December 3, 2009 • 26 mins
The concept of a near-death experience is well-known in popular culture, but we still don't know why these seemingly supernatural events occur. Josh and Chuck explore the myriad theories that attempt to explain near-death experiences in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Bryant. Josh call him Chuck to Josh. Insert
(00:24):
with the intro. I don't have one, okay, so we
should we talk about in your death experience? Yeah, I've
got one for you. Actually, Um. In there was a
woman named Pam Reynolds who is a song stress from
what I can gather, a blues song stress, possibly country
cross over here there. She's in Atlanta, resident really yeah, um,
(00:45):
And she underwent a procedure to repair a brain and aneurism,
right okay, And this brain and yoursm apparently was in
a really difficult place. And um, she got in touch
with a specialist who's like, you know what, Um, I
know a procedure we can do on you, because we're
gonna have to drain all the blood from your brain
(01:06):
to operate on this thing. That's not good now. Basically,
the doctor said, Pam, we're gonna have to kill you.
For about forty five minutes. I was just about to
say that would probably mean she's dead. Huh. So the
procedure that she underwent was a hypothermic cardiac arrest, and
she was intentionally cardiac arrested, Um, by lowering your body
temperature to I think sixty degrees fahrenheit for for good
(01:28):
forty five minutes. Right, looks like flatlanders. It's very much
like talk. She'll see yes. Um, So Pam Reynolds is
dead for forty five minutes, and not like accidentally dead,
like she was purposefully killed by her physicians. Um. They
cut the top of her her head off, repaired the
brain aneurysm, so they're butchering her as well. Right, Yeah,
(01:51):
she's dead, what does she care? Uh? And then they
successfully bring her back and Pam Reynolds sits up after
she's recovering and says, hey, God, breath. Pretty crazy. I
saw my grandmother and my uncle, and there was a
tunnel with white light and all of these things that
have come to be recognized as aspects of a near
death experience. That's weird for one reason. One reason is
(02:16):
that there was no blood to her brain, therefore she
should not have had any sensory input reaction whatsoever. But
maybe it happened as it was draining. Now, who knows.
Maybe weird thing number two. Weird thing number two. When
she came to she could describe the bon saw that
she never saw while she was alive that cut her
head open. She said that she she was surprised by
(02:37):
it because it looked more like an electric toothbrush than
what she was expecting. She never saw it at any point, um.
And she could also describe things like, oh, I don't know,
the surgeons shirt that he was wearing beneath his scrubs,
things like that that she should not have ever been
able to see. Um. She was not, as far as
I know, much of a believer in that kind of
(02:58):
thing until afterward. And her case is widely pointed to
as one of the best pieces of evidence that there
is such a thing as life after death. She had
like a classic near death experience. We could end it
right now, and I think people would be satisfied. Okay,
that was such a good story. Well I'm hungry, so
(03:18):
why don't we Okay, let's get a twinkie. Wow, that's
awesome and cool. Thanks, And that really happened. Oh yeah,
it definitely happens. She's still Pam Reynolds. She's very much
alive and UM apparently likes her experience. She had a
great experience. Um. She has at least one album she
released called The Side Effects of Death. Are you serious? Yeah? Yeah,
(03:39):
she's She seems like a pretty cool lady. Is she
still at Lantay now? I don't know. That would be
cool if we you know, I've had lunch with her something. Well,
if if she is and she's listening to an email,
we'll go have lunch because I would love to hear
that firsthand. That would be awesome. As a matter of fact,
I will pay for lunch out of my own pocket
for that one, which is really saying something that I know.
(04:00):
I O Jerry thirty five bucks first. Yeah, He's like,
pay me, then go eat your hot dog. Uh so, Josh.
The term near death experience coined in nineteen by Dr
Raymond Moody in his book Life After Life, very clever title,
it is very clever, Um and actually Moody you will
notice the doctor um, which makes him less of a
(04:20):
crack pot. Uh. And we'll find throughout this podcast that
there are some very smart, very educated, very um skeptical
people who are researching this. Yeah, this is not just
some fringe scientific idea or even just a fringe religious idea.
It's pretty much where religion and science converge. Yeah, I mean,
(04:42):
there's no doubt that there are near death experience is
what they are interpreted as and explained away as is
what differs. They definitely happened. The earliest description we have
of a near death experience comes from Plato's Republic, written
in A three sixty B c UM, which is BC
for those of you who are not hip to the
(05:02):
new abbreviation R. Do you know what BC stands for?
Before Christ existed, before Chuck existed, Before Chuck, I don't know.
Um No, before before the Common era, the Common era
Judaism and Christians. What's the other one, because you said
that one the end of the day, the Common Era CE, B, C, E,
and C. Right, Yeah, so with that out of the way, Yeah,
(05:26):
it's still Judeo Christian though, and it's uh oh it is, well, yeah,
before the Common era of Judaism and Christianity. Oh I
just thought they meant before Chuck existed. Okay, so anyway,
Plato describes the soldier named Er who was killed in
battle uh, and came back to life, but apparently left
his body and was judged before a panel of souls
(05:47):
and saw heaven, which will sound kind of familiar to
any fan of Albert Brooks. Yeah, was Defending Your Life
In Your Life arguably the greatest movie about the afterlife ever. Yeah.
I'm a big Albert Brooks fan. All Right, I'm not
a big fan, but that's what probably my top five
favorite movies. I like him. I think I'm down with
the neurotic uh, Woody Allen Albert Brooks types. I like
(06:08):
him more than Woody Allen. I'm a Woody not so Chuck.
Do you think we should talk about near death experiences?
Maybe we should talk about what is typical of an indie? Yeah.
