Jan. 13, 01:00 EDT
Can consciousness exist when the brain is off-line?
Jay Ingram

"Near-death experience." The words alone are enough to trigger angry disagreement. Skeptics, materialists, whatever you want to call them, dismiss these bizarre and intriguing phenomena as the last gasps of a dying brain. Believers, mind/body dualists, whatever you want to call them, take these reports at what seems to be their face value: real experiences reported by people who have had a glimpse of death and maybe even of something beyond.

Now there's a solid new report for both sides to chew on. The Dec. 15 issue of the British medical journal The Lancet published a report by a Dutch medical group on near-death experiences in a group of 344 patients who had suffered cardiac arrest. Sixty-two of these patients, 18 per cent of the total, reported having a near-death experience, an NDE.

To qualify for such an experience in this study patients had to remember having some or all of the following: an out-of-the-body experience, pleasant feelings, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel (literally), seeing deceased relatives or having the events of their life pass before their eyes.

Such events are the fabric of NDEs, and have been reported hundreds of times in a variety of near-fatal situations, including electrocution, anaphylactic shock and asphyxia. But such reports are largely anecdotal, whereas this is the first large-scale study. Its size alone allows the researchers to cast doubt on the oft-quoted argument that NDEs occur when the brain is starved of oxygen. Every single one of these 344 patients had a brain starved of oxygen, yet only relatively few had the experience. This suggests that the physiological impact of cardiac arrest doesn't automatically lead to an NDE. There must be something else.

Cardiac arrest is particularly interesting, because for some period of time the brain is flatlined — the electroencephalograph, the EEG, registers no measurable brain activity.

That in itself isn't remarkable. Nor are reports of NDEs. But put them together and you have something very intriguing.

It appears as if the memories of NDEs come from exactly the time when the brain is inactive. As the lead researcher, Dr. Pim van Lommel, said on @discovery.ca, "The only thing we could conclude is that there is consciousness during a flat EEG."

That claim is hard to swallow for about 99 per cent of brain researchers, who firmly believe that consciousness is a product of the brain and only the brain. So this report is not only likely to draw fire from those who suspect that reports of NDEs are covert attempts to push the paranormal agenda, but also from neuroscientists.

What is the evidence that these lucid — albeit weird — memories are formed when the brain is off-line? Other researchers who have found cases of NDEs among cardiac-arrest patients argue that memories from before the cardiac arrest tend to be focused on what is happening around the patient, while memories from just after are highly confused. Yet the memories of seeing dead relatives or moving down a tunnel fall into neither category. In this sense, NDEs are different from seizures, where nothing during the actual seizure itself is remembered.

To me, this is the most interesting part of the study. To go further and ask whether NDEs might offer a glimpse of the afterlife is to pose a question that science can't answer. But to suggest that a brain with no apparent electrical activity is conscious is another thing. And there are some hard questions that have been raised about this study.

Writing in the same issue of The Lancet, Christopher French of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at the University of London raises doubts about the accuracy of the memories of these patients. He argues that there's a good chance that some of the NDE memories are false, attempts by the brain to fill in the gap left by its inactivity.

Curiously, after two years, four patients from the control group of 37 (who had initially reported no NDE) had changed their minds and claimed they had actually had one. While the authors suggest these patients had merely been too shy to report an NDE in the first place, there was apparently no effort to check out this possibility with the patients themselves.

It is a provocative study, and we can only hope there will be more, designed to address some of the inevitable criticisms.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Ingram hosts the program @discovery.ca on the Discovery Channel.

I have contemplated for a long time, the question of whether a cell has a soul, memory,etc independent of the body and that the spirit, astral whatever is the manifestation of the.. composite soul(s) of them. Sigh, this is stuff Sci Fi is made of.. but as a mystic it works.. However, I end up with an image of the soul of a cell that merges with similar souls to make the soul of the heart that merges to make the soul of the body that merges to make the soul of the earth etc... so, we sing the body electric..

Sir Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff have suggested that consciousness exists at the cellular level. Many well respected and well credentialled scientists are joining their quantum consciousness movement.

Read more about it HERE

If their theory is correct, then all eukaryotic life forms have consciousness and that consciousness may be interconnected. That's why it's not a good idea to insult your house plants.

So, I have arrived at quantum sciences via the caballah and ouiji board (omit the board).. I was surprised to see an article at the referred site on caballah and consciousness. Now, the practical application is.... talk to your ailing parts and see what they need and get it for them... its that hookup that hasn't been proven that everyone believes works. (i.e. The Power of Positive Thinking, the Think systems etc.. ) I wonder if some cells/organs are more in tune than others... anyone self experimenting? It also opens the door to some beliefs about "healing" a different slant on acupuncture...

I have been told that when a healing herb is needed, a good shaman will ask the plant to prepare itself for the healing. If possible the patient will be introduced to the plant, otherwise the plant will be told of the patient and the symptoms. The shaman then gives the plant a day or more to prepare before he harvests it for medicine.

I can believe that there is communication there at all levels - conscious, subconscious and through shared consciousness. The excercise of communicating with the plant causes action to reinforce the shaman's faith (or confidence.) That faith or confidence will be communicated to the patient. It is also possible that the plant will produce chemicals that will assist in the healing. In My Humble Opinion, faith itself is a more powerful healer than any chemical.