Will the world's first head-changing surgery lead to a near-death experience? The long text tells you what this is all about.

Release date: 2016-12-16

The latest news said that the world's first head-changing surgery will start next year. During the procedure, the patient's head will be frozen, cut from the body, and then attached to the donor's body, while the blood vessels and skin will be sutured.

After the operation is completed, the doctor tells the patient to stun for 3 to 4 weeks, avoiding any exercise, and will also inject immunosuppressive agents into his body to avoid rejection.

During the operation and during the postoperative period, what kind of experience the patient will experience is a topic of great concern to the outside world. But if you separate your head from your body, a near-death experience may occur. But what is the death experience? The Atlantic Monthly published an article that explored the scientific interpretation and idealism behind the “death experience”. The following is the original version of the Atlantic Monthly:

The 2014 film "Heaven Is for Real" captured a $91 million box office in the United States, telling a story about a boy telling his parents that he was going to heaven when he was undergoing an emergency operation. The film, adapted from the novel of the same name published in 2010, has sold 10 million copies so far, and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 206 weeks.

Coincidentally, the other two books on the experience of sudden death are also on the New York Times bestseller list for 94 weeks and 36 weeks respectively, respectively, Eben Alexander's Proof of Heaven and Mary C. Neal's "To Heaven and Back." The former tells the author's sudden death experience in a week-long coma caused by meningitis, while the latter tells the sudden death experience experienced by the author after sinking into the river in a canoe accident. (The protagonist of The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, published in 2010, recently admitted that all his relevant remarks were fabricated.)

People of different cultural backgrounds have different descriptions of the details, but the approximate experience is strikingly similar.

In fact, in the past few decades, there have been dozens or even hundreds of interviews about the “death experience”, and their stories are basically similar. Although people of different cultural backgrounds have different descriptions of the details, the approximate experience is strikingly similar. The study of the experience of sudden death in the West is at the forefront. Many similar stories mention floating in the air overlooking their bodies and the surrounding scenes; stepping into the wonderful world of detachment; seeing angels and gods and other gods; meeting relatives or friends who have already died; feeling connected with everything, experience To a strong love and happiness; eventually forced to leave the illusion and return to his body.

Many sudden death experiencers say that their experiences are neither like dreams nor hallucinations. They often use "more real than life" to describe this experience. These people will change a lot afterwards, and it is often difficult to integrate into everyday life. Some people have made major changes in their careers, and others have left their partners.

Many scientific literatures believe that the near-death experience is due to physical changes in the nervous or dying brain, and the number of such documents is even growing at an equal rate to the books of the sudden death experience. Scientists believe that the incentives for this experience include hypoxia, incomplete anesthesia, or the body's neurochemical response to trauma. The dying experience believes that these explanations are not sufficient: because the experience of the experience is very different when the experience of sudden death occurs, these theories cannot explain such universal and consistent phenomena.

In the recently published book, physicians Sam Parnia and Pim Van Lommel introduced some of the research methods described in some of the peer-reviewed authoritative journals, attempting to control them. The experimental environment determines what happened during the near-death experience. Pania and his colleagues published the latest research in October last year, involving more than 2,000 patients with cardiac arrest.

Both Mary Neal and Ai Ben Alexander have said in a recent book that their near-death experience has greatly expanded their spiritual perspective. Neil was the director of the Department of Spinal Surgery at the University of Southern California before her experience of sudden death (she currently works in a private clinic). Alexander is a neurosurgeon who teaches and practices in a number of prestigious hospitals and medical schools, including Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Despite his extensive medical knowledge, Alexander gave a seemingly unscientific explanation. He studied the clinical data of his coma and determined that he entered a deep coma when he had a sudden death experience, and the brain had completely stopped working. Therefore, he believes that the only theory that can explain what he sees and feels is that he really has a soul and goes to another world, and angels, God, and the afterlife are also real.

Alexander did not publish his own medical findings in any authoritative journal, and a survey article published in Esquire in 2013 also questioned some of the details he elaborated. For example, he said that when he was given a near-death experience, Your brain is no longer able to carry out any activities. In the eyes of the skeptics, his story and the recent "Boy of the Return of Heaven" incident further prove that the experience of sudden death is similar to the abduction, special function and ghost event of aliens, and is a swindler to deceive the ignorant and vulnerable. The trick that affects people.

However, even these skeptics rarely accuse the dying experience of creating all the experience. Even if some of the content may be fabricated, there are still many that may be beautified in the narrative, but there are too many such cases and the records are very full, so it cannot be completely negated. Equally undeniable is the content of some professionally-respected and respected doctors. Even if the afterlife does not exist, the feeling of going to the world should be true.

Some of the characteristics of the near-death experience have sparked great interest from scientists. When an alien is kidnapped or touched by a ghost, few people happen to be holding the recording device, but when a sudden death experience occurs, the experience is often surrounded by various medical instruments that can measure vital signs.

