Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Science Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. My
Speaker 1: name is Hoorge Champ, and today on the program, we're
Speaker 1: tackling the question are near death experiences real? A certain
Speaker 1: percentage of the population, when they're close to dying, report
Speaker 1: coming out of their bodies. Some feel like they enter
Speaker 1: a tunnel with a bright light at the end of it,
Speaker 1: and some report having vivid conversations with people that are
Speaker 1: already dead. But is it all real? Are they a
Speaker 1: sign that there isn't afterlife or something beyond death? Or
Speaker 1: can it all be explained by science. We're going to
Speaker 1: hear from someone who's been through this experience, a psychiatrist
Speaker 1: that's been tracking this phenomenon for decades, and a neuroscientist
Speaker 1: who's going to tell us what happens to your brain
Speaker 1: during your last moments of life. So don't leave your
Speaker 1: body just yet. Stay with us as we answer the
Speaker 1: question are near death experiences real? Welcome to Science Stuff, Hi, everyone.
Speaker 1: So they were tackling the tricky question of whether near
Speaker 1: death experiences are real. And it's tricky because it's a
Speaker 1: topic that is in that kind of gray area between
Speaker 1: science and nonscience. It dits a little bit into the paranormal,
Speaker 1: and it's also a deeply subjective personal experience, So we're
Speaker 1: going to do our best to keep this as scientific
Speaker 1: as possible. Now, a near death experience is something that
Speaker 1: happens to some people and they've come extremely close to dying.
Speaker 1: Maybe their heart stops during a surgery, or maybe they're
Speaker 1: in a combat situation and they get shot and bleed out,
Speaker 1: or maybe they're involved in an accident or a drug overdose.
Speaker 1: But then they're brought back to life, and when they
Speaker 1: come back, the report having seen or felt things that
Speaker 1: are really interesting and unusual. This phenomenon has been studied
Speaker 1: by several people, but most notably by a psychiatrist named
Speaker 1: doctor Bruce Grayson. Doctor Grayson is now a Professor Emeritus
Speaker 1: of psychiatry and neurobehavior at the University of Virginia, and
Speaker 1: he has been collecting and cataloging accounts of near death
Speaker 1: experiences for almost fifty years. Here's how he explains getting
Speaker 1: interested in the subject.
Speaker 2: I think as a psychiatrist who makes my living trying
Speaker 2: to help people change their lives. What captured me most
Speaker 2: about new death experiences is that their incredible ability to
Speaker 2: create profound changes in people's lives. It's much more powerful
Speaker 2: than anything the tools we have.
Speaker 1: We asked doctor Grayson to be on the show, but unfortunately,
Speaker 1: due to a medical situation, he is unable to do
Speaker 1: an interview. But he did give us permission to use
Speaker 1: clips from one of his lectures and to talk about
Speaker 1: his work. And his work is very interesting because in
Speaker 1: his career, doctor Grayson has collected accounts from hundreds of
Speaker 1: people who reported having near death experiences like this one
Speaker 1: he got from a man named Bill Hernlund, a crash
Speaker 1: rescue firefighter in the US Air Force who responded to
Speaker 1: a call about a burning airplane and nearly died when
Speaker 1: the plane exploded. Here's what he said. I was in darkness,
Speaker 1: but fully conscious and vividly aware of my surroundings. I
Speaker 1: would say some kind of tunnel that looked like what
Speaker 1: a tornado funnel would be. From the inside. There was
Speaker 1: a light in the distance, and I saw the spiraling
Speaker 1: strings of blue green light coming and going like the
Speaker 1: Aurora borealis. The light was drawing me to it. I
Speaker 1: moved exceptionally fast down the tunnel. It seemed that time
Speaker 1: was different or non existent. There. Wherever there was the
Speaker 1: light was emanating from a being that was giving off
Speaker 1: a very brilliant light as part of his essence. He
Speaker 1: was beautiful to look at and projected the feelings of
Speaker 1: unconditional love and peace. He asked, how do you feel
Speaker 1: about your life? And how did you treat other people?
Speaker 1: As he asked, every single event of my life, from
Speaker 1: earliest childhood to the plane crash projected in front of me.
Speaker 1: There were details concerning people and things that I had
Speaker 1: forgotten about long ago. He told me to be in
Speaker 1: peace and said that my work in this world was
Speaker 1: not done yet and that I had to go back.
