There have been some solid scientific studies of what happens to the brain during such events, notably a 2001 Dutch study published in the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet. The researchers examined 344 patients who were resuscitated after suffering cardiac arrest, and interviewed them within a week afterwards about what — if anything — they remembered. The results were a bit startling: about 18% reported being able to recall some portion of what happened when they were clinically dead, and between 8 and 12 percent said they experienced some form of an NDE.
Neurochemistry offers some convincing alternative explanations. Perhaps NDEs aren't evidence of an afterlife, but illusions created by a dying (oxygen deprived) brain. Cardiac arrest and the anesthesias used in ERs are capable of triggering NDE-like brain states. The Dutch researchers found that "similar experiences can be induced through electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe," for instance, as can neurochemicals such as endorphins and serotonin, and hallucinogenic drugs like LSD and mescaline.
---SPSmith
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