Life After Death PART III (PARANORMAL)

We all should be reasonably open-minded skeptics and for psychic phenomena indicative of life after death, only accept the theory that there is survival of consciousness after physical death when theories along normal lines and/or ESP (psi) fail to account for all of the evidence.
∙ There is no doubt that in a relatively short period of time, science has made great strides in understanding the physical world. Because of this, many people believe that if presently there is not a scientific explanation for something, it is not a question of if it will be explained by science but a matter of when. Applying this to the various paranormal phenomena, these people believe science will either have a complete explanation in the future or it is just a deception of some sort. Generally speaking, there is strong evidence for some of the psychic phenomena but not to the point where it can be accepted as fact.
The extreme skeptics of the paranormal have a tendency to refute the least credible of paranormal examples; they seldom try to take on the best evidence and if they do they do not give very credible alternative explanations.
To do the former, is easy, the latter, near impossible. They also unfairly (and unscientifically I might add) tend to group all of the paranormal together and reject it all. Its not all or nothing and the same applies to the various evidence types for life after death. For instance, mediums communicating with the dead could be true but this has no relation with astrology being true or not - the two are independent of one another but this gets lost on some of the extreme skeptics in their overall outlook.
In fact, with the paranormal as it relates to life after death, there clearly are many cases of both deliberate deception (as we would expect due to the nature of the subject) and where there are alternative explanations. But these are not the cases we need to be scrutinizing to determine if they constitute evidence for life after death - although this is unfortunately what some skeptics do to present their conclusions against the paranormal. The cases that have no other plausible conventional explanation are the ones that need to be held to the test.
We also have to be careful with paranormal phenomena in that, even if the particular phenomena or, more commonly the case, elements of it can be induced, it does not necessarily mean or follow that this is the cause of the paranormal phenomena and the explanation for it. A non-paranormal analogy being, for example, certain drugs can induce euphoria in a person but when one normally is experiencing euphoria, it is real and occurs naturally without the effect of any drugs. Therefore, drug intake is not the explanation for euphoria normally experienced even though drugs can induce it.
It should be noted that the various aspects to the best paranormal phenomena cases have thus far been very difficult to account for collectively using natural scientific models.
A sensation that one is leaving or has left ones body has been induced under laboratory conditions without such actually taking place (without undergoing an OBE) - as have certain other elements of the OBE but never collectively to replicate an OBE anywhere even close to the full expansiveness of it. In fact, some OBEs (the weakest cases) are probably just a form of disorientation of spatial self. The latest research from two separate sets of experiments published in the August 24, 2007 magazine/journal Science showed that by using virtual reality technology, researchers were able to trick the subjects sensory system by creating a very convincing illusion so that they were perceiving their bodies from a new perspective which was outside of their actual physical bodies. The experiments only provided subjects with an image of disembodiment which was believable to them. Only a touch sensation (not an OBE) was induced which fooled the subjects. The subjects understood it to be just an illusion whereas people who have an OBE consider it to be a real experience. Something like this type of illusionary experience could account for some or even all of the OBEs some people occasionally report when experiencing sleep paralysis and even in certain medical conditions.
Having an OBE and obtaining information otherwise not attainable (eg. from another room) has not been replicated under laboratory inducement. And there is no reason to believe it can be without it actually taking place as a real OBE. Further rationale for the OBE that occurs with the NDE being real as experienced is that the NDEr often is looking back at their body they have just left behind and not just 'floating up'.
With OBEs, some do occur when the person is not near death. Persons have reported leaving their bodies and going to some other place (sometimes distant) that is out of range of their normal senses and observed and later reported on events (such as a conversation between two people) that they could not have learned about by normal means. In a small number of cases, the person experiencing the OBE may be 'seen' by another person at the place where the experiencer had claimed they had been (these cases are referred to as "reciprocal").
Even better evidence for life after death is the veridical NDE in which the person undergoing it acquires information not known to them prior that could not have been obtained by normal means and is later verified to be correct. The experiencer may see events at some other location (for example, another room in the hospital they are in). Or the person might meet a deceased loved one who communicates information unknown previously to the person undergoing the NDE which is later verified to be correct. A more common example being they report encountering people whom they did not know were dead but who were later confirmed to have been at the time they had the NDE.
There is still a remote possibility that the OBE and/or NDE may be dependent upon a physical body being alive or revivable (though this would probably be highly unlikely and especially for a NDE and OBE occurring together). In other words, we cannot rule out that consciousness, even if detached from the physical body, may still be dependent upon it for its continued existence.

