NDE Research - Changes You'd Want to See

This has come up in other threads here and there, but I'd like to have it in one place and open to anyone: moving forward, what would you like to see researchers of NDEs do/change/explore/consider/modify/etc. to improve the body of knowledge?

My own thoughts (such as they are; not being any kind of scientist, or even very scientifically-minded, I may well not have the slightest idea what would be a good move):

- More AWAREs. I know there were pilot studies before AWARE and AWARE II, but there should be more large-scale studies done by other teams, and not just in the Anglo-American sphere. There should be studies like this being run in India and the Middle East, in Japan and China, in Latin America, in Central Europe - everywhere, all done on a comparable scale or greater. Personally, I doubt any targets will be spotted in AWARE II (none of the potential seers know will know what to look for, and even the most eye-catching of targets can be missed when one is distracted by the small detail of one's own body being worked on), but the greater the number of targets out there, the greater the odds.
 
(I'd also say future AWARE-type studies could do something other than aim for the targets. I think it was Max who suggested on here once that NDE research should take on attributes of crime scene investigation. Participating hospitals could have a small team of investigators on-staff, trained in what questions to ask and how to ask them, who would move in for interviews as early as possible to minimize any risk of confirmation bias, embellishment, etc. The same investigators could also be responsible for confirming or refuting any observations NDErs may report about people/places outside the hospital, or they could pass those elements on to another team of investigators blind as to the reason for confirming these details.)

- Refined definition. You could simultaneously narrow and broaden the definition of a NDE by limiting it only to those experiences that happen after either cardiac arrest or severe brain injury. Experiences had while healthy but in danger, or healthy and at random, may be extremely similar in content, and may be related, but for the purposes of investigating what, if anything, is possible for mind/consciousness at the point of death, I would think you'd want to focus in on exactly that circumstance. That's the narrowing; the broadening would come from including any and all conscious experiences following cardiac arrest/brain injury as a NDE, whatever its content. As I understand it, AWARE found numerous cases of awareness to some degree during arrest that weren't labeled as NDEs; I would think those would be of value too. If one collected all such experiences and looked for patterns, you could confirm or refute certain ideas - ex. how much likelier is it to have a NDE the further one gets to the point of no return, how much likelier it is that one will have a high Greyson Scale rating the further one gets to the point of no return, how much time under cardiac arrest seems to be necessary to have an experience, etc.

- Refined Greyson Scale: Related the last point. I don't dispute the value of having a scale to measure NDEs, but the Greyson Scale has problems. Studies that seek to compare NDEs to hallucinations, meditative experiences, or drug trips make use of it, and going by the numbers and the bullet-point descriptions of the scale, they report strong correlations. But if you look at the actual descriptions of those experiences (when they're made available in such studies; they aren't always, a very poor decision IMO) the content of them seems a very poor match to the classic NDE experience. How exactly one could refine the scale and guard against that flaw in it, I have no idea.

Some good points there. To my mind, the value of studies such as AWARE/AWARE II are in the simple fact that attention is paid to patients' perceptions, and they are documented in detail. It is this documentation which I think fulfils a useful role. The targets themselves, much less so, though I understand the intention behind them.

Good suggestions, Will.

With respect to the AWARE II study...

In addition to the targets, the other important factors are the monitoring of cerebral oxygenation, and perhaps the use of BIS monitors, which is a form of EEG monitoring. He has previously mentioned oximetry, but in the current blurbs about the project, it sounds like he also may be including EEG monitoring. I hope so. It would help with the problems of defining/refining the "NDE" that you mentioned.
https://renaissance.stonybrookmedicine.e...n/research

The Greyson scale has never been validated, as far as I can tell. To validate it you would take an unselected group of subjects (say, those who have had cardiac arrest) and see first who identifies as having had an NDE. Then you would apply the Greyson scale to everyone and see who the scale identifies as having an NDE, and make a comparison.

I agree about making the narrative reports available. There are a few places where they are - in Penny Sartori's book on her research, and in some of the mainstream research which looks at any and all experiences following medical crises (not just those NDE researchers label as NDE's). The reports show that a wide variety of realer-than-real, life-altering, vivid, detailed, and/or veridical experiences are had, which are not labelled as "NDE" (because they don't contain a spiritual element). And they show that most of the experiences which are labelled "NDE" by the Greyson scale aren't the sort of rich, life-altering experiences we are used to hearing about at places like IANDS.

