Susan Blackmore

Susan Blackmore has interviewed many people who have had Near-Death

Experiences (NDEs) and researched hundreds of case histories. She

bridges the scientific and spiritual interpretations by arguing that

there are clear physical explanations for the changes that take place

within the brain, and that true spiritual transformation comes not from

searching after a spirit or soul that survives death, but from accepting

that the whole concept of 'self' is in itself an illusion.

The following is an extract from Dying to Live - Science and the

Near-Death Experience (London: Grafton, 1993).

"I have to face a real problem here. I have encountered it often enough

already and I expect to meet it many more times. Many NDErs come back

from their experiences convinced that they have seen the spirit world,

convinced that they have grasped their 'overself', 'higher self' or

'ultimate being'; convinced that 'they' have met their dead loved ones

and that they will live after they die. I am denying that they are

right. I am not denying their experiences but I am disagreeing with the

conclusions they have come to. They may, with some justification, think

I am insulting them by saying 'You have not seen what you thought you

saw'; I am not surprised when people come back at me with 'But I know it

because I have been there.' To this I can only say - I have experienced

it too and I have come to a different conclusion from you.

"I also have another problem: many people find the idea of an eternal

soul and an afterlife a great comfort. Adopting this view may even help

them to live their lives more fully and more lovingly. They find this

view a comfort when facing their own death, the death of others they

love and even in the midst of life. It may actually be easier to live

life in the false hope that you will live for ever than in the scary

openness of nothing but the present. So by saying what I believe to be

true I may be denying people that comfort. I can only hope that people

who prefer that view will simply disagree with me and say - I have come

to a different conclusion from you.

'The NDE can cut right through the illusion that we are separate selves'

My conclusion is that the NDE brings about a breakdown of the model of

self along with the breakdown of the brain's normal processes. In this

way it can cut right through the illusion that we are separate selves.

It becomes clear that 'I' never did exist and so there is no one to die.

The funny thing is that when a whole system drops the idea of there

being anyone in there to die, it seems to become a nicer person to have

around. To the extent that this happens, the person is changed. Here is

the real loss of the fear of death. Here lies the true transformation of

the NDE.

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Blackmore, who as a parapsychologist came to believe psychic power was

a non-explanation, tries to do justice to the compelling power of an OBE

without detachable spirits soaring beyond the brain. She argues that OBEs

typically take place under conditions when information from the external

world is not available to our brain, but our normal awareness has not been

switched off. So our brain focuses attention on the most stable model of the

world available. Our memory of location is organized according to a bird's

eye view. Without external input, this memory-model is most stable,

and it becomes our working picture of "reality." While having an OBE

we survey a scene including ourselves from above, and this feels no

less real than our ordinary models based on continuing sensory

input.[56]

NDEs usually begin with OBEs; near death, the brain is cut off from

outside information. Blackmore also explores how the NDE progresses

beyond an OBE.[57] NDEs have occurred in people who were not not

dying; so while something in the dying process triggers a tunnel-image

and so forth, it is not something unique about death. A good

candidate is oxygen-deprivation. Oxygen-starved neurons in the visual

cortex fire in abnormal patterns, producing effects seen as concentric

rings or spirals. Even gradually increasing electrical noise in the

visual cortex can produce the basic elements of an approaching tunnel

of light.

Blackmore's ideas about the personality-altering aspects of NDEs are

more speculative. Given the unusual neurochemistry of the

oxygen-deprived brain, a flood of memories is not too surprising. But

what about patients who say they are judged during the life review, or

who emerge from their NDEs as a changed person? Part of the reason

must be that interpreting an NDE is a long process which begins before

the experience and continues after the patient emerges back into the

ordinary world. Supernatural theories are readily available and

straightforward to understand, plus they accord NDEs a cosmic

significance in proportion to their personal impact. Disentangling

what is a result of religious beliefs in the culture and what is due

to events happening in any dying brain could be next to impossible.

Even so, something special must happen in NDEs for religions to

interpret. Blackmore suggests that as the brain gets closer to death,

our model of self also falls apart, leaving us in a state where there

is experience but no coherent self to experience it. It would be hard

not to be changed after that.

