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Posted on: Monday, 13 June 2005, 18:00 CDT

Near-Death Experiences Are Attracting the Attention of DistinguishedResearchers

When Deb Foster died in a San Diego hospital, she found herself on a stairway surrounded by cats and dogs andmesmerized by a celestial blue sky, the likes of which she had never seen on Earth.

When it was Mary Clare Schlesinger's turn, she hovered above her bed in the intensive-care unit, watching herhusband and daughter react in shock and fathomless grief at the thought of her passing.

Beverly Brodsky said she went on a spectacular journey through a tunnel of intense light, a magic ride with angelsand a shapeless God to a place of perfect knowledge, wisdom, truth and justice.

All three said the journeys on which they embarked while "clinically dead," a period of a few moments when theirhearts stopped, transformed their lives and left them with no fear of death.

They are not alone.

Many patients -- a notable study says nearly one in five -- who are revived following cardiac arrest, report memoriesof their brief time at death's door. They undergo a lucid, often indelible experience, even though they wereunconscious with flat brain scans during the moments in which their hearts were still.

The near-death experiences, or NDEs, described by the three San Diego patients contain many of these typicallyreported elements: An out-of-body experience; acute awareness; moving through a void or tunnel toward bright light;meeting deceased relatives; a life review; feelings of intense joy, profound peace -- a feeling so blissful they longedto remain; and seeing a point of no return.

Increased survival rates from faster responses to cardiac-arrest calls, extensive CPR training, development ofportable defibrillators and other improved methods of resuscitation mean more people could be expected to havenear-death experiences.

Though it may sound like the stuff of supermarket tabloids or the latest New Age religion, NDEs are attracting theattention of distinguished practitioners who study the body and mind.

"Some may say this is the brain's survival mechanism, that there is a physical explanation," said Dr. Vivian Ellis, anobstetrician at Scripps Memorial Hospital who resuscitated Foster after assisting with her Caesarean section. "But Ithink there is definitely a spiritual aspect to this."

Ellis has practiced obstetrics at Scripps for 15 years and said she has had several patients who reported NDEs toher.

"Whatever happens, it is more than science," she said. "This raises fascinating questions about humanconsciousness, and about light and time."

Yet many physicians remain skeptical about near-death reports.

Dr. Robert Sarnoff, a pulmonologist who revived Schlesinger in February 2001, said that in 25 years of taking careof gravely ill patients, she was the only one who has reported an NDE.

"It is not a big topic on my radar screen," Sarnoff said.

Other cardiologists and trauma specialists declined to even discuss the subject,as did doctors at Torrance MemorialMedical Center.

Dr. Pim van Lommel said he often encounters this response from colleagues.

Van Lommel is a cardiologist in the Netherlands who led a 13- year study of the NDE phenomena. The results werepublished in 2001 in the British medical journal Lancet.

"NDE is not a rare phenomenon," said van Lommel in an e-mail interview. Yet NDEs are, to many physicians, "aninexplicable phenomenon and hence an ignored result of survival in a critical medical situation."

"Physicians must be open and must take the time to listen to patients without prejudice."

Dead for more than 3 minutes

After her baby was delivered Dec. 11, 2002, Foster was wheeled into a recovery room. As attendants moved herfrom gurney to bed, she suffered an amniotic-fluid embolism, a rare obstetric emergency in which amniotic fluidentered her bloodstream, passed into her lungs and caused cardiac arrest.

For more than three minutes, the then-42-year-old was

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clinically dead. Though unconscious, Foster says she hadthe most clear and profound experience of her life:

"I left that room and went to a staircase that was going upinto the sky. It was so high, up past the clouds. I am afraidof heights, but I had no fear, even though there were norailings," she said.

"I could look off to the distance and see beautiful rollinghills. The sky was the most unimaginable color of blue thatdoesn't exist in this life.

"There is simply peace. No chaos. No pain; the mostserene place you can imagine, a perfect moment in time."

Foster said she believed in God but questioned her faithand was uncertain about an afterlife before thisexperience.

"Now there is no question in my mind; there is a God, there is a heaven."

Scientific analysis

Van Lommel noted that the effects of NDEs on patients "seem similar worldwide, across all cultures."

He said he became interested after reading the book Return From Tomorrow by George Ritchie, an Army privatewho in 1943 was revived after "dying" from a bout of pneumonia.

"I started to ask patients who had survived a cardiac arrest if they could remember something" from when they wereunconscious, van Lommel said.

That led to a study of cardiac patients who had lapsed into unconsciousness because of anoxia (deficiency ofoxygen) at 10 Dutch hospitals between 1988 and 1992.

The patients ranged in age from 26 to 92; 75 percent were men. Most were interviewed within five days of beingclinically dead.

Of 344 patients, 62 -- or 18 percent -- remembered something of the time they were dead, van Lommel said.

Two-thirds of those (41 patients) had a "core," or extremely vivid, NDE while the other 21 were determined to havehad a superficial NDE, he said.

Dr. Ellis of Scripps said the fact that most resuscitated patients do not report NDEs may be likened to the fact thatsome people vividly remember dreams while others have no memory of them at all.