With the advancement of medical technology, more and more people are being rescued from the death line.

Not only that, with the continuous advancement of medical technology, more and more people are being rescued from the death line by doctors. A few lucky people have lost their breath and pulse after burying in the snow or sinking into the ice water, but they are still being rescued. Doctors sometimes deliberately create this condition, freezing the patient's body or stopping their heartbeat for complex and dangerous surgery. They have recently taken the same technique on some seriously injured people, always keeping them between life and death before the wounds are repaired.

This kind of "advantage" makes the sudden death experience the only spiritual experience that is likely to be thoroughly studied through scientific methods. This has also become a channel to help humans explore ancient beliefs: since ancient times, we have believed that we are not just a flesh and blood. Through this experience, we can also understand the formation of consciousness - this is one of the most mysterious features of human beings, even for the most determined materialists.

Because of this, I went to Newport Beach, California last summer to attend the annual meeting of the International Association for the Study of Sudden Experience (IANDS), an organization founded in 1981. I want to know: What makes a person believe that he really saw the other side of life? Why are so many people's lives on the other side so similar? Can science really explain what happened in this process?

Sudden death experience

The conference was like a club gathering, full of cheerful atmosphere. Many people have known each other for many years. Participants wore ribbons of different colors to prove their identity, including speakers, discussion guests, volunteers, and sudden death experience. The conference set up a number of discussion groups with a wide range of topics, including “What can neuroscience learn from the experience of sudden death”, “Sacred geometric dance: creating a whirlpool to the sky” and “Previous Regression Group”

The public lecture by the president of the association, Diane Corcoran, is clearly aimed at the novice, and the 300-seat hall is empty. She first explained the various situations in which people experienced a near-death experience—including heart attack, drowning, electric shock, terminal illness, and fighting fatigue—and then introduced the typical characteristics of this experience.

She mentioned Bruce Greyson, the first doctor to seriously study the experience of sudden death. Grayson designed a system to measure the level of sudden death experience based on 16 indicators, such as the degree of pleasure, encountering the gods, and the soul. Each indicator can score from 0 to 2, so the maximum score is 32 points. More than 6 points can be classified as a near-death experience, and a study shows that people who claim to have a near-death experience score an average of about 15 points.

But Cochran stressed that the long-term impact of the near-death experience is also an important indicator of whether you have had a near-death experience, and its importance is even comparable to the sudden death experience itself. Although many people have had a near-death experience, they have not realized for many years until they noticed the impact and then put it together. This includes being highly sensitive to light, sound and certain chemicals; more compassionate, more generous, and sometimes even excessive; encountering difficulties in punctuality and financial concepts; unconditionally giving love to everyone, even Make friends and relatives feel pressure; have a strange effect on electrical equipment. Cochran recalled that at the death experience conference, the hotel's computer system suddenly collapsed. “Gathering 400 experiencers to a hotel, something will definitely happen,” she said. The audience scattered around the stage gave a laughter of approval.

Cochran wore two badges. One of them has her name on it, with ribbons tied in several colors, like an unfolded blind, with the words "35 years," "heritage society," "ask me," and "serving this." (She told me that she would add a ribbon to her annual meeting: "This was originally a joke, and it has become a tradition.") Another badge says "Colonel": she has served in her long career. Many positions include a series of senior nurse positions in the Army Nurses team. She was a junior nurse when she first encountered a sudden death experience. It was in 1969, she served in Longbin, where the US military was based in Vietnam's largest army base.

I met Cochran when I had breakfast. She said to me: "No one wants to talk about these things. A young man told me about the sudden death experience. I don't even know what he is saying, but I can see him from it. Emotions and emotions." Since then, she has been learning medical knowledge in order to better understand the near-death experience. “Most physicians are not very good at dealing with death and dying,” she said quietly. “So when you talk about the things that come out of the soul, you have already jumped out of their research.”

Recently, he has been trying to find veterans who have participated in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through different methods and tell them about the sudden death experience they have encountered. "In the military, I have always stubbornly thought that this is a medical problem. I told the doctors that they must make up their minds. Many patients have experienced this kind of experience. If you care about them, you must get this information."

Rich literature

The description of the near-death experience (or similar) can be traced back at least to the Middle Ages, and researchers believe that it can be traced back to the ancient times. The earliest known description of the near-death experience comes from a French military doctor in the 18th century. An overview of this content was recently published in the medical journal Resuscitation. The general view is that modern medicine's research on the experience of sudden death began in 1975. That year, Raymond A. Moody Jr., a philosopher who switched to a psychiatrist, published Life After Life, which was taken from about 50 people. Interview with the experience of the dead.

