Attack of the Pulpit People

This photos was taken five days before my awakening, while I was in a minimally conscious state, the final step before consciousness. I believe it was in this period that I had my most detailed coma-dreams.

Okay, so what would I say to someone who denies that I had a near-death experience? Well, first the smartass point: I was near death and I had an experience. Actually, it's not so smartass after all. NDEs, as referred to in the VICE interview, can be caused by a wide range of events that aren't even life-threatening. Beyond the ones Simon Davis mentioned--migraines and epileptic seizures--fainting, hyperventilation, even intensely emotional circumstances can trigger an NDE. That's because it's a neurological condition that's often triggered by hypoxia and anoxia--low or absent oxygen.

However, I didn't originally think of my coma-dream as an NDE. I thought NDEs were just something the spiritually inclined believed had happened to them. In other words, that they weren't a real phenomenon. My argument in my first draft of my Skeptical Inquirer article "Covert Cognition: My So-Called Near-Death Experience" was that the reason I didn't have an NDE was due to my atheism and skepticism. But as I learned ever more about NDEs, I began to realize that I had experienced many parallels with classic NDEs. My nonbelief is still the reason why I didn't see angels or heaven, but a true skeptic revises their beliefs when the evidence contradicts them. NDEs are real.

As I stated in both the article and the interview, one of the main convergences with classic NDEs were the numerous elements from my childhood featured prominently in my coma-dream. Instead of a whole-life review, my mind settled on the simplest, most comforting time in my life--sort of a mental fetal position.

Another one, which was also mentioned in the interview and the SI article, were the voices that filtered into my coma-dream. As I researched the article, I came to learn more and more about what happened to me while I was in the coma. In the first part of this two-part blog, I discussed covert cognition. If the brains of people having the experience are still active, then NDEs can't be evidence of mind-body separation.

The third element--the one that tied things together--was Kevin Nelson's REM intrusion theory. Simon did an excellent job presenting the theory, but I would also add that according to Nelson's study, people who are susceptible to forms of REM intrusion like my lucid dreaming are 60% more likely to have an NDE. (In fact, I should've put that statistic in my article.) But what many of the commentators on the Post Mortem column chose to ignore was the implications of the theory. My coma-dream was indeed an ordinary dream, albeit a very long one. And so are all NDEs. The theory states that this is what's responsible for the surreal, dream-like nature of NDEs. The surreal things I saw were inspired by my secular childhood mental landscape, including campy 50s sci-fi films like Attack of the Puppet People. There's also a scene in the classic horror film The Bride of Frankenstein that featured miniaturized people. I grew up without religion, but loving movies like these.

As for the most famous NDE element of all, the light at the end of a dark tunnel, I admittedly experienced no parallel. I believe that's because when I developed anoxia--as my blood pressure dropped so low that I suffered a series of strokes on both sides of my brain--I was already unconscious from the sepsis that was rapidly killing me. If the anoxia had occurred later, I might've seen the tunnel too. It's something that test pilots often report. Even my boyfriend Keith has seen that tunnels the few times he's fainted, though he didn't have an NDE. That's another well-documented physical effect.

A few commentators on the Post Mortem column complained that I couldn't have had an NDE because I didn't die and come back again. I came about as close to dying as you can be without actually dying, but no, I never actually died. As I've already established, however, near death isn't required to have a near-death experience. Many people who have written bestselling Heaven tourism books like Colton Burpo, the kid of Heaven is for Real fame, didn't die. He was in a coma too. And as I stated in part one, Eben Alexander's brain was not in fact dead during his NDE. Indeed, many of the things he stated as facts in his book Proof of Heaven were proven to be impossible in a famous Esquire expose.

The real problem is that some people are so invested in the idea that NDEs are evidence of the afterlife that anyone who contradicts this from personal experience must be denied or attacked. I think it was this same impulse that led one commentator on the Washington Post article about me and my SI article to insinuate that if I were really dying, I would've seen my dead loved ones. Surely then I would've seen Heaven, right? To me, the final nail in the coffin is the comment I read in an article about another coma survivor, Claire Wineland. A Disqus member named NoAZPhilsPhan recounted his own NDE. People always told him that his NDE was real because he heard the voice of a dead friend. But he doubts the reality of his experience because he also handed out presents with Santa Claus and sledded with the Coca-Cola bears. It was around Christmas time. Coincidence?

