WEBVTT - What's Happening During A Near-Death Experience?

0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.520
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey

0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:10.879
<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff lorn bog Obam. Here a man recalls plunging

0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:14.000
<v Speaker 1>into darkness and seeing a bright light. Here members a

0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.319
<v Speaker 1>field of flowers, and a figure in white who spoke

0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.240
<v Speaker 1>to him about his future. The next thing he recalls

0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:21.479
<v Speaker 1>is awakening to discover that during the time he had

0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.279
<v Speaker 1>experienced this vision, he had actually been lying on an

0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:27.639
<v Speaker 1>operating table with doctors hovering over him, frantically trying to

0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:32.479
<v Speaker 1>restart his stopped heart. You've probably heard stories similar to

0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:34.839
<v Speaker 1>this one, which was recounted in an article in New

0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.680
<v Speaker 1>Scientists back in two thousand six. What this man remembers

0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.040
<v Speaker 1>experiencing is called a near death experience, or an n

0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.839
<v Speaker 1>d E. In the medical literature. Reportedly, about ten to

0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:48.920
<v Speaker 1>twenty of people who survive heart attacks experience in n

0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.320
<v Speaker 1>D but written accounts of NDEs go back to ancient times.

0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:57.400
<v Speaker 1>Usually they involve euphoria, tunnels, bright lights, ethereal beings, or

0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:01.400
<v Speaker 1>some combination of those phenomena. Some people report seeing a

0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.960
<v Speaker 1>high speed replay of memories their lives flashing before their eyes.

0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.160
<v Speaker 1>Nobody really knows what n d s are, or how

0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.400
<v Speaker 1>and why they occur, though, there are wide ranging hypotheses

0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:16.120
<v Speaker 1>and opinions. Some who believe in the metaphysical think that

0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.480
<v Speaker 1>during an NDE, a seriously ill or injured persons soul

0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.160
<v Speaker 1>leaves the physical body and journeys to the entrance of

0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.720
<v Speaker 1>the afterlife. There, for whatever reason, their soul is turned

0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.200
<v Speaker 1>away and sent back to resume earthly life, sometimes with

0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:33.880
<v Speaker 1>a newfound insight about life's purpose. Some physicians and neuroscientists

0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:36.760
<v Speaker 1>who have searched for a more provable explanation for endes

0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.520
<v Speaker 1>suspect that they're hallucinations, somehow caused by the process of

0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:44.560
<v Speaker 1>the dying brain shutting down. Over the years, some have

0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:47.000
<v Speaker 1>theorized the n d s result when the brain is

0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.680
<v Speaker 1>deprived of oxygen, or when a mysterious and yet unverified

0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:53.600
<v Speaker 1>chemical binds itself to neurons in an effort to protect

0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:57.240
<v Speaker 1>them from that deprivation, and some think that the brains

0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:01.080
<v Speaker 1>impending shut down triggers a flood of endorphins cause euphoria

0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:05.000
<v Speaker 1>or electrical discharges in the hippocampus, the brain area involved

0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.760
<v Speaker 1>in memory. Another theory goes that near death experiences are

0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:13.280
<v Speaker 1>caused by side effects of anesthesia or other medications. However,

0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.040
<v Speaker 1>so far science has failed to come up with an

0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:20.200
<v Speaker 1>air tight explanation for NDEs. In the largest ever study

0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.239
<v Speaker 1>of the phenomenon, published in the journal Lancet in two

0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.840
<v Speaker 1>thousand one, Dutch physicians interviewed three d and forty four

0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.440
<v Speaker 1>mostly elderly hospital patients who survived brushes with death in

0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:34.120
<v Speaker 1>which their hearts stopped. Though eight percent of them reported

0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.560
<v Speaker 1>experiencing NDEs, the researchers found no link to the amount

0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:39.760
<v Speaker 1>of time that they were in cardiac arrest or to

0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:44.360
<v Speaker 1>the drugs that they had been given since then. Study

0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:48.359
<v Speaker 1>published in the journal Clinical Care offered yet another possible explanation.

0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:52.359
<v Speaker 1>Researchers looked at blood samples taken from fifty two patients

0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:56.480
<v Speaker 1>shortly after they'd survived cardiac arrest. The eleven patients who

0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:00.840
<v Speaker 1>reported experiencing NDEs tended to have significant higher levels of

0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.880
<v Speaker 1>carbon dioxide in their bloodstreams. Other studies have linked high

0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:09.040
<v Speaker 1>carbon dioxide levels with visual hallucinations, and mountain climbers who

0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:12.560
<v Speaker 1>have experienced carbon dioxide spikes at high altitudes have reported

0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.240
<v Speaker 1>seeing bright lights and having other hallucinations similar to NDEs.

0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.840
<v Speaker 1>But again the researchers offer a caveat not every patient

0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:24.040
<v Speaker 1>in the study who had high carbon dioxide levels experienced

0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:28.560
<v Speaker 1>a near death experience. There's also some evidence that NDEs

0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.839
<v Speaker 1>may have something to do with a psychological process rather

0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:36.000
<v Speaker 1>than a physiological process. Studies have found that younger patients,

0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.600
<v Speaker 1>female patients, and deeply religious patients are more likely to

0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:43.800
<v Speaker 1>report NDEs, and that two thousand one Dutch study reported

0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:48.160
<v Speaker 1>another intriguing finding. When researchers reinterviewed the twenty three people

0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:50.720
<v Speaker 1>who had experienced nd S and We're still alive eight

0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:55.480
<v Speaker 1>years later, those people showed significant psychological differences. Most of

0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:59.160
<v Speaker 1>them had become more emotionally vulnerable and empathetic towards others.

0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.880
<v Speaker 1>Today's episode was written by Patrick Jake Tiger and produced

0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.240
<v Speaker 1>by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of I

0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:11.520
<v Speaker 1>Heart Radios Has To Works. For more in this and

0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.080
<v Speaker 1>lots of other theoretical topics, visit our home planet has

0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:16.640
<v Speaker 1>to Works dot Com and more. Podcasts from my Heart

0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.599
<v Speaker 1>Radio visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:20.880
<v Speaker 1>you listen to your favorite shows.