And the thing that strikes me is, you know, it's
not that Um Grabanowski, who you know, is like the
sign of quality for an article. You see him byline,
you know it's worth reading, right, Um, Which is not
(06:31):
to say that there's an article on the site that's
not worth reading, now that I think about that, good point,
kiss up. Yeah, Um. But I think just anybody living
in the twenty one century has been so exposed to
the concept of near death experiences that like, all of
this will sound very familiar, but Chuck, yes, take it.
We'll go through these fairly quickly because there's a little list.
(06:51):
Feeling of calmness is one um intense pure bright light.
You always hear about the light go into the light. Uh,
and out of body experience. Ants. That's good. I think
it actually makes that sound upon re entry um entering
another realm or dimension. Spirit beings knees are beings of
(07:15):
light or other representations of spiritual entities. Already said, Okay,
the tunnel, which we always talk about, and the light
is typically at the end of the tunnel. Uh. Communication
with spirits it's usually a strong male voice, which is interesting. Uh.
And life review, which is also called a panoramic life
(07:37):
review check. And that is when you see your you
know you've heard of your life flash before your eyes. Right.
That's that. So those are the common hallmarks of an indie.
Right and UM. Most of the time, when you hear
somebody coming back to life after death, whether your physician
did it to you on purpose or accidentally, or somebody
(07:58):
hit you in the head with a ball peene hammer, Um,
most people say it was awesome, Like Jesus was there,
and so was my aunt and my dog and and everything. Yeah,
Elvis was there and it wasn't fat anymore. It was wonderful. Um.
But there is actually a segment of the population that
has experienced a near death experience that says, yeah, that
(08:21):
didn't happen to me. Actually, I had the exact opposite experience.
I went to Hell. Up up to one of people
in a poll that we're going to talk about, said
it's what I like to call a bad trip. Bad trip, indeed,
probably the worst trip of all time. We're talking biblical
descriptions of hell, lakes of fire, tormented souls, and oppressive heat.
(08:41):
And actually this was surprising to me. There was there
some people come back from experiences like that or even
good ones, with the prophetic vision a lot of times
that the world is going to end. And there was
a group of people who were unknown to each other
that came back, Um, I guess during the eighties and
said the world's gonna end in And they didn't know
(09:03):
one another, and they all had the same experience, which
is weird. The world obviously didn't end in night, but
so that means it's bunk. Not necessarily, what if a
portion of the world ended, a portion that we're not
really familiar with, or that we just didn't realize, Like
maybe humanity lost a little bit of its humanenus in
nineteen eighty eight and we just didn't recognize it as
(09:24):
the world ending. Or the aliens living inside the hollow
Earth maybe they all died or have you read um
what was it Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agents, never heard
of it. Douglas Adams, the guy who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy. That he writes about this, uh, this
other dimensional group that are coming to take over Earth.
But somebody forgot to uh to carry like a zero
(09:46):
or something, and they when they teleported themselves to our dimension,
they showed up as very very tiny and we're inhaled
by a dog immediately. Really. Yeah, that dude's got a
great sense of humor. He's got a great one. I
always did what he lays down well said. So let's
get back to that pole that I referenced. Yeah, because
this is pretty interesting. This is one of the people
I was talking about. It's very smart and very educated
(10:07):
and very well known to George Gallop Jr. Right of
the pole. Gallops the gallop pole of the Coney Island Gallops.
He Uh and author William Proctor released a book called
Adventures and Immortality in two and that's pretty much the
most exhaustive polling research that's ever been done on indies. Yeah,
(10:28):
we have a rule of thumb here at how stuff
works dot com where if it studies a decade old
or more and a lot of us actually fudged towards
the other side eight nine years, it's probably out of date.
This this book is still cited. It was just like,
it's so exhaustive, it's so authority, it's the standard. Yeah,
(10:50):
very cool. I got some stats then from this pole.
Josh Chuck loves stats. They know that, Oh, somebody is
drinking right now in Korea, Richard go chuckers Hey Jerry.
Of all Americans who had been in near death situations
reported having a near death experience, and it's a lot.
That is a lot. Nine percent included the classic out
(11:12):
of body experience, and h eleven percent included entering a
realm or dimension a different one. An eight percent featured
the presence of spiritual beings. Pretty cool, and well yeah,
one percent reported bad trip. Basically that was the Gaol
but other smaller studies have reported up to a quarter
(11:33):
of people who have indes have, as Chuck puts it,
bad trips. Yeah. The other cool thing Josh about this
UH study is they indicated that one hundred near death
experience subjects revealed that prior religious belief and knowledge of
the near death experience did not really have any kind
of effect. So it wasn't like, oh, I'm really, um
(11:56):
super Christian and so I saw God right in St. Jr.
Home and St. Pete, or I'm really into near death
experiences so I saw one that kind of thing. Yeah. Um.
There's a guy named Kenneth Ring who's also a very
prolific researcher and author on near death experiences UM, and
he did a h he started to quantify UM what
(12:19):
was going on among populations that have experienced in these
right and he found that most people, a small percentage
again feel like fear, depression, that kind of thing afterwards.
But most people who undergo a near death experience UM
have a new renewed appreciation for life and living. They
(12:40):
feel that they are not no longer afraid of death UM,
and a lot of them become a lot more extroverted
or I should say most of them become extroverted. They're
basically changed by their experience UM and they are much
more spiritual. But interestingly, that doesn't he didn't see an
increase a positive correlation between that increased spirituality and increased
(13:02):
UM religiousness or increased church attendance. Right, it was like
an inward spirituality. Right. Did you ever see the movie Fearless?
