I want to believe in these. I really, really do. And over the last few months, as thoughts of eternal nothingness have gripped me with terror every hour of every day, I've found some comfort in reading about them. After all, they involve something real. No one doubts that people who report NDE's experienced something. The only question is -- what "part" of them was doing the experiencing?
From what I can tell, those who believe NDE's are a glimpse of an afterlife witnessed by the soul stress a few key points:
1) Those who experience them return to their bodies profoundly changed -- more spiritual, more altruistic, liberated from their fear of death. This kind of marked transformation doesn't accompany typical hallucinations, like those induced by LSD.
2) Science can't explain why people have experienced NDE's when they are registering no brain activity whatsoever, or how some people -- those on the operating table, for instance -- have woken up and reported details that they never should have known (about things that were said or equipment that was used while they were unconscious).
I don't think either one of these is much to cling to, though, in terms of believing NDE's are evidence of an afterlife. Here how I (regrettably) have come to view this topic:
1) NDE's are real, but they take place in the brain, not some unattached soul. I say this because (a) science has explained much (but not all) of the NDE/out-of-body phenomenon. The white light that many report can be medically induced. So can out-of-body-experiences, which are triggered by a part of the brain misfiring. This doesn;t explain everything, but it does explain a lot -- and all of this has been learned in just the past 20 years. So it seems to me that we're on our way to understanding NDE's as phenomena of the brain. It will take time; we are still discovering how incomprehensibly complex the brain is. But we are getting there.
2) The "profound emotional changes" that people experience post-NDE are undeniable, but don't really mean anything. Why? Because the NDE, as I already acknowledged, is VERY real to the person who goes through it. Let's say a person has a heart attack, feels him or herself slipping from consciousness, realizes fully that death is probably at hand....and then has an NDE and wakes up. Given how real the NDE felt, of course this person is going to believe that it was experienced outside the body. And the implications of believing that -- wow, there really is a soul and an afterlife! -- should trigger the exact kind of life changes that NDE believers tout. It really doesn't mean anything that someone who has a drug-indiced hallucination wouldn't go through these life changes; that person wouldn't think he/she was dying, and therefore wouldn't vest the hallucinatory experience with the kind of profound, life-altering significance that someone who goes through an NDE would. But the same basic thing is going on.
Also, just think of how vivid our normal, nightly dreams can be. I had one last night that involved me talking to someone who, as far as I know, I've never met before. We were in a place I didn't recognize and I was asking him questions. I'm not sure why. He was very cryptic in his responses, and I remember feeling incredible frustration that I couldn't find a way to ask him a question that would elicit a more digestible response. His answers were also very figurative. My point is that this seemed very real. I could "hear" his voice, "see" the details of his face, and "feel" the frustration of trying to get answers. I have had thousands of vivid and "real" dreams like this in my life. So have you. But we have no problem chalking this up to the mind. We know that we dream when we sleep. We can create dreams that are just as vivid and powerful and real as NDE's. The connection seems so obvious. The fact that we can dream such random but real dreams is a clue that something similar is going on in NDE's.
3) Randomness of NDE's. Sure, many people report a basic pattern of: Being outside of their body, moving toward a white light, watching a "life review," being filled with incredible feelings of love, and meeting dead loved ones, then returning to their bodies. But the more you read up on people's experiences, the more you realize how random they are. Some NDE's are explicitly religious, with images of heaven and/or hell. Some involve meeting Jesus or God. Some involve receiving detailed revelations from God or Jesus. (Many who have returned with these revelations have later had them discredited -- like claims that the world will end in a certain year.) One man reported being sent to hell and watching Jesus cry and explain that he could do nothing to save the man, since he'd rejected him in life. But others describe Jesus saving them from hell. And plenty of atheists -- who by definition rejected Jesus and God in life -- report that their experience had nothing to do with hell; that they were filled with love and wanted to stay. There are even NDE experiences taht have nothing to do with God or an afterlife; some report finding themselves on space ships communicating with aliens. Others report only having out-of-body-experiences, with no "journey" anywhere. And, of course, most who are legally dead and come back report absolutely nothing.
Isn't it obvious what this means? It makes sense that most who have NDE's experience some kind of "afterlife." This is logical because that person's last conscous thoughts were "I am going to die." So they go unconscious and their mind conjures some kind of afterlife experience. That explains all of the contradictions between the afterlife experiences that have been reported. Some are told that hell is real and that many people will go there. Others are shown that heaven is universal, open to everyone (like atheists). Some receive specific religious instruction. Others learn that "only love" matters. There really is not way to tie all these together. Some fundamentalists Christians have used NDE's to write books about the existence of hell. Other liberal Christians have used other NDE's to prove that God and heaven are universal. They are all over the place!
I say: People who went through believed they were dying, so naturally their minds created some kind of afterlife scenario (for most of them). The OBE and white light aspect is explained scientifically. The details of their journeys are self-created. The feelings of comfort that they (mostly) return with are perfectly logical. But, like my vivid dream last night, it's all in the head. No, science can't explain every feature of the NDE right now. But it's explained some of it, and the most logical thing that can be said is that science will explain the rest as knowledge progresses.
I really wish I could believe. But the closer I look at NDE's, the more I'm convinced they show no evidence of an afterlife.
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