Pam Reynolds' NDE--the "clicks": Continuous or discontinuous?

To make my view at this point as clear as possible: I do think, based on what I currently know, that it's very likely that Reynolds did experience an OBE with truly anomalous veridical perceptions.

If you will only go so far as "likely" rather than "certain", may I ask which other explanations do you consider as alternatives? When I say "explanation" I don't mean vague hand-waving, but a specific, detailed explanation which accounts for all of the details.

Hello tim,

What I mean to say is that I haven't seen a study that provides empirical data--which I could inspect myself--that are sufficiently strong to establish the impossibility of anesthesia awareness in "burst suppression." 

With respect to Reynolds' being monitored for anesthesia awareness, it unfortunately seems that the EEG monitoring used in surgical settings isn't reliable enough to exclude the possibility of anesthesia awareness with full confidence: https://ekja.org/journal/view.php?doi=10...4.66.5.339 https://link.springer.com/article/10.100...014-0061-x.

Okay but that's not the point here. Burst suppression is the deepest level of anaesthesia possible without killing the patient (apparently) and it excludes anaesthesia awareness. That's one of the reasons why they do it.  Also (lack of) brain waves are not the only monitor. 

Electrophysiological Monitoring
With this technique, intraoperative monitoring includes recording the spontaneous electroencephalographic (EEG) activity, somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEP's), and brain-stem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP's). The suppression of EEG activity by barbiturates is used to titrate an effective dose for cerebral protection. 1The preservation of SSEP's is used to confirm the integrity of sensory conduction.

The two test modalities (SSEP monitoring <end evoked potential recording) complement each other. The EEG recording is a sensitive index of generalized cortical activity and a precise measure of a cerebroprotective barbiturate dose.~9 The SSEP is a more specific response of intact sensory pathway conduction that persists despite barbiturate-induced EEG burst suppression. Spontaneous EEG activity is lost when body temperature is below 2SOC and cerebral blood flow is 21' to 30 cc/100 gm/min. The SSEP's persist to hypothermic levels as low as 18° to 20T and flows of 10 to 15 ~;:/ 100 gm/min. Together they can be monitored to achieve optimum doses of barbiturates and min:::-:2 ! retraction of neural structures before hypothermic 2X[size=7]rest. [/size]

Just for anyone interested, this is the clear statement from Spetzler's paper about burst suppression being sought early. Spetzler pioneered this operation in the States. Other more recent practitioners seek burst suppression later (apparently) 
    
[size=4]Our experience with profound hypothermia and circulatory arrest indicates that prearrest, precooling administration of barbiturates (thiopental) in quantities sufficient to maintain burst suppression of EEG activity has not been deleterious and probably has improved cerebral protection.
http://ether.stanford.edu/library/neuroa...reated.pdf POSTED BELOW [/size]


You don't have to accept the statements above but you ought to of course. Materialists don't; they just persist with their own versions that never happened. That's how important the issue seems to be to to them.

Lastly, there was a second veridical set of observations when she was being rewarmed. Hearing the music, seeing her body jump etc. Debunkers have to get rid of those, too but they can't.

Just for anyone interested, this is the clear statement from Spetzler's paper about burst suppression being sought early. Spetzler pioneered this operation in the States. Other more recent practitioners 
    
"Our experience with profound hypothermia and circulatory arrest indicates that prearrest, precooling administration of barbiturates (thiopental) in quantities sufficient to maintain burst suppression of EEG activity has not been deleterious and probably has improved cerebral protection. "

This is a partially accurate report (which I'm sure most will have seen before so apologies) an excerpt from "Beyond human limits".

From 2.10 to 2.33 Spetzler explains the sequence of events. Patient put to sleep (actually on an ice bed to cool her down)
and then given a drug that has the power to get rid of all your brainwaves.

Unfortunately, they then move it on to much further in the operation and eventually standstill...and then they bring Pam on to narrate the initial part of her experience (the sight of the bone saw and hearing the conversation) as though it had occurred during standstill which it hadn't.

It occurred when Spetzler was taking off her eye socket and the cardiac surgeon Camilla Mican was trying to hook her up to the by-pass machine to completely cool her down. But it' still remarkable because she had no brainwaves at that time as Spetzler states.