Is that the Jeff Bridges plane crushed? Yeah? I heard
the movie poster though, Oh that's you know what I had?
That movie poster were so we were there to be chuck.
That is odd. It's a great movie. They just check
it out here. Jeff Bridges survives and he uh, it's
(13:25):
the only movie I know of that it goes through
all the classic UM in a realistic way. It goes
through the classic post near death experience UM trials and tribulations. See.
Knowing me, I would have just crippling survivors guilt for
the rest of my life the way he had that.
And he also had the invincibility that they talked about too,
like the shield of invincibility, cloak of invincibility literally, but yeah,
(13:47):
I felt like I can't die. Oh oh yeah, I
remember he's like on a ledge or something at one
point where I'm totally who cares? You noticed he didn't
jump though, of course anyone can stand on a ledge.
That's not gonna kill you. That's like the Bill routine. Okay,
So Bill Hicks is talking about people taking drugs like
PCP or whatever and flying on or you know, jumping
(14:08):
off a buildings thinking they can fly, And Bill Hicks
is like, if you think you can fly, why don't
you just try taking off from the ground, Right, that's
a good sharp guy. That's funny you mentioned that. Actually,
it's exactly, isn't it. This PCP and uh, what's that? Yeah,
that's right, are believed to give similar feelings as near
(14:30):
death experiences, Is that right? Uh? Yeah, Actually, supposedly you
can a lot of people feel like they're actually dying
when they're in the grips of a trip on PCP
or ketamine. And actually also, um, there's a lot of
similar near death experiences, like, uh, people have reported being
on ketamine and feeling like they're spinning around and attracting
(14:51):
light beings like we mentioned earlier. Yeah, um, and and
so there's some real similarities, especially with ketamine and near
death experiences, which is really really odd, but that kind
of undermines the spiritual theory of near death experiences and
in in supports the scientific theories about it. Right, let's
talk about those. Okay. What we're talking about with the
(15:13):
spiritual is more like a supernatural explanation, is that you're
talking about? Yeah, that you And I hate to put
it like this because I don't think that. I think
supernatural kind of undermines it. It makes it sound cookie,
but um, that I guess the supernatural explanation is that
you possess a soul that lives on after your your
body dies and your passion, it goes onto another dimension
(15:34):
and just things that science can't or possibly can't yet explain,
which makes them supernatural rather than natural. Supernatural actually should
be a good word. Yeah, it's a great word as Um. Yeah,
I mean essentially passing on to the afterlife, or in
the case of reincarnation, may be passing from one life
(15:55):
to another, that kind of thing. Right, So that's the
spiritual supernatural reasoning. And then there's science. Are we there yet? Yeah,
we were there a while back. Science, there's a few
theories going on that. Um, it's really a lot of
stuff happening in the brain. Well, you can't say theories.
These are hypotheses, because Chuck, why does it say scientific theories?
(16:18):
Then the grapster was himself overworked that week. But um no,
these are hypotheses because you can't test them. You can't
kill somebody to see what happens to him, like flatliners exactly.
I mean you can, but then you end up as
Kevin Bacon found in Big Trouble. Yeah, what did he had?
The kids that he teased were after him or something?
(16:40):
Or was that the mouth breather, No, the mouth breather,
I don't remember what happened. He had the little girl
in the subway train that was after him, the mouth
breather and Kevin Bacon. No, no no, no, Kevin Bacon had
the girl in the subway, and the mouth breather was
the one who teased the kid up in the tree
that fell, that's right. And Julia Roberts had cookie Dad
(17:01):
and William Baldwin, Oh yeah, she not the cookie dad,
the junkie the junkie dad. And then I don't think
Oliver Platte everyone under Diddy he was kind of with.
And then William Baldwin's all involved ex Girl Friends, which
I thought was pretty silly. Yeah, that's a good movie though.
Yeah it hasn't aged well, oh no, I haven't seen it. Uh,
not bad though. So medical science, Yeah, they say that
(17:24):
the brain is um perhaps getting the senses confused, and
your brain starts malfunctioning to the point where you see
these uh see the lights as your brain is shutting
down that kind of thing. Your visual cortex creates that
image and it's it's all easily explained. Right. So I'm
looking at you right now, Chuck, and you are really
just a cluster of light and shadows that forms of
(17:46):
shape which I'm receiving through my retinas, that are basically
being transformed into electrical impulses that go to the visual
cortex in my brain, which takes them compiles them into
what I'm seeing as you, Chuck sitting there right What
happens if that part of my brain is malfunctioning. I
still am getting uh, sensory input through my eyes, but
(18:09):
my brain is no longer making sense of it. So
maybe it turns into what's called neural noise. My brain
still is struggling to make sense of it, Like that's
what our brains do. Remember the podcast on dreaming, there's
a dreaming that we um our brains want to make
sense of things no matter what, and that's possibly what
dreams are. Right. It's almost like the brain is still
(18:30):
just struggling. It's like a fish flopping in a boat
at this point. It's it's, you know, not really doing
what it wants to, but it it's still wants to
do what it needs to write, wasn't it. Uh So,
so the brain is taking all this information, but it's
miscategorizing it whatever. So all of a sudden, there's a
bright white light, or there's a tunnel, or there's a
(18:53):
being there. Um. And it's also possible that it takes
all this information and it's jumbled, but it's not until
after we wake up and our conscious memory is active
that it's sorting it into those memories, these false memories
or whatever. And the other thing too, your brain, uh,
your your spatial sense is prone to malfunction when you
have in your death experience and that could explain potentially
(19:15):
the outer body experience when you feel yourself floating around
the room looking down at your own body. That kind
of thing, right, and that um calm sensation and being
at peace. It's possible that um, these are it's the
result of endorphins flooding our brain, which has been shown
to they've been really they are released during times of
like trauma and extreme stress as a coping mechanism. Like apparently,
(19:38):
if you're drowning, right before you drown, you've just become
euphoric because your brain just floods itself with endorphins right
before you die. So we know that that's a pretty
good possibility to write. And uh, I think they've explained
or tried to explain the meeting with God that kind
of thing as basically a combination of a bunch of things,
maybe the sensory and put combined with a lack of
(20:01):
oxygen to your brain and the endorphins and they all
getting mixed up together to create a really realistic Yeah, So, Chuck,
this is um as far as near death experiences go.