Modi's work inspired a series of memoirs, TV series and articles. Since then, a small circle has formed among psychiatrists, psychologists, cardiologists and other professionals. They all agree with Modi's belief that consciousness may exist in an immaterial form, although it is independent of our brain, but it is also closely connected to it, and the near-death experience may provide such evidence. The main members of this small circle have prominent identities in famous universities and hospitals. They recommend each other's writings and give speeches on topics such as spirituality and consciousness.

Perhaps the most noteworthy of these books is the 2009 edition of The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation. According to the book, as of 2005, dozens of studies on the experience of sudden death involved a total of 3,500 objects, which led to the publication of about 600 academic articles. Many of these articles are published in the Journal of Near-Death Studies, an internal publication of the International Sudden Experience Research Association, which is also a peer-reviewed publication. But many other articles have been published in mainstream medical journals. I searched the PubMed database of the National Library of Medicine in February this year and found that about 240 papers mentioned the experience of sudden death. (The database does not include the Journal of Sudden Research.)

Most sudden death studies are retrospective, suggesting that researchers will look for and interview people who have had such experiences. From a scientific perspective, this can cause several problems. This means that the subjects are “self-selected” and therefore may not be representative. For example, people who have had a terrible near-death experience may be less willing to tell their own stories than those who are happy in the near-death experience.

(In the argument that the sudden death experience is not an illusion of a dying brain, one of the arguments is that too many stories contain similar scenarios. But it is worth noting that although some studies do report only a well-known and pleasant experience, In fact, the unpleasant experience accounted for 23% of the sudden death experience reported by more than a dozen different research institutes.) Most interviews were conducted several years after the sudden death experience, so the memory may go wrong. The most important thing is that retrospective research can't use reliable data to understand what happens to the body and brain of the subject when they feel the soul is out.

There are more than a dozen forward-looking studies published in this area, several of which have been conducted in recent years. In these studies, researchers often interview people who survived a clear emergency (such as cardiac arrest) as soon as the patient's consent is obtained. Researchers will ask patients questions about openness and tell them about the experience of the rescue process. If they report any abnormalities, the researchers will look at the case and the doctor's narrative, look for signs that might explain the experience, or prove that their brains have stopped working in the relevant time. The total number of sudden deaths surveyed by such research is less than 300.

Those who believe in the soul are hoping to find a solid case to prove it. There was once a famous researcher who called this phenomenon “obviously not from the real perception of the flesh” – a popular saying: in this experience, you see and hear something that you could not see or hear. The things that arrived, but afterwards proved that these things did happen. However, the soul is only one of the 16 possible death experience elements listed by Grayson, and the experience of those who have experienced this experience varies from study to study.

As the only stage in the experience of dying to perceive the physical world rather than the spiritual world, soul sputum may be one of the most likely factors to convince skeptics. If you can prove that someone has seen or heard something that brain science thinks they can't see or hear in the near-death experience, then at least it can prove that our understanding of the brain is not as perfect as we thought. This can even prove that consciousness can exist independently of the body.

Therefore, the report of true perception is as important as the totem in the experience of sudden death. One of the most inspiring is the story of "Maria", who had a sudden death experience in the hospital in 1977 due to a cardiac arrest. "Maria" later told the social worker that when the doctor rescued her, she found herself floating outside the hospital office building and saw a tennis shoe on the window sill on the third floor. She also described the shoe in detail. The social worker later personally went to the window sill that Maria said, not only found the shoe, but also found that it was impossible to see all the details of the shoe from the ward where Maria was located.

The social worker named Kimberly Clark Sharp is now over 60 years old. She has thick curly hair and served as my informal press release at that conference. Her and her stories have been well known in the International Sudden Experience Research Association. I have heard several people say "Maria's shoes" or "tennis shoes case".

However, although "Malia's shoes" are indeed very attractive, from an evidence point of view, persuasiveness is still not strong. After receiving a few years of treatment, Maria disappeared. No one could find her, and she could not further confirm her story.

There is also a more effective case from the creative singer Pam Reynolds. In 1991, Reynolds, 35, received a brain aneurysm resection. Fearing that the aneurysm might rupture, causing her to die during surgery, her doctor took a radical approach called "low body temperature cardiac arrest" - cooling her body to 60 degrees Fahrenheit (about 15.6 degrees Celsius) Stop her heartbeat and suck the blood out of her brain. This cooling method prevents cells from dying in anoxic conditions. When the doctor resumes her heartbeat and body temperature, she will “restart”.

In order to be 100% sure that Reynolds' brain was completely "closed" during surgery, the medical team put a small horn into her ear, playing a fast and continuous ticking sound in 100 decibels - equivalent to mowing The loudness of a machine or jackhammer. If she has any awareness, such a high-intensity ticking will definitely produce an electrical signal in the brainstem, and the doctor can immediately monitor it through the EEG.