@7.45  

"Without any brainwave activity, it is inconceivable to me that the brain can receive, internalise and maintain a memory...."

"What I have said that I have not seen (repeatedly) is research that justifies their statements-"

Burst suppression can be seen on a monitor. You can see the brainwaves suppressed--9 seconds out of ten-- and then one second of burst. You can't have consciousness or thoughts without brainwaves, it isn't possible. If you want to say that it is possible, kindly come back with an expert who says you can. I don't have the time or the inclination to go searching for information that is not necessary. Burst suppression is the gold standard and there is obviously no other way to prevent awareness other than murdering the patient.

 "With respect to Reynolds' second set of observations, the problem is that accounts have not been consistent as to when exactly those observations occurred and what their content was. Sabom's original telling of Reynolds' NDE in Light and Dark (1998) provides no indication that Reynolds saw and felt her body "jump" twice. It does mention that she was shocked twice, and it is therefore possible that Reynolds' later mention of the two jumps was based on an inference from Sabom's (1998) statement about those shocks, if she read it, because I don't think that she made any documented mention of the jumps until well after Sabom's book was published."

I'm sorry but that's not right. My copy of Light and Death (not Dark) is in the attic and I'm not going up now, it's too hot. What I can tell you is that Sabom got a couple of things wrong, including that temperature you mentioned.

Pam reported everything to the surgeons as soon as she woke up. Karl Greene was the first to hear it and he went to Spetzler and then Spetzler paged the anaesthiologist. Her account of seeing her body jump and hearing the music was right there from the start, 3 years before Sabom was asked to check out her case. Karl Greene and Spetzler were witnesses to this.

Also, Sabom clearly indicates that "Hotel California" wasn't played until after Spetzler was done with Reynolds and her body had been resuscitated and substantially warmed. Here's the relevant part from Sabom:

That's right, Spetzler had left the room when she heard the music but she wasn't substantially warmed ...she was at a temperature of 27 degrees C and being defibrillated because her heart had stopped during the re-warming process. You can't be conscious at 27 degrees C and anyway she was effectively dead (Karl Greene)

I can tell you've been doing the rounds of all the information about the case on the web, including Keith Augustine's time line. The facts about the Reynolds case are (indeed) all in Rivas and Smit's book, "The Self does not die". If you can find anything specific in there which you think is not correct, stick it up and I'll see if I can provide an explanation. You won't find anything though, I assure you, they are meticulous researchers.

If you cannot deal with inquiry from a sympathetic interlocutor who is merely trying to get the facts straight, without jumping down their throat for having the audacity to get in the way of your inflexible understanding of things, you need to get a grip, badly. You exhibit the same dogmatism that I usually see only in debunkers.

That's over the top ! Where have I jumped down your throat, for heaven's sake ? 

You evidently aren't reading my posts very carefully, because the 27 degrees C figure reported in The Self Does not Die pertains to Reynolds' temperature at the time of defibrillation.

You seem to be trying to get me to account for every second of the operation for some reason but I wasn't there and anyway there's no need to. If you don't accept Pam's testimony that she heard the music at the same time she saw her body jump etc then leave the music out. They were playing that song in the operating theatre, fact ! When do you want her to have heard it ?

Doesn't matter anyway, because there's more than enough that's anomalous about her seeing and feeling her body jump. At that time she was being rewarmed at a temperature of 27 degrees (fact) and you can't be conscious at that temperature. Her heart had also stopped she was technically dead.

You seem to want me lay out in detail and account for every discrepancy between Sabom, Augustine and everyone else, until it satisfies you to the full. But you have the book and what is in the book is accurate. Either accept it or don't accept it but those are the facts. It has superseded Dr Michael Sabom's version to some degree but not entirely of course.

Edit: with reference to your persistent enquiries about burst suppression. If Hameroff, Woerlee, and the surgeons all accept that burst suppression removes any possibility of consciousness, why are you not prepared to accept that ? Think about it logically...how can lucid thoughts with reasoning and memory formation be formed without any electrical activity of the brain ?