Speaker 1: Pretty wild stuff. So, after collecting hundreds of stories like these,
Speaker 1: doctor Grayson found that the stories had several things in common.
Speaker 1: And here I asked a few of my friends to
Speaker 1: read the accounts because I figured it'd be more interesting
Speaker 1: than just having me read them. Here's what doctor Grayson
Speaker 1: found first. In about half of the near death experiences
Speaker 1: that he heard about, the person said that they were
Speaker 1: able to think clearer and faster than usual. For example,
Speaker 1: here's how a man named John Whittaker described to doctor
Speaker 1: Grayson what he saw when he almost died during pancreatic
Speaker 1: and liver surgery.
Speaker 3: I was aware of an enhanced state of consciousness in
Speaker 3: which my mind was extremely active and alert to what
Speaker 3: I was experiencing. I was very observant during the state,
Speaker 3: and my thoughts seemed to go almost twice to the
Speaker 3: normal speed.
Speaker 1: So some near death experiencers, even though they're usually in
Speaker 1: super stressful situations where they're literally dying, report feeling like
Speaker 1: they could think super fast and super clearly, almost like
Speaker 1: they're removed from the situation. Another thing in common that
Speaker 1: doctor Grayson found in all of these near death experiences
Speaker 1: was that three quarters of the people reported feeling a
Speaker 1: change in their sense of time. For example, here's what
Speaker 1: a man named Rob told doctor Grayson about the time
Speaker 1: that he nearly died when he slipped and fell off
Speaker 1: a ladder.
Speaker 4: The actual fall was slowed way down, almost like a
Speaker 4: series of camera steel pictures being taken a sort of
Speaker 4: clickficial progression, and then slowing down dramatically increased my thinking time,
Speaker 4: which resulted in me being able to size up how
Speaker 4: I could maneuver the ladder. Not only did the fall
Speaker 4: slow way down, but my thinking became very clear. There's
Speaker 4: wonderful slowing down which allowed me to think clearly and
Speaker 4: split seconds was phenomenal.
Speaker 1: So during near death experiences, time slows down for some people,
Speaker 1: like the world goes into slow motion or bullet time
Speaker 1: from the matrix. Doctor Grayson also that in about two
Speaker 1: thirds of the near death experiences he collected, the person
Speaker 1: felt that they had extra vivid senses, meaning that they
Speaker 1: were able to see or hear super clearly, or that
Speaker 1: they could see or hear unique colors and sounds. For example,
Speaker 1: here's how a woman named Jane Smith described to doctor
Speaker 1: Grayson what she saw when she almost died from a
Speaker 1: bad reaction to anesthesia when she was giving birth to
Speaker 1: her baby.
Speaker 5: I found myself in a meadow, and this was a
Speaker 5: beautiful green meadow with beautiful flowers, lit with this glorious,
Speaker 5: radiant light, like no light we've ever seen. There was
Speaker 5: sky grass, and I remember so well looking at them
Speaker 5: and thinking I have never seen some of these colors.
Speaker 5: I realized I was seeing the inner light of all
Speaker 5: the growing things. It was not reflected light, but a
Speaker 5: gentle inner glow that shone from each and every plant. Overhead.
Speaker 5: The sky was clear and blue, the light infinitely more
Speaker 5: beautiful than any light we know.
Speaker 1: So some near death experiencers also get a heightened sense
Speaker 1: of awareness. They can see tiny little details all around
Speaker 1: them that they otherwise wouldn't even notice. They can see
Speaker 1: things much more vividly, even though again they're in an
Speaker 1: extremely dangerous and deadly situation. Next, doctor Grayson found out
Speaker 1: about a quarter of all the near death experiences involved
Speaker 1: a life review, which is basically when your life flashes
Speaker 1: before your eyes. For example, here's what a man named
Speaker 1: Greg Nome told doctor Grayson that he saw when he
Speaker 1: almost drowned going over a waterfall.
Speaker 6: The images began with the living color scenes of my childhood.
Speaker 6: It was as if someone else was running the projector
Speaker 6: I was looking my life objectively for the first time ever.
Speaker 6: I saw myself sitting in a baby's highchair and picking
Speaker 6: up some food with my hand and throwing it on
Speaker 6: the floor. Next, I saw myself at a lake in
Speaker 6: a summer vacation we took when I was about three
Speaker 6: or four years old. I was amazed at how many
Speaker 6: scenes I was seeing that had long since been forgotten.