I know it is heretical to suggest this (at least, I would have considered it a nonsensical suggestion a few years ago), but I have been looking into this in great detail, and I suspect that the "NDE" may not be a distinct experience when placed into the context of all experiences (by asking for and attending to only a "special" handful of experiences, we give ourselves the impression that there is something special or different about those experiences). If Parnia found another way to distinguish a set of experiences, and that set also correlated strongly with the description of the classic NDE experience, that would be a tremendous help.

I agree that the more centers which take part in the research, the better. I think that if Parnia was able to show that these experiences are different in other ways, it would increase the interest in these phenomena amongst other mainstream researchers.

Linda

(Somewhat facetious) addition: the Greysons, the Fenwicks, and the Satoris, and the Woerlees, the Blackmores, and the Novellas of the debate, all make a pact that if any of them ever end up having a NDE, the first thing they'll do is try and pick up some verifiable info.

Good suggestions, Will.

With respect to the AWARE II study...

In addition to the targets, the other important factors are the monitoring of cerebral oxygenation, and perhaps the use of BIS monitors, which is a form of EEG monitoring. He has previously mentioned oximetry, but in the current blurbs about the project, it sounds like he also may be including EEG monitoring. I hope so. It would help with the problems of defining/refining the "NDE" that you mentioned.
https://renaissance.stonybrookmedicine.e...n/research

The Greyson scale has never been validated, as far as I can tell. To validate it you would take an unselected group of subjects (say, those who have had cardiac arrest) and see first who identifies as having had an NDE. Then you would apply the Greyson scale to everyone and see who the scale identifies as having an NDE, and make a comparison.

I agree about making the narrative reports available. There are a few places where they are - in Penny Sartori's book on her research, and in some of the mainstream research which looks at any and all experiences following medical crises (not just those NDE researchers label as NDE's). The reports show that a wide variety of realer-than-real, life-altering, vivid, detailed, and/or veridical experiences are had, which are not labelled as "NDE" (because they don't contain a spiritual element). And they show that most of the experiences which are labelled "NDE" by the Greyson scale aren't the sort of rich, life-altering experiences we are used to hearing about at places like IANDS.

I know it is heretical to suggest this (at least, I would have considered it a nonsensical suggestion a few years ago), but I have been looking into this in great detail, and I suspect that the "NDE" may not be a distinct experience when placed into the context of all experiences (by asking for and attending to only a "special" handful of experiences, we give ourselves the impression that there is something special or different about those experiences). If Parnia found another way to distinguish a set of experiences, and that set also correlated strongly with the description of the classic NDE experience, that would be a tremendous help.

I agree that the more centers which take part in the research, the better. I think that if Parnia was able to show that these experiences are different in other ways, it would increase the interest in these phenomena amongst other mainstream researchers.

Linda

If I hadn't seen this post with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. A masterpiece in the inimitable style of Stanley Unwin ! Good on you, Linda!

I’ve no problem with your suggestions. But I do think these hospital studies are too difficult. I also think that AWARE II’s lack of hits on hidden visual targets will - unfortunately - pretty much kill off hospital studies of this type.

So I’d be looking at all sorts of future laboratory studies that test with light, electric & magnetic shielding, and comparing results with tests that are not magnetically shielded. Controlling for magnetic fields, electrical fields and light in experiments is going to become crucial.

More lab work for anything under the parapsychology heading would be great, but if you're investigating what goes on in the dying process specifically, I don't know that there's an alternative to hospital studies.

I know it is heretical to suggest this (at least, I would have considered it a nonsensical suggestion a few years ago), but I have been looking into this in great detail, and I suspect that the "NDE" may not be a distinct experience when placed into the context of all experiences (by asking for and attending to only a "special" handful of experiences, we give ourselves the impression that there is something special or different about those experiences). If Parnia found another way to distinguish a set of experiences, and that set also correlated strongly with the description of the classic NDE experience, that would be a tremendous help.

It's not clear to me if by "NDE" you're referring to the classic Western NDE, or the broader body of experiences that can happen at the point of death.

We could rerun Borjigin’s dying rodent studies, but with one group of rodents shielded in mumetal light-tight boxes.

I've had the same idea. If transmission theory is true and is an electromagnetic phenomenon then it is plausible that one of the possibilities for putting rodents in sufficiently shielded containers could result in their demise. A result that should otherwise be unexplainable through other means than a form of soul hypothesis.