Verified experience during clinical death: The AWARE study | Research on existence after death

Nikolaj Pilgaard Petersen, PhD. Research on continued existence after physical death. Verified experience during clinical death: The AWARE study.

0:00 Introduction
0:50 NDE research
1:27 AWARE study description
4:47 Results
7:10 A most interesting case
8:45 Verified experience
11:00 Suggested explanations
12:50 Perspectives and limitations
14:20 Validity and NDE
16:44 Metaphysical implications
17:45 Existential implications
18:59 Summary and conclusion

References:

- Blanke, O., et. al. (2002), "Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions," Nature 419.
- Greyson, B. (2000), "Near-Death Experiences," in E. Cardeña, S. J. Lynn and S. Krippner (eds.) (2000), Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the evidence, American Psychological Association.
- Lange, R., B. Greyson, and J. Houran (2004), "Rasch scaling validation of a 'core' near-death experience," British Journal of Psychology 95(2).
- Mobbs, D. and C. Watt (2011), "There is nothing paranormal about near-death experiences: how neuroscience can explain seeing bright lights, meeting the dead, or being convinced you are one of them," Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15.
- Parnia, S., et al. (2014), "AWARE-AWAreness during REsuscitation-A prospective study," Resuscitation 85.
- Peinkhofer, C., J. P. Dreier and D. Kondziella (2019), "Semiology and Mechanisms of Near-Death Experiences," Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports 19(9).
- van Lommel. P., et. al. (2001), "Near death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands," Lancet 358.

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Thanks to Laven Antikvariat!

[gustav]

I saw a debate in which a proponent of materialism claimed that the brain kind of manufactures these experiences afterwards, because it doesn't "like" empty spaces in the memory. For anyone who has been under anesthesia, this theory doesn't seem to hold up. When waking up, it simply seems like no time has passed, so the brain doesn't need to "fill in" anything.

[cursedtodie]

I fell in a coma after a car accident in 2005. The right hemisphere of my brain got destroyed and the left hemisphere was badly damaged. The doc told my dad I was a goner. I was comatose for 21 days. During this time, I lived my best life ever. My consciousness was on overdrive. I envisioned 11 months of my best life before waking up a quadriplegic.
But having envisioned something when it was not possible according to Science gave me the courage to recover completely, something no doctor has been able to explain to this date.

[timism]

If you mentioned this point and I missed it, apologies. But arguably the most important element about the case of Mr A in the Aware study, is that he somehow heard the automated command to "shock the patient". This is actually impossible, as in order for the machine to issue that instruction, it has had to go through the process of analysing the patient's heart rhythm, in this case ventricular fibrillation which is heart stoppage, meaning zero blood flow into the brain. Without blood flow into the brain, consciousness is lost immediately and the global electrical activity of the brain (and brain stem) disappears completely within 10 to 20 seconds.

The machine can't make a mistake and you can't hear and remember anything without a functioning brain, so it is indeed impossible that Mr A heard this instruction (and he actually heard it twice which is even more incredible). His other observations from a position across/up in the corner of the room, were also remarkable, as his bodily vision (the potential to see with his physical eyes) was blindsighted by a raised curtain at his upper chest level which had been placed there to prevent him from seeing the registrar inserting the catheter into his groin (cardiac catherterisation). So he should not have been able to see the bald 'chunky fella' with a shaved head and a blue scrub hat at all, let alone from the back of him (he reported seeing the registrar's back, not his face).

This man very likely came from an ethnic minority background (in the UK) and was not religious and his family assumed it was the effects of the drugs etc (he wasn't given any drugs except something to neutralise the feeling in his groin). So, altogether an exceptional case but there are hundreds of these now. Materialist sceptics have done everything they can to either ignore them, or write them off as the product of some narrow functioning of the brain or drugs or wishful psychology, but there's simply far too many cases now.

[ArnoldZiffle-jwmv]

Pam Reynolds had brain surgery during which her awareness left her body and went to the roof of the hospital where she saw a red shoe. Later they found the red shoe on the roof. She had left her body during the surgery. She “remembered” details that she could not have known unless she really was outside her body watching.