Speaker 6: I also saw traumatic events in various ways. The images
Speaker 6: continued at high speeds, Then the images ceased. There was
Speaker 6: only darkness and a feeling of a short pause, like
Speaker 6: something was about to happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So.
Speaker 1: Near death experiencers also report seeing their life flash before
Speaker 1: their eyes. This is very commonly portrayed in movies and
Speaker 1: TV shows where someone's about to die and they suddenly
Speaker 1: see this collage or montage of all the scenes from
Speaker 1: their lives, and a lot of people report seeing things
Speaker 1: they thought they had forgotten or things they feel they
Speaker 1: shouldn't be able to remember. Finally, according to doctor Grayson,
Speaker 1: about eighty percent of the people who report near death
Speaker 1: experiences say they had an out of body experience, where
Speaker 1: they say they could actually see their bodies from outside
Speaker 1: of themselves, usually from the ceiling. For example, here's what
Speaker 1: a woman named Jane told doctor Grayson about the time
Speaker 1: she almost died during labor.
Speaker 8: My blood pressure dropped and nurses were in a panic.
Speaker 8: When I heard an nurse say, oh my god, we're
Speaker 8: losing her. I was out of my body at once
Speaker 8: and on the ceiling of the operating room, looking down
Speaker 8: watching them work on a body. It took me a
Speaker 8: while to recognize the person I was viewing was me.
Speaker 8: I watched my doctors arrive and procedures being done, heard
Speaker 8: conversations and saw my baby being born.
Speaker 1: So some near death experiencers also reported out of body experiences,
Speaker 1: meaning they felt like they left their bodies and they
Speaker 1: floated up to the ceiling and they could see themselves
Speaker 1: being operated on or being resuscitated. So those are some
Speaker 1: of the common themes among the near death experiences or
Speaker 1: MDes like doctor Grayson recorded. Now, what's interesting about these
Speaker 1: near death experiences is that they seem to happen across
Speaker 1: different cultures and across different times. Here's how doctor Grayson
Speaker 1: describes it.
Speaker 2: We found over the past fifty years studying NDEs from
Speaker 2: different cultures, different religious groups, and throughout the centuries that
Speaker 2: the cultural background and your religious background do not affect
Speaker 2: whether you're going to have an experience or what type
Speaker 2: you're going to have, but it does influence the metaphors
Speaker 2: you use to describe it.
Speaker 1: So what doctor Grayson is saying is that near death
Speaker 1: experiences seem to happen in different cultures, but different cultures
Speaker 1: might describe them in different ways. For example, people from
Speaker 1: one culture might describe the feeling of going through a
Speaker 1: tunnel and seeing a light at the end of it,
Speaker 1: but other cultures that are not as familiar with tunnels,
Speaker 1: might describe them as going into a well or a cave,
Speaker 1: or even through a pipe. And what's even more interesting
Speaker 1: is that the people who report near death experiences, as
Speaker 1: strange as those experiences might be, say that they felt
Speaker 1: very real. In fact, some people say that their near
Speaker 1: death experience feels more real than real. Here's how doctor
Speaker 1: Grayson describes it.
Speaker 2: I've had people look at me after an experience to say,
Speaker 2: my talking to God in the NDE is more real
Speaker 2: than my talking to you right now.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what that means. They don't know how
Speaker 2: to judge what's more real than something else, but they
Speaker 2: consistently say that.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: Doctor Grayson and his team of researchers have tested people
Speaker 1: have had near death experiences with psychological tests that can
Speaker 1: measure to some degree whether a memory is real or
Speaker 1: whether you just dreamed it or hallucinated it. These are
Speaker 1: tests that are used, for example, to tell if a
Speaker 1: kid who says they've gone through a traumatic experience actually
Speaker 1: went through that experience or if they imagined it. Here's
Speaker 1: what doctor Grayson found.
Speaker 2: We find that the memories of the NDEs are like
Speaker 2: the memories of real events, not at all as the
Speaker 2: memories of imagined events. In fact, on this objective scale,
Speaker 2: they look more real than the memories of real events.
Speaker 2: It's more real than real. We did this research at UVA.
