More evidence of something After this life?

By Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

Death: Is it the end or is there something after? This no doubt is a troubling though an important and interesting question for those with an inquiring mind. Of course, there are some who have already made up their minds, not on any scientific basis but on religious grounds or on the basis of rationalism. Whilst rationalists believe that there is nothing beyond, religions give us various interpretations of the afterlife, eternity, resurrection, reincarnation and rebirth. Is there any scientific backing for any of these concepts? Very scanty, if at all. Therefore, any new evidence is most welcome.

Perhaps, as a Buddhist, I should believe in rebirth, but at the risk of being branded a non-conformist, I have kept an open mind and have been searching for scientific evidence of an afterlife. Some religions have invented eternity with or without resurrection, and I consider it implausible. For actions committed during a very brief period of existence on this earth, how can committal to an eternal hell or heaven be justified?

Although even experts confuse reincarnation and rebirth, they are very different concepts. Reincarnation is the continuation of the same soul in different births and may therefore be interpreted as another form of eternity whereas rebirth involves only the transmission of mind (Citta). To my scientific mind, if there is an afterlife, the only possibility is rebirth. This becomes feasible only if there is proof that the mind can be independent of the body/brain.

During the height of the pandemic in July 2021, I had a very pleasant surprise when Dr Manasara Wedisinghe, a retired Consultant Physician, my close friend since 1959, when we met at Ananda College, informed me that he had ordered a copy of Dr Bruce Greyson’s book ‘After’ be delivered to me for me to read and bring across when I visited Kandy. Manasara was well aware of my interest in Dr Greyson’s work and his kind gesture enabled me to study this fascinating book. Because of the pandemic, I was forced to keep the book for over a year which, in a way, was a bonus as I was able to read it twice and make my own notes for future reference.

The book has the tagline, “A doctor explores what Near -Death Experiences reveal about life and beyond” and is dedicated: ‘For those who faced death and generously shared with me their most personal and profound experiences’. The purpose of the book is summarised by the following paragraph which appears inside the dust cover:

Dr. Bruce Greyson (Picture courtesy
The Guardian)

“Dr Greyson shows how scientific revelations about the dying process can support an alternative theory. Dying could be the threshold between one form of consciousness and another, not an ending but a transition. This new perspective on the nature of death can transform the fear of dying that pervades our culture into a healthy view of it as one more milestone in the course of our lives. ‘After ‘challenges us to open our minds to these experiences and what they can teach us, and in so doing, expands our understanding of the consciousness and of what it means to be human.”

Dr Greyson’s interest in Near-Death Experiences (NDE) started following an inexplicable episode at the very beginning of his training in psychiatry. While he was having a meal of spaghetti with tomato sauce in the hospital cafeteria, his bleep sounded; in the hurry to reach the bleeper, he spilled some sauce on his tie. It was a call for him to see a young girl who had taken an overdose. He hurried, wiping the stain on the tie, but was not able to interview Holly as she was unconscious but was able to speak to her friend who brought Holly to hospital. This conversation took place in a room well away from the patient’s bed. A day or two later, when he spoke to Holly, he was shocked when she told him that she heard the conversation with her friend and commented ‘I saw you trying to hide the tomato sauce on your tie’. Dr Greyson was perplexed, as there was no scientific explanation, and states the following at the end of the introduction titled ‘A journey into unchartered territory’:

“As desperately as I wanted to erase from my memory my entire encounter with Holly, I was by then enough of a scientist to know I just couldn’t ignore it. Pretending something didn’t happen just because we can’t explain it is the exact opposite of science. My quest to find a logical explanation for the riddle of the spaghetti stain led me into a half century of research. It didn’t answer all my questions, but it did lead me to question some of my answers. And it would soon take me into territory I never could have imagined.’

