AWARE Update - Peer Review Complete

There may be many variables to NDEs, but *experiments* work best by excluding as many as possible, or by holding them constant in favor of one. If this cannot be done, it becomes difficult to draw conclusions that are (scientifically) worthwhile. Hence the need for what the percipient might in principle view or hear to be a controlled circumstance. Kudos to aware for at least trying to do this. it was never going to be an easy gig.

Again, if there is a better *controllable* test of the psi-claim in NDEs, I'd like to here what people think that would be.
Well, even just the practice of performing prospective cohort studies is an improvement over collecting anecdotes. And interviewing subjects about their recollections before the subjects receive any feedback would be another step forward. Sartori managed to accomplish this in her study. I don't think Parnia was able to...the interview of the remarkable NDE/OBE case was described as taking place a year after the event and long after the various players had identified themselves to the subject.

Linda
 
Thank you for all the requests for information regarding the release of the AWARE Study. We understand the study has completed its peer review process and will be published in the coming weeks in the medical journal Resuscitation.

The paper might be out soon but we already know the results. The experiment was a failure.

As part of the AWARE study Parnia and colleagues have investigated out of body claims by using hidden targets placed on shelves that could only be seen from above. Parnia has written "if no one sees the pictures, it shows these experiences are illusions or false memories". Parnia issued a statement indicating that the first phase of the project has been completed and the results are undergoing peer review for publication in a medical journal. No subjects saw the images mounted out of sight according to Parnia's early report of the results of the study at an American Heart Association meeting in November 2013. Οnly two out of the 152 patients reported any visual experiences, and one of them described events that could be verified.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Parnia

And here was the source:

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/science-tech/scientists-looking-closer-at-what-happens-when-body-dies
 
It's very interesting that Sheldrake claims, with a dog called "Jay-Tee" I believe, that this pet could tell when its owner was setting out for home up to 80% of the time (randomly selected).

Now if that's a real effect, it makes me wonder if there isn't a way of "using" beloved pets in an NDE/arrest scenario in the attempt to show that some kind of "psychic link" was happening.
 
It's very interesting that Sheldrake claims, with a dog called "Jay-Tee" I believe, that this pet could tell when its owner was setting out for home up to 80% of the time (randomly selected).

Now if that's a real effect, it makes me wonder if there isn't a way of "using" beloved pets in an NDE/arrest scenario in the attempt to show that some kind of "psychic link" was happening.

Well, anecdotally, Peter Fenwick stated that there was a hospice where a cat would spend time near the bed of those who were close to popping their cloggs. So that's somewhat similar.
 
Well, anecdotally, Peter Fenwick stated that there was a hospice where a cat would spend time near the bed of those who were close to popping their cloggs. So that's somewhat similar.

There are lots of stories like this, though I don't know how you'd do a formal study that would rule out mundane factors.

One thing I don't get is why spend so much time trying to see if those near death have OBEs? There are people who claim to have OBEs without being near death - they might happen to be on drugs like ayahuasca at the time but that seems more controllable than waiting and hoping a small group within a subset of patients sees some stickers?

Do Parnia and others already think OBEs are well established via remote viewing experiments? And now it's a matter of seeing if a brain that's largely/completely shut down can manifest them?
 
I can't speak for the hospice cat, but in Sheldrake's protocol anyway, you monitor activity of the animal on multiple trials to see if it is unevenly correlated with the moments when the owner decides to return home and the return phase of the journey, all randomly chosen.

I think this has potential for the pets (at home) of owners (in critical care). Should they arrest would the animal detect the crisis as evidenced by correlated activity? This has the advantage of the ftont-loaded 100% emotional investment of the animal, without decay or boredom, as Sheldrake has indeed noted with his "pets returning home" cases.
 
I am actually performing an experiment right now that will provide proof/disproof of the afterlife. You are all performing it too. Some of you will finish yours before me, some after. At it's conclusion, it is guaranteed to provide stronger evidence than AWARE or any other lab study ever could - but only for you.

So from one perspective, I am very interested in seeing the AWARE results. From another perspective, I recognize that the outcome will be insignificant compared to the results of my own study.

I am content to wait and see what happens. IMO, it will be stranger than any of our theories or anything we have imagined. I am in no hurry to conclude my personal study, but I have to admit - it will be exciting when the time comes. Like an explorer venturing off into unknown territory with only a vague hint of what to expect...
 
One thing I don't get is why spend so much time trying to see if those near death have OBEs? There are people who claim to have OBEs without being near death - they might happen to be on drugs like ayahuasca at the time but that seems more controllable than waiting and hoping a small group within a subset of patients sees some stickers?

If I recall correctly, AWARE is primarily a study about resuscitation techniques and evaluating hospitals in how well they perform this function. Any and all parts regarding the veridical or illusory nature of NDEs is secondary, and unless I'm mistaken not every hospital involved in the study even takes the secondary component seriously--I seem to recall it being mentioned that their one veridical case happened somewhere who decided not to bother putting the stickers up in the first place, so they did get a hit condition and one of the experimenters botched it. Really it seems only the people who already have a stake in pro/anti afterlife who think this study is about nothing but testing NDEs.

As for testing OBEs directly; Karl Osis tried this once and found that it takes a very long time to get potentials to a point where they can provide any results which can be confirmed, and this was using a blinded study where they had to peer in to a room where objects were placed that they never saw inside beforehand. At one point they even tried putting some kind of special lens in, to see whether someone was remote perceiving or actually projecting an entity in to the room. Confusingly, they had reports of both situations and found it correlated to whether the subject reported a "clean exit" or not, as not all attempts at projection worked particularly well. They concluded that the effects were interesting but if you totaled every trial the results were horrible (only the later of hundreds had any positive result).