Instrumental monitoring results show that Reynolds' brain and body are in a state of death for several minutes. However, after the surgery, she said that she experienced a strong sudden death experience, including the soul, she even accurately recalled some details happening in the operating room, including the shape of the bone saw sawing her skull, the medical staff The conversation, as well as the "California Hotel" that the medical staff was listening to at the time - she recalled afterwards that it was not appropriate. In the experience of dying, Reynolds is definitely a classic case.

However, all the true perceptions that Reynolds tells are not made when her EEG is straight. Some were before, some were after, although she was also anesthetized at the time, but still "alive". It is estimated that “anaesthesia awareness” will affect approximately one in a thousand patients. Therefore, the skeptics believe that Reynolds may have heard some conversations with medical staff, and she may have inferred its shape through the sound or vibration of the bone saw, and may have reconstructed some of the details she noticed before and after surgery. False memories.

In 2011, after Reynolds died of heart failure, the Journal of Sudden Death used a whole period of content to discuss her case. In that issue of the magazine, a person who suspected a near-death experience and two people who believed in the experience of sudden death debated many very detailed questions, including the time when the horn played noise in her ears, and the bone conduction sound. The way it also involves some esoteric theory about how non-physical thinking might be able to perceive physical stimuli. In the end, the editor of the journal, Janice Miner Holden, concluded that the case of Reynolds “the imperfect data provided may never be a real evidence.”

Other obvious real-life perceptions are at least superficially fascinating, but unfortunately, the number of such cases is limited. Holden identified some similar cases from various literatures, which were included in the Sudden Experience Manual. She abandoned the book of Raymond Modi and published some personal memoirs after publication in 1975. Instead, she focused on books published before 1975, as well as systematic research conducted by researchers and medical workers. In the end, she collected a total of about 100 reports of true perceptions in the near-death experience. However, only 35 of these cases were able to find records that were sufficient to prove that the content was accurate, from sources other than the sudden death experience. However, even in these 35 cases, none of them can indisputably prove that the dying experience saw something that only the soul of the body can see.

For this reason, some researchers have tried to make full use of the environment that is prone to sudden death to create a simple way to test real perception.

Exploring scientific experimental methods

In order to prove the existence of non-physical consciousness by evidence that scientists are satisfied with, a standardized research program is needed. In fact, this is not difficult. In the Sudden Experience Manual, Janis Holden summarizes this as follows:

“Place some perceptual stimuli in a place where sudden death may occur, then interview all the dying experiencers who survived the stimuli and judge whether they perceive the stimuli... place this stimuli to ensure that only Sudden death experiencers can perceive that other people in the area cannot perceive. In this way, it is possible to exclude respondents or others from intentionally or unintentionally telling the stimuli through normal (or even super) channels to the possibility of dying experience, even Even the research team or related personnel should not know the existence of stimuli."

So far, six studies have tried this method, mainly for patients with cardiac arrest, but have not found a solid case of real perception. All of these experiments placed an irritant at a higher position (such as a piece of paper or a picture or a mark on an electronic display) to ensure that only when people float halfway through the ceiling see. The designers of the study will do everything they can to ensure that no one knows about the presence of this irritant before the interview – including doctors, nurses, and people interviewing patients. (But Holden also said that it is not easy for hospital staff to comply with this rule.)

The most recent attempt was the so-called Aware study, led by Sam Pania of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who published his paper in the medical journal Resuscitation last October. In the paper, 15 participating US, UK, and Australian hospitals installed shelves for drawing pictures in rooms where patients with cardiac arrest could be rescued.

The results of the Aware study immediately highlight the key issues of this type of research: it is difficult to get enough data. During the four-year study, the study recorded a total of 2,060 cases of cardiac arrest. (The actual case is higher than this number, but the researchers can't record it all.) Of these patients, a total of 330 survived, and 140 were enough to be interviewed and agreed to participate in the experiment. Of the 140 people, 101 passed the screening interview and others failed to pass, “mainly because of excessive fatigue”. After rating according to the Grayson system, 9 out of the remaining 101 people remembered that they had experienced the experience of sudden death, and 2 people remembered the experience of the soul. One of the two people could not continue to be interviewed because of their illness. So only one respondent can recall the details he saw.

This only case has attracted the interest of researchers. The patient was a 57-year-old man who said he was floating in the middle of the room and saw the medical staff rescue him. He saw the doctor using a defibrillator on himself. According to Pania's paper, some of the details described by this person have been verified. Not only that, the researchers found that he might have seen a scene of up to 3 minutes after his heart stopped beating.

If this is the case, it will be a major discovery. Within about 20 seconds after the heart stops beating, the EEG becomes a straight line. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation can provide enough blood flow to slow the rate of cell death, but not enough to restart the brain. Unlike an anesthetized or comatose brain, the patient's brain should have completely gone before the heart's spontaneous recovery.

