QUESTION:
Is there any research that has been done where a human
becomes clinically dead and is then brought back to
life?
KEVIN WILLIAMS: I will assume you are referring
to so-called "Flatliner" experiments of the kind seen
in the excellent movie "Flatliners"
with Kiefer
Sutherland. By the way, Kiefer's father (Donald
Sutherland) had an actual NDE which I describe in my
Hollywood NDE page. "Flatliner"
experiments are not going on as far as I know, but there
are medical procedures and studies which come very close.
Here is a list:
(1) Doctors routinely do "electrophysiological
heart stress tests" which involves the insertion
of a catheter into a patient's heart to deliberately
induce ventricular arrhythmias. I saw a documentary
(I think it was Tom Harpur's "Life
After Death") where this procedure was taped. The
woman went into a heart arrhythmia and lost consciousness.
If I remember correctly, the woman was interviewed and
had an out-of-body experience. But such heart patients
are probably not volunteering for the procedure although
they may have an option not to have it done.
(2)
Doctors do a rare surgical procedure for removing basilar
artery aneurysms in the brain called "hypothermic
cardiac arrest." In cardiologist Dr. Michael Sabom's
book entitled "Light
and Death,"
he included a detailed medical analysis of a woman named
Pam Reynolds who underwent this procedure and had an
amazing near-death experience. This operation required
the following:
|
(a) |
Pam's body temperature be lowered to 60
degrees |
|
(b) |
Her heartbeat and breathing stopped |
|
(c) |
Her brain waves flattened |
|
(d) |
The blood drained from her head |
For all
practical purposes, the doctors put her to death. After
removing the aneurysm, she was successfully resuscitated.
During the time that she was in "standstill," she experienced
a NDE and remarkably detailed veridical out-of-body
observations during her surgery which were later verified
to be very accurate. This case is considered to be one
of the strongest cases of evidence of veridical perception
in NDE research because of her ability to describe the
unique surgical instruments and procedures used and
her ability to describe in detail these events while
she was in clinical and brain death.
(3) Test pilots are routinely subjected
to extreme gravitational forces in a giant centrifuge
to simulate the extreme conditions that can occur during
aerial combat maneuvering. Under extreme g-forces, fighter
pilots lose consciousness and have a near-death experience.
Dr. James E. Whinnery
is the researcher who wrote a technical report for the
National Institute for Discovery Science about this
phenomenon and in doing so proved the NDE to be a real
phenomenon.
(4)
An initiation ritual performed by Native American Indians
during the 1800's to induce a NDE is performed today
by people who are into "body suspension." According
to the
Suspensions and Tensions website, the Indian ritual,
called "O-Kee-Pa" involved the young male initiate to
be:
"suspended by either set of piercings
from the roof of a lodge. In extreme pain, followed
by trance, the young men were hung up for about twenty
minutes to seek communion with “The Great White Spirit”.
Legend has it that initiates traveled out of their bodies
in this state and were guided through unseen worlds
by their Ka-See-Ka who knew the way. The O-Kee-Pa journey
was like a canoe trip on a tricky river: the initiate
submitted and just rode in the canoe while the Ka-See-Ka
steered it to appropriate vistas and to avoid rocks.
Through the years, neighboring tribes, especially the
Arikara and Minnetaree, were exposed to the Mandan ritual
and developed their own piercing rites, often more severe
..."
It appears that the Native Americans understood the
value of having young men experience a NDE. And there
are organizations of people today who actually perform
this ritual. See
Fakir's Body Play website. Personally, I think that
if there was a safe method to induce NDEs in people,
our society would benefit greatly by giving everyone
over the age of 18 an option of undergoing an induced
NDE. Think of the possibilities. Perhaps such a thing
will be done in the future. Perhaps that would be a
great way to speed up the evolutionary development of
the human race.
Accurate
movie reenactments of the O-Kee-Pa ritual can be
seen in the Richard Harris films “A
Man Called Horse” and “Return
of the Man Called Horse”. A documentary film of
a real modern day O-Kee-Pa style suspension can be seen
in the film “Dances
Sacred and Profane” shot in Wyoming with Jim Ward
and Fakir as initiates. When this film was released
on videotape it was called “Bizarre Rituals”.
I
read a news article a few months ago where someone was
advocating an alternative to the death penalty for murderers.
Instead of putting murderers to death, they could instead
be given the option to be subjected to a safe "Flatliner
procedure" in which a NDE would be induced and they
would be safely revived. Then, the reformed murderer
can be set free and monitored. It would benefit not
just the murderer but science and society in general.
However, I am sure it will be a very long time before
anything like this is allowed.
These are the only procedures I know of where a person
is purposely put into a NDE state by coming close to
permanent death. However, one does not need to be close
to death to have a NDE or out-of-body experience. Studies
done using the hallucinogen ketamine can trigger the
brain into having a NDE in a relatively safe manner.
Also, the meditative technique known as "hemi-sync"
pioneered by Robert Monroe
can induce an out-of-body experience (the initial phase
of a NDE). Dream research has also been done to demonstrate
that the act of dreaming can involve an out-of-body
experience.
The latest research craze involves installing secret
signs in Emergency Rooms that can only be read by someone
who is out of their body and floating near the ceiling.
These are double-blind studies where even the doctors
are not aware them. This kind of research is going on
in the UK under neuropsychiatrist
Peter Fenwick. You can read more about it on
this news article.
Some
day I hope medical science will be brave enough to allow
volunteers to undergo a NDE and safely be revived for
the sake of scientific study. Such volunteers would
be equivalent to the Gemini astronauts who first went
into space in America. I also believe that real flatliner
experiments should be allowed to be performed on volunteers
for the sake of science. Volunteers could actually be
put to death (so there can be no doubt that they died)
and then revived to be interviewed of their experience.
I know that when that day comes and they begin looking
for volunteers, I am going to try to be the first one
on the list to be a volunteer test subject. The final
frontier is not space - it is death and the journey
beyond it. Beam me back up Scotty!
Ketamine research
