Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff lorn bog Obam. Here a man recalls plunging
Speaker 1: into darkness and seeing a bright light. Here members a
Speaker 1: field of flowers, and a figure in white who spoke
Speaker 1: to him about his future. The next thing he recalls
Speaker 1: is awakening to discover that during the time he had
Speaker 1: experienced this vision, he had actually been lying on an
Speaker 1: operating table with doctors hovering over him, frantically trying to
Speaker 1: restart his stopped heart. You've probably heard stories similar to
Speaker 1: this one, which was recounted in an article in New
Speaker 1: Scientists back in two thousand six. What this man remembers
Speaker 1: experiencing is called a near death experience, or an n
Speaker 1: d E. In the medical literature. Reportedly, about ten to
Speaker 1: twenty of people who survive heart attacks experience in n
Speaker 1: D but written accounts of NDEs go back to ancient times.
Speaker 1: Usually they involve euphoria, tunnels, bright lights, ethereal beings, or
Speaker 1: some combination of those phenomena. Some people report seeing a
Speaker 1: high speed replay of memories their lives flashing before their eyes.
Speaker 1: Nobody really knows what n d s are, or how
Speaker 1: and why they occur, though, there are wide ranging hypotheses
Speaker 1: and opinions. Some who believe in the metaphysical think that
Speaker 1: during an NDE, a seriously ill or injured persons soul
Speaker 1: leaves the physical body and journeys to the entrance of
Speaker 1: the afterlife. There, for whatever reason, their soul is turned
Speaker 1: away and sent back to resume earthly life, sometimes with
Speaker 1: a newfound insight about life's purpose. Some physicians and neuroscientists
Speaker 1: who have searched for a more provable explanation for endes
Speaker 1: suspect that they're hallucinations, somehow caused by the process of
Speaker 1: the dying brain shutting down. Over the years, some have
Speaker 1: theorized the n d s result when the brain is
Speaker 1: deprived of oxygen, or when a mysterious and yet unverified
Speaker 1: chemical binds itself to neurons in an effort to protect
Speaker 1: them from that deprivation, and some think that the brains
Speaker 1: impending shut down triggers a flood of endorphins cause euphoria
Speaker 1: or electrical discharges in the hippocampus, the brain area involved
Speaker 1: in memory. Another theory goes that near death experiences are
Speaker 1: caused by side effects of anesthesia or other medications. However,
Speaker 1: so far science has failed to come up with an
Speaker 1: air tight explanation for NDEs. In the largest ever study
Speaker 1: of the phenomenon, published in the journal Lancet in two
Speaker 1: thousand one, Dutch physicians interviewed three d and forty four
Speaker 1: mostly elderly hospital patients who survived brushes with death in
Speaker 1: which their hearts stopped. Though eight percent of them reported
Speaker 1: experiencing NDEs, the researchers found no link to the amount
Speaker 1: of time that they were in cardiac arrest or to
Speaker 1: the drugs that they had been given since then. Study
Speaker 1: published in the journal Clinical Care offered yet another possible explanation.
Speaker 1: Researchers looked at blood samples taken from fifty two patients
Speaker 1: shortly after they'd survived cardiac arrest. The eleven patients who
Speaker 1: reported experiencing NDEs tended to have significant higher levels of
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide in their bloodstreams. Other studies have linked high
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide levels with visual hallucinations, and mountain climbers who
Speaker 1: have experienced carbon dioxide spikes at high altitudes have reported
Speaker 1: seeing bright lights and having other hallucinations similar to NDEs.
Speaker 1: But again the researchers offer a caveat not every patient
Speaker 1: in the study who had high carbon dioxide levels experienced
Speaker 1: a near death experience. There's also some evidence that NDEs
Speaker 1: may have something to do with a psychological process rather
Speaker 1: than a physiological process. Studies have found that younger patients,
Speaker 1: female patients, and deeply religious patients are more likely to
Speaker 1: report NDEs, and that two thousand one Dutch study reported
Speaker 1: another intriguing finding. When researchers reinterviewed the twenty three people
Speaker 1: who had experienced nd S and We're still alive eight
Speaker 1: years later, those people showed significant psychological differences. Most of
Speaker 1: them had become more emotionally vulnerable and empathetic towards others.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Patrick Jake Tiger and produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios Has To Works. For more in this and
Speaker 1: lots of other theoretical topics, visit our home planet has
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