Profound NDEs and belief in survival

Hi everyone!

I'm doing research for an article I'm thinking about putting together and publishing, and I'm wondering whether this community could please help me with a few questions.

Has there ever been any exceptions to profound NDEs in terms of them seemingly always coming back certain of or at least believing in survival? Or is this something that always happen as far as we know? If there are exceptions, does anyone have any statistics on how often this exception occurs?

With profound NDE I mean someone who has scored at least 23-24 on the NDE Scale according to this definition. According to this official definition, if you have less than 7 on the NDE Scale then you don't have an NDE for research purposes, and if you have 7-14 on the NDE Scale then you have a subtle NDE, 15-23 is a deep NDE, and 23-32 is a profound NDE.

I've contacted a few NDE researchers, and they seem to agree that they at least have never encountered a person with a profound NDE who didn't at least believe in survival after their experience. But do you know of any positive sources for this claim? That there are many people with subtle NDEs who do not believe in survival afterward is not in dispute, and that the NDE aftereffect of belief in survival is strongly correlated with the depth of the NDE is already well-established in the literature. I'm just wondering whether there are any known exceptions of profound NDEs to this rule, or if there is any data to strongly support that this is the case. Or are there just books that compile a lot of the most impressive NDEs, like Kevin William's and Jody Long's books? In these books, for instance, there seem to be no exceptions either.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Hi everyone!

I'm doing research for an article I'm thinking about putting together and publishing, and I'm wondering whether this community could please help me with a few questions.

Has there ever been any exceptions to profound NDEs in terms of them seemingly always coming back certain of or at least believing in survival? Or is this something that always happen as far as we know? If there are exceptions, does anyone have any statistics on how often this exception occurs?

With profound NDE I mean someone who has scored at least 23-24 on the NDE Scale according to this definition. According to this official definition, if you have less than 7 on the NDE Scale then you don't have an NDE for research purposes, and if you have 7-14 on the NDE Scale then you have a subtle NDE, 15-23 is a deep NDE, and 23-32 is a profound NDE.

I've contacted a few NDE researchers, and they seem to agree that they at least have never encountered a person with a profound NDE who didn't at least believe in survival after their experience. But do you know of any positive sources for this claim? That there are many people with subtle NDEs who do not believe in survival afterward is not in dispute, and that the NDE aftereffect of belief in survival is strongly correlated with the depth of the NDE is already well-established in the literature. I'm just wondering whether there are any known exceptions of profound NDEs to this rule, or if there is any data to strongly support that this is the case. Or are there just books that compile a lot of the most impressive NDEs, like Kevin William's and Jody Long's books? In these books, for instance, there seem to be no exceptions either.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Are you enquiring if some people who have had deep NDE's (on the Greyson scale) don't subsequently believe they experienced an "afterlife" or a continuation of consciousness (as expert Pim Van Lommel prefers to describe it) ?

This is an area which is fraught with problems of "definition" and "interpretation." My answer (I'm not an expert BTW) is that the vast majority of people with an average score on the NDE scale believe that it does indicate a continuation of consciousness which is not necessarily the same thing as an "afterlife" (to be precise of course)

I don't know of anyone who has had a very deep NDE (score of 32 is it ?) that subsequently said they didn't believe what they experienced was a glimpse of another existence. But the problem is, there's nothing to stop someone making up an experience and then denouncing it...or vice-versa. So although reports of other worlds are fascinating, we can only really focus (evidence wise) on the out of body experience.

Which brings me nicely to a(n) NDE related by Kevin Songer, a plant biologist, which I posted in the NDE section on here.
Kevin's brainwaves were completely absent when his out of body experience occurred. (we can be confident of this by logical deduction). He was in fact to all intents and purposes, reversibly dead. That's the effective protocol of the operation.

Kevin is adamant that he experienced consciousness away from his body when his brain wasn't functioning. I think that clearly indicates that there is something else, that we continue to exist in a different form. However, Kevin has stated that he doesn't know if that means there is an "afterlife."  And that is a perfectly reasonable position for a scientist to hold. 

I agree with researchers Rivas and Smit that the evidence is already highly persuasive (as is evident in their excellent book "The Self does not die). However, the only evidence that will satisfy hard nosed sceptics is the double blind experiment currently being conducted in Aware 2.

Thank you for your reply tim!

Are you enquiring if some people who have had deep NDE's (on the Greyson scale) don't subsequently believe they experienced an "afterlife" or a continuation of consciousness (as expert Pim Van Lommel prefers to describe it) ?

That is correct, although I want to make clear once again that by now there's a defined difference between deep and profound NDEs, according to the 2013 article by Khanna and Greyson I cited in my original post.

This is an area which is fraught with problems of "definition" and "interpretation." My answer (I'm not an expert BTW) is that the vast majority of people with an average score on the NDE scale believe that it does indicate a continuation of consciousness which is not necessarily the same thing as an "afterlife" (to be precise of course)

I know and I agree. If you look at this article at page 12 for instance, you can see that the clear majority of NDErs believe in survival after their NDE, and that those who don't believe in survival after their NDE by and large were those who had subtle NDEs. The vast majority, but not all, of those with deep NDEs believe in survival afterward.

I don't know of anyone who has had a very deep NDE (score of 32 is it ?) that subsequently said they didn't believe what they experienced was a glimpse of another existence.

Thanks and yeah, I have the same impression. Are there any good sources for this, though?

But the problem is, there's nothing to stop someone making up an experience and then denouncing it...or vice-versa. So although reports of other worlds are fascinating, we can only really focus (evidence wise) on the out of body experience.

I'm not denying the fact that some people sometimes lie for attention, pettiness, or some other reason, although I don't think that's unique regarding the study of NDEs, but rather concerns all sciences that rely on testimonies to some degree.

However, Kevin has stated that he doesn't know if that means there is an "afterlife."  And that is a perfectly reasonable position for a scientist to hold. 

While I don't think the inference from disembodied consciousness to an afterlife is as huge of a leap as some others, I still agree, especially if he didn't experience anything resembling an afterlife during his NDE. Did he? Did he enter the light and encounter some other-worldly dimension as some other NDErs most definitely have?

Kevin is adamant that he experienced consciousness away from his body when his brain wasn't functioning. I think that clearly indicates that there is something else, that we continue to exist in a different form. However, Kevin has stated that he doesn't know if that means there is an "afterlife."  And that is a perfectly reasonable position for a scientist to hold. 

I agree with researchers Rivas and Smit that the evidence is already highly persuasive (as is evident in their excellent book "The Self does not die). However, the only evidence that will satisfy hard nosed sceptics is the double blind experiment currently being conducted in Aware 2.

Well, that's the thing. I read a paper by Bruce Greyson from a couple years ago, in which he commented on response to a rather vocal skeptic of NDEs. Bruce agreed with the skeptic that NDEs themselves are inconclusive as being indictive evidence of an afterlife, and may never be proof on their own. Especially non veridical/non transcendental NDEs. In the case of Kevin, it would be hard to make a call on the nature of an afterlife if he never experienced it! 

But where Dr Greyson disagreed with the skeptic, is the big picture of survival evidence as a whole including NDEs. On their own, NDEs are not enough for some people, but with all the other areas of parapsychology, psychical, and survival added in with it, that's where the convincing case stands.

I think if Kevin just read other people's OBE-NDEs and even better, shared near death experiences, I think he'd be a lot more sure of the idea. From his experience alone, he couldn't make the shift totally, but his case in amongst others is what does it for those who do stand convinced. As in the case of Rivas and Smit. They know the whole of it