What Happens When We Die? The Science of Near Death and OBEs

Last week, Time Magazine did an interesting interview with Dr. Sam Parnia from the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York on the topic of out of body experiences (OBEs) among patients who were near death (or who actually "died" on the operating table). According to Dr. Parnia, 10 to 20% of patients who have been labeled as "clinically dead" by operating room doctors have reported that, while they were dead on the table, they floated out of their bodies and observed the details of the scene below.

Researchers at the Human Consciousness Project have just launched a 3 year experiment on the biology behind these experiences. The Human Consciousness Project is "an international consortium of multidisciplinary scientists and physicians who have joined forces to research the nature of consciousness and its relationship with the brain, as well as the neuronal processes that mediate and correspond to different facets of consciousness." The Project, composed of doctors and researchers from prestigious medical schools in Canada, the U.K., Holland, Austria, and the United States (including Weill Cornell, the University of Virginia, NYU, and many others) "will conduct the world’s first large-scale scientific study of what happens when we die and the relationship between mind and brain during clinical death."

Out of body experiences (OBEs) are, of course, not a new phenomenon. But until relatively recently they have always been relegated to the realms of occult nonsense, fantasy, and hallucination. Those having the audacity to share such an experience, believing that it actually happened to them, have usually been met with ridicule, disbelief, and disdain by most "normal" people.

Meanwhile, over 50% of Americans believe in things like guardian angels, according to a recent poll by the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion. So if most of us believe that angels exist, then why don't we believe that we have the ability to float out of our bodies, fly, and be conscious without functioning brains?

Food for thought.


Some people do believe this, however, and claim that they have been doing it for years, albeit with some trepidation. In Adventures Beyond the Body, William Buhlman offers a step by step guide for intrepid explorers who want to....fly. It's a guide for those who want to experience the world free of the confines of the suits that we wear on a daily basis -- to explore, with a phenomenon called astral projection, the parallel realms and worlds that lie beyond our ordinary reality. And it's all done at night. While your "body" is asleep, "you" can be flying around your house or around the world. It's just a little matter of practice, ability, and will....oh, and maybe a dash of belief.

We shall see if the scientists at the Human Consciousness Project will be able to prove that the mind can live outside of the brain in three years' time. Until then, most of us will have to content ourselves with being grounded, get on with our normal day to day realities, and forego the out of body experience and its accompanying feelings of excitement, terror, and disbelief at what is happening ---unless we read Buhlman's book that is....

....OR unless McCain wins the White House, has his own permanent OBE and leaves us Sarah Palin as president.




--Garrad Bradley
imagineatrium.com

Out-body-experiences, parallell universes, and the continuation of consciousness...all the focus of an exciting, soon to be released fiction novel, "How to Overcome the World," written by Garrad Bradley.

For more information, and to download the free graphic novel preview edition of the novel, visit howtoovercometheworld.com

More info on consciousness:

Time Magazine "What Happens When We Die"

The Human Consciousness Project

Near Death Experience Stories from BBC News Web site readers

Adventures Beyond the Body: How to Experience Out-of-Body Travel by William Buhlman