My Skeptical Inquirer article, "Covert Cognition: My So-Called Near Death Experience"

We interrupt this two-part blog about my VICE Post Mortem column interview to present a link to my Skeptical Inquirer article "Covert Cognition: My So-Called Near-Death Experience," which is now up.

Brain dead arguments

It was inevitable that as my story became known outside the skeptical world, some people would feel defensive about my non-spiritual near-death experience and my theories about NDEs. It happened after the Washington post wrote about my Skeptical Inquirer article "Covert Cognition: My So-Called Near-Death Experience." And after Simon Davis interviewed me for his Post Mortem column, as well. To some true believers, books like "Proof of Heaven" reaffirm their faith in their eternal reward. Yeah, life sucks, but in the end I'll get to go to the Club Med in the sky. A recent study shows that thinking about atheists increase thoughts of death, even in atheists, which Simon Davis has written about incisively.

Indeed, it's not surprising that a few atheists who have seen heaven in their NDEs have become believers. Most atheists grew up religious; I was raised an agnostic. As I put it to Simon Davis, angels and heaven were not in my mental landscape. There's a reason that the aliens people tend to see in their "encounters" look a lot like the media depictions...and it has nothing to do with spindly little green men buzzing isolated highways.

I have resisted the urge to reply to the commentators on the column. While the epithet Nazi has yet to be thrown, variations of retard has been deployed with regularity. However, I will respond in my own soapbox--this blog. First, Eben Alexander was not brain dead when he had his NDE. This is what Oliver Sacks--that great humanist and polymath whom the world sadly lost a few days ago--had to say about Alexander's experience.

He had a nasty bacterial meningitis. He was in a coma for several days. But when he came to, he described an enormously complex so-called near-death experience. These experiences are often rather stereotyped in quality. People may feel they’re in a dark corridor and moving towards some bright light. Feelings of bliss envelop them as they are drawn towards the light. They sense, in a way, that the light is the boundary between life and death. And they would then come back or “float back.” In Musicophilia, I described such a sequence with a subject, another surgeon as it happened, who had been struck by lightning.

And he had this sort of blissful moment and then he said, “Slam! I was back.” He was back because someone was doing CPR on his heart and his heart started beating again twenty or thirty seconds afterwards. So, his whole cosmic journey only occupied a matter of seconds. Dr. Alexander feels that his cortex was out of action while he was having his visions and therefore it must have been direct supernatural intervention. I think such a claim can’t be sustained and indeed, a few seconds of altered consciousness as one emerges from coma would be enough to give him such a state.

You don't recover from brain death. After brain death, your brain begins to liquify. You know, kind of like watching a marathon of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. You don't come back from brain death...or Honey Boo Boo.

Here's Michael Shermer's take: Why Near-Death Experience Isn't Proof of Heaven. I wish the commentators had been able to read my Skeptical Inquirer article [it wasn't posted until today]. It's not yet available online, though it should be fairly soon, Simon decided to focus, understably considering his readership, on my NDE, but I think the covert cognition I experienced is a crucial piece of the puzzle. Eben Alexander's brain wasn't off, it was on dimmer. Covert cognition means that while doctors can't detect signs of awareness, the brain is still active on some level. That's what I experienced during my coma, and it's the reason why things that were going around me leaked into my coma-dream, despite my unresponsive state.

Kate Bainbridge, also known as Cambridge Kate, is a famous example of the phenomenon. She was the first patient Dr. Adrian Owen tested for signs of covert cognition. Luckily for her, Dr. Owen was able to see that she was, as Kate put it, "still in there," while showing her pictures of her loved ones during a PET scan. His discovery set him on a new career path that I hope will one day help doctors detect awareness in the (as many as) one in five consciousness disorder patients with covert cognition. Meanwhile, Kate received therapy and eventually woke up. Tragically, though she also exhibits no signs of cognitive dysfunction, she remains severely handicapped. There for the grace of the God I don't believe in go I.