Speaker 2: It was also replicated at the University of Liasian Belgium
Speaker 2: and the University of Padua in Italy. And in fact,
Speaker 2: the Italian group also measured the brain waves of people
Speaker 2: as they are remembering their events, and they reported that
Speaker 2: the brain waves of people remembering NDEs look like people
Speaker 2: remembering real events, not like people remembering dreams or hallucinations.
Speaker 1: So, as far as the researchers could tell, near death
Speaker 1: experiences are indistinguishable or basically the same as real experiences.
Speaker 1: Okay to recap. Near death experiences are strange and sometimes
Speaker 1: impossible experiences that happen to people as they're dying or
Speaker 1: as they're about to die, and they seem to be
Speaker 1: a consistent and widespread phenomenon. According to doctor Grayson and others,
Speaker 1: about ten to twenty percent of people who have close
Speaker 1: brushes with dying report having a near death experience. Now,
Speaker 1: some people say that because these experiences happen to so
Speaker 1: many people and because they are sometimes inexplicable, they are
Speaker 1: a clue that there is something beyond death, that somehow
Speaker 1: our consciousness or our spirits can leave our body, or
Speaker 1: talk to dead people, or exist out of time. And others,
Speaker 1: of course, say that this can all be explained by
Speaker 1: science and that there isn't anything supernatural going on. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna do two things for the rest of the episode.
Speaker 1: In the next segment, we're gonna talk to a neuroscientist
Speaker 1: who's gonna tell us what are some of the things
Speaker 1: in these near death experiences that science and brain science
Speaker 1: can explain. And then in the last segment, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about some of the things that science currently can't
Speaker 1: explain about near death experiences. So let's dig into the
Speaker 1: science and the mystery of near death experiences. But first
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. You're listening to science stuff. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome back. So we talked about what near death experiences are,
Speaker 1: how often they happen, and how they feel more real
Speaker 1: than real to the people that have them. I mean though,
Speaker 1: that there are people whose consciousness has left their bodies
Speaker 1: or that have gotten a glimpse of the afterlife. Like
Speaker 1: I said, we're gonna do two things. First, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk to a neuroscientist to see what he thinks could
Speaker 1: be behind these experiences that some people have. And then
Speaker 1: later in the program, we're gonna talk about the things
Speaker 1: that science can't explain about near death experiences. So to
Speaker 1: break it down for us, I called my friend neuroscientist
Speaker 1: Dwayne Godwin. Doctor Godwin is a professor of neuroscience at
Speaker 1: Wake Forest University specializing in neurophysiology, addiction, epilepsy, and traumatic
Speaker 1: brain injury. Doctor Godwin and I also co wrote a
Speaker 1: book together called Out of Your Mind, which you should
Speaker 1: check out. Here's my conversation with neuroscientists Dwayne Godwin. Thanks
Speaker 1: for talking with us today.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Have you had any near death experiences lately?
Speaker 2: I try to.
Speaker 7: Avoid those as much as possible. I think most people
Speaker 7: do well.
Speaker 1: First of all, maybe for folks, what is a near
Speaker 1: death experience to a neuroscientist like you, Wow?
Speaker 2: Well, you know.
Speaker 7: Near death experiences are these events that happen to people
Speaker 7: where they see these really interesting and unusual things and
Speaker 7: they bring these stories back from this rush with their
Speaker 7: own potential death. There is this concept that it's probably
Speaker 7: based in something that is happening in your brain. At least,
Speaker 7: that's all that scientists can really speak to. It's not
Speaker 7: to say that people's experiences aren't real to them, but
Speaker 7: a lot of the evidence suggests that these experiences are
Speaker 7: rooted in physical workings of the brain. You know, it's
Speaker 7: not that hard to explain that when something weird like
Speaker 7: that is happening to you, and especially when it's happening
Speaker 7: to your brain, that your brain is going to try
Speaker 7: to make sense of it, just like it tries to
Speaker 7: make sense of everything else.
Speaker 1: Okay, here, doctor Godwin is talking about the idea that
Speaker 1: near death experiences are caused by what is happening to
Speaker 1: your brain in certain situations, because the one thing that
Speaker 1: all near death experiences have in common is that they
Speaker 1: happen near death. Here's how doctor Godwin describes it.
