The following is the text of a Press Release from the Skeptical Inquirer:
                  A New Look at Near-Death Experiences

   One in twenty Americans reports haveing had a near-death experience (NDE),
acording to a recent Gallup poll. Many NDE-ers, as they are called, say they
experienced the sensation of floating out of their bodies, feeling wonderfully
serene, and then floating down a long, dark tunnel toward a stupendously
beautiful light. Some say that they even ENTERED this wondrous light, meeting
deceased loved ones and/or revered religious figures. Most NDE-ers return from
this experience dramatically changed: they no longer fear death; they are less
materialistic and more tolerant and loving.
   In the Fall 1991 Skeptical Inquirer's lead article, "Near-Death
Experiences: In or Out of the Body?" psychologist Susan Blackmore does
something remarkable. She explains the NDE in a way guaranteed to stimulate
useful discussion among paranormal believers as well as skeptics.
   Of all the phenomena that can be called paranormal, the NDE is unique. Here
is an experience of an alleged afterlife that can be actually looked at under
more or less controlled conditions -- in hospitals, for instance. Here,
finally, some say, is where science may find evidence of the existence of the
"soul," of consciousness floating free from visceral support. The experiment
is clear. If someone reports having had an NDE while his or her EEG was proved
to be flat, then scientists must accept that some form of human
conscio(Consciousness) is independent of the brain. But even researchers who
support a supernatural explanation for NDEs admit that there is no proof that
anyone whose brain-wave was flat has ever been to "the tunnel and back."
Moreover, a large percentage of NDE-ers had the experience when their lives
were in NO physical danger.
  Susan Blackmore has studied OBEs and NDEs for more than ten years -- after
having had her own OBE as a college student. At first she believed that
something paranormal, something "psychic," was going on. But, after years of
controlled tests turned up no proof of these experiences being psychic or
supernatural phenomena, she became a skeptic and focused on scientific,
psychological explanations.
 "For many experiencers," Blackmore writes here, "their adventures seem
unquestionably to provide evidence for life after death, and the profound
effects of the experience can have on them is just added confirmation. By
contrast, for many scientists, these experiences are just hallucinations
produced by the dying brain and of no more interest than an especially vivid
dream."
   She continues, "I shall argue that neither is quite right. NDEs provide no
evidence for life after death and we can best understand them by looking at
neurochemistry, physiology and psychology; but they are much more interesting
than any dream. They seem to be completely real and can transform people's
lives. Any satisfactory theory has to understand that, too -- and that leads
us to questions about minds, selves, and the nature of consciousness."
   In her article, Blackmore offers convincing scientific explantions for
Phenomena associated with the NDE. Utilizing a computer, she even found an
explanation for the "tunnel effect." "What would happen when you have
gradually increasing electrical nois in the visual cortex?"-- as happens when
the body feels immense, life-threatening stress. "The computer program starts
with a thinly spread dots of light, mapped in the sameway as the cortex, with
more toward the middle and very few at the edges. Gradually, the number of
dots increases, mimicking the increasing noise. Now the center begins to look
like a white blob and the outer edges gradually get more and more dots. And so
it expands until eventually the whole screen is filled with light. The
appearance is just like a darkly speckly tunnel with a white light at the end,
and the light grows bigger and bigger (or nearer and nearer)...presented with
an apparently growing patch of flickering white light (in your retinal
cortex), your brain will easily interpret it as yourself moving forward into a
tunnel."
   But why is the NDE so much more powerful than other hallucinations? Says
Blackmore: "When the normal world of our senses is going and memories seem
real, our perspective on our life changes. We can no longer be so attached to
our plans, hopes, ambitions and fears, which fade away and become unimportant,
while the past comes to life again. We can only accept it as it is, and there
is no one to judge it but ourselves. This is, I think, why so many NDE-ers say
they faced their past with acceptance and equanimity."
   "I believe that the NDE gives people a glimpse into the nature of their own
minds that is hard to get any other way," says Blackmore. As psychotherapy,
then, the NDE seems to be quite successful -- if also risky."

----------