The Art of Dying

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I was particularly interested in the pastoral landscapes, because they are also reported by terminally ill patients in approaching-death experiences. The landscapes have always been described as very beautiful, and usually include wonderful flowers. We had one or two botanists among our respondents, and they said that the colors were most exciting, but, interestingly, that they saw no new species, only species they already knew. Of course, the main focus of the respondents was the incredible beauty of all those vibrant colors. Jansen, K. (2001). Ketamine: Dreams and realities. Sarasota, FL: Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Greyson’s (2003a) American study was of 1,595 patients admitted to a cardiac care unit with heart trouble. He found an incidence of 10 percent NDEs among cardiac arrest survivors and found that the more severe the illness, the more likely the survivor was to report an NDE. And what he said is this: ‘‘The paradoxical occurrence of heightened, lucid awareness and logical thought processes during a period of impaired cerebral perfusion [absence of blood flow to the brain] raises particularly perplexing questions for our current understanding of consciousness and its relation to brain function’’ (p. 275). So that is now in the literature. And based on that, Sam Parnia and I have a paper being reviewed for Neuroscience Letters in which we propose the experiment which I am going to show you. Whether or not they will publish it, I do not yet know. This study also had an 8-year follow up, the longest follow up that has ever been published. It enabled the researchers to ask, first, whether the memory of an NDE changes across time, and second, what happens to people who do not have NDEs: do they have any of the change in personality that NDErs show? If you look at Table 1, you can see straightaway that, in fact, there are interesting changes after a cardiac arrest even amongst the people who did not have an NDE. Positive scores indicate an increase in the personality changes, and the larger the number, the larger the increase overall for that group. Negative numbers indicate a decrease in the personality changes, and the larger the number, the larger the decrease.

Many people believe that in the NDE we are given glimpses of Heaven (or Hell). But it is just as reasonable to assume that it is the NDE itself which may have shaped our very ideas about Heaven and Hell. I was also particularly interested in the heavenly music and wonderful birdsong reported by some of our participants, because of my interest in how the brain works with music. Our respondents reported mainly concordant music, strong emotional music. At that time, neuroscientists thought that music was mainly a phenomenon involving the right hemisphere of the brain; since then, the neuroscience of music has progressed and indicates that the whole brain is involved in music. Nevertheless, the strong emotional quality of this music indicated a strong involvement of the right hemisphere. Note that the DBV experience violates Denise’s expectations, so it cannot be the result of fanciful imagination, wishful thinking, or the like. Moving on to the Schwaninger study, 30 cardiac arrest survivors were interviewed over three years (Schwaninger, Eisenberg, Schechtman, and Weiss, 2002). Twenty-three percent had NDEs, all of which were pleasurable; there were no ‘‘negative’’ NDEs. She found no difference in demographic variables, so, again, there is nothing special about people who get NDEs. How people interpreted their NDEs, however, was, as we know, based on personal, cultural, and religious views. An interesting point was that they needed psychosocial support before hospital discharge. And at 6-month follow-up – not as long as van Lommel’s, but the results show the same trend – spiritual and religious views changed, as did attitudes towards others, personal understanding, and social customs.Denise Dmytrasz’s father was dying. She was visiting her parents. Her father was lying in the bedroom. As Denise was talking with her mother in the kitchen, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw a small dog walk past the doorway, headed toward her father’s bedroom. And then, of course, there is transformation. Particularly notable was the finding that 72 percent of our respondents reported being more spiritual and having less fear of dying. Some findings from other studies provide some very interesting things to think about. For example, in Bruce Greyson’s (2003b) study of 272 patients who had a brush with death, 22 percent had NDEs, and they were found to be less psychologically disturbed than those who did not have NDEs. So that is extremely good news in that it goes against the idea that those who have NDEs have some mental pathology. So then, as far as science is concerned, the NDE cannot occur at the point the heart stops, it cannot occur at any point during the period of unconsciousness, and it is unlikely to occur at the point of confusional arousal, because it is not typical of that level of consciousness; and if it occurred after recovery, the NDErs would say it occurred after recovery, because they know they have recovered. So there are real difficulties in accepting that the NDE happens when the NDErs say it happens: during unconsciousness. So are you beginning to feel the significance of the timing of the NDE both for neuroscience as well as for our understanding of the NDE? That is all I want to say about retrospective studies, so let me turn now to the cutting edge of NDE research. This is a new and very exciting developing area: prospective studies. Just to remind you, these are studies in which the researcher begins studying the participants before they have their NDEs, and thus has information about the circumstances in which the near-death experience occurs and can start to ask focused scientific questions about it. Suddenly there was the most brilliant light shining from my husband’s chest, and as this light lifted upward, there was the most beautiful music and singing voices. My own chest seemed filled with infinite joy, and my heart felt as if it was lifting to join this light and music. Suddenly, there was a hand on my shoulder, and a nurse said, ‘‘Sorry, love. He’s just gone.’’ I lost sight of the light and the music and felt so bereft at being left behind.

However, within that study there were some interesting points. They had 23 NDErs and 20 controls, so the numbers are small, but the NDErs scored more highly on a scale of their ability to cope. They were better, active copers; they were able to plan; they had positive reinterpretations of their experiences, and they had positive growth. There were no differences in posttraumatic stress scores with the control group. The study is important in that it suggested that NDErs have good coping strategies. So you can calculate straight away that over one million Americans have stood in the light: very powerful. Think of all those people who have experienced an altered state of consciousness. The world is changing. But not only that: more defibrillators and pacemakers are being implanted into hearts, and as the heart quite often stops in this process, this means that even more people are going to have NDEs and their aftereffects. Morse, M., and Perry, P. (1990). Closer to the light: Learning from the near-death experiences of children. New York, NY: Villard.At the bottom it was light and quite busy and bustling. The other people were strangers and although they didn’t speak and neither did I, somehow I asked the way and I was told to follow the red light. So all three dogs seem to be reacting. Of course, they can’t tell us what they are reacting to, but the women present said they all felt the presence of their original dog, who had died of cancer many years ago. They believed that he was coming to help Kelly transition (which she did the following day). Willoughby Britton and Richard Bootzin’s 2004 study is interesting, but unfortunately the data set is too limited to draw any conclusions. They suggested that near-death experiences are a manifestation of temporal lobe epilepsy. This suggestion has been made on previous occasions by other authors, and it is always made by those who do not deal with epilepsy on a daily basis and who do not have a comprehensive understanding of the features of an epileptic seizure. No epileptic seizure has the clarity and narrative style of an NDE. And this is because all epilepsy is confusional. Epileptologists all agree that one thing that near-death experiences are not is temporal lobe epilepsy. Britton and Bootzin’s paper is, I think, going to bias the near-death literature in a way that is quite unjustified by the data of the study. So, maybe animals have their own DBVs? The evidence isn’t particularly strong — it’s just a few, scattered accounts. Still, they are suggestive. I just offer it as something to ponder. One more example. Arthur Myers, a journalist, relates the account of an old chow named Kelly, who was very ill and approaching death. The family decided to have her euthanized. The family had two other dogs — a younger chow and an old, blind schnauzer.