So you would have to be well read on what we think we know about sensitives to design an OBE protocol--which most researchers aren't--be able to get funding for a potentially multi-year project that isn't piggybacking on a study people already want to do--which isn't really plausible in this climate--and include a serious spin-up time in the experiment. And even if you do this, people will still claim that you were just training them how to read your biases or that because you didn't use people off the street it doesn't count, et cetera. Add to that DMT is (ironically) a controlled substance, and you just involved having to get research licenses for drugs which takes even more time and bureaucracy. Its just not cost effective.
 
As for testing OBEs directly; Karl Osis tried this once and found that it takes a very long time to get potentials to a point where they can provide any results which can be confirmed, and this was using a blinded study where they had to peer in to a room where objects were placed that they never saw inside beforehand. At one point they even tried putting some kind of special lens in, to see whether someone was remote perceiving or actually projecting an entity in to the room. Confusingly, they had reports of both situations and found it correlated to whether the subject reported a "clean exit" or not, as not all attempts at projection worked particularly well. They concluded that the effects were interesting but if you totaled every trial the results were horrible (only the later of hundreds had any positive result).

If you can ever get hold of the original of that paper, I would like to see it, and I'm willing to pay. It's one of two Osis papers on my wanted list, published by the ASPR that I have been unable to get hold of. This and the other one regularly come up in discussions, but I have yet to actually find anybody who has a copy.
 
Maybe some kind of field effect, but at first glance this seems doubtful to me.

Your almost certainly going to find the classic cardiac arrest type NDE OBE is partly due to external fields temporarily being processed by the experients brain, in the absence of it's own endogenous EM field... IMO of course ;)
 
I am actually performing an experiment right now that will provide proof/disproof of the afterlife. You are all performing it too...

"It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living."
- Terry Pratchett
 
Except that Mystic can only know the result of his 'experiment' if it returns in the positive.
 
That and there is that one veridical case they've mentioned. Some will say it's not enough, but you know what they say about white crows...

My suspicion would be that veridical in this context means things happening around the body during arrest, not target material beyond the sensory ken of the patient.
 
My personal feeling is that if psi really exists, it's not actually any kind of transmission or signal from brain to brain at all. It runs something like this: a suspicion that the world's information body is finally a single organic unity, and we are all, as it were, fractal adumbrations of it. To say this in alternative words, deep within each mind somewhere is carried the entire formal structure of the world. Normally this is inaccessible, but, on this thesis, portions of it can be "sparked" to conscious wakefulness by such things as a strong emotional connection with a particular individual or animal. There is no "sender" and "receiver" and no "energetic" or "field" signal will ever be found, imo. The information "surfaces" within the individual, because that is in fact its source, and deep within the individual is none other than the gigantic shadow of the world itself...
 
My personal feeling is that if psi really exists, it's not actually any kind of transmission or signal from brain to brain at all. It runs something like this: a suspicion that the world's information body is finally a single organic unity, and we are all, as it were, fractal adumbrations of it. To say this in alternative words, deep within each mind somewhere is carried the entire formal structure of the world. Normally this is inaccessible, but, on this thesis, portions of it can be "sparked" to conscious wakefulness by such things as a strong emotional connection with a particular individual or animal. There is no "sender" and "receiver" and no "energetic" or "field" signal will ever be found, imo. The information "surfaces" within the individual, because that is in fact its source, and deep within the individual is none other than the gigantic shadow of the world itself...
'fractal adumbrations'! Take a bow, sir. :)
 
I'm not arguing that consciousness per se is produced by the brain. But as I sympathise with NM. Like Sam Harris. I think the contents of consciousness are perhaps a brain thing. That said, throw psi and the GCP in and you have a mother of problems.
You're creating a problem where there may be none. There's another option. The brain has a capability to do things such as psi just as it's capable of doing so many other remarkable things. When the brain dies so do those remarkable things.
 
My personal feeling is that if psi really exists, it's not actually any kind of transmission or signal from brain to brain at all. It runs something like this: a suspicion that the world's information body is finally a single organic unity, and we are all, as it were, fractal adumbrations of it. To say this in alternative words, deep within each mind somewhere is carried the entire formal structure of the world. Normally this is inaccessible, but, on this thesis, portions of it can be "sparked" to conscious wakefulness by such things as a strong emotional connection with a particular individual or animal. There is no "sender" and "receiver" and no "energetic" or "field" signal will ever be found, imo. The information "surfaces" within the individual, because that is in fact its source, and deep within the individual is none other than the gigantic shadow of the world itself...

This is similar to holographic paradigm.
 
"I was invited to write an article on this topic for Missouri Medicine, a peer-reviewed medical journal published by the Missouri State Medical Association. You can read the journal online here: http://www.omagdigital.com/publication?i=177483. See the Sept/Oct issue for the beginning of a series of articles on NDEs.

My article was published in a 2014 issue, so it isn't available online yet. The bottom line of my argument was that the primary anomalies associated with NDEs are reports of veridical perceptions that could not have been known or inferred from the perspective of the patient.

For someone who is not familiar with clairvoyance, this type of report could be taken as evidence that the mind has literally separated from the body (i.e., gone OBE). The literal interpretation is consistent with survival of consciousness. But veridical reports of distant events is virtually the same as what we know as clairvoyance-in-the-living. So the OBE aspects of NDEs do not necessarily imply an actual separation from the body, and hence NDEs can be interpreted as a particularly vivid form of clairvoyance in brains that are not operating normally."

There is no necessary connection between psi and afterlife, but if occur instances of psi on the verge of death, it is more likely that psi is limited -not generated- by the nervous system and mind continue after death.
 
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