However, there is still some flaw in this clinical evidence. Even though the hospitals involved in the Aware study installed about 1,000 shelves in different locations to display special pictures, only 22% of cardiac arrest cases occurred on the shelf, and this "star patient" is not one of them.

Insufficient scientific explanation

In the face of all kinds of fascinating experiences of sudden death, the experiencers always think that scientific explanation is difficult to satisfy them. This is not surprising: the scientific theory of the experience of sudden death is not uncommon, but these theories are often too cold to be impressed, and are not complete enough compared to the content described by the dying experience.

These theories include the fact that coma caused by cardiac arrest often causes hypoxia, which is often known to cause paralysis, confusion and hallucinations. The Dome Joint Zone is the area of ​​the brain that processes signals from various sensory organs. It combines these signals to make you feel your body. Therefore, if there is a problem with this part, it will give the feeling of a soul. There is a theory that excessive carbon dioxide (hypercapnia) may make people feel that the soul is out of the body or enter a tunnel – but there is not much evidence in this theory. Neurochemistry may play a role in triggering hallucinations or creating a calm and serene feeling. Theories like this are too numerous to mention.

Doctors who recognize these dying experience believe that there are many ways to refute these materialist explanations. Sam Paña and Pim Van Ramall have elaborated on this in their books. In a nutshell, these rebuttal arguments suggest that although various scientific explanations seem credible, there is no evidence to really explain what happened. Many sudden death experiences do not occur in the above-mentioned environment where scientific measurements can be made. In such an environment, there is often no sudden death experience. There is still a lack of sufficient data to establish a correlation between these theories and the near-death experience, and it is even more difficult to prove that there is a causal relationship between them.

In addition, it is still difficult to judge how to get enough data, at least in the case of cardiac arrest. Pania's Aware study lasted for 4 years and covered 15 hospitals, but in the end it only got 9 cases of sudden death experience. A prospective study from Slovenia published in 2010 did find a correlation between the near-death experience and hypercapnia in heart patients - but did not find a relationship with hypoxia - however, There are only 52 samples in the sample, and only 11 cases report the sudden death experience.

There is also a new type of research method often mentioned by materialists. In a study published at the University of Michigan in 2013, scientists anesthetized rats and stopped their heartbeats. Within 30 seconds, the rat's EEG became a straight line - but initially there was a spike, indicating that different parts of the brain were more active in communication with each other than when they were awake.

This communication is seen as a key step in consciousness: in fact, different parts of the brain are now comparing the stimuli they acquire. If humans experience the same death process as rats, it may mean that when the oxygen supply is cut off, the brain will try to figure out what happened and will enter the last extremely active state of paralysis. If so, this activity may explain why people feel a more real feeling than the physical world in the near-death experience.

But in the same way, this explanation is still only plausible, but it cannot be confirmed. If researchers such as Pagna can convincingly prove that a man like the one in Aware's study will have a few flashes of consciousness once in a few minutes or even longer after the heart stops beating, Then the whole debate will break out again. So far, the Death Spike is just another piece of disjointed jigsaw in the puzzle of death - in fact, we still haven't figured out how to fit this puzzle.

Then, to reveal the scientific principles behind the experience of sudden death, what should we do next? I asked the British psychologist Susan Blackmore. Among the many scientists who oppose the use of idealistic theory to explain the experience of sudden death, she is probably the most famous one. She had a strong soul experience when she was young. After that, she began to investigate various supernatural abilities. A large part of her career is using scientific theories to explain these phenomena.

Blackmore believes that this mystery may have been basically solved. She said that we already know that the pressure of dying will force the brain to be extremely active, triggering all the phenomena mentioned above. She said by email that the biggest remaining problem is:

"We will see these phenomena appear spontaneously and spontaneously under the influence of various drugs, in diseases or in other situations, but in the experience of sudden death, they often appear in a specific order. Why is this? We may It will be guessed that this may be related to a series of neurotransmitters, which may also be an extremely active form of communication, or...? I don't know what the answer is, but I guess we will find it soon."

I think Blackmore's question (why there are so many sudden death experiences follow the same order) Once you get the answer, you can not only complete the whole puzzle, let us understand how the sudden death experience happens, but also help us understand Why the death experience has had such a profound impact on the experience.

Narrative Structure of "Hero Journey"

Alana Karran is a coach who is responsible for implementing guided meditation at the annual meeting of the International Sudden Experience Research Association and reviewing the typical steps of the sudden death experience. She helped me understand the importance of this order. She pointed out that this experience is similar to the "hero journey" - a narrative framework discovered by American writer and mythologist Joseph Campbell in 1949 and named "monomyth". This model is suitable for almost any form of story, from religious mythology to Greek epics to Hollywood blockbusters and personal memoirs.

In this structure, the protagonist jumped out of his normal life because of some interference. He was not willing at first, but with the urging of a mentor or wise man, he began a journey to a strange world. He faced trials, confronted enemies, and questioned the loyalty of friends and allies. Later, he also faced the most severe test, on the verge of failure or death, and finally returned to the place where he started in another way.

