Near Death Experiences and postmaterialist psychology

bruce greyson of the university of virginia has published an article entitled, “implications of near-death experiences for a postmaterialist psychlogy,” psychology of religion and spirituality, 2010, vol. 2, no. 1, 37-45. the author stated that materialist psychology has “proved insufficient for describing mentation under extreme conditions, such as the continuation of mental function when the brain is inactive or impaired, such AS OCCURS NEAR DEATH.” HE NOTES THAT “ENHANCED MENTATION AND MEMORY . . . ACCURATE PERCEPTIONS FROM A PERSPECTIVE OUTSIDE THE BODY, AND . . . VISIONS OF DECEASED PERSONS, INCLUDING THOSE NOT KNOWN TO BE DECEASED” CANNOT BE EXPLAINED BY MATERIALISt REDUCTIONISM and its mind-brain identity model.

greyson lists the features common to near death experiences (nde) and notes that “mental clarity, vivid sensory imagery, a clear memory of the experience, and a conviction that the experience seemed more real than ordinary consciousness are the norm for nde’s.” his article suggests that memory exists in the immaterial mind beyond those archived in the codes of neural synaptic networks. in cardiac arrest “neuronal action-potentials, the ultimate physical basis for coordination of neural activity between widely separated brain regions, are rapidly abolished . . . [and] cells in the hippocampus, the region thought to be essential for memory formation, are especially vulnerable to the effects of anoxia.” he states that it is not credible that nde’s “can be accounted for in terms of some hypothetical residual capacity of the brain to process and store complex information under those conditions. . . . a substantial number of nde’s contain apparent time ‘anchors’ in the form of verifiable reports of events occuring during the period of insult itself.”

my next blog will continue to feature greyson’s observations. we must remember that god, who is spirit, has a cognitive mind in whose image the mind of man has been created. i have discussed the dual interaction that is being substantiated between the immaterial mind of man (and of god) and the material neural synaptic components of the human brain. could nde’s be extending revelations of god’s creations in our time? Is memory both immaterially and materially based? we press on.

Stan Lennard