Speaker 7: They happen under extreme stress, and what's more stressful than dying. So,
Speaker 7: you know, we're talking about things like oxygen deprivation, changes
Speaker 7: in brain chemistry, the electrical activity going haywire not functioning normally,
Speaker 7: so it's producing these weird sensations and perceptions. It's like,
Speaker 7: you know, imagine your computer suddenly losing power. You might
Speaker 7: get some weird glitches and error messages before it completely
Speaker 7: shuts down. Is that kind of thing that's happening in
Speaker 7: the brain during a near death experience.
Speaker 1: So near death experiences could just be how some people's
Speaker 1: brains react when they're dying. Now, this, of course is
Speaker 1: hard to prove because it's hard to predict when someone
Speaker 1: is going to have a near death experience, and so
Speaker 1: it's really hard to test for it, at least in
Speaker 1: a consistent and ethical way. But there is something scientists
Speaker 1: can do.
Speaker 7: And there are several things that scientists have done to
Speaker 7: try to provide a neurological explanation. So, for example, there
Speaker 7: are overlaps with other brain states like those that are
Speaker 7: induced by certain drugs and even some forms of epilepsy,
Speaker 7: and all of those similarities suggest a common neurological mechanism.
Speaker 1: So how scientists try to explain near death experiences is
Speaker 1: by pointing out common neurological mechanisms or things that happen
Speaker 1: in the brain that are similar to near death experiences,
Speaker 1: because then you can infer or reason that near death
Speaker 1: experiences are caused by the same thing. So we're going
Speaker 1: to break it down into two categories. The first is
Speaker 1: the out of body experience, and the second are the
Speaker 1: visions that people have during near death experiences. We'll start
Speaker 1: with the out of body experience and actually scientists have
Speaker 1: a name for it. It's called autoscopy.
Speaker 7: Autoscopy is this really interesting phenomenon where people have the
Speaker 7: sensation of seeing themselves from outside of their own body.
Speaker 7: So it's like you're watching a movie or yourself, but
Speaker 7: you're also somehow still in the movie.
Speaker 1: This concept of otoscopy is important because you can get it,
Speaker 1: not just in near death experiences. For example, about six
Speaker 1: percent of people with epilepsy report feeling like they leave
Speaker 1: their bodies when they have seizures. And actually scientists think
Speaker 1: they found this specific part of your brain that gives
Speaker 1: you that out of body experience. Here's what doctor Godwin said.
Speaker 7: Scientists have been studying otoscopy. They've penpointed a specific area
Speaker 7: of the brain that seems to be involved. And this
Speaker 7: area is really important because it helps you sort of synthesize,
Speaker 7: you know, your sense of body and the rest of
Speaker 7: your experiences. It's likely integrating the sense reinformation to create
Speaker 7: a coherent sense of their body in space. It's called
Speaker 7: the temporal parietal junction and it's located roughly above and
Speaker 7: behind your ears.
Speaker 1: So this area of your brain, the temporal parordal junction,
Speaker 1: is a part of your brain that gives you that
Speaker 1: sense of being in your body. It takes everything your
Speaker 1: eyes and ears are seeing and hearing about the world,
Speaker 1: and everything your skin and muscles are feeling, and it
Speaker 1: tell us the rest of your brain okay, this is
Speaker 1: where you are. And scientists note, this is what that
Speaker 1: part of the brain does, because you can turn it off.
Speaker 1: The note is that when people have epileptic seizures in
Speaker 1: that part of the brain, those people suddenly feel like
Speaker 1: they're leaving their bodies. They've also done experiments where scientists
Speaker 1: can scramble or tweak that brain area and cause someone
Speaker 1: to have an out of body experience. Here's how doctor
Speaker 1: Godwin explains it.
Speaker 7: So there was this fascinating study where scientists use transcranial
Speaker 7: magnetic stimulation. I'll call it TMS just because it's a
Speaker 7: long word. TMS is basically a way to temporarily disrupt
Speaker 7: the activity of specific brain regions using magnetic pulses. And
Speaker 7: so these pulses scramble brain activity and when they targeted
Speaker 7: the temporal parietal junction, people have trouble sensing the position
Speaker 7: of their own limbs even when they could see them.
Speaker 1: Wait, this sense like if I look at my arm,
Speaker 1: I can I have the feeling that it's my arm,
Speaker 1: that I can contry that it's a part of me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, But when you take out this particular brain area
Speaker 7: in your ability to sort of integrate that sense of
Speaker 7: your body is disrupted.
