discussion of the Resch case, saying:
I have long believed that the major difference between the skeptic and the parapsychologist is one of expectation. The former does not believe that validation of paranormal claims is imminent; the latter depends upon that event for justification. Also, the skeptic will invoke parsimony—the simplest explanation consistent with the facts—where the parapsychologist eschews it. Personally, I find it much more reasonable, when objects fly around the room in the vicinity of an unhappy 14-year-old, to suspect poor reporting and observation rather than a repeal of the basic laws of physics. (p. 222)
Perception and memory being constructive, the expectations of the parapsychologist are frequently met.
NEAR-DEATH AND OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES
The badly injured victim of an automobile accident is rushed to the nearest hospital emergency room. Working frantically, the doctors manage to save him. Later, after his recovery, he tells a strange story. He saw, as if from a vantage point near the ceiling of the emergency room, the entire scene as the doctors worked to save him. It was as if he were floating above his physical body, looking down on it. Then he found himself moving down a tunnel with a blazing white light at the end. As he neared the end of the tunnel, a being dressed in white, together with a dead relative, came toward him and told him his time had not yet come. During the entire experience, he felt a great sense of unity and profound understanding and a total lack of anxiety.
Reports such as this have been collected by several investigators, who argue that they represent true reports of an afterlife (Ring 1980; Moody 1976; Osis and Haraldsson 1977). These investigators make a point of the great similarity of these “deathbed” visions, even across different cultures. This is what would be expected if the visions were really memories of a trip to the threshold of the afterlife. However, proponents of the afterlife interpretation of these reports grossly underestimate the variability among reports. One researcher (Rawlings 1978), for example, found that the patients he talked to often reported visiting hell. In Ring’s reports, the tunnel imagery is rarely found. Moody has explicitly called attention to the great variability in the reports: “There is an enormously wide spectrum of experiences, with some people having only one or two of the elements, and others most of them” (p. 87). In addition, reports of this type are quite rare. Most people lying critically injured in the emergency room don’t experience them.
The way in which the reports are collected poses another serious problem for those who want to take them seriously as evidence of an afterlife. Osis and Haraldsson’s (1977) study was based on replies received from ten thousand questionnaires sent to doctors and nurses in the United States and India. Only 6.4 percent were returned. Since it was the doctors and nurses who were giving the reports, not the patients who had, presumably, actually had the experience, the reports were secondhand. This means they had passed through two highly fallible and constructive human memory systems (the doctor’s or nurse’s and the actual patient’s) before reaching Osis and Haraldsson. In other cases (i.e., Moody 1977) the reports were given by the patients themselves, months and years after the event. Such reports are hardly sufficient to argue for the reality of an afterlife.
Near-death visions are actually hallucinations. Siegel (1980) has described the high degree of similarity between near-death visions and other types of hallucinations (such as drug-induced hallucinations) in both form and content. Thus, hallucinations caused by drugs frequently contain images of long tunnels, blinding light, otherworldly beings, friends and relatives (alive and dead), and so forth. However, most of the individuals who experience deathbed visions are not drugged. What, then, is responsible for their hallucinations? The answer is cerebral anoxia. When the body is badly injured—especially if the heart stops, even if only for a brief period—the brain is deprived of oxygen. Even a very brief period of cerebral anoxia, such as sixty to ninety seconds, can result in impairment of neuronal function (Brierley and Graham 1984). Blackmore (1993) has reviewed the biology and psychology of near- death experiences in detail.
The effects of cerebral anoxia are well-known (Alcock 1981). Initially there is a feeling of well-being and power. As the anoxia continues and more neurons become impaired, there is a loss in the ability to make critical judgments, reality becomes vague, and hallucinations appear.
The response of the proponents of life after death to this argument is to admit that cerebral anoxia, drugs, and brain damage can cause hallucinations that are essentially identical to deathbed visions. But the hallucination hypothesis, they claim, is not sufficient to explain the visions because not every patient who has ever had such a vision has been conclusively shown to have been anoxic, brain damaged, or drugged. Again, the “irreducible minimum” number of allegedly unexplainable reports is thrown up as proof of the paranormal hypothesis after the initial mass of supposedly supportive evidence that the proponents started with has been whittled down to almost nothing by careful inspection. Certainly there will always be cases in which, because of incomplete medical information, it is not possible to show that a particular patient was anoxic or intoxicated. However, the fact that anoxia and drug intoxication are known to produce hallucinations just like the report given by the patient would suggest the rational conclusion that the patient was anoxic or drugged, not that the patient had visited the threshold of the afterlife.
When recovered, patients sometimes report comments and bits of conversation that took place while they were presumably unconscious, either due to the severity of injuries or to anesthesia. Should this be seen as convincing evidence for some sort of “astral” body being detached from the physical body and observing the situation? No. Even during unconsciousness, the brain is able to register sensory impressions. Thus, events that occur when an individual is asleep may appear in the dreams (Arkin, Antrobus, and Ellman 1978; Foulkes 1985). Further, the brain can discriminate between important and unimportant events while the individual is asleep (Arkin, Antrobus, and Ellman 1978). A classic example is the new parent who is awakened by the slightest cry of the infant, but sleeps right through much louder, but less important, noises. Registration of sensory inputs also can take place while the individual is anesthetized, as general anesthetics do not block the sensory inputs to the brain. The registration of stimuli in anesthetized patients was recently demonstrated by Millar and Watkinson (1983). While patients who were undergoing surgery were anesthetized, a tape-recorded list of words was presented to them. After recovery from anesthesia their memory was tested. When asked to recall the words on the list, they were unable to do so. However, when they were asked simply to recognize which of two words had been presented to them, they were correct at a rate significantly above chance. Thus, even while under general anesthetic, the brain does retain some capacity to store new information, although it may be difficult to retrieve this information later. This is very likely the source of the snippets of conversation that sometimes turn up in deathbed visions.
Near-death experiences do seem to have psychological effects on those who experience them. The individuals may become more secure, more religious, and may adopt a generally more mystical and “spiritual” worldview (Irwin 1985). These personality changes testify to the power of the misinterpretation of what is actually happening to the individual. Similarly, although less dramatic, changes may take place in those who have experienced an auditory hallucination that they misinterpret as evidence of life after death or see an object in the sky which they can’t identify at once and therefore misinterpret as an extraterrestrial flying saucer.
The personality changes and the extreme conviction with which people hold to the new beliefs engendered by a near-death experience convince many that the new beliefs are valid. It is important to remember, however, that the strength of a belief is no guide to its validity. Hundreds of people, for example, believed with all their heart that the Reverend Jim Jones was a true miracle worker (in fact he used sleight of hand to fake faith healings) who would lead them to the promised land. Many converts experienced personality changes after joining Jones’s church. In spite of the firmness of their convictions, they died in the jungles of Guyana.
Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) can occur in non-life-threatening situations, and some individuals claim they can leave their physical bodies at will and travel through space using their “astral” bodies. Another term for this ability is
