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Exploring Frontiers of the Mind-Brain Relationship pp 143–163Cite as

Can Near Death Experiences Contribute to the Debate on Consciousness?

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Part of the book series: Mindfulness in Behavioral Health ((MIBH))

Abstract

The near death experiences (NDEs) is an altered state of consciousness, which has stereotyped content and emotional experience. Some features of the experience are trans-cultural and suggest either a similar brain mechanism or access to a transcendent reality. Individual features of the experience point more persuasively to transcendence than to simple limited brain mechanisms. Moreover there are, so far, no reductionist explanations which can account satisfactorily for some of the features of the NDE; the apparent “sightedness” in the blind during an NDE, the apparent acquisition after an NDE of psychic and spiritual gifts, together with accounts of healing occurring during an NDE, and the accounts of veridical experience during the resuscitation after a cardiac arrest. Although nonlocal mind would explain many of the NDE features, nonlocality is not yet accepted by mainstream neuroscience so there is a clear explanatory gap between reductionist materialistic explanations and those theories based on a wider understanding of mind suggested by the subjective experience of the NDEr. Only wider theories of mind would be likely candidates to bridge this gap.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kings College, London Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK

    Peter Fenwick

  2. Department of Neuroscience, Southampton University, Hampshire, UK

    Peter Fenwick

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  1. Peter Fenwick
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Correspondence to Peter Fenwick .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Medicine, Federal University of Juiz de Fora - UFJ, Juiz de Fora, 36036-330, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Alexander Moreira-Almeida

  2. Institute of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, São Paulo University, São Paulo, 05403-010, São Paulo, Brazil

    Franklin Santana Santos

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Fenwick, P. (2012). Can Near Death Experiences Contribute to the Debate on Consciousness?. In: Moreira-Almeida, A., Santana Santos, F. (eds) Exploring Frontiers of the Mind-Brain Relationship. Mindfulness in Behavioral Health. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0647-1_8

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