Yes, but people have written whole books claiming to have undertaken hundreds of OOBEs. Yet when an offer is made, really quite a generous offer for them to demonstrate these abilities, an excuse is always found. I just don't buy it.
Now with respect to NDEs, it is true that they happen in a very difficult to control situation. And there, you have one of two choices. You either do what AWARE is trying to do...which is to bring formalism into the picture. It's very very hard, but it's worth doing...because if it is done properly, we have the potential of finding out whether the answer is YES or NO.
The other thing you can do is make what is essentially a belief-call and say "I CHOOSE to accept this non-formal evidence." But in doing so, you have to accept that you take on board a much more substantial risk of being wrong, and the error might well show up at a later point.
My instinct tells me there will be no target hits from AWARE. Instead, you will get non-formal rumors again, in other words alleged sightings that didn't actually involve the targets, and people will mistake this for formal evidence because it "came from the AWARE study."
Well if you're talking about those people who claim to have OBE's on command or whatever, then yea, I don't buy that either. I agree that if we're talking about those claims than yea I agree with you that they haven't been proven.
What I am strictly referring to are OBE's that occur during NDE's. The reason I focus on those is because there are various claims that these OBE's have been verified for accuracy.
I think there is always the chance of being wrong no matter what, but is it reasonable to accept that something is true given the weight of available evidence? I think so.
For example if I ever came across an NDE that followed this pattern;
1. Person has OBE
2. Person witnesses unique conversation (unique meaning it's not a conversation someone would reasonably expect to have occurred, i.e. "I hope person recovers, I am worried about person, etc.")
3. The witnessed event/conversation occurs in a location where physical hearing would be impossible even the person was healthy.
4. The people who are involved in the event/conversation verify the accuracy of this unique conversation.
5. All people involved have no motive for lying (i.e. financial, fame, etc).
I would consider that to be enough evidence to take these claims serious. With Viola Horton I think we had that, except it failed on point 4.
1. Viola has an OBE
2. She witnessed her brother-in-law talking to a neighbor of his, the conversation was rude in regards to Viola. This is unique because it is unlikely that Viola would expect to see a neighbor of her brother in law, it is unlikely that her brother in law would openly repeat this conversation to anyone else given the magnitude of the situation. Also Viola claims to have asked him about this, and that he denied it out of sheer embarrassment, until he finally confessed.
3. These events happened in locations outside of her hospital room
4. No known corroboration
5. Viola had no apparent motive to make these claims. She lived and died as an ordinary person would in Augusta, GA.