The most that medical science can explain, still leaves most of the NDE phenomenon unexplained - I mean why are NDE's about death and the idea of separating from the body, as opposed to any of the other things people dream about?
David
I think that is a valid question. Tell me if you think this is a valid consideration, that should be thought about when contemplating the answer:
NDEs are identified by getting a sufficiently high score on an NDE ratings scale, such as the Greyson scale. These scales have sepecific questions related to separation from the body, and death:
- Did you feel separated from your body?
- Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence, or hear an unidentifiable voice?
- Did you see deceased or religious spirits?
- Did you come to a border or point of no return?
So don't we have to ask if this is a selection effect?
Take AWARE. Here are the results in that study:
101 patients interviewed
46 no awareness
55 some awareness
46 memores incompatible with NDE, and no awareness of cardiac arrest events (median NDE scole 2)
9 compatible with NDE:
7 no auditory or vidual recall of CA events (median NDE score = 10)
2 had specific auditory/visual awareness
Here is the breakdown of those who scored on the NDE:
Unfortunately, the don't provide the breakdown further than that. As we can see here, the majority had experiences incompatible with the scale. Then you had a group that hit a low score with only 2 out of the whole hitting a high enough score to be classified as an NDE.
They include excerpts from some of the non-NDE reports (wish somewhere they included the complete data). There we see different contexts from the NDEs, but overlapping themes at times in terms of seeing light, seeing family members, being aware going to die. Some memory associated with medical procedure. Also events that did not overlap.
In the book they suggest terror-management theory to suggest why the theme of death might be there. I'm not sure they need to bring in that concept - you have people who have some awareness during their CA procedure. Information is being processed. Once one has some awareness that a serious medical crisis is going on it doesn't seem to me to be a big leap to thinking about death. Especially in those who perceive themselves in the room. But for others, who may be keying in to other experiences: you see a couple cases of feeling like dragged through water: the intubation may, if one became aware, give a sense of drowning.
Coming back to the main point: there is little question that the NDE scale applies a selection effect (That's its entire purpose after all). Given the nature of the scale, it is going to cluster people who have those kinds of experiences.
Even when you have just the NDEs summarized, you see that the 'core experience' as they call it, has a pretty wide distribution. It varies among studies but IIRC the most common ones are around 30% (I think a couple may have been around 50, depending on the study, I'd have to check).
What do you think? Even before we get to what we should conclude from it, do you agree that it is something that is important to discuss? I can't recall seeing any kind of detailed discussion of this in any NDE paper I've read. Maybe someone can say if it shows up in any of the books?