Psychology also helps explain other experiences which suggest a

deathless spirit. For example, when a hypnotized subject is relating

memories of past lives, she is performing the role of someone who has

lived before, and relating what she thinks are appropriate memories.

She fashions this new identity out of common knowledge and stereotypes

about the past, sometimes even fiction she had read long ago and had

seemingly forgotten completely. Remembering past lives under hypnosis

is closely related to experiences of spirit-possession, channelling,

alien abductions, multiple personalities, and hypnotically induced

false memories of ritual abuse. We do not need magic to understand

such experiences.[58]

Mainstream psychology, then, makes progress in understanding unusual

experiences. In contrast, supernatural explanations are dead ends.

Things happen at the whim of spirits, and we are left to make excuses

for the surprising limitations on how the spirit manifests itself. To

make the "survivalist hypothesis" respectable, we at least need

examples of paranormal perception by the soaring spirit. In other

words, we cannot do without public miracles. And then we get the

usual problem: nothing stands out. No one with memories of past lives

comes up with information useful to historians or archaeologists.

When skeptics investigate the story about the hospitalized woman who

saw a shoe on an outside ledge while hovering in an OBE, they find

that she could have easily have obtained her information normally.[59]

Still, what about the direct experiences of spiritual realities that

make OBE or NDE testimonies so compelling? Are we really supposed to

trust psychologists' theories over first-hand experience? Yes. We

rarely realize how much theory and interpretation is woven into our

perceptions---even our biology. For example, we recognize faces with

ease. We _see_ faces, without being aware of the layers of computing

our brain goes through to achieve that effortless identification.

Different neural networks in our brain simultaneously process the

information from our eyes, to identify edges, color, motion and so on.

Parts of our brain are also devoted to identifying features of faces,

and recognizing the overall pattern.[60] This hardwiring is very

useful in everyday life, but it also leads us to see Jesus's face on

tortilla burns. Most of us are willing to admit that is a mistake,

first-hand experience or not. NDEs and OBEs are also permeated by

"theories" wired into our brain structure, and by the folk psychology

we interpret our everyday experience with. These theories are not

infallible; the evidence of psychology is that our folk theories

concerning spirits and first-hand experience are in fact wrong.

This does not mean we understand everything about extraordinary

experiences. Quite the contrary. We know too little about our

brains, or about how our personalities form and change. Something

like an NDE is a messy experience, not always triggered by any single,

clearly identifiable cause like oxygen-deprivation.[61] In physics we

often stumble upon clean and simple explanations; not in psychology.

Humans are extremely complex animals in a complex normal environment.

But we know enough about psychology to see that experiences like NDEs

are not gateways to the supernatural. We have plenty of gaps in our

knowledge---but no gaps we need gods and spirits to bridge.

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Opinion has long been divided over Near-Death Experiences, or NDEs, some

presenting them as evidence for the existence of the soul and life after death,

others arguing that they are merely the chemical and physiological products

of a dying brain.

Susan Blackmore has interviewed many people who claim to have had NDEs,

and after researching hundreds of case histories she offers an absorbing

and detailed review of this fascinating and controversial phenomenon.

While presenting clear physical explanations for the changes that take

place within the brain, Blackmore argues that true spiritual

transformation comes not from searching after a spirit or soul that

survives death, but from reinterpreting the concept of "self" itself.

Dying to Live succeeds in bridging the gap between the scientific and

the spiritual points of view and shows how an understanding of NDEs can

help us live our lives in the face of death and lead the way to genuine

self- knowledge.

SUSAN BLACKMORE is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of

the West of England. She is a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific

Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and one of the world's leading

experts on near-death experiences. She is the author of The Adventures

of a Parapsychologist (Prometheus Books), an autobiography describing

her search for evidence of the paranormal.

Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Preface

1. Coming Close to Death

2. The Stages of Dying

3. Visions From the Dying Brain

4. The Light at the End of the Tunnel

5. Peace, Joy and Bliss

6. But I Saw the Colour of Her Dress

7. Realer Than Real

8. In or Out of the Body?

9. My Whole Life Flashed Before Me

IO. All At Once and Timeless

11. I Decided to Come Back

12. Who Returns?

13. And After Death?

  References

  Index