Sheehan, Marianne S.. Evidence from near-death experience for the existence of consciousness outside the brain. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T30864Q6
DescriptionThis paper discusses near-death experience in terms of evidence for consciousness existing outside the brain. The number of near-death experiences has significantly increased over the past few decades due to the advances in defibrillation and CPR techniques. This has made it possible to do Prospective studies in hospitals in an attempt to correlate psychological, physiological and pharmacological causes for near-death experience. Four arguments for evidence of consciousness outside the brain are reviewed and examples from Retrospective studies are given. They are the consistency, reality, paranormal and transformation elements. Retrospective studies provide evidence that near-death experiences have similar elements regardless of demographic data, but the details of the events are not verifiable. Prospective studies carried out in hospitals in Great Britain, America and the Netherlands can confirm through medical records and witnesses that cardiac arrest survivors have conscious experiences during unconsciousness when their brain is dysfunctional. Examples from these studies provide evidence that consciousness exits outside the brain. However, the dying brain hypothesis and the hallucination hypothesis are also looked at as an explanation for these experiences.