“Realer than this life” perception during an NDE

Absolutely. The 0% claim is at best disingenuous.

I tend not to get involved in discussions like this because it's all old ground. We have the published papers from the two AWARE studies and we discussed them in microscopic detail at the time. But to reiterate, yes there was at least one veridical case from the first AWARE study, it just happened not to fall into the category of observing the hidden image on a high shelf. But we can't expect patients to behave in ways which conform to the requirements of the study, we can only deal with what they actually report.

It's probably discussed in multiple places on this forum already, though I fear some of them may have been on the skeptiko forum which like the ex-parrot, is no more.

There were also interesting cases in Penny Sartori's study containing veridical and other unusual elements.

I’m well aware of the auditory part in AWARE.

But that isn’t what we are debatting, to cite nbtruthman truthfully one extra time:

(such as the doings and identities of members of the rescusitation team working on his body below his floating vantage point), details that he had absolutely no possibility of observing physically.

Even Alexander Batthyány writes about the problem of stories getting exaggerated in his recent book “threshold”. And he is very much an NDE “proponent”

This all seems to be going around in uselss circles really. 

To start on a note, the Aware of Aware post that Sbu shared has a bunch of people commenting about other veridical cases so not completely fair to say that they could only find five. Other than that, all Sbu is saying is that across the whole breath of cardiac arrests, accidents and whatever elses that happen across the united states for example NDEs are 'rare', and amongst the NDEs that do happen veridical cases that can be confirmed are rare, and ones that have been confirmed in studies are rarer still/as of the moment non existent. It's not like anyone is saying these experiences don't exist, just that if we look for ones that fit these specific criterea they're especially rare even amongst an already rare phenomenon. I haven't seen one mention of liars or things not being true or whatever, it's all much ado about nothing. 

It's certainly a good point to make and something to think about. Now there's certainly plausible explanations to why it's the case as well, but better to be talking about that then saying this or that about what Sam Parnia thinks like we don't already all know it word for word at this point. 

To take things ALL the way back to what @Bill37 asked, there have been studies done that compared what drug experiences are similar to NDE experiences. In the long list of different drugs cannabis was ranked around 13 on a list of 20 something that were compared. The big problem on focusing on one aspect of the experience like 'realer than life' is that it ignores everything else that goes on that separates it from something like just getting blazed as all hell. And even the one at the top of the list of the study, ketamine, was very different from what NDEs are like when you take how the actual experiences are described.

Speaking of Bill37, it would be good to have some participation and input from him. No disrespect to Bill intended, I'm sure we've chatted in the past on another forum.

There were also interesting cases in Penny Sartori's study containing veridical and other unusual elements.

I should say the most disappointing aspect of tha AWARE study was not the results themselves. Rather it was the inherent problem in that from hundreds of patients eligible as input to the study, only a tiny fraction trickled through to be part of the output. Thus a massive study ended up with just a tiny sample to actually analyse in any way.

Yeah I would say this is a primary issue with parapsychology. It wants to capture the phenomena in a way that is in accord with a picture of reality that the phenomena is telling us is false.

Radin seems to have gotten the understanding, and has started digging into the varied "occult" applications of Psi from varied traditions rather than just hoping something in the more traditional lab setting will provide a "silver bullet".

With NDEs we seem to still be behind, if we're asking the average person to coincidentally see a sticker. At least Parnia seems to be more comfortable with the possibility future science will discover consciousness can survive death, based on what he's said recently.

Yeah I would say this is a primary issue with parapsychology. It wants to capture the phenomena in a way that is in accord with a picture of reality that the phenomena is telling us is false.

Radin seems to have gotten the understanding, and has started digging into the varied "occult" applications of Psi from varied traditions rather than just hoping something in the more traditional lab setting will provide a "silver bullet".

With NDEs we seem to still be behind, if we're asking the average person to coincidentally see a sticker. At least Parnia seems to be more comfortable with the possibility future science will discover consciousness can survive death, based on what he's said recently.