Speaker 1: So scientists can actually scramble this area of the brain
Speaker 1: called the temporal parietical junction using special electromagnets and give
Speaker 1: you that sense of not being in your body or
Speaker 1: not knowing where your body is. Could that be what's
Speaker 1: happening in a near death experience? And the idea is
Speaker 1: that maybe when your body is freaking out because it's
Speaker 1: dying or close to death, then somehow that part of
Speaker 1: the brain gets affected or what.
Speaker 7: Yes, you know, nobody knows for sure, so we have
Speaker 7: to be very careful about that. But I would propose
Speaker 7: that TMS scrambling your brain is not that different than
Speaker 7: death kind of scrambling your brain.
Speaker 1: Okay, So now the question is what could be scrambling
Speaker 1: that area during a near death experience? And this ties
Speaker 1: into what is happening to your brain? In general when
Speaker 1: you're close to dying.
Speaker 7: Brain death is a very complex thing that even physicians
Speaker 7: don't always get right. They don't always make the call correctly.
Speaker 7: It's not even sure that the brain dies all at once, right,
Speaker 7: So some parts of your brain can die and other
Speaker 7: parts remain alive and kicking it. But generally what happens, though,
Speaker 7: is that the brain relies on a lot on a constant
Speaker 7: supply of oxygen. The estimates are that the brain uses
Speaker 7: about twenty percent of the body's oxygen, and when that
Speaker 7: supply is cut off, things start to go downhill pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: Without oxygen, doctor Godwin says, neurons lose the ability to
Speaker 1: control how ions like calcium and potassium go into and
Speaker 1: out of the neurons. And these are the same chemicals
Speaker 1: that neurons use to activate how they talk to each other.
Speaker 1: So basically, when you stop breathing or your heart stops,
Speaker 1: your brain cells go a little haywire. How haywire Here's
Speaker 1: how doctor Godwin puts it.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 7: Recent research suggests that there's a surge of activity in
Speaker 7: the brain right around the time of death. You know,
Speaker 7: the brain doesn't just quietly fade away or just turn off.
Speaker 7: It's a complicated set of events happening as it shuts down.
Speaker 7: There's a lot of stuff happening with brain chemicals.
Speaker 1: So when the neurons start to go hey wire, they
Speaker 1: cause other chemicals to go up, like the chemical serotonin.
Speaker 7: Serotonin, for example. We know that those levels spike in
Speaker 7: the brain at the time of death, and this has
Speaker 7: been observed in animals. Scientists do these experiments where animals
Speaker 7: croak and when their heart ceases. They've observed that there
Speaker 7: have been these spikes and serotonin activity.
Speaker 1: Your brain makes more serotonin or releases more Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, When I say spike, I mean like a rush
Speaker 7: of serotonin happens right around the moment of death. They've
Speaker 7: actually measured this increase as the animals were dying and serotonins.
Speaker 7: But it's also linked to sensory perception, and this is
Speaker 7: relevant because drugs like LSD act on the serotonin system.
Speaker 1: And this is where things start to get a little trippy.
Speaker 1: We know that serotonin goes up in your brain when
Speaker 1: you're dying, and we know that drugs like LSD and
Speaker 1: magic mushrooms that give you hallacinations also affect how your
Speaker 1: body reacts to serotonin.
Speaker 7: LSD and magic mushrooms, and these cause hallucinations. They affect
Speaker 7: serotonin receptors in the brain, so that spike, that big
Speaker 7: rush of serotonin at death is not that far fetched
Speaker 7: to think that, hey, you know, maybe my brain is
Speaker 7: tripping a little bit could be contributing to the altered
Speaker 7: perceptions and all of those weird, vivid experiences that people
Speaker 7: report with these near death experiences.
Speaker 1: Meaning like, as my brain is shutting down dying, I
Speaker 1: basically have the same experience as if I just took
Speaker 1: a bunch of LSD or magic mushrooms. Yeah, okay, So
Speaker 1: to recap scientists like doctor Godwin think that near death
Speaker 1: experiences can be explained by what's happening in your brain.
