Are Near Death Experiences Scientific?

I have a strong interest in near death experiences.  One issue which I often grapple with is whether they are scientific.

In a sense, this is the wrong question.  Every phenomenon is worthy of study.  What is scientific or unscientific is the way that it is studied.

Can NDE's be studied scientifically?  One element of science is reproduceability, and that is probably the Achilles heel of NDE research.  It is very difficult to reproduce them.  In fact, we don't really want to reproduce them.  We don't want to cause people to be near death. 

On the other hand, they are reproduceable in the sense that they are occurring over and over. 

There have been other situations in science where a phenomenon could not be reproduced at will.  We had to wait to study it.  The fall of meteorites was one example.  The use of solar eclipses to study the bending of space and light wave paths due to solar gravitation would be another example.  So reproduceability does not mean that something has to be reproduceable upon demand.  It simply has to occur again repeatedly in the future so that new observations can be made and replicated.

Another aspect of scientific method is the ability to objectively measure something.  In NDE's, objective measurements are difficult.  However, science does not totally require objective measurement.  For example, if I am studying depression, it might be quite useful for me to be able to measure monoamine activity in the brain.  But I can also do research which asks the person what their mood is, what their appetite is like, how much support they feel they are receiving from their spouse, what their view of the future is, and so on.  This is subjective, and it is still legitimate scientific research.

The problem is that NDE's appear to be outside of the current scientific frame of reference.  Thus, the methodology used in their study requires even greater scrutiny than other areas of research.

There are a few lines of evidence suggesting the objective reality of NDEs.

1.  They are generally similar to each other--not always, but usually.  If I interview two patients with major depression, I will find that they are generally similar.  But they will not be similar in every way.  One may have appetite problems and no sleep problems.  Another patient may have that reversed.  But they may both experience fatigue, loss of interest, pessimism, and social withdrawal.  The overall cluster of signs and symptoms is generally constant from depressed patient to depressed patient, but usually not two depressed persons are exactly alike.

2.  NDEs have occurred in history prior to the publication of popular books on the subect.  This is not a phenomenon that began in the 20th century.

3.  NDEs occur at times in young children who have never heard of NDEs.  There are numerous child expeiences of this sort; and yet many of these children have never heard of the concept of a NDE.

4.  NDEs often have a strong impact on the beliefs, behavior, and feelings of people.  This is a kind of evidence for its reality, although by itself, it is not enough.  But when we see how people often change their lifestyles because of the near death experience, that is a fact not to be overlooked.

5.  Sometimes people experiencing NDEs, as in surgery, may be able to  report objective events which occurred while they were anesthetized, and when their heart had stopped beating.  This is truly objective data.  It is sometimes reported as true; it is hard to fully document that it actually happened.

Much more could be said about NDEs, but this one article certainly can't address all of the issues.

Why is this important psychologically?  One reason is that NDEs can have a destabilizing effect on people.  It can make them much happier, more productive people.  On the other hand, they can temporarily have a depressing effect, too.  While people usually experience feelings of elation, freedom, meaning, joy, and knowledge during them, they often don't want to come back.  They often say that they were compelled to return.  This can be depressing and confusing to them. 

Secondly, sometimes health professionals dismiss their experience as the effect of anesthesia, or offer some other explanation which readily falls in their scientific frame of reference.  This does not help people to integrate their experience into their lives.  It causes them to feel discounted, and this can cause them to be depressed or confused.

As mental health professionals, we need to be open to our patients' experiences without discounting them or explaining them away.