There's so much evidence, and we have such a little
grasp on the brain. It seems like the scientific theories
(20:24):
are reasonable in some cases. And I'm like, there's a
line that grab Anowski throws out there. He's like, but
what about you know, people who like Pam Reynolds who
describe what's going on while they're actually dead. Sure, He's like,
it's possible the brain is still getting sensory input. He goes,
whether you think that that's more irrational of an explanation
(20:44):
than the person's soul actually left the body. As a
matter of opinion, I thought he did a good job
with that too, because there's no definite answer and there
probably won't be. Well, I can't say that, but who knows. Well.
I think a lot of scientists think that they have
found definitive answers that the brain is just screwed up
right there. But I think this is one of those cases.
And I don't think it's this is true in every case,
but this is one of those cases where science might
(21:06):
be able to explain the how, but not the why.
Like if we do undergo some sort of transformation or
transition after death, wouldn't it be based on the chemical
composition of our brains? Like, wouldn't that be the way
we were most easily manipulated? I think, so, yeah, that's
where I parked my car. Well, thanks for parking your Carlo, Chuck,
(21:27):
that's a good one. Maybe we should kill each other tonight,
like choke each other out until we're at the brink
and then like slap each other in the face and
see what happens. Um, why don't we not do it
at the same time. You go first, I'll put a
belt around your neck and tie you to a piece
of exercise equipment, and I'll just stand there because I
think one of us needs to be alive while the
(21:47):
other one's under Yes, and we are not condoning this
because that is very dangerous to do and you should
not try something like that. Agreed. Agreed, we're trained professionals. Agreed.
If you want to learn more about near death experiences,
there's actually um some pretty good articles. There's a Grabbinowski's.
I wrote one on has science explained life after death?
And uh, the former writer Jacob Silverman wrote one on
(22:10):
out of body experiences. Uh. You can type in near
death and I think it should bring all three of
those up. Type those in the handy search bar at
how stuff works dot com, which means it's time for
a listener mail. I'm gonna call this, um a pretty
amazing medical story, more amazing than what we were just
(22:31):
talking about. Well, I don't know. And also check we
should probably give a shout out to that listener. Remember
he wrote in about his dad dying and he found
out there were those cards on on the high shelf
that you could only see if you were floating at
the season right. So hey, there you inspired this podcast
in a way. Hi guys, I'm propped up in a
bed in a Sydney hospital, recovering from a gas direct
(22:53):
to me by catching up on a whole uh stack
of Stuff podcast in the hospital, listening to all my
all our shows. Do they stack at the digital file?
They are? Um? I've been here for two weeks after
admitting myself to emergency with abdonmenal cramps. I had a
there's a lot of medical terms in there. I had.
I had a lubectomy of my left lower lung in
(23:15):
December of last year to remove a pulmonary sequestration, and
the initial CT scan when I was admitted showed an
abscess in the space where my lung used to be used.
To bet I know, I was very fortunate to have
the same surgeon called in to repeat the procedure. However,
once he got in there, he was met with something
(23:36):
very unexpected. The abscess was actually my stomach, which had
herniated into a cavity, who a minute opening in my
diaphragm created by the sequestration. I eat, It's always been there,
but it was only exposed when they removed it, so, uh,
it was gone, had had gone completely gan greenness, which
(23:57):
is not a pleasant word to hear, DNS gangredness, jerk.
They immediately flipped me over and found that all but
ten percent of my stomach had been pulled through this
tiny hole. What so they had to completely remove it
and attach my esophagus directly to my small intestine. I
told you it was pretty amazing, apparently as the procedure
used on stomach cancer patients, and uh, he was in
(24:20):
surgery theater for almost ten hours. From what I gather,
it's a very unique occurrence, and all the nurses that
have come by have asked me about it, and the
doctors give me this fascinated look whenever they passed by.
My word like, wow, that's the dude. With the recent
special US health care system. I thought it would be
interesting to both of you, but wasn't for the quick
action and surgeons and the fact that I was in
(24:42):
the hospital residents to uh, some of the top surgeons
in the state. I've been told, there's a good chance
I wouldn't have made it quite sobering. So where it
is after a month, my intestine will have expanded to
the point where I won't notice a big difference in
diet or capacity. And the only only ongoing treatment on
the as a potential vitamin B twelve injection every three months.
