Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris interview with Dr. Sam Parnia - Part 1

Interview with NDE researcher and AWARE Project leader explores limits of experiments on near-death experience.

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Original posting: http://www.skeptiko.com/sam-parnia-claims-near-death-experience-probably-an-i...

Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with the NDE expert and author of, What Happens When We Die?, Dr. Sam Parnia. During the interview Dr. Parnia is asked why he suspects NDE is an "illusion", and a "trick of the mind". When pressed, Dr Parnia stated, "...It may well be. You're pushing and I'm giving you honest answers. I don't know. If I knew the answers then I don't think I would have engaged and spent 12 years of my life and so much of my medical reputation to try to do this. Because to appreciate people like me, I risk a lot by doing this sort of experiment. So I'm interested in the answers and I don't know. Like I said, if I was to base everything on the knowledge that I have currently of neuroscience, then the easiest explanation is that this is probably an illusion."

While Dr. Parnia's position regarding the validity of the NDE phenomena stands in contrast to most other near death experience researchers he continues to push forward. His AWARE Project asks cardiac arrest patients who experience a NDE to recall hidden pictures placed above their bed. This methodology has been criticized by NDE experts who give it little chance of yielding positive results. Dr. Parnia responds, "I don't know if [the tests will] be successful or not. That's an important point to make. As I said, I don't have a particular stance. It's possible that these experiences are simply illusionary and it's possible that they're real. Science hasn't got the answers yet. So we have to go fair-minded. Right now what we have is a setup that can at least, we hope, objectively determine an answer to the question."

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• skeptiko
• Dr. Sam Parnia
• NDE
• AWARE Study
• near death experiences
• out of body experiences
• research
• science
• Alex Tsakiris
• interview
• October 14th
• 2010
• anewpersonalparadigm

[Yeahnoa]

@DStrike0083 Illiterate, do gather documentation and information before discussing. And learn to read. Now believe anything you want and get off my back.

[DStrike0083]

@Yeahnoa are you illiterate? There's only one study going on and that's the aware study head by that parnia. Are you just making shit up again?

[AnduinX]

@Yeahnoa: It doesn't matter how many billboards there are, you could ask the trucker about any single ONE of them, and they would likely not be able to recall it, because they had no reason to pay attention to the billboards. If you told the truck driver to look for a billboard before they set out that would be different, because they would be looking for it. That's not what happens in this study. People don't die with the explicit purpose of looking at that shelf.

[AnduinX]

@Yeahnoa: Think about it like this, if you were to go to a highway truck stop and ask a trucker to recount all of the billboards between his starting point and the truck stop, do you think they'd be able to do it? Almost certainly not - because most truck drivers have no reason to pay attention to (let alone memorize) the billboards they pass. Using the logic you're putting forth, you could argue that the hypothetical trucker never made his run because he lacked details about it.

[AnduinX]

@Yeahnoa: Not making a note of a picture does not disprove the experience anymore than not making a note of a landmark on my flight to England disproves that I flew to England. You have to keep in mind that these patients don’t come to the hospital to be part of a study. They’re dying, and looking at a picture on top of a closet is probably the last thing on their mind at the time.

[alexeevic]

@mik99D Really sorry for your complications! However not all NDEs are the same. Your experience may be different from a classic NDE experience, which fully goes by the Greyson scale. The interesting NDEs I'm talking about are those when the experiencer undergoes complete shut-down of the brain (cryo-surgery for instance). I was pointing the contradiction, by "Reduction to absurd" , not making a point, no redundacy or c logic. NDE research is not wishful thinking, expectancy on the outcome is.

[mik99D]

@alexeevic No. I think you have a bout of circular reasoning there. How can an experience happen outside the brain? This is nonsense. Someone has a NDE, they have not died. I know this as it has happened to me several times. Otherwise we would call them DEs although no one has ever had one of those and reported it back. Just because something can't be explained - this doesn't allow one to fill in the gaps with any fairy tale that takes your fancy. NDE research is wishful thinking.

[MastaSh0ckW4v3]

@MastaSh0ckW4v3 time is meant to be "type" Sorry, my typing skills suck.

[MastaSh0ckW4v3]

@mik99D Interesting point, but I have to disagree with you, if it is real, then obviously the brain and body were only a means for this thing(soul) to communicate. We can't really expect to know, all we can do is make our own guesses for now. I respect yours though.

It's not evidence at all but I have always wondered how a blind person from birth could have the same time of NDE as a sighted person. That to me has always stuck, that is much harder to explain away than all the others.

[thekaji]

people get too wrapped around the axle about whether NDE's are illusions or real. If it positively effects the individuals life, then the results are certainly real (mutually exclusive of the cause). Which is all that matters in this lifetime.