Speaker 1: When you die or are close to dying, things can
Speaker 1: go haywire, which might turn off the parts of your
Speaker 1: brain that give you that sense of being in your body,
Speaker 1: and your brain also gets flooded with serotonin, which acts
Speaker 1: on the same parts of your brain as LSD and
Speaker 1: magic mushrooms. Another interesting clue is an experiment done in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen that very directly tested whether drugs can give
Speaker 1: you the same experience as near death experiences, and this
Speaker 1: involved a chemical called dimethyl tryptomine, or DMT, which is
Speaker 1: the active ingredient in ayahuasca, a psychedelic drink used in
Speaker 1: South American spiritual and shamanistic rituals. Here's how doctor Godwin
Speaker 1: describes it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so you had healthy volunteers given either a placebo
Speaker 7: or DMT. So what they found was that the experiences
Speaker 7: reported by people who took DMT had a really striking
Speaker 7: overlap with the experiences reported by people had near death experiences.
Speaker 7: Things like feelings of joy, a sense of timelessness, and
Speaker 7: even in some cases out of body sensations. These were
Speaker 7: more common in the DMT group compared to the placebo group, So,
Speaker 7: you know, very telling. But it doesn't really prove that
Speaker 7: nds are solely caused by something like DMT, but it
Speaker 7: does suggest that similar neurochemical mechanisms might be at play,
Speaker 7: and it provides some additional evidence that the experiences are
Speaker 7: rooted in brain activity.
Speaker 1: And so that basically explains what near death experiences are.
Speaker 1: But like I said before, there are some things about
Speaker 1: them that science can't explain. So when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to doctor Godwin about what those
Speaker 1: things are and whether we'll ever solve those mysteries.
Speaker 6: Stick with us.
Speaker 1: You're listening to science stuff. Hey, welcome back.
Speaker 8: Okay.
Speaker 1: We talked about what near death experiences are and how
Speaker 1: science can explain a lot of things that people say
Speaker 1: happen to them when they're close to dying, and now
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about what science can't explain about
Speaker 1: near death experiences, because there are things people say are
Speaker 1: still inexplicable. The first is that about a quarter of
Speaker 1: near death experiencers report seeing or talking to people that
Speaker 1: are dead. For example, here's a well known writer and
Speaker 1: war reporter, Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm, describing
Speaker 1: what he saw when he almost died when he lost
Speaker 1: two thirds of the blood in his body due to
Speaker 1: pancreatic aneurysm.
Speaker 9: I became aware of a dark pit below me and
Speaker 9: to my left. The pit was the purest black and
Speaker 9: so infinitely deep that it had no real depth at all.
Speaker 9: It exerted a pole that was slow but unanswerable, and
Speaker 9: I knew that if I went into the hole, I
Speaker 9: was never coming back. And I was feeling myself getting
Speaker 9: pulled more and more sternly into the darkness. And just
Speaker 9: when it seemed unavoidable. I became aware of something else.
Speaker 9: My father. He'd been dead eight years, but there he
Speaker 9: was not so much floating as simply existing above me
Speaker 9: and slightly to my left. My father exuded reassurance. It
Speaker 9: seemed to be inviting me to go with him. It's okay,
Speaker 9: there's nothing to be scared of. He seemed to be saying,
Speaker 9: don't fight it, I'll take care of you.
Speaker 1: Why do the dying and only the dying, Sebastian Junger writes,
Speaker 1: keep seeing the dead in their last days and hours.
Speaker 1: The other thing people say can't be explained by science
Speaker 1: are when people who go through a near death experience
Speaker 1: seem to know things they shouldn't know. For example, when
Speaker 1: someone has an out of body experience and they report
Speaker 1: knowing what was happening in the room or even in
Speaker 1: the next room when they were unconscious and dying, or
Speaker 1: when people are told secrets or things that haven't happened
Speaker 1: yet by dead people they meet in their near death experience.
Speaker 1: Here's doctor Grayson describing one such experience.