(25:03):
Cool crazy, Huh that's what he said, Yes, and uh
he wrote in. After that, I wrote him back and
he wrote in and said that, um, he wanted to
add that it basically didn't custom a time. Nice. So
who who is it? This is Jeff and Jeff is
the owner of Grizzly Personal Training in Sydney, Australia at
grizzly pt dot com and Jeff d is on the
(25:25):
mend and hopefully he'll be physically training some people stomachless. Well, Jeff,
congratulations on surviving and thank you for listening and taking
the time to write in. That's pretty awesome. Actually, thanks
for having the stomach to tell us that story. Well,
if you have any amazing stories about how bundled payments
(25:45):
led you to find that you have a hole in
your body that shouldn't be there, you can send in
an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
(26:06):
check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot
com home page. H brought to you by the reinvented
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Bryant. Josh call him Chuck to Josh. Insert
(00:24):
with the intro. I don't have one, okay, so we
should we talk about in your death experience? Yeah, I've
got one for you. Actually, Um. In there was a
woman named Pam Reynolds who is a song stress from
what I can gather, a blues song stress, possibly country
cross over here there. She's in Atlanta, resident really yeah, um,
(00:45):
And she underwent a procedure to repair a brain and aneurism,
right okay, And this brain and yoursm apparently was in
a really difficult place. And um, she got in touch
with a specialist who's like, you know what, Um, I
know a procedure we can do on you, because we're
gonna have to drain all the blood from your brain
(01:06):
to operate on this thing. That's not good now. Basically,
the doctor said, Pam, we're gonna have to kill you.
For about forty five minutes. I was just about to
say that would probably mean she's dead. Huh. So the
procedure that she underwent was a hypothermic cardiac arrest, and
she was intentionally cardiac arrested, Um, by lowering your body
temperature to I think sixty degrees fahrenheit for for good
(01:28):
forty five minutes. Right, looks like flatlanders. It's very much
like talk. She'll see yes. Um, So Pam Reynolds is
dead for forty five minutes, and not like accidentally dead,
like she was purposefully killed by her physicians. Um. They
cut the top of her her head off, repaired the
brain aneurysm, so they're butchering her as well. Right, Yeah,
(01:51):
she's dead, what does she care? Uh? And then they
successfully bring her back and Pam Reynolds sits up after
she's recovering and says, hey, God, breath. Pretty crazy. I
saw my grandmother and my uncle, and there was a
tunnel with white light and all of these things that
have come to be recognized as aspects of a near
death experience. That's weird for one reason. One reason is
(02:16):
that there was no blood to her brain, therefore she
should not have had any sensory input reaction whatsoever. But
maybe it happened as it was draining. Now, who knows.
Maybe weird thing number two. Weird thing number two. When
she came to she could describe the bon saw that
she never saw while she was alive that cut her
head open. She said that she she was surprised by
(02:37):
it because it looked more like an electric toothbrush than
what she was expecting. She never saw it at any point, um.
And she could also describe things like, oh, I don't know,
the surgeons shirt that he was wearing beneath his scrubs,
things like that that she should not have ever been
able to see. Um. She was not, as far as
I know, much of a believer in that kind of
(02:58):
thing until afterward. And her case is widely pointed to
as one of the best pieces of evidence that there
is such a thing as life after death. She had
like a classic near death experience. We could end it
right now, and I think people would be satisfied. Okay,
that was such a good story. Well I'm hungry, so
(03:18):
why don't we Okay, let's get a twinkie. Wow, that's
awesome and cool. Thanks, And that really happened. Oh yeah,
it definitely happens. She's still Pam Reynolds. She's very much
alive and UM apparently likes her experience. She had a
great experience. Um. She has at least one album she
released called The Side Effects of Death. Are you serious? Yeah? Yeah,
(03:39):
she's She seems like a pretty cool lady. Is she
still at Lantay now? I don't know. That would be
cool if we you know, I've had lunch with her something. Well,
if if she is and she's listening to an email,
we'll go have lunch because I would love to hear
that firsthand. That would be awesome. As a matter of fact,
I will pay for lunch out of my own pocket
for that one, which is really saying something that I know.
(04:00):
I O Jerry thirty five bucks first. Yeah, He's like,
pay me, then go eat your hot dog. Uh so, Josh.
The term near death experience coined in nineteen by Dr
Raymond Moody in his book Life After Life, very clever title,
it is very clever, Um and actually Moody you will
notice the doctor um, which makes him less of a
(04:20):
crack pot. Uh. And we'll find throughout this podcast that
there are some very smart, very educated, very um skeptical
people who are researching this. Yeah, this is not just
some fringe scientific idea or even just a fringe religious idea.
It's pretty much where religion and science converge. Yeah, I mean,
(04:42):
there's no doubt that there are near death experience is
what they are interpreted as and explained away as is
what differs. They definitely happened. The earliest description we have
of a near death experience comes from Plato's Republic, written
in A three sixty B c UM, which is BC
for those of you who are not hip to the
(05:02):
new abbreviation R. Do you know what BC stands for?
Before Christ existed, before Chuck existed, Before Chuck, I don't know.
Um No, before before the Common era, the Common era
Judaism and Christians. What's the other one, because you said
that one the end of the day, the Common Era CE, B, C, E,
and C. Right, Yeah, so with that out of the way, Yeah,
(05:26):
it's still Judeo Christian though, and it's uh oh it is, well, yeah,
before the Common era of Judaism and Christianity. Oh I
just thought they meant before Chuck existed. Okay, so anyway,
Plato describes the soldier named Er who was killed in
battle uh, and came back to life, but apparently left
his body and was judged before a panel of souls
(05:47):
and saw heaven, which will sound kind of familiar to
any fan of Albert Brooks. Yeah, was Defending Your Life
In Your Life arguably the greatest movie about the afterlife ever. Yeah.
I'm a big Albert Brooks fan. All Right, I'm not
a big fan, but that's what probably my top five
favorite movies. I like him. I think I'm down with
the neurotic uh, Woody Allen Albert Brooks types. I like
(06:08):
him more than Woody Allen. I'm a Woody not so Chuck.
Do you think we should talk about near death experiences?
Maybe we should talk about what is typical of an indie? Yeah.
