AWARE Update from Dr. Parnia

[alextsakiris]

I heard from Dr. Parnia yesterday... gotta say I'm more confused than ever. Forutnatley, Dr. Parnia has agreed to join me for an interview.

Here's some of what he wrote:

On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 2:10 PM, Parnia S. wrote:

...I would be very happy to organise a time to speak with you and give you an interview as you had requested.

However, my main point that I would like to raise with you is that you have misinterpreted the AWARE Study. The overall goal of the AWARE Study is to study the processes that take place in the brain and also the cognitive and mental processes in people who have had a cardiac arrest and have therefore by definition died for a period of time. We have now learnt that death is fully reversible and therefore inadvertently through the process of saving lives and trying to bring back to life people who have died, we have come to learn what happens to the mind and brain at this time. As you probably realised from my lecture at Goldsmiths, the evidence is now suggesting that mental and cognitive processes may continue for a period of time after a death has started. This of course makes sense when we understand the process of death better, which is that it is essentially a global stroke of the brain. Therefore like any stroke process one would not expect the entity of mind / consciousness to be lost immediately.

The goal of the study therefore is to determine whether consciousness can indeed continue in people who have had a cardiac arrest and hence gone through the process of death or whether it stops. We know that there are many reports of people who claim to have awareness during this process and therefore the goal of this study is to determine whether awareness continues or not.

in general I am not favourable to the use of the term 'near death experiences' because first of all the patients that we study are not near death, they have actually died and more over it conjures up a lot of imprecise scientific notions, due to the fact that itself is a very imprecise term. As I am sure you are aware there are many different theories for why near death experiences occur, but none of these have been validated through scientific studies. The most famous of these being suggestions such as a lack of oxygen or some sort of brain based chemical or hormonal change. The main issue to realise with this, is that all human experience is triggered by the brain and therefore identifying a chemical within the brain (whatever that may be) will not tell us about the reality or non reality of any experience. This of course also includes near death experience. For example as I am sure you are aware, every human experience such as love, anger, jealousy etc are all mediated by chemical changes within the brain. However, we would not call these experiences hallucinations and in fact would not comment on their reality or non real state based upon identification of areas of the brain or chemicals or receptors that may be involved with the modulation of these experiences. In the same way it is impossible to draw a conclusion that near death experiences are real or not simply by identifying and finding certain areas of the brain that might be involved in it. Unfortunately to this date no such area has been verified and found to be correct. I have no doubt that such areas do exist though. Nevertheless if we do identify these chemicals or areas of the brain we are still left with the question of whether the experiences are real or not...

[P_Synthesis]

Um... does he mention targets at all? OBE at all?

[Sock]

In the same way it is impossible to draw a conclusion that near death experiences are real or not simply by identifying and finding certain areas of the brain that might be involved in it. Unfortunately to this date no such area has been verified and found to be correct. I have no doubt that such areas do exist though. Nevertheless if we do identify these chemicals or areas of the brain we are still left with the question of whether the experiences are real or not...

Well I do agree with this part.

[paqart]

Sounds like this is not an NDE study at all. It also sounds like he will find very little or nothing of interest to us, because he isn't going to bother looking at all.

AP

[Sandy B]

Alex, please don't be too hard on Dr Parnia. He's just trying to be a scientist. That gets harder and harder these days.

I think the problem is that everyone has gotten these very inflated expectations of the importance of this one study. This is one study within the framework of a larger body of evidence. If all it does is suggest that further studies are warranted, I think that would be awesome.

One study doesn't prove or disprove anything. It is all about increasing the overall body of evidence in order to get a clearer understanding of natural systems.

I'm very pleased that Dr Parnia has agreed to speak about his work. But I also understand that until the study is complete, it probably isn't prudent to for any researcher to start debating possible interpretations of the work or even to mention any preliminary findings in detail.

On a personal note, as an NDEr I don't require a scientific interpretation to validate my experience any more than you might need someone to point out what goes on in your brain when you are in love in order to validate your feelings for someone special. I'm glad people are studying NDEs and am curious about what they learn. But no one can take my experience away from me.

[Arouet]

Still sounds like a pretty fascinating study. I look forward to the results!

I don't think he was implying that they weren't looking at NDE's, he just doesn't like the semantics of the term. I suspect there will be plenty for this forum to discuss!

[Pollux]

This again brings me back to doubts regarding his intentions.
Is he downplaying the part of the experiment that might prove separation of body and consciousness to appease the opponent hawks of the establishment.
I find every part of what he wrote interesting and well worth all the studies it can get, but the most interesting part he is not even mentioning.

Either he is downplaying and try to shift the public focus of attention to this part of the experiment and does the OBE study more on the side, but with the same effort until he have some result either way.
Or maybe he is been swayed by the pressure to drop the focus on the OBE-part to even be let to do the study at all.

Slightly confusing.

[Arouet]

He's just starting from basics: is the brain actually completely shutting down, or is activity still happening? Not an insignificant question, IMO.

[bishop]

I think Parnia is being very sensible, and has a complete grasp on what he has set out to do. I There is clearly a lot to learn from such a study.

[Pollux]

Originally Posted by Arouet

He's just starting from basics: is the brain actually completely shutting down, or is activity still happening? Not an insignificant question, IMO.

Not at all, very interesting, all of it.
If one take the materialistic standpoint it would be quite a terrifying moment if one "die" and still would be aware for quite some time, locked inside the brain, waiting for the air to run out, so to speak.

People being beheaded in the French Revolution by the guillotine seemed to be aware for a sustainable amount of time afterwards, reacting visually and auditory to the surrounding.
Nothing one brings up at dinner parties though.