I will have to get into the arguments about whether I had an NDE in my next blog or this one will start feeling like it's lasting as long as my coma. But here's a preview: Yes, it was a dream, as are all NDEs according to the REM intrusion theory formulated by Kevin Nelson. But there's more to it than that.To be continued...

A Post Mortem interview

I was surprised that they didn't use a coma picture. It's not a bad shot, despite my Frieda Kahlo eyebrows. My hands were still too weak to tweeze them. The computer was basically a prop because my hands weren't yet strong enough for typing, either. Keith was testing to see if I could stand the weight.

No, the interview wasn't conducted at a seance. Simon Davis is a fellow skeptic, and since I survived, no medium was needed, at any rate. I am of course grateful that this was the only post mortem after the coma. I was certainly happy to keep my near-death experience as far away from the real thing as possible. With no further ado, here is the in the VICE Post Mortem column featuring my interview: Being in a coma is like one long lucid dream.

To be honest, I was surprised that they didn't use any of my coma pictures, considering it's a column about death and all things morbid. Maybe that would've made it look sensationalistic, instead of being about the fascinating aspects of my coma experience. I do wish the column had focused more on covert cognition, as the Washington Post article had. But I understand. Simon and his editor naturally concentrated on the aspects of my coma-dream that people are frequently drawn to. I would've been fascinated by it as well if it hadn't happened to me. Actually, I'm still intrigued by it.

But did I have any problems with the column? Well, I would quibble with the characterization of comas being like one long lucid dream. They were for me, but not necessarily for everyone else. Simon did a good job of presenting Kevin Nelson's REM intrusion theory. And according to that theory, my long-standing REM intrusion made it 60% more likely that I would have a near-death experience. But people who have other kinds--like sleep paralysis--will not edit their NDE the way I did because my form is lucid dreaming. I edit my ordinary dreams sometimes, as well. It's the perfect form of REM intrusion for a writer, in fact. According the REM intrusion theory, NDEs are a kind of dream, so in someone with a different form, their NDE would manifest differently. And anyone who isn't susceptible to REM intrusion probably wouldn't have an NDE at all.

I can't say if REM intrusion is necessary for the mix of reality and dream I experienced. Certainly, it's not necessary for covert cognition to occur. Therefore, it's likely that some comatose people with covert cognition only perceive one of these. Or both, but they don't edit their coma-dreams because they're not lucid dreamers. I'm a study of one and that hardly makes for a solid hypothesis.

Still, this is a picayune issue, and I'm overall quite pleased with the column.

Interview with the vampire...er, ex-night owl

Today, Simon Davis, a fellow skeptic who writes the Post Mortem column for VICE interviewed me about my coma experience and my Skeptical Inquirer article, "Covert Cognition: My So-Called Near-Death Experience." His column focuses on death-related subjects. I did nearly die, after all. I've often joked that I came about as close to dying as you can get without actually dying. Plus, I did have a near-death experience, a subject that came up repeatedly in our conversation. Another topic that came up frequently was my coma-dream. I know that's a subject that often fascinates people. It would me, too, if it hadn't happened to me.

I thought I would be nervous, but apart from my usual ADHD-related nervous energy, I was fine. In fact, it was a lot of fun. Who doesn't like to talk about themselves?

It will be interesting to read his interview when it comes out. He's requested that I send him some photos, and I've sent him the first batch--the few pics taken while I was in the coma, plus the photo of me beside the graffiti that read, HOPE. I have to go through more so Simon's editor can pick the best.

And speaking of hope, I hope he mentions the plight of patients like me who are covertly aware, but are dismissed as hopeless vegetables. Somebody has to speak for them, because they certainly can't. The closest any have come was when they were lucky enough to be included in a covert cognition study. Scott Routley was asked by Dr. Adrian Owen if he was in pain. He answered no, using Dr. Owen's tennis/navigating familiar locations technique. Sadly, Scott died without ever regaining full consciousness. But before that, he gave hope that similar patients will someday be able to participate in their own care.

And I'm glad to know he wasn't in pain.