And the thing that strikes me is, you know, it's
not that Um Grabanowski, who you know, is like the
sign of quality for an article. You see him byline,
you know it's worth reading, right, Um, Which is not
(06:31):
to say that there's an article on the site that's
not worth reading, now that I think about that, good point,
kiss up. Yeah, Um. But I think just anybody living
in the twenty one century has been so exposed to
the concept of near death experiences that like, all of
this will sound very familiar, but Chuck, yes, take it.
We'll go through these fairly quickly because there's a little list.
(06:51):
Feeling of calmness is one um intense pure bright light.
You always hear about the light go into the light. Uh,
and out of body experience. Ants. That's good. I think
it actually makes that sound upon re entry um entering
another realm or dimension. Spirit beings knees are beings of
(07:15):
light or other representations of spiritual entities. Already said, Okay,
the tunnel, which we always talk about, and the light
is typically at the end of the tunnel. Uh. Communication
with spirits it's usually a strong male voice, which is interesting. Uh.
And life review, which is also called a panoramic life
(07:37):
review check. And that is when you see your you
know you've heard of your life flash before your eyes. Right.
That's that. So those are the common hallmarks of an indie.
Right and UM. Most of the time, when you hear
somebody coming back to life after death, whether your physician
did it to you on purpose or accidentally, or somebody
(07:58):
hit you in the head with a ball peene hammer, Um,
most people say it was awesome, Like Jesus was there,
and so was my aunt and my dog and and everything. Yeah,
Elvis was there and it wasn't fat anymore. It was wonderful. Um.
But there is actually a segment of the population that
has experienced a near death experience that says, yeah, that
(08:21):
didn't happen to me. Actually, I had the exact opposite experience.
I went to Hell. Up up to one of people
in a poll that we're going to talk about, said
it's what I like to call a bad trip. Bad trip, indeed,
probably the worst trip of all time. We're talking biblical
descriptions of hell, lakes of fire, tormented souls, and oppressive heat.
(08:41):
And actually this was surprising to me. There was there
some people come back from experiences like that or even
good ones, with the prophetic vision a lot of times
that the world is going to end. And there was
a group of people who were unknown to each other
that came back, Um, I guess during the eighties and
said the world's gonna end in And they didn't know
(09:03):
one another, and they all had the same experience, which
is weird. The world obviously didn't end in night, but
so that means it's bunk. Not necessarily, what if a
portion of the world ended, a portion that we're not
really familiar with, or that we just didn't realize, Like
maybe humanity lost a little bit of its humanenus in
nineteen eighty eight and we just didn't recognize it as
(09:24):
the world ending. Or the aliens living inside the hollow
Earth maybe they all died or have you read um
what was it Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agents, never heard
of it. Douglas Adams, the guy who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy. That he writes about this, uh, this
other dimensional group that are coming to take over Earth.
But somebody forgot to uh to carry like a zero
(09:46):
or something, and they when they teleported themselves to our dimension,
they showed up as very very tiny and we're inhaled
by a dog immediately. Really. Yeah, that dude's got a
great sense of humor. He's got a great one. I
always did what he lays down well said. So let's
get back to that pole that I referenced. Yeah, because
this is pretty interesting. This is one of the people
I was talking about. It's very smart and very educated
(10:07):
and very well known to George Gallop Jr. Right of
the pole. Gallops the gallop pole of the Coney Island Gallops.
He Uh and author William Proctor released a book called
Adventures and Immortality in two and that's pretty much the
most exhaustive polling research that's ever been done on indies. Yeah,
(10:28):
we have a rule of thumb here at how stuff
works dot com where if it studies a decade old
or more and a lot of us actually fudged towards
the other side eight nine years, it's probably out of date.
This this book is still cited. It was just like,
it's so exhaustive, it's so authority, it's the standard. Yeah,
(10:50):
very cool. I got some stats then from this pole.
Josh Chuck loves stats. They know that, Oh, somebody is
drinking right now in Korea, Richard go chuckers Hey Jerry.
Of all Americans who had been in near death situations
reported having a near death experience, and it's a lot.
That is a lot. Nine percent included the classic out
(11:12):
of body experience, and h eleven percent included entering a
realm or dimension a different one. An eight percent featured
the presence of spiritual beings. Pretty cool, and well yeah,
one percent reported bad trip. Basically that was the Gaol
but other smaller studies have reported up to a quarter
(11:33):
of people who have indes have, as Chuck puts it,
bad trips. Yeah. The other cool thing Josh about this
UH study is they indicated that one hundred near death
experience subjects revealed that prior religious belief and knowledge of
the near death experience did not really have any kind
of effect. So it wasn't like, oh, I'm really, um
(11:56):
super Christian and so I saw God right in St. Jr.
Home and St. Pete, or I'm really into near death
experiences so I saw one that kind of thing. Yeah. Um.
There's a guy named Kenneth Ring who's also a very
prolific researcher and author on near death experiences UM, and
he did a h he started to quantify UM what
(12:19):
was going on among populations that have experienced in these
right and he found that most people, a small percentage
again feel like fear, depression, that kind of thing afterwards.
But most people who undergo a near death experience UM
have a new renewed appreciation for life and living. They
(12:40):
feel that they are not no longer afraid of death UM,
and a lot of them become a lot more extroverted
or I should say most of them become extroverted. They're
basically changed by their experience UM and they are much
more spiritual. But interestingly, that doesn't he didn't see an
increase a positive correlation between that increased spirituality and increased
(13:02):
UM religiousness or increased church attendance. Right, it was like
an inward spirituality. Right. Did you ever see the movie Fearless?
Is that the Jeff Bridges plane crushed? Yeah? I heard
the movie poster though, Oh that's you know what I had?
That movie poster were so we were there to be chuck.
