AWARE Update - Peer Review Complete

It certainly was no myth that Pamela Reynolds woke up and said "I popped out of the top of my head" ....and so it was with all the other cases

That's not "veridical" tim, fergawdsake. I can have a dream where I "pop out of the top of my head" or even go skiing with no head at all.
 
But the results have been in for a long time. Parnia was talking about them during the Nour Foundation discussions late last year. If I remember correctly, AWARE began the peer review process shortly afterwards. (Unfortunately the 2014 AWARE update is no longer on the Horizon Research page, so I can't verify this.)* I know that AWARE was rejected for publication by the British Medical Journal. Consequently, Parnia and co. would have had to submit the study to Resuscitation and begin the process over again. Unless the study is ongoing and Parnia is privy to some new information, I think he is at the same point, data-wise, that he was during the Nour Foundation discussions.

Also, Parnia has been critical about Blanke's data and its relevance to NDE OBEs in the past, but I don't know if his opinion has changed on the matter.

*It is still on the Horizon Research Facebook page. AWARE had already been sent out for review back in February.

Well, going by his most recent statements about AWARE II (i.e. within days) I don't see any good reason not to believe them. But in any case, I'm less interested in his voiced opinions than in data he can point to.
 
Bringing up the Nour videos again, Parnia spoke extensively about the difficulties in getting AWARE cleared by skeptical physicians. I doubt that he's convinced of the "soul" and intent on proving its existence, but I do think he thinks there is a mystery here, and it's cautious and smart on his part to suggest a physical mechanism to help get AWARE II off the ground. In any case, oxygen monitors should be welcomed by all since they will hopefully shine more light on what is actually happening in the brain.

There's definitely a mystery. The question of course is whether it's a "spiritual" mystery or a neurological mystery.
 
That's not "veridical" tim, fergawdsake. I can have a dream where I "pop out of the top of my head" or even go skiing with no head at all.

Not when you accurately describe the appearance of the instruments and the operating room, and conversations that occurred when your brain wasn't functioning. Kai. I'm not discussing this case again with you. You are coming to the conversation with a brick wall to push in front of good evidence and I really meant to get off here as I said I would yesterday.
 
Not when you accurately describe the appearance of the instruments and the operating room, and conversations that occurred when your brain wasn't functioning. Kai. I'm not discussing this case again with you. You are coming to the conversation with a brick wall to push in front of good evidence and I really meant to get off here as I said I would yesterday.

Well, she "saw" a surgical bone saw that was aurally active and in contact with her body. She heard a snippet of conversation, but not at a time when the blood was drained from her system.
 
To all that must be added the numerous reports of people in NDEs accurately recalling specific conversations and events that occurred—in and sometimes out of their operating rooms—while they had no brain function. Parnia recounts one case where a new doctor, dealing with a patient in a prolonged cardiac arrest, ate the patient’s lunch. After recovery, the patient described to the doctor a detailed NDE, and finished with: “And you ate my lunch!”

Do you by any chance have a link to a detailed explanation of this NDE? seems quite interesting.
 
To be fair, the AWARE study wasn't the first serious attempt. Penny Sartori's study had targets (and several people had OBEs in areas where the targets were placed (including one person who actually reported on the area where the target was placed), so it was more successful in that regard than AWARE (the targets weren't seen, though)). And she did a much better job of interviewing subjects early and often, so there is better documentation of the stories, many under blinded conditions.

Linda

Do you have a link of this study? :D
 
¿Does anyone knows, or have the paper of S. L. Thayer? The wiki puts this:

"
Computational psychology[edit]
Modeling of NDEs by S. L. Thaler in 1993 [125] using artificial neural networks has shown that many aspects of the core near-death experience can be achieved through simulated neuron death.[126][127][128][129] In the course of such simulations, the essential features of the NDE—life review, novel scenarios (i.e., heaven or hell), and OBE—are observed through the generation of confabulations or false memories, as discussed in Confabulation (neural networks). The key feature contributing to the generation of such confabulatory states are a neural network's inability to differentiate dead from silent neurons.[130] Memories, whether related to direct experience, or not, can be seeded upon arrays of such inactive brain cells."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience#Computational_psychology
 