[jacquesraaijmakers]

My dilemma is where/how do memories get stored. Ever thought about that.
You remember Films, Video's, smell, touches, sounds etc. We say they are stored in the brain. But then I ask myself how, we do not have a Chip so do we store them in suger molecules, fat molecules, proteins or any other substance available in the brain cells.
This means we should be able to extract them from the brain when he or she dies!
This leaves me with the thesis that our soul is in the "cloud" (with that our memories on some kind of external harddrive) and our brain is the antenna/interface between our body and this external drive!
This would support the believe that awareness or a soul is forever and not depending on a body

[wighatsuperreggie]

Physicalists always seem to be just fishing around for explanations to justify their preconceived notions. It is better to just assume that we cannot, and will not ever truly understand the nature of reality. The nature of reality is not only stranger than we imagine, but it is almost certainly stranger than we CAN imagine.

[claudiourbano]

Congratulations on the clarity and impartiality of the presentation

[johnnyb]

Physicalism and materialism are not necessarily the same thing. According to the Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch OR) theory of the physicist Roger Penrose and Professor Stuart Hameroff, consciousness is quantum information in the brain, and according to Hameroff, it may not be destroyed when the brain dies, and may persist as a "soul". According to Orch OR, consciousness is physical but not material. That is, it can be described in terms of physical laws but it is not "made of matter".

[robertbrown]

I was looking for documented cases where the person, for example dies of a heart attack during surgery and comes out of their body and witnesses things, people's conversations in other parts of the hospital and other things that can be verified and were verified by others. I've talked to two people I knew and they described things that happened while they were technically dead they could not possibly have known. Like conversations and exactly what people were saying at the time that person was on the operating table, dead or near death. It's not possible to hear conversations of people in other parts of the hospital.

[ryanellis]

Thank you for doing this video -- such an important subject. Just a heads up that a better mic / audio setup would help you out. Good information people should hear. Audio quality is the easiest way to improve vids. Also your lighting is too hot and kinda casting a shadow. Get something a little warmer in color and maybe a simple key light. Excellent otherwise. Only helping people that are sharing good info...best!

[realtalk]

The shelf idea as an experiment for validity is great. Even though lots of other people have verified experiencers have seen but maybe if it was a science experiment it would shut materialists up

[nathanielwilding]

You probably remember everything you've ever seen but can not recall until during nde.

[bigglesharrumpher]

Science has a way to go before explaining consciousness. I am interested in why only a small portion of flatline survivors have any recollection of out of body consciousness, the majority don't remember anything.

[peterstanbury]

Near death experiences don't necessarily defy physicalism. If consciousness can survive death then it could simply mean that we have physics all wrong. Perhaps time is just an illusion, and our true perspective ( as actually described in many NDEs ) is actually a timeless one. From the vantage point of a timeless being there is no before or after death...just an eternal 'now'. In fact I could entirely envisage a timeless entity still using the brain long 'after' death and the dissolution of the body.

[ferkinskin]

If the brain "patches" together lost event after the fact, viz during the waking up phase, why does this not happen every morning in order to explain where we have been during the night? And, this doesn't explain how the brain is able to "patch" events in that it could not have possibly witnessed during flat lined activity!

[dodgingbullets]

🐇🕯When you throw your hands around its so distracting...Tku for the commentary..🌺🌺

[sort_to_see_hidden_comments]

John Martin claimed that the nurse disclosed the numbers to them before they were presented with the question, what do you have to say about it?

[eugenei]

Other very convincing cases are in NDE - The Day I Died - BBC Documentary

[mckeestudio]

There are many liberties taken with these assertions. V-Fib id NOT equivalent to cardiac arrest and NO, brain wave activity most certainly does not cease immediately upon arrest. Likewise total unawareness is not necessarily absolute. The death process is not like turning off a light and many phenomena described might simply be physiologically normal and cannot be simply attributed to confirming life after death and the continuance in some other state. So far there is yet any substantial proof that anything here is going on other than those processes that accompany the cessation of life and then oblivion.

[Founder-of-Educare]

Hi, I m from India, I am interested in this matter, would you like to help me ? Can I get a call from you?