That is odd. It's a great movie. They just check
it out here. Jeff Bridges survives and he uh, it's
(13:25):
the only movie I know of that it goes through
all the classic UM in a realistic way. It goes
through the classic post near death experience UM trials and tribulations. See.
Knowing me, I would have just crippling survivors guilt for
the rest of my life the way he had that.
And he also had the invincibility that they talked about too,
like the shield of invincibility, cloak of invincibility literally, but yeah,
(13:47):
I felt like I can't die. Oh oh yeah, I
remember he's like on a ledge or something at one
point where I'm totally who cares? You noticed he didn't
jump though, of course anyone can stand on a ledge.
That's not gonna kill you. That's like the Bill routine. Okay,
So Bill Hicks is talking about people taking drugs like
PCP or whatever and flying on or you know, jumping
(14:08):
off a buildings thinking they can fly, And Bill Hicks
is like, if you think you can fly, why don't
you just try taking off from the ground, Right, that's
a good sharp guy. That's funny you mentioned that. Actually,
it's exactly, isn't it. This PCP and uh, what's that? Yeah,
that's right, are believed to give similar feelings as near
(14:30):
death experiences, Is that right? Uh? Yeah, Actually, supposedly you
can a lot of people feel like they're actually dying
when they're in the grips of a trip on PCP
or ketamine. And actually also, um, there's a lot of
similar near death experiences, like, uh, people have reported being
on ketamine and feeling like they're spinning around and attracting
(14:51):
light beings like we mentioned earlier. Yeah, um, and and
so there's some real similarities, especially with ketamine and near
death experiences, which is really really odd, but that kind
of undermines the spiritual theory of near death experiences and
in in supports the scientific theories about it. Right, let's
talk about those. Okay. What we're talking about with the
(15:13):
spiritual is more like a supernatural explanation, is that you're
talking about? Yeah, that you And I hate to put
it like this because I don't think that. I think
supernatural kind of undermines it. It makes it sound cookie,
but um, that I guess the supernatural explanation is that
you possess a soul that lives on after your your
body dies and your passion, it goes onto another dimension
(15:34):
and just things that science can't or possibly can't yet explain,
which makes them supernatural rather than natural. Supernatural actually should
be a good word. Yeah, it's a great word as Um. Yeah,
I mean essentially passing on to the afterlife, or in
the case of reincarnation, may be passing from one life
(15:55):
to another, that kind of thing. Right, So that's the
spiritual supernatural reasoning. And then there's science. Are we there yet? Yeah,
we were there a while back. Science, there's a few
theories going on that. Um, it's really a lot of
stuff happening in the brain. Well, you can't say theories.
These are hypotheses, because Chuck, why does it say scientific theories?
(16:18):
Then the grapster was himself overworked that week. But um no,
these are hypotheses because you can't test them. You can't
kill somebody to see what happens to him, like flatliners exactly.
I mean you can, but then you end up as
Kevin Bacon found in Big Trouble. Yeah, what did he had?
The kids that he teased were after him or something?
(16:40):
Or was that the mouth breather, No, the mouth breather,
I don't remember what happened. He had the little girl
in the subway train that was after him, the mouth
breather and Kevin Bacon. No, no no, no, Kevin Bacon had
the girl in the subway, and the mouth breather was
the one who teased the kid up in the tree
that fell, that's right. And Julia Roberts had cookie Dad
(17:01):
and William Baldwin, Oh yeah, she not the cookie dad,
the junkie the junkie dad. And then I don't think
Oliver Platte everyone under Diddy he was kind of with.
And then William Baldwin's all involved ex Girl Friends, which
I thought was pretty silly. Yeah, that's a good movie though.
Yeah it hasn't aged well, oh no, I haven't seen it. Uh,
not bad though. So medical science, Yeah, they say that
(17:24):
the brain is um perhaps getting the senses confused, and
your brain starts malfunctioning to the point where you see
these uh see the lights as your brain is shutting
down that kind of thing. Your visual cortex creates that
image and it's it's all easily explained. Right. So I'm
looking at you right now, Chuck, and you are really
just a cluster of light and shadows that forms of
(17:46):
shape which I'm receiving through my retinas, that are basically
being transformed into electrical impulses that go to the visual
cortex in my brain, which takes them compiles them into
what I'm seeing as you, Chuck sitting there right What
happens if that part of my brain is malfunctioning. I
still am getting uh, sensory input through my eyes, but
(18:09):
my brain is no longer making sense of it. So
maybe it turns into what's called neural noise. My brain
still is struggling to make sense of it, Like that's
what our brains do. Remember the podcast on dreaming, there's
a dreaming that we um our brains want to make
sense of things no matter what, and that's possibly what
dreams are. Right. It's almost like the brain is still
(18:30):
just struggling. It's like a fish flopping in a boat
at this point. It's it's, you know, not really doing
what it wants to, but it it's still wants to
do what it needs to write, wasn't it. Uh So,
so the brain is taking all this information, but it's
miscategorizing it whatever. So all of a sudden, there's a
bright white light, or there's a tunnel, or there's a
(18:53):
being there. Um. And it's also possible that it takes
all this information and it's jumbled, but it's not until
after we wake up and our conscious memory is active
that it's sorting it into those memories, these false memories
or whatever. And the other thing too, your brain, uh,
your your spatial sense is prone to malfunction when you
have in your death experience and that could explain potentially
(19:15):
the outer body experience when you feel yourself floating around
the room looking down at your own body. That kind
of thing, right, and that um calm sensation and being
at peace. It's possible that um, these are it's the
result of endorphins flooding our brain, which has been shown
to they've been really they are released during times of
like trauma and extreme stress as a coping mechanism. Like apparently,
(19:38):
if you're drowning, right before you drown, you've just become
euphoric because your brain just floods itself with endorphins right
before you die. So we know that that's a pretty
good possibility to write. And uh, I think they've explained
or tried to explain the meeting with God that kind
of thing as basically a combination of a bunch of things,
maybe the sensory and put combined with a lack of
(20:01):
oxygen to your brain and the endorphins and they all
getting mixed up together to create a really realistic Yeah, So, Chuck,
this is um as far as near death experiences go.