Experiments to test NDEs with OBEs to determine if consciousness really does leave the physical body have been done on a very limited basis with no results to present. Typical experiments are putting cards or displays with words or numbers or images only viewable from well above eyelevel if one were to leave their body and not known to staff or even the experimenter and sometimes periodically changing in hospital cardiac care units. Future studies are planned and what I expect is the results should be positive but inconclusive and skeptics will find flaws in the studies and alternative explanations. This is what I expect because to me it looks like this is the way its supposed to be (ie. the natural order in the bigger scheme of things is that whether or not we survive physical death is not to have a conclusive answer that all will agree on while here on earth and instead has to be interpreted).

A) The evidence is showing that the NDE is occurring during 'flat line' (no brain activity which happens within 11 seconds of the heart stopping) since (1) The NDE is continuous and there are no blackouts or cutoffs; (2) Cannot happen only while brain activity dying out or coming back periods only due to continuity issue; and (3) Aside from the continuity problem, the NDE would not make sense to be happening in the dying or recovery periods due to insufficient oxygen in the blood in and to the brain and lack of brain activity for such a vivid experience for a materialistic explanation. If consciousness is solely a product of the brain, then I do not see how the NDE could occur during either of these periods. But if consciousness is separate from or can exist outside of the brain, then the NDE can occur during these periods.
B) If the NDE is occurring only before brain function ceases, there would after this be no consciousness and would hit a blank state and then when resuscitated would regain consciousness. The cases reported would be that a NDE occurred, followed by death and ceasing to exist, and then life again. In other words, if one had ceased to exist, then one would remember the NDE, then no recall, and then would awake to find oneself in their body and would have had a discontinuity of consciousness which is not found in the reported NDEs. Unless this abrupt change shows up as the 'snap back' into the body (and as expected the blank state will not be recalled). But our understanding of the brain shows if consciousness is part of the brain, then consciousness slowly comes back when a person is resuscitated and not all of a sudden. And the 'snap back' cannot be explained like this as it is too abrupt and sudden.
C) If the NDE is occurring after the person is resuscitated, then the NDEr would say it occurred after recovery as they know they have recovered (and the discontinuity of consciousness would still be there also).
With B) and C) (but not A)), would have periods of firstly decreasing and secondly increasing consciousness (as well as a discontinuity in between) which is not what we find to be the case.

∙ I wanted to outline some thoughts on a study by Dr. K. Nelson published in April 2006 (Nelson, K., et al, Neurology, 66, 1003-1009) which tried to establish a link between NDEs and REM intrusion (rapid eye movement dreams while the person is typically actively dreaming while half awake and just falling asleep or waking up). It received a lot of sensationalistic mainstream media coverage at the time from ‘journalists’ who did not really understand the study. Many of the worlds leading NDE researchers were not happy with the misinformation in the media that resulted (nor with the poor quality and what appears to be a study setup to try to get, or come close as possible, to a predetermined outcome) and pointed out the flaws in it and why REM intrusion is not an explanation for the NDE as follows (much of this is from Dr. Jeffrey Long and Dr. Janice Holden’s lecture at the International Association for Near-Death Studies annual Conference in 2006 and an excellent and very thorough analysis in their article in the Journal of Near-Death Studies, 25(3), Spring 2007; comments from P.M.H. Atwater, Dr. Alan L. Botkin, and Dr. Bruce Greyson, along with some of my own comments):

