Near Death Experiences

Question 1

What are near death experiences

Answer 1

experiences that some people report having when they have been close to clinical death

Question 2

Why have there been more reports of NDEs

Answer 2

modern medicine means we can resuscitate people who have heart attacks more successfully

Question 3

What was the Raymond Moody the first to try doing

Answer 3

characterise NDEs, and picked out some common characteristics that people had reported having

Question 4

What are Moody’s 7 NDE common characteristics

Answer 4

1. Awareness of being dead.
2. A sense of peace and well-being.
3. An out-of-body experience.
4. A ‘tunnel experience’.
5. Seeing a Divine Being (or ‘Being of Light’).
6. A Life Review.
7. A reluctance to return but a sense they cannot stay.

Question 5

What is Susan Blackmore’s dying brain theory?

Answer 5

close to death the brain releases endorphins and chemicals that might create the experience to reduce the trauma of dying

Question 6

What is the 21g experiment?

Answer 6

Theory that the soul leaves the body at the moment of death, 6 test subjects, 1 subject lost 21g of weight

Question 7

What are the problems with the 21g experiment?

Answer 7

• inaccurate scales
• only 1/6 subjects lost weight
• soul has to be lighter than air to rise to heaven, so to lose weight it must be heavy and go to hell
• can’t define point of death (brain, heart, breath etc)
• is the soul physical?