Many narratives of the dying experience follow this structure more or less. In Heaven's Evidence, Eben Alexander described him as being trapped in a dark place, like a translucent mud or "dirty jelly," surrounded by "grotesque animals." Face, let him gradually develop claustrophobia. In the end, there was one thing that pulled him out and brought him into "the strangest and most wonderful world I have ever seen" - a paradise. There, he met a beautiful girl riding on a butterfly's wings. She told him that he was "darling, precious, eternal." Then she accompanied him on a journey to a space full of light. There he met a god and helped him unlock many of the mysteries of the universe. After returning back and forth between the two worlds for a while, he finally descended to the dark place where he first started - except that the eccentric animals turned into the faces of those who prayed for him.

If you have been living in a struggle, a sudden death experience will lead you in different directions: you almost die, so you have to make some changes.

The heroic journey is popular in a variety of story themes (in fact, some even say that Campbell's summary has destroyed the modern entertainment industry) because it is really effective. It provides a possibility for you to jump out of the environment that always binds you and make it better through a transition.

None of the conference's attendees were more eager for this redemption and transformation than Jeff Olsen – one of the two keynote speakers at the conference. Olson told his story through two books and many YouTube videos, which is a painful story.

一次度假归来时，他因为疲劳驾驶在方向盘上睡着了，结果出了事故。他躺在汽车残骸上，背撞断了，一只胳膊几乎掉了下来，一条腿也毁掉了。有一段时间，他很清醒地听到7岁的儿子在痛哭，妻子和仍在襁褓中的儿子已经没有了声音。他在《我知道他们的心》（I Knew Their Hearts）一书中写道：“对这样一个导致半个家庭死于非命的男人，你会说什么？”

答案是：“你很完美：你与众生一样都是我的儿子；你是神圣的。”这是他在当时的濒死体验中听到的一段话。他似乎在一个配有婴儿床的房间里找到了自己，床上放着他已经死去的儿子。当他把儿子抱起时，他突然感觉自己被一阵爱意包裹。他知道，那是他的“神圣造物主”。

这正是令濒死体验的力量如此强大的关键原因，也是人们为何不理会任何科学证据，坚持认定这种体验的原因。无论是你是真的看到了神灵，还是仅仅因为你的大脑释放了空前的化学物质，这种体验都能带来强烈而新奇的感受，迫使你重新思考你的人生。如果濒死体验在灾难中发生，便可提供一种方法让你理解这场灾难，并重建自己的生活。如果你的生活在与疾病或疑惑作斗争，濒死体验也会把你引向不同的方向：你差点就死了，所以必须做出一些改变。

于是，这又把我们带回到苏珊·布莱克摩尔的问题：如果濒死体验只是你的大脑陷入混乱的一种表现，为什么有那么多体验都遵循了相同的顺序，而这种顺序恰好符合转化和重生的基本叙事结构。

伪科学理论盛行

很明显，与会者中没有人认为濒死体验只是大脑物理过程的产物。但仍然有几个演讲者承诺，将会揭开濒死体验背后的科学原理。

中年机械工程师阿兰·休吉诺特（Alan Hugenot）表示，他的演讲题目是“来世的前沿科学”。他向听众讲述了各种各样的前沿物理学和神秘主义理论，最终总结道，整个宇宙都是一种意识，这既可以解释濒死体验，也可以解释量子理论中的部分悖论。

由于我是学物理出身的，所以我知道休吉诺特的理论充满了漏洞，但我也知道关于宇宙是一种意识的想法既不疯狂也不新颖。身为量子物理的缔造者之一，薛定谔就是对印度教的哲理很感兴趣，而且也相信类似的说法。事实上，顶尖科学家怀有宗教和神学信仰的情况早已有之。

但他们之所以能成为大科学家，是因为他们明白科学理论与神秘主义或推测之间的区别——前者必须能够用可以观察到的证据进行验证。所以，我在休吉诺特演讲的最后问了一个问题：他的理论能否得到验证。他起初并没有回答，但最终还是表示，可以设计这样的实验。

“你设计了吗？”我问。

“没有，我还没有机会这么做。”

相比而言，罗伯特·梅斯（Robert Mays）更加沉着，他留着弗洛伊德式的胡须，一副教授的派头。他描述了一种他与妻子苏珊娜（Suzanne）共同设计的详细理论。他提出非物质意识（一种“心灵实体”）可以指挥大脑。梅斯说，这种解释可以解决大脑中的一系列电脉冲如何变成了感觉和意识，还能解决濒死体验的种种谜团。