Surviving patients in van Lommel's study who reported NDEs were interviewed again at two- and eight-yearintervals, and compared with a control group of patients who did not have the experience.

Researchers were struck, van Lommel said, by how the NDE patients had been transformed.

Nearly all had no fear of death, believed in an afterlife, and strongly believed that what was truly important in life was"love and compassion for oneself, for others and for nature."

More questions than answers

Researchers ranging from those with scientific degrees to devotees of the paranormal to practitioners of New Agereligions agree that the phenomenon of near-death experiences raises more questions than can currently beanswered.

One is: If NDE is physiologically based, why doesn't every patient who recovers from cardiac arrest or coma reportthem?

And if patients whose hearts and brain activity have stopped remember vivid experiences, what does that say aboutthe origin of the conscious mind?

In 1970, when Beverly Brodsky was 20 and living in Venice, the motorcycle she was riding on was hit by a car drivenby a drunken driver.

Brodsky said she suffered severe head injuries and lacerations to her face. "They released me from the hospital withno pain medication. I was in agony."

Though raised in a Jewish family, Brodsky said she was an agnostic at the time. As she lay in bed, Brodsky said,she feared she would pass out from the pain.

"I wanted to die. I remember praying: 'God, if you are there, take me.' With that prayer, I was lifted up out of my body.I had these terrible head injuries and pain, and I had been legally blind before. But suddenly my eyesight wasperfect.

"On the ceiling was an angel in flowing white robes that glowed from within, like a lantern. I believe I was clinicallydead at that point.

"He took my hand, and we flew out the window," Brodsky said. "I had no fear. We were over the ocean, and aboveus was this dark area. At the end of it was a pinpoint of light, brighter than anything I had ever seen. It was like atunnel, and we went into the tunnel.

"It was a light that contained all things; everything that ever was or will be was in this light.

"There were no words, no form, no face, no structure. All communication happened telepathically. I thought, well thisisn't the guy on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, but this must be God."

Brodsky has three shelves of books about NDE in her home. She moderates a monthly meeting for those who havehad such experiences and is active in national NDE groups.

"I have never come to doubt my experience," she said. "I see it as a great gift from God. I'm honored I was allowedto remember."

Long relegated to the realm of the paranormal, NDE burst on the scene 30 years ago when Raymond Moody, anEast Coast psychiatrist, published Life After Life, examining reports of near-death experiences -- a term Moodycoined. It sold 10 million copies worldwide.

Other books, articles and studies followed, including several by Kenneth Ring, now professor emeritus of psychologyat the University of Connecticut and co-founder of the International Association for Near-Death Studies.

Ring studied thousands of NDE reports, including some by blind patients. He concluded that religious orientation wasnot a factor. An atheist was as likely to have one as someone devoutly religious, according to Ring, who retired fromthe NDE field in the late 1990s.

Regardless of their backgrounds, most patients were convinced they were in the presence of some supreme beingand loving power, and had glimpsed a life yet to come.

Ring, who concluded NDEs do not have the rambling, disconnected nature of hallucination, said patients whoreported them came away with strong feelings of self-acceptance, a great concern for others and more appreciativeof life -- more loving and more spiritual.

A will to return

Mary Clare Schlesinger, 56, is among the apparent minority who did not see religious overtones in the near-deathexperience.

"I had an out-of-body experience. But I see it as part of life," she said.

Schlesinger suffered respiratory failure four years ago from complications due to post-polio syndrome and a severevirus. She was placed on life support and realized she was dying.

"Time slowed down, enabling me to go through all of my life and consciously forgive everyone who had ever hurtme," she said. "Then it was easy to let go."

Schlesinger, who was raised Roman Catholic, said that from her perch in the hospital room, she looked down andclearly saw herself in bed and her husband and daughter at her bedside.

"As soon as I saw Rebecca and Steve's faces, all the energy and strength available went into coming back," shesaid. "Survival was more about love. The love I have for life and the people I love and the love they have for me isvery powerful."

Skeptics weigh in

NDEs can be explained by neurochemistry and are the result of brain states that occur due to a dying, demented ordrugged brain, claims Robert Todd Carroll in The Skeptics Dictionary.

Carroll cites British researcher Susan Blackmore's conclusion that the feelings of extreme peacefulness -- almostuniversal among NDE reports -- are the result of endorphins released due to the extreme stress of the situation.

"There are two basic hypotheses," said Paul Kurtz, a retired philosophy professor and founder of the Committee forthe Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.

"One, something leaves the body, the spirit or soul, goes to another realm, returns and reports. Two, this is aphysiological process that alters consciousness, triggers bright lights, tunnel vision, out-of-body experiences and thelike. That latter makes much more sense to me."

Van Lommel concedes that "neurophysiological processes must play some part in NDE."

And, he says, "NDE-like experiences have been reported after the use of drugs like ketamine, LSD or (psilocybin)mushrooms."

But the perception of light, sound flashes and recollections with drug use are more fragmented and far lesspanoramic than that of an NDE, he said.

Most compelling to van Lommel and other NDE researchers is what the experience suggests about the nature ofhuman consciousness.

"We finally should consider the possibility that death, like birth, may well be a mere passing from one state ofconsciousness to another," he said.

Source: Daily Breeze

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