Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

The subject’s testimony matched very closely the surgeon’s report, which the subject had never seen (Sabom 1982, p. 68; bracketed interpolations by Sabom): “A satisfactory general anesthesia [halothan] was introduced with the patient in the supine position. . . . He was prepped from the chin to below the ankles and draped in the customary sterile fashion. . . A long midline incision was made. . . . The sternum was sawed open in the midline, a self-retaining retractor was utilized . . . [After the heart had been exposed] Two 32 Argyle venous lines were placed through stab wounds in the right atrium [heart chamber]. . . . One of these tubes extended into the inferior vena cava and one into the superior vena cava [large veins which feed blood to venous side of heart]. . . . The patient was placed on cardiopulmonary bypass. . . . The ventricular aneurysm [large scarred area of heart which represented area of previous heart attack and would have appeared to be of a different color than the normal heart muscle that remained] was dissected free. . . . The left ventricle was then closed. . . . Air was evacuated from the left ventricle with a needle and syringe . . . The wound was closed in layers.”

The subject’s account contained many other details not mentioned in the surgeon’s report, such as the insertion of sponges into the chest cavity to absorb blood. These details, too minor to be mentioned in the report itself, were, however, consistent with the report. Sabom gave other examples of very detailed accounts of perceptions of the details of surgical treatment, details not likely to be known by a patient. To Sabom, these detailed reports by subjects, matching the records kept by doctors about the exact surgical procedures, were good confirmation of the reality of the reported out-of-body experiences.

Thirty-two of Sabom’s subjects reported details of their medical treatment (1982, p. 83). In order to judge the extent to which these reports could have been the result of educated guesses, Sabom interviewed a control group of twenty-five cardiac patients, with backgrounds similar to those reporting ndEs (1982, p. 84). They were familiar in a general way with hospital treatment of cardiac arrest and many admitted to having seen hospital dramas on television. Sabom asked the control subjects to imagine they were in an operating room watching doctors resuscitate a heart attack victim and to report to him in detail what they thought would be happening. Two of the control subjects could not come up with any description at all. Of the twenty-three who did supply descriptions, twenty made major errors. The most common error was including mouth-tomouth breathing in the account. In hospitals, other methods are used to give oxygen to a patient. Three of those giving descriptions gave very limited ones without obvious error (Sabom 1982, p. 85). By way of contrast, of the 32 subjects reporting some recollection of their treatment during ndEs, 26 gave general descriptions that did not include any major errors. According to Sabom (1982, p.87), these descriptions “did correspond in a general way to the known facts of the near-death crisis event.” According to these sub-jects, they were focusing more on the experience itself than on what the doctors were doing, and were thus not able to recall details (Sabom 1982, p. 86). furthermore, six subjects gave remarkably detailed accounts that matched their medical treatment records. So, in the control group, 20 out of 23 subjects who gave reports made major errors, while in the ndE group of 32 subjects none made any mistakes and six gave very detailed reports that exactly matched their medical records, unseen by them. This led Sabom (1982, p. 87) to conclude that “these ndE accounts most likely are not subtle fabrications based on prior general knowledge.” He said that further research was desirable, in order to strengthen the basis for this conclusion. At the end of his study, Sabom (1982, p. 183) asked, “could the mind which splits apart from the physical brain be, in essence, the ‘soul,’ which continues to exist after final bodily death, according to some religious doctrines?”

Sabom has his critics. One is Susan Blackmore. Once inclined to accept the reality of out-of-body experiences, Blackmore now believes that the out-of-body experience does not actually involve any conscious entity going out of the body. There are thus two interpretations of the OBE. The extrasomatic interpretation holds that there is a self which actually leaves the body. The intrasomatic interpretation holds that there is merely an internal impression of being out of the body. Most supporters of the intrasomatic interpretation would also deny that there is any kind of substantial conscious self at all, what to speak of one that could leave the body. Blackmore, who holds the intrasomatic view, stated (1982, p. 251): “nothing leaves the body in an OBE and so there is nothing to survive.” Under this intrasomatic view, the OBE is simply a dreamlike hallucination manufactured by the brain.

In his book Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: a Postmodern exploration , philosopher david Ray Griffin (1997, pp. 232–242) discussed objections to the intrasomatic hypothesis, the most significant of which I outline in the next few paragraphs. The most obvious objection is the intensity of the subject’s feeling and perception of being out of the body. Most of those reporting OBEs are resolute in their conviction that they experienced something real, something distinct from a dream or hallucination.

Some subjects, not under anesthesia, reported a cessation of pain during their OBEs. This could possibly be explained by the action of the body’s natural painkillers, such as endorphins. But the subjects reported that the pain returned as soon as they reentered their bodies. This should not happen if the pain relief was caused by endorphins. The most fitting explanation appears to be that the conscious self actually leaves the body and becomes temporarily detached from the sensations of the body.

The primarily visual nature of OBEs is also a problem for advocates of intrasomatic theories. When a person approaching death gradually becomes unconscious, normally the visual sensations cease before the auditory sensations. It would thus seem that subjects on the brink of death should be recalling sounds rather than sights. In this connection, it should also be noted that schizophrenic hallucinations are primarily auditory, not visual.

That the visual impressions of subjects, who should have been unconscious, correspond to their actual surroundings tends to rule out the theory that the subjects are making up their OBE reports as a defense against fear of death, to gain social approval, or to support a personal religious belief. It seems strange that such hallucinations should be limited to reconstructions of the actual surroundings.

The correspondence between the visual impressions and the actual surroundings also tends to rule out the hypothesis that the visions are hallucinations caused by anoxia (lack of oxygen in the brain) and hypercarbia (too much carbon dioxide). According to Sabom (1982, pp. 175–176), lack of oxygen produces a confused state of mind, contrasting with the mental clarity experienced by OBE subjects. Too much carbon dioxide can bring about flashes of light and other effects, but apparently not the perception of one’s immediate surroundings. furthermore, in one of Sabom’s cases, the physicians actually took a blood sample for blood-gas analysis during cardiac treatment. The oxygen level was above average, and the carbon dioxide level was below average (Sabom 1982, p. 178).

Some have proposed that temporal lobe seizures account for the OBEs, but according to Sabom (1982, pp. 173–174) perception of the immediate environment is quite distorted during such seizures.