¿Does anyone knows, or have the paper of S. L. Thayer? The wiki puts this:

"
Computational psychology[edit]
Modeling of NDEs by S. L. Thaler in 1993 [125] using artificial neural networks has shown that many aspects of the core near-death experience can be achieved through simulated neuron death.[126][127][128][129] In the course of such simulations, the essential features of the NDE—life review, novel scenarios (i.e., heaven or hell), and OBE—are observed through the generation of confabulations or false memories, as discussed in Confabulation (neural networks). The key feature contributing to the generation of such confabulatory states are a neural network's inability to differentiate dead from silent neurons.[130] Memories, whether related to direct experience, or not, can be seeded upon arrays of such inactive brain cells."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience#Computational_psychology

I think I read this in the Journal of Near Death Studies at the time. Unless I am mistaken, it featured Gedanken machines. I wasn't convinced, to say the least.
 
Yes, this is true, though it was a much smaller study and produced no results with respect to targets.
Despite it being a smaller study, it did a much better job of producing the kind of results which Parnia was looking for - opportunities to spot the targets and veridical OBE/NDEs.. I think people do not pay enough attention to this study, and that it's a model which Parnia should adopt. After all, both Sartori and Parnia collected one each of the Holy Grail (a veridical OBE/NDE), yet Sartori was able to do so with a much, much smaller investment of resources. And she did a much, much, much better job because she was able to offer something which Patnia wasn't - documentation of this experience under mostly blind conditions. This is huge. Parnia interviewed his subject so long after the fact that it is no better than the stories people tell on the NDERF website.

This is a good example where a well-performed smaller study is much more valuable than a mediocre large study. Instead of wasting resources increasing the size of his mediocre study, Parnia could put his resources towards adopting Sartori's process of having dedicated individuals blanketing a self-contained unit.

Linda
 
Despite it being a smaller study, it did a much better job of producing the kind of results which Parnia was looking for - opportunities to spot the targets and veridical OBE/NDEs.. I think people do not pay enough attention to this study, and that it's a model which Parnia should adopt. After all, both Sartori and Parnia collected one each of the Holy Grail (a veridical OBE/NDE), yet Sartori was able to do so with a much, much smaller investment of resources. And she did a much, much, much better job because she was able to offer something which Patnia wasn't - documentation of this experience under mostly blind conditions. This is huge. Parnia interviewed his subject so long after the fact that it is no better than the stories people tell on the NDERF website.

This is a good example where a well-performed smaller study is much more valuable than a mediocre large study. Instead of wasting resources increasing the size of his mediocre study, Parnia could put his resources towards adopting Sartori's process of having dedicated individuals blanketing a self-contained unit.

Linda

In what sense veridical, though? I mean, no one saw a target, am I wrong?
 
In what sense veridical, though? I mean, no one saw a target, am I wrong?
No one saw a target. Veridical in the sense that they accurately described part of their resuscitation environment (and the inaccurate bits are disregarded).

Linda
 
No one saw a target. Veridical in the sense that they accurately described part of their resuscitation environment (and the inaccurate bits are disregarded).

Linda

Right, I'm with you. I think sometimes part of the problem is that the word "veridical" is used in two different ways in these discussions (I am not saying by you). Veridical, as in what you have just defined. And veridical, as in somehow "actually true and demonstrated to be a literal out of body experience." I think people are using definition 2 to say that there are "veridical experiences" when they are actually talking about experiences of definition 1. So far as I am aware, cases of definition 2 do not exist at present.
 
Right, I'm with you. I think sometimes part of the problem is that the word "veridical" is used in two different ways in these discussions (I am not saying by you). Veridical, as in what you have just defined. And veridical, as in somehow "actually true and demonstrated to be a literal out of body experience." I think people are using definition 2 to say that there are "veridical experiences" when they are actually talking about experiences of definition 1. So far as I am aware, cases of definition 2 do not exist at present.

Not any documented cases.

Linda
 
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