梅斯还展开了详细的阐述，指明了心灵实体需要与哪些脑细胞展开互动才能控制大脑。他甚至设想了心灵实体用物理学术语的描述方法：“微型振荡电偶极子或磁偶极子的精细分化型结构”。当我询问他这种理论如何检验时，他说可以测量一个人的“能量场”对“体外生物神经元”的影响。这听起来似乎很不错，只不过，目前还有一个物理学家见过他所谓的“能量场”。

尽管风格和主题各有不同，但梅斯和休吉诺特等人都阐述了一个类似的愿景：希望通过一个包罗万象的全面解释，将人们真正认可的事情与人们希望的事情联系来，从而给宇宙营造一种秩序感。这也无怪乎濒死体验者认为这类事情如此有吸引力。

可是，大会上为什么有那么多与真正的科学相悖的理论？当我与戴安·科克伦共进早餐时，我问她为什么没有人在会上从唯物主义者的角度来讨论问题。

“经过了这些年，经过了各种研究，我们已经过了那个阶段。”她说，“尽管总是会有一两个质疑的人，但我们不会把他们带入这个环境中。因为这是一个支持濒死体验的环境，不是一个质疑的环境。”她补充说，“我们进行过征文，但从见过怀疑的论文……”

“他们可能感觉自己不受欢迎。”我说。

“或许的确如此！”她回答道，“但我们试图扩大范围，有很多关于意识存在于大脑之外的成果。”她表示，一位着名研究人员曾经表示，“当有人发表论文说'我有一种解释'时，甚至根本不值得作出回应。多数这么做的人根本没有认真研究过这个领域。”

在某种程度让，我认为这种说法很合理。很多与濒死体验有关的着作不仅质疑这些体验者，甚至嘲笑他们。而各种各样的科学解释虽然听起来很有道理，但也的确缺乏确凿证据。

然而，我在大会上听到的很多理论不仅抗拒科学，甚至对科学进行曲解。在酒店的走廊里，我遇到了休吉诺特。我说，科学理论的根本在于必须能够验证，可以验证就意味着可以证伪：从理论上讲，你有可能设计出一个实验证明某个理论是错误的。例如，如果我松开手中的咖啡杯，它不会每次都落到地板上，而是有可能浮在半空，那就可以证明万有引力是错误的。这个理论每通过一次验证，我们的信心就会增强一些。但我们不会永远相信这种理论：我们在不断寻找它可能失效的环境。

所以我问，意识塑造宇宙这种理论如何检验？他用诡辩回避了我的问题：如果你松开手中的咖啡杯，你说它会落下。但哪个方向是下？如果我换一个视角，想象地面在我们头上，或许下就变成了上。

我走近他，把杯子举到他头上，提议测试一下万有引力。他大声笑了起来，笑得很紧张。

大会进行到第三天，我开始感到失望，认为无法在这里找到理性的声音。这里的人所阐述的理论似乎不是伪科学就是彻头彻尾的神秘论。但就在那时，我遇到了米奇·雷斯特（Mitch Liester）。

雷斯特是一位精神病学家，毕业于科罗拉多大学和加州大学欧文分校，他高高的个子，长得很帅气。他讲话的口气温文尔雅，展现了极高的包容度，让你愿意向他讲述自己知道的一切。他对我说，正统的医学训练让他对濒死体验产生了质疑。但当他还在读书时，他的祖父就经历过一次濒死体验。之后，他不断遇到其他的体验者——并非都是病人。“人们不断对我说起这种事情。”

莱斯特也曾主动让自己体验过“类濒死体验”——具备濒死体验的一些特点，但并没有濒临死亡，也没有服用任何迷幻药。所以我问他，他本人对于灵魂出窍这件事究竟怎么看？

“从理性上讲，我并不相信，但由于亲身体验过，所以我知道这是真的。我一直在参与这场持续不断的讨论。”

我问，在唯心论者与唯物论者之间是否存在一个中间状态？他承认很难找到。“很多唯物论科学家似乎不认为这是个严肃的科学话题……与此同时，很多有过濒死体验的人对科学并不感兴趣。”

雷斯特每天早晨都会与一群折衷派人士共进早餐，其中包括一位物理学家、一位材料科学家、一位艺术家、一位拥有哲学学位的牧师，以及一位收容所法律顾问（他同时也是一名印第安人太阳舞者）。他们一起探讨如何用严谨而开放的科学态度推进濒死体验的研究。“我认为可以在这道鸿沟上架起一座桥梁。”他说。

在我们随后的邮件交流中，雷斯特阐述了研究人员可能展开深入研究的领域：他们可以在人处于恍惚或其他“先验”状态时对其大脑进行成像扫描。他们可以研究号称拥有特殊精神力量的人，例如萨满教巫师。他们还可以尝试调查濒死状态的人形成的记忆特性，及其与常规记忆之间有何不同（雷斯特就在从事这一领域的研究）。他们还可以设计一种严格的实验方式，检验自称对电磁场敏感或能够干扰电子设备的人是否撒谎。他们还可以对密歇根大学的研究人员在大鼠试验中发现的死亡棘波展开更多研究，甚至尝试在人类病人身上分离出这种数据。诸如此类。