His research into NDE was sparked following a meeting with Dr Raymond Moody, who had written the book “Life After Life” and coined the term ‘near-death experience’ and Dr Greyson’s book “After” is a methodical analysis of his work, giving historical facts as well. In fact, description of NDEs is nothing new, Swiss Geology professor Albert von St. Gallen Heim publishing a collection of NDEs in the Yearbook of the Swiss Alpine Club, in 1892, wherein he highlighted his own experiences of altered speed of thought and extreme clarity of mind, which is a feature of NDEs. Prof Heim has lectured to Albert Einstein which may have influenced Einstein’s thinking on time and space.

Another feature of NDE is’ life review’. This again is not new as British rear admiral Sir Francis Beaufort has recorded, in detail, a life review he experienced following a fall into water off a boat in Portsmouth harbour, in 1791, as the 17-year-old had not yet learned to swim. Commenting on these historical facts, Dr Greyson states:

“Knowing that they are not new phenomena, but perhaps universal experiences that people have been having for centuries, doesn’t tell us what they are. Are they due to common psychological mechanisms that help us gain some closure before we die? Are they caused by brain malfunctions as we start to approach death? Or, are they something else entirely? At that point, I didn’t have the tools I would need to study NDEs more thoroughly. So, I set about trying to develop a more systematic way of organizing and analysing them than just collecting these stories. And this would introduce a whole new set of questions and challenges.”

To get the whole story, he decided to investigate those who did not volunteer NDEs and in two and half years interviewed almost 1,600 patients. Of these 116 had cardiac arrests and 27 described NDEs. Ten percent of cardiac arrest patients and one percent of those who had major events described NDEs but they had been reluctant to admit previously for many reasons; no one would believe, consider them crazy, difficulty in description as what they experience is totally different from the norms and were inhibited by culture and religion.

In 1978, Dr Greyson moved to the Mental Health research Unit in Michigan University to get acquainted with research methodology where he devised an NDE scale of 16 points which is in use since by all researchers. In 1979, he published an article in Journal of the American Medical Association with Ian Stevenson, stating that consciousness may survive after death and highlighting that NDEs may support some kind of continued consciousness. The publication of this paper by JAMA was monumental as up to that time most researchers had discounted this possibility, as most experiences were counter to culture and beliefs held.

There are many anecdotes in the book detailing fascinating Out of Body Experiences (OBE), one of the most interesting being that of Collen, who bled during delivery and collapsed. Although the obstetrician wanted to give up, the anaesthetist insisted on continuing resuscitation and she survived. She watched it all from above and was shocked by the swear words used by the two doctors! Anaesthetist was shocked when Collen thanked him later for the fight he had put up to save her life. It is interesting that 80% of those who have NDEs describe OBEs but only 50% saw their own bodies.

American Cardiologist Michael Sabom and British intensive care nurse Penny Sartori’s work showed that those who reported OBEs following cardiac arrest described in detail the events associated with resuscitation accurately whereas a control group who were resuscitated but did not experience NDEs were unable to describe accurately.

Dr Greyson goes into detail about the different parts of the brain associated with different faculties and concludes that NDEs may be triggered by electrical or chemical changes in the brain that permit the mind to experience separating from the body at the time of death. He has said:

NDEs are common and can happen to anyone, 1:20 having had one.

NDEs are normal experiences that happen to people in exceptional circumstances.

NDEs usually lead to a number of profound and long-lasting aftereffects.

NDEs reduce fear of death; also fear of living.

NDEs lead experiences to live more fully in the present moment.

NDEs raise questions about the relationship between mind and brain.

NDEs raise questions about the continuation of consciousness after death

Dr Greyson states that the brain acts as a filter, a notion expounded 2,000 years ago by Hippocrates, who believed that the brain was the interpreter of consciousness. Just as other senses filter out unessential information, the brain does that to the mind. Unfortunately, he was apparently not aware that the Buddha described six senses; mind being the sixth sense which is able to see without the eye or hear without the ear, as shown by OBEs. Further, referring to the other five senses, the Buddha stated that the eye sees what it wants to see, etc.

The evidence produced by Dr Bruce Greyson in this monumental book ‘After’, that the mind can be independent of the brain, adds to the scientific evidence of the possibility of rebirth.