[Note: If you are not familiar with this study, then my recommendation is to waste little or none of your valuable time on this, at best, mediocre ‘research’ as the only things possibly learned are that REM intrusion could only be an explanation for the weakest NDEs (which really are not NDEs at all) and after experiencing an NDE a person may be more predisposed to REM intrusion]

- The control group was made of 55 people ‘recruited’ from the medical staff and associates (friends and colleagues of Nelson) and these type of people are less likely than the general population to admit to undergoing REM intrusion (for reasons such as career related - not wanting to come across as day dreamers and therefore unprofessional). The NDE group already had demonstrated they want to share such experiences and are of the type to be more aware or interested in their paranormal or altered states, etc. and wanting to be part of a study like this and that is why they responded (64 responded out of 464 invited and 55 were chosen). So even without having an NDE, they would be more likely the type to have, be aware of, and admit to having REM intrusion.
- Not all people who experience NDEs will report them (say half as a first order estimate) and the same (but probably higher proportions would report I would guess) would hold true for REM intrusion. Therefore, it is expected that up to the same proportion of the control group would not either for REM intrusion. This would be ok but here the NDE group was the type to report at or close to 100% and this distorted the results in this study as this was not taken into account.
- The control group only had a REM intrusion experience reporting of 7% which is lower than the general adult populations of 10-15%. Only 13% of the control group reported having experienced sleep paralysis which is much lower than the 40-50% of the general adult population. Therefore, the control group was not a properly selected one and thus is a big flaw in the study and this could by itself fully account for the data.
- The study was only a retrospective (not a prospective) study which was only based on correlations.
- NDEs occur in various circumstances and sometimes in conjunction with REM intrusion but the two are fundamentally different.
- 40% of NDErs do not report to have experienced any aspect of REM intrusion. Therefore, REM intrusion by itself could not explain all NDEs and at best only some.
- NDErs are more likely to notice and remember REM intrusion as a result of becoming sensitized to such experience since their NDE. In other words, the NDE is more likely to give one a predisposition to REM intrusion rather than the other way around. It was already known by NDE researchers prior to this study that there are changes to sleep and dream states for the majority of people who have had a NDE and this in itself could explain the data in this study. To do the research properly, one would have to do before and after NDE investigations for REM intrusion in order to establish baselines. Also, it may be that NDErs in this study are not necessarily experiencing REM intrusion more often but are more sensitized (possibly as a result of having an NDE) to noticing and remembering REM intrusion.The ultra-skeptics will argue that there is no evidence to support communication with the dead and all information received can be accounted for by (1), (2), and (3). The ultra-skeptics are atheists (though some will claim to be agnostic) and follow a very orthodox approach to science who instead of saying the evidence is not strong enough to support the claims the mediums are making, just dismiss it all as fraud. This is despite the fact they have not been able to make the case for fraud. Alternative explanations such as telepathy are not even considered since these people are too close-minded to even contemplate telepathy might possibly exist. It is good to be a skeptic (I consider myself one) and all should be encouraged to engage in healthy skepticism but to be so stubborn and narrow-minded so that you dismiss anything which does not fit your particular view of the world as simply being fraud is ignorant and self-defeating.

Psychic mediums in the west who are claiming to be able to communicate with the dead are in conflict with the predominant Judeo-Christian beliefs of the societies they are in (for example, no belief in reincarnation in the dominant religions in the west). Further, they generally tell us there is a lag time typically of several decades where people connected to one another 'reunite' in the spirit world prior to their next incarnation which is not necessarily even taught in the major eastern religions. Because they are not just trying to go along with what most people already want or expect to hear, I think it gives them a bit more credibility. Unless, they are being forced to 'tow the line' laid down by psychic mediums historically so as not to be in disagreement with it.