There's so much evidence, and we have such a little
grasp on the brain. It seems like the scientific theories
(20:24):
are reasonable in some cases. And I'm like, there's a
line that grab Anowski throws out there. He's like, but
what about you know, people who like Pam Reynolds who
describe what's going on while they're actually dead. Sure, He's like,
it's possible the brain is still getting sensory input. He goes,
whether you think that that's more irrational of an explanation
(20:44):
than the person's soul actually left the body. As a
matter of opinion, I thought he did a good job
with that too, because there's no definite answer and there
probably won't be. Well, I can't say that, but who knows. Well.
I think a lot of scientists think that they have
found definitive answers that the brain is just screwed up
right there. But I think this is one of those cases.
And I don't think it's this is true in every case,
but this is one of those cases where science might
(21:06):
be able to explain the how, but not the why.
Like if we do undergo some sort of transformation or
transition after death, wouldn't it be based on the chemical
composition of our brains? Like, wouldn't that be the way
we were most easily manipulated? I think, so, yeah, that's
where I parked my car. Well, thanks for parking your Carlo, Chuck,
(21:27):
that's a good one. Maybe we should kill each other tonight,
like choke each other out until we're at the brink
and then like slap each other in the face and
see what happens. Um, why don't we not do it
at the same time. You go first, I'll put a
belt around your neck and tie you to a piece
of exercise equipment, and I'll just stand there because I
think one of us needs to be alive while the
(21:47):
other one's under Yes, and we are not condoning this
because that is very dangerous to do and you should
not try something like that. Agreed. Agreed, we're trained professionals. Agreed.
If you want to learn more about near death experiences,
there's actually um some pretty good articles. There's a Grabbinowski's.
I wrote one on has science explained life after death?
And uh, the former writer Jacob Silverman wrote one on
(22:10):
out of body experiences. Uh. You can type in near
death and I think it should bring all three of
those up. Type those in the handy search bar at
how stuff works dot com, which means it's time for
a listener mail. I'm gonna call this, um a pretty
amazing medical story, more amazing than what we were just
(22:31):
talking about. Well, I don't know. And also check we
should probably give a shout out to that listener. Remember
he wrote in about his dad dying and he found
out there were those cards on on the high shelf
that you could only see if you were floating at
the season right. So hey, there you inspired this podcast
in a way. Hi guys, I'm propped up in a
bed in a Sydney hospital, recovering from a gas direct
(22:53):
to me by catching up on a whole uh stack
of Stuff podcast in the hospital, listening to all my
all our shows. Do they stack at the digital file?
They are? Um? I've been here for two weeks after
admitting myself to emergency with abdonmenal cramps. I had a
there's a lot of medical terms in there. I had.
I had a lubectomy of my left lower lung in
(23:15):
December of last year to remove a pulmonary sequestration, and
the initial CT scan when I was admitted showed an
abscess in the space where my lung used to be used.
To bet I know, I was very fortunate to have
the same surgeon called in to repeat the procedure. However,
once he got in there, he was met with something
(23:36):
very unexpected. The abscess was actually my stomach, which had
herniated into a cavity, who a minute opening in my
diaphragm created by the sequestration. I eat, It's always been there,
but it was only exposed when they removed it, so, uh,
it was gone, had had gone completely gan greenness, which
(23:57):
is not a pleasant word to hear, DNS gangredness, jerk.
They immediately flipped me over and found that all but
ten percent of my stomach had been pulled through this
tiny hole. What so they had to completely remove it
and attach my esophagus directly to my small intestine. I
told you it was pretty amazing, apparently as the procedure
used on stomach cancer patients, and uh, he was in
(24:20):
surgery theater for almost ten hours. From what I gather,
it's a very unique occurrence, and all the nurses that
have come by have asked me about it, and the
doctors give me this fascinated look whenever they passed by.
My word like, wow, that's the dude. With the recent
special US health care system. I thought it would be
interesting to both of you, but wasn't for the quick
action and surgeons and the fact that I was in
(24:42):
the hospital residents to uh, some of the top surgeons
in the state. I've been told, there's a good chance
I wouldn't have made it quite sobering. So where it
is after a month, my intestine will have expanded to
the point where I won't notice a big difference in
diet or capacity. And the only only ongoing treatment on
the as a potential vitamin B twelve injection every three months.
(25:03):
Cool crazy, Huh that's what he said, Yes, and uh
he wrote in. After that, I wrote him back and
he wrote in and said that, um, he wanted to
add that it basically didn't custom a time. Nice. So
who who is it? This is Jeff and Jeff is
the owner of Grizzly Personal Training in Sydney, Australia at
grizzly pt dot com and Jeff d is on the
(25:25):
mend and hopefully he'll be physically training some people stomachless. Well, Jeff,
congratulations on surviving and thank you for listening and taking
the time to write in. That's pretty awesome. Actually, thanks
for having the stomach to tell us that story. Well,
if you have any amazing stories about how bundled payments
(25:45):
led you to find that you have a hole in
your body that shouldn't be there, you can send in
an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
(26:06):
check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot
com home page. H brought to you by the reinvented
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
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Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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