Speaker 2: One fellow I interviewed was hospitalized with severe pneumonia, and
Speaker 2: he had one particular nurse, Anita, who was about his
Speaker 2: age and one day she told him she was going
Speaker 2: to be taking a long weekend off. While she was gone,
Speaker 2: he had another respiratory arrest where he had to be resuscitated,
Speaker 2: and during that one he had a near death experience
Speaker 2: and he found himself in a beautiful pastoral scene. To
Speaker 2: a surprise, Anita came walking towards him. She said, Jack,
Speaker 2: you need to go back to your body, and I
Speaker 2: want you to find my parents and tell them that
Speaker 2: I'm sorry I wrecked the red MGB. When he later
Speaker 2: woke up back in his body, it turned that his nurse, Anita,
Speaker 2: had taken the weekend off to celebrate her twenty first birthday,
Speaker 2: and her parents surprised her with the gift of her
Speaker 2: red MGB. She got excited, jumped in the car for
Speaker 2: a test drive, lost control and crashed into a telephone
Speaker 2: pole and died instantly, just a few hours before his
Speaker 2: near death experience. Now, how would he have known that
Speaker 2: she died, or let alone how she died, and yet
Speaker 2: he did.
Speaker 1: That is pretty spooky. So what does science make of
Speaker 1: examples like these? I asked doctor Godwin, and he didn't
Speaker 1: seem that concern about cases like these.
Speaker 7: This is what he said, I would say there may
Speaker 7: be things about near death experiences that science can't yet explain,
Speaker 7: or for which there there's not enough information to form
Speaker 7: a rational hypothesis. Or maybe it's just that we don't
Speaker 7: have the tools yet necessary to ask the question.
Speaker 1: Basically, doctor Godwin says, just because science can't explain a
Speaker 1: specific event, it doesn't mean that there isn't a reasonable explanation.
Speaker 1: Maybe we see dead people because we're primed to think
Speaker 1: about them if we are close to dying, or in
Speaker 1: the case of the man who saw his dead nurse,
Speaker 1: maybe he regained consciousness briefly and overheard someone talking about her.
Speaker 1: In those cases, it can't just be that we don't
Speaker 1: have enough information. But it did get doctor Godwin to
Speaker 1: admit there is something science may never be able to
Speaker 1: explain about near death experiences, and that is why do
Speaker 1: we have them? Well, what would be the evolutionary basis
Speaker 1: for near death experiences? Like why would that be something
Speaker 1: that we evolved to have?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't know that it necessarily conveys an evolutionary
Speaker 7: advantage because think about it, it would be very rare
Speaker 7: for someone during the course of evolution to be able
Speaker 7: to come back from death. It's only now, more recently,
Speaker 7: when we have all these wonderful machines and drugs that
Speaker 7: can help stimulate and bring us back, that we would
Speaker 7: even note that these experiences happen. So from an evolutionary perspective,
Speaker 7: it's almost like it doesn't matter. I guess you could
Speaker 7: postulate that maybe some of those same genes that are
Speaker 7: producing hallucinations during death, or genes that were very important
Speaker 7: in life, and just at the end we get this nice,
Speaker 7: non selective experience that helps us make sense of things.
Speaker 7: What we can say, though, is that NDEs are real.
Speaker 7: You know, they're real in the sense that people genuinely
Speaker 7: experience them. They come back from this brush with their
Speaker 7: own mortality with these stories, and there's no reason to
Speaker 7: feel or to expect that they're being dishonest about it.
Speaker 7: The emotions they feel when this happens to them, those
Speaker 7: are real. They're not just making them up. But the
Speaker 7: dance suggests that these experience sorts, at least the ones
Speaker 7: that we can track down, seem to be rooted in
Speaker 7: how the brain works, not necessarily evidence of an afterlife
Speaker 7: or any sort of supernatural realm, but it's kind of
Speaker 7: a reminder of the incredible complexity of the brain and
Speaker 7: the way we have this amazing ability to create vivid
Speaker 7: and meaningful experiences.
Speaker 1: All right, I think that's a pretty good answer to
Speaker 1: the question. Our near death experience is real, the real
Speaker 1: to the people that have them, even if it's all
Speaker 1: just happening in their brains. Thanks for joining us, See
Speaker 1: you next time. A big thanks to doctor Grayson and
Speaker 1: the University of Virginia Lifetime Learning Office of Engagement, and
Speaker 1: to Sebastian Junger. The audio excerpt is copyright twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four by Sebastian Junger and courtesy of Simon and Schuster.
Speaker 1: Audio from the audiobook In My Time of Dying by
Speaker 1: Sebastian Junger, right by the author, published by Simon and
Speaker 1: Schuster Audio, a division of Simon and Schuster Incorporated. Used
Speaker 1: with permission and thanks to my friends for reading those
Speaker 1: near death experience accounts. Monica, Paul Andres Vivan and Suluka.
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