他表示，无论你如何解释濒死体验，这些现象都是人们生活中的关键事件。“这是一个催化剂，它可以影响许多不同的层面，包括心理、情绪，甚至生理。”

回答生与死的问题

即使研究最终证明，濒死体验只不过是垂死大脑痉挛的产物——多数科学家都认同这种假设——也完全有理由对此展开一番调查，毕竟这种现象涉及科学中最为神秘的问题之一，而且对我们在这个问题上的认知构成了挑战：这个问题就是意识。

曾几何时，人们认为生死之间界限分明，但现在看来，这种界限却变得越发模糊起来。山姆·帕尼亚在最近发表的一篇题为《死亡与意识》（Death and Consciousness）的综述性论文中承认，研究证明，与流行的观念相悖的是，在你停止呼吸几分钟后导致大脑受损的并不仅仅是缺氧本身。缺氧状态的脑细胞可能需要几个小时才会衰弱到无法恢复的状态，尤其是在低温条件下——正因如此，才会出现埋入积雪或坠入冰湖中的人复活的案例。真正造成重要破坏的，是血液和化学物质匆忙涌入时突然恢复的脑细胞供氧，也就是所谓的“复苏后综合征”。新的医学技术已经增加了阻止这类破坏的可能，从而让以前可能被宣布死亡的人重新复活。

对某些人来说，这进一步证明人的精神肯定能够脱离肉体而存在——否则，当大脑死亡后，精神去了哪里？对唯物主义者来说，这却是证明了相反的理论：灵魂不会“去”任何地方——好比你关掉投影仪后，幻灯片上的图像也会消失。他们认为，这表明精神和意识是大脑的涌现性质，通过我们神经系统里的各种物理和化学变化结合在一起。

但倘若果真如此，那么这种结合又是怎么发生的呢？这是意识研究的关键问题。作为密歇根大学的大鼠研究的联合作者之一，乔治·马绍尔（George A. Mashour）是坚定的唯物论者。他指出，如果很难解释一个健康的大脑如何产生意识，那就更难解释濒临死亡的受损大脑如何产生如此栩栩如生的“超现实”感觉。“能否用科学理论解释濒死体验是意识科学的一个关键闪点。”他对我说。

如果能够在垂死的人类大脑中建立与大鼠研究中类似的剧烈神经活动，不仅有助于解释濒死体验，还可以帮助我们更好地了解意识的神经生物学特性。但马绍尔表示，人类不是大鼠，不太可能从那些在心脏骤停中获得濒死体验然后活过来告诉你整个过程人那里，搜集到足够多的有用数据。但他表示，对大鼠的研究至少给出了一种可能性，让我们在解释濒死体验时未必非要“抛弃大脑与意识之间的联系”。

意识是如何产生的？这个问题可能是整个21世纪最据标志意义的问题之一，因为我们很可能在这个世纪首次创造出像人类大脑一样复杂的机器。这些机器能有意识吗？我们如何判断它们是否有意识？意识之于它们与意识之于我们是否相同？这对身为它们的创造者的我们意味着什么？要回答这些问题，必须首先深刻理解我们自己的意识究竟由什么构成。

最后，如果没有别的理由排除唯心论的解释，的确值得对濒死体验展开严格的科学研究。那些笃信来世的人或许永远不会动摇。毕竟，即便有大量的科学证据给出了反证，还是有很多人坚持自己的唯心思想。然而，只有承认知识的局限，并缓慢推进这种局限，科学才能进步。在没有彻底揭开濒死体验的科学真相前，我们没有任何理由嘲笑那些笃信此事的人。

假如我们通过严格的实验，对濒死体验给出全面而严谨的唯物主义论证，之后应当怎样？这是否意味着各种看到天使和自己已故亲人的故事都只是幻觉，完全可以置之不理？

我不认同这种观点。我在大会上看到的种种现象告诉我，就算是最坚定的唯物论者也可以从濒死体验中学到很多东西，比如，人们如何将发生在自己身上的事情合理化，以及我们所讲的故事在塑造我们对自己身份认知的过程中发挥的核心作用。

在这个问题上，反倒是坚定质疑濒死体验的布莱克摩尔与我有着相似的看法。他在发给我的邮件中斥责了那些完全以二元论看待濒死体验的人：

“有人把对濒死体验的态度分成黑白分明的两个对立面：一边认为濒死体验'千真万确、美妙绝伦、充满灵性'；另一边认为濒死体验'不过是毫无意义的幻觉'。但实际上，在我看来，濒死体验可以成为美妙绝伦、改变一生的体验，它可以阐明人类的处境，还能回答生与死的问题。”

Source: Tencent Technology

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