Neurobehavioural expert from the University of Virginia reveals the near-death experience that can’t be explained
Neuro experts have revealed some of the world’s most bizarre near-death experiences - including one phenomenon that has no logical explanation.
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The University of Virginia has an entire research unit within their Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences dedicated to studying Near Death Experiences (NDE’s) and two of their most prolific researches, Dr. Philip Cozzolino and Dr. Marieta Pehlivanova sat down for a Q&A with SkyNews.com.au to shed some light on the subject that we all want to know more about.
The Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) began in 1967 and has flourished as a legitimate line of research by a team of professors who delve into areas that most fear to tread.
“We’re the only division at a mainstream American university that is specifically dedicated to studying phenomena suggestive of post-mortem survival, including NDEs,” Dr. Pehlivanova said.
When asked what specific tests that are performed to verify whether these experiences are real, Dr. Cozzolino stated that a lot of what they are doing is forensic, after-the-fact work which involves interviewing, cross referencing and cataloguing what is reported.
“We might give them a research scale that basically rates the extent to which 16 different typical features of NDE’s and we’ll use that as criterion to determine whether this is a legitimate experience for research purposes, or does it not meet our criterion,” Dr. Pehlivanova said.
The study is rigorous and analytical, scientifically engaged research that is dealing with humanities biggest question – is there an afterlife?
The team go as far as talking to people as soon as possible after a medical episode - such as a cardiac arrest - to investigate patients who have reported an NDE or an Out of Body Experience (OBE).
“We would call that a prospective study where we catch people right after, say, a cardiac arrest. Then the investigation might be a little bit different but they would still undergo some of these assessments including the NDE scale to determine that experience they are reporting…meets the research criteria of an NDE,” Dr. Pehlivanova said.
Dr. Cozzolino said that when people have experienced an NDE they will exclaim, “It was more real than anything else I have experienced living”.
There are recurring themes to many NDEs with at least 85 per cent of people reporting a sense of peace and a deep, unconditional love.
Another fascinating experience that some people have reported is what is known as a Life Review.
Although one of the least common themes, it is essentially re-experiencing life events, not just from their own point of view but from that of other people who were involved in a specific moment in their lives.
This is where the person who is having the NDE will understand how they might have impacted someone emotionally during that time in their life.
Dr. Cozzolino also added that there are other interesting features that have been documented, which include an unusual sense of time.
During the NDE, the patient might have been “gone” for a few minutes, perhaps without a heartbeat, but the patient’s NDE perspective is that they had been gone for a week.
“They have no sense of time as we know it here,” Dr. Cozzolino said.
Furthermore, when it comes to communicating with people or beings on the other side, Dr. Cozzolino said “a lot of communication apparently happens telepathically”.
Although there are feelings of love and peace, some people who have had an NDE have not had a pleasant experience.
“There is the void, where people feel they are literally in nothingness. There is the hellish type, where people see fires and demons. There is also the inverted experience, where it starts out as a normal NDE, but they are perceived as negative or distressing,” Dr. Pehlivanova said.
The NDEs are so unique and so different from what we perceive in our reality, that it can be distressing for those who have had them, to process the experience and the otherworldly phenomena they perceived.
“These things are life changing, awe-inspiring and scary and how you process that and move forward… is a challenge,” Dr. Cozzolino said.
One verifiable experience that cannot be explained are accounts where people have been on the operating table and have had an out of body experience and have witnessed scenes from above or in another room or location and can describe in detail exactly what happened in those places while their bodies were lifeless in theatre.
“It has been a big debate – is it just your brain doing something? There are different theories that are physiological, including brain-based explanations of NDE’s that try to account for some of these features, like the bright light or sense of disembodiment, but none of them are really able to account for the totality of the experience of all the different features that show up in it,” Dr. Pehlivanova said.
Dr. Cozzolino approaches all of this scientific work with an open mind and does not claim to have all the answers.
However, there is little of this that can be explained away with analysis of the mechanics of the brain.
“I would listen to anyone who has any alternative explanation or possible explanation for any experience that we study. I haven’t heard a very good explanation, from an evolutionary perspective as to why this would be in us,” he said.
“Why do we have a program that kicks in and says, ‘Oh we’ve got to give them the Near Death Experience now to make this part of their living or dying better’. I don’t know how or why this would have evolved in the way that it seems to occur in people.”
Robert Weir is a freelance journalist whose work has also been published in The Spectator Australia. He enjoys writing political, lifestyle, and environmental stories as well as film reviews.