Visual

This visual displays an out of body experience. Out of body experiences or OBEs are an aspect of near death experiences that are truly unexplainable. They are the one part that both science or medicine cannot explain. A well known example of an OBE is the story of "Maria". She had an NDE during a cardiac arrest in 1977. Afterwards, she told her social worker that while she was being resuscitated, she was floating outside the hospital and saw a tennis shoe on a window ledge, which she described in great detail. The social worker confirmed Maria's story and realized that there was no way Maria could have have seen all the details of the show from her hotel room. I tried to find an image that depicted this case better, but I could not. Instead, this image depicts what an out of body experience simply is.

Research Blog 5- Revised RQ & Works Cited

 My revised research questions are stated below:

Can near death experiences be explained by psychological/ physiological reasonings or are they actually a glimpse of what happens when we die? If they are not spiritual events, then how can science explain what should be impossible? How can events such as out of body experiences even be possible?

Works Cited:

Scholarly Sources:

Fischer, John Martin, and Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin. Near-Death Experiences : Understanding Visions of the Afterlife, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/lib/rutgers-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4545351.

Hagan, John C.. The Science of near-Death Experiences, University of Missouri Press, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rutgers-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4811265

Lichfield, Story by Gideon. “The Science of Near-Death Experiences.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 23 Nov. 2015, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-science-of-near-death-experiences/386231/?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share. 

Long, Jeffrey. “Near-death experience. Evidence for their reality.” Missouri medicine vol. 111,5 (2014): 372-80. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6172100/ 

Morse, Melvin., and Paul Perry. Closer to the Light : Learning from Children’s Near-Death Experiences . Villard Books, 1990.

Murray, Craig D. Psychological Scientific Perspectives on Out-of-Body and Near-Death Experiences. Nova Science Publishers, 2009.

Literature Review #3

 Visual:

Citation:

Lichfield, Story by Gideon. “The Science of Near-Death Experiences.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 23 Nov. 2015, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-science-of-near-death-experiences/386231/?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share. 

Author/ Summary:

This article was written by Gideon Lichfield, a senior editor at quartz and writer for The Atlantic.

The article is a good segway into understanding the topic of NDEs and the research that has been conducted regarding them. Lichfield discusses a majority of the aspects of the NDE field, from the tennis shoe case to the Aware study to the debate over consciousness. He remains unbiased and presents both sides of the debate over NDEs; whether or not they are a real and spiritual event or just a result of brain functions. In addition, he explores well known cases of NDEs, but also presents the opposing argument. 

Key Terms:

One of the key terms of this article is “consciousness”. Lichfield goes into great detail regarding the debate over consciousness or the boundary between life and death. Even if it was proved that NDEs are just a mere result of spasms in the brain, this poses a challenge to the current understanding and definition of consciousness. Another key term from this article is scientific theories. Lichfield explains that what makes a scientific theory just that is that it must be testable. He goes on to describe how the current scientific and medical theories and explanations about NDEs cannot be tested against or for and therefore, cannot be definitive. 

Quotes:

“One of the most celebrated is the story of “Maria,” a migrant worker who had an NDE during a cardiac arrest at a hospital in Seattle in 1977. She later told her social worker that while doctors were resuscitating her, she found herself floating outside the hospital building and saw a tennis shoe on a third-floor window ledge, which she described in some detail. The social worker went to the window Maria had indicated, and not only found the shoe but said that the way it was placed meant there was no way Maria could have seen all the details she described from inside her hospital room.” (Lichfield).

“The results of the Aware study immediately highlight the key problem with this kind of research: it’s very hard to get enough data. Over four years, the study recorded a total of 2,060 cardiac arrests...Of those two, one became too ill to interview further. That left just one subject who could recount what he’d seen in detail” (Lichfield).

“ The patient, a 57-year-old man, described floating up to a corner of the room, seeing medical staff work on him, and watching himself be defibrillated. According to Parnia’s paper, several of the details he described checked out. What’s more, after triangulating the patient’s description with the workings of the defibrillator, the researchers think he may have seen things that happened for as long as three minutes after his heart stopped.” (Lichfield).

Value:

I find this article to be extremely valuable. While it may not be a peer reviewed source, it certainly remains unbiased and factual. Lichfield presents both sides of the debate and discusses widely known cases that support the reality of NDEs.

Literature Review 2

 Visual:

Citation:

Long, Jeffrey. “Near-death experience. Evidence for their reality.” Missouri medicine vol. 111,5 (2014): 372-80. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6172100/ 

Summary & Author:

Jeffery Long is an oncologist and world renowned expert on near death experiences. He also established the Near Death Experience Research Foundation. This article describes the nine lines of evidence that support the reality of near death experiences. Some of the evidence includes lucid and organized experiences while clinically dead, out of body experiences, and near death experiences occurring in the blind.Dr. Long uses multiple lines of evidence to prove the idea that near death experiences cannot be medically explained or explained by any known brain function. NDEs are real events that simply cannot be explained by any known medical explanation. 

Key Terms:

One of the key terms of this article is out of body experiences. Nearly 45% of people who have a near-death experience report an OBEs, which can involve them seeing and hearing earthly events from a perspective that is apart from and usually above their physical bodies. Studies have found that near death experiencers can often recount their resuscitations in great details that they normally would not know about. Another key term is brain function. Long discusses how there have been over 20 different explanations of NDEs over the years. However he also mentions that if any of these explanations were plausible or realistic, then there would not be so many. There is just no way to explain NDEs through any known brain functions as of right now. 

Quotes: 

“The combination of the preceding nine lines of evidence converges on the conclusion that near-death experiences are medically inexplicable.” (Long)

“Multiple lines of evidence point to the conclusion that near-death experiences are medically inexplicable and cannot be explained by known physical brain function.” (Long)

“Very young children have near-death experience content that is strikingly similar to older children and adults. This is further evidence that NDEs are occurring independently of preexisting cultural beliefs, religious training, or awareness of the existence of NDE.” (Long)

Value:

This article discusses multiple pieces of evidence that support the reality of near death experiences. In addition, Long points out that there is no scientific or medical explanation behind near death experiences.