“Yes. We know that mystical experiences originate from the same mechanisms that produce hallucinations— you know, people who claim to see the Virgin Mary, dead grandmothers, even space aliens. When the parietal lobe is stimulated, that region reports a sense of another’s presence.”
“What happened to me in the booth.”
“Yes. We stimulated your parietal lobe, and you sensed your father’s presence.”
“But it felt so real.”
“As we knew it would. The challenge was to find a diagnostic means to distinguish these from actual experiences.”
The waiter returned with their drinks.
“Before she got the fMRI prototype, Elizabeth was restricted to interviewing hospital patients who claimed NDEs. Now we can do it in the lab under controlled conditions.”
“So how long have you been flatlining people?”
“Only three months, but the project’s been going on for a few years.”
“How many others have you suspended?”
“The data’s confidential, but a few.”
“Can you say what you’ve determined so far?”
“Nothing conclusive, but Elizabeth’s very excited about your testing.”
“Because I’ve got a hot God lobe.”
She sipped her wine. “Yes.”
“So how come I get a craving for root beer instead of a tunnel to the pearly gates?”
“Maybe next time.”
“One of the other problems,” she said, “is trying to separate actual near-death experiences from confabulations. People make all sorts of claims, some the result of autosuggestion—what they think they should experience: moving down tunnels, life reviews, meeting beings of light. Claims that don’t match with neuro and metabolic activity.”
“So it’s easier to verify out-of-the-body experiences because they either identify images or they don’t.”
“Yes, and reports of NDEs are nearly untestable. All we can see is activity and blood chemistry, which tells us something about the emotions of the experience.”
“Do people ever report bad NDEs, something other than light and peace?”
“On occasion. Why?”
“Just wondering. All you hear about are blissful ones.”
“The literature cites a few cases of unpleasant experiences. But nothing I’ve seen.”
Zack sipped his beer. “You’re a scientist, so where do you stand on all this? Do you think my mind actually separated from my brain and floated to the ceiling?”
“The short answer is maybe. But that’s the big question—what sits at the heart of the whole science-faith debate: Is the mind reducible to neural networks, or is there something beyond the physicality of the brain? And if so, does it exist in another realm—heaven, nirvana, the afterlife?”
“Yeah, all of that.”
“Well, I’m also a former dyed-in-the-wool Roman Catholic. I used to believe that religion was a leap of faith, untouched by rationalism. But the more I studied, the more I began to lapse in faith.” She took another sip of wine. “Yet this project raises other possibilities.”
“Like what?”
“Like maybe there’s something to the spiritual world, though not in the biblical sense.”
“So, you believe in God but you don’t.”
She smiled. “I like how you word things.”
“One of the few benefits of being an English major: saying things to impress a date.”
“I’m impressed. Let’s say that I’m still skeptical, but if there is a spiritual sentience, I don’t believe it’s the Judeo-Christian-Muslim paternal figure who watches over all life and answers prayers.”
“You’re not quite a born-again NDE-er.”
“No, I’m still stuck in the materialist school—you know, that consciousness is a function of the living brain— and once the brain is dead, so is sentience. So an NDE is a shut-down mechanism of the brain telling the body to die.”
“Then how do you explain all the reports of heavenly light and great peacefulness?”
“Possibly evolutionary strategies to make death easier to accept—buffers to the horror of one’s dying.”
“Pure neurobiology,” he said, using Stern’s phrase.
“Yes. For an NDE to be real, one would have to scientifically demonstrate that consciousness survives clinical death. And the only way to do that is for someone to acquire information when their unconscious mind leaves their body.”
“Like my craving for root beer.”
“Maybe.”
“But that could also be a coincidence, or recall of the photo tests.”
“Except that you couldn’t have remembered it. Also, we’ve seen other OBEs before.”
“Maybe more coincidences.”
“Or maybe evidence that the mind
“Do you believe that?”
“I’m open to the possibility, but not there yet.” Then she leaned forward, her face glowing as if a light had clicked on inside. “But if true, what an awesome possibility—that in the end, we experience a transformation in states, from physical to nonphysical sentience. In short, there’s no such thing as death. And that once we die, our minds merge with a cosmic sentience—the Overmind.”
The intensity of her manner sent a ripple through him. “The Overmind?”
“Another sci-fi term. Some think that mental telepathy is a glimpse of the Overmind. Also that some of us are genetically programmed for such.”
For a shuddering moment, his head filled with the face of Winston glowering at him across the poker table.
“And that telepathic people are evidence that we all merge with the Ovemind—which is what all religions talk about. If that could be demonstrated—a huge
“Such as?”
“Such as information known only to the deceased and not the subject.”
“Like meeting your dead grandmother, who says there’s treasure buried in the backyard. And lo and behold, you take a shovel and voila.”
“That would do it.”
Zack was enjoying the suppleness of her mind and the vigorous enthusiasm in her manner that lit her eyes and lent a resplendence to her beautiful face. He could also tell that she was enjoying being with him—and that gave him relief that there was life after Amanda. When they had broken up last year, Zack had nearly convinced himself that his best options were behind him, that he was not destined to find a woman who was as fascinating, smart, and attractive. “I get the feeling that Dr. Luria is more open to spiritual possibilities?”
“Yes.”
“And Dr. Stern is pure neurobiology, kind of like yourself.”
She smiled warmly at his name, as if he were more than a mentor, maybe a father figure. “He’s a hard-core rationalist, a geneticist by training, who takes an evolutionary interest in the phenomena. He believes that a small number of people have a bent toward spirituality, but that’s as far as he goes.”
“That we’re wired to believe in God,” he said.
“Yes, which has the evolutionary advantage of forging communities based on belief systems, at the heart of which are shamans, priests, and other specially wired people.”
