempted a simulation.


Anaesthesia Awareness

One study has indicated this phenomenon occurs in about 1 or 2 per 1000 patients or 0.13%. There is conflicting data however as another study suggested it is a rare phenomenon, with an incidence of 0.0068% after review of their data from a patient population of 211,842 patients.

Post operative interview by an anesthetist is common practice to elucidate if awareness occurred in the case. If awareness is reported a case review is immediately performed to identify machine, medication, or operator error.

Patients who experience full awareness with explicit recall may have suffered an enormous trauma. Some patients experience post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), leading to long-lasting after-effects such as nightmares, night terrors, flashbacks, insomnia, and in some cases even suicide.

So, if Wikipedia is correct, we should expect a patient such as Pam Reynolds to be traumatised by her memories of being aware of what was taking place in the OR. Was Reynolds traumatised by her experience? I can find no evidence that she was and plenty that she found the experience pleasant and illuminating.

Therefore common sense tells me that Woerlee has dedicated himself to a debunking mission. I ask myself: even if Reynolds had some ulterior motive for sticking to her story, why would her doctors collude? Everyone knows that a medical or scientific professional who becomes associated with stories of paranormal phenomena risks the opprobrium of their colleagues and peers. Such an association can be and has been career limiting. Woerlee, on the other hand, has become a leading light among the "critical thinkers". His biased approach to the Reynolds case (and NDEs in general) is only to be expected from a man who is an outspoken atheist and considers the possibility of a soul as nothing more than a religious delusion. In his own words:

I have extensively discussed the paranormal in Mortal Minds and The Unholy Legacy of Abraham. These books clearly demonstrate the paranormal to be more than an ancient socio-cultural delusion, a wonderful delusion, but a delusion nonetheless. As such, the paranormal is also no indirect proof of the reality of religious belief systems.

All direct and indirect proofs of the reality of religious belief fail to prove the reality of any and all religious beliefs in a soul, a God, and an immaterial world inhabited by the dead. The only path forward is a world without a God, a world in which humans live in full knowledge of the reality of their being, and a world in which people strive to make the best of their lives and this world.