There's at least one area where NDE studies are not quite comparable with Radin's parapsychology research. That is, a fair proportion of AWARE study patients either did not survive or were too ill to participate in interviews, I sincerely hope Radin is not encountering these particular issues. But in general yes your point is valid, we need to find additional and better ways to study these phenomena.

Personally I take the view that survival of consciousness can best be understood by embracing a whole range of phenomena. One in particular is after-death communication which has affected me personally. But there are a range of other areas which taken together form a better picture than NDEs alone.

The language used by Parnia has changed slightly as time goes on. However he usually avoids uses of perhaps loaded terms such as 'glimpses of an afterlife existence'. What he has said very emphatically is that based on the evidence he concludes that consciousness continues for some (deliberately vague) time after death. He has said things such as, we don't know for how long it continues - because he is dealing with the evidence before his own eyes. I even recall one occasion when he was asked what he personally thought. He replied that he didn't think anything, he had no opinion other than that confirmed by the evidence.

Yes, he's being careful. But his language comes close, I think deliberately, because all these features of the NDE clearly point in the direction of there being an afterlife, though without absolute scientific proof repeatedly demonstrated in the laboratory, which is of course impossible because of the very nature of NDEs. By the way, Parnia doesn't seem to mention the important factor that in many NDEs it very much appears that there is enhanced consciousness while the brain is dysfunctional, clearly implying the existence of a mobile center of consciousness that can separate from the brain and body. He also doesn't appear to mention the important factor that the large body of well investigated and verified cases of the reincarnation sort (CORTs) also support the clear message of NDEs, that there is an afterlife.

Yes, he's being careful. But his language comes close, I think deliberately, because all these features of the NDE clearly point in the direction of there being an afterlife, though without absolute scientific proof repeatedly demonstrated in the laboratory, which is of course impossible because of the very nature of NDEs. By the way, Parnia doesn't seem to mention the important factor that in many NDEs it very much appears that there is enhanced consciousness while the brain is dysfunctional, clearly imlying the existence of a mobile center of consciousness that can separate from the brain and body.

I'm not sure that enhanced consciousness is so neglected. At any rate he does emphasise that the experiences are not hallucinations - in the sense of being somewhat deranged and nonsensical.

I'm not sure that enhanced consciousness is so neglected. At any rate he does emphasise that the experiences are not hallucinations - in the sense of being somewhat deranged and nonsensical.

Yeah ultimately this is a chess game. Which isn't to say all these people are coordinating, but more so there are people who have a range of overlapping beliefs whose commonality is opposing the mechanistic-materialist paradigm.

We need the cautious Parnias as much as we need the more forward Edward Kellys and Sheldrakes. IMO we also need the Third Way Evolutionists, and the Information Integrated Theorists, the Occultists, the Christian Apologists, and so on...

I wish this was true, but according to a recent poll at the AwareOfAware web site they could hardly find 5 ever:

https://awareofaware.co/2023/11/18/top-five-ndes/

Ps. I’m aware that Rudolf Smit reportedly has collected 104 cases but I’m not sure they all fulfill the inclusion criteria requested in the AwareOfAware thread.

I had a verified veridical OBE, and I wasn't even dead...



one of my colleague directors at work had an OBE in the hospital - admitted for heart failure - he rose up above his body, and saw medical staff working on him... but his legs were stuck in the table... he admitted I was the first person he had told... he hadn't even told his wife.

These experiences are rare, but seem really quite common within human experience.

To date, there have been zero studies measuring the accuracy of the visual information recalled by these out of body patients...

I had a verified veridical OBE, and I wasn't even dead...



one of my colleague directors at work had an OBE in the hospital - admitted for heart failure - he rose up above his body, and saw medical staff working on him... but his legs were stuck in the table... he admitted I was the first person he had told... he hadn't even told his wife.

These experiences are rare, but seem really quite common within human experience.

To date, there have been zero studies measuring the accuracy of the visual information recalled by these out of body patients...

It can probably not be done in the cardiac arrest setting.