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Learnings from 1,000+ Near-Death Experiences — Dr. Bruce Greyson, University of Virginia (#774)

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Artist's rendering of Dr. Bruce Greyson.
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“I was taught in college and medical school that the mind is what the brain does and all our thoughts and feelings and perceptions are all created by the brain. And I cannot believe that anymore. I’ve seen people whose brains were either offline or severely impaired telling me they had the most elaborate experience they’ve ever had. So I’m inclined to think that the mind is something else and the brain filters it.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

Bruce Greyson, M.D. (brucegreyson.com), is the Chester F. Carlson Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences and Director Emeritus of the Division of Perceptual Studies at The University of Virginia. He is also a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and one of the founders of the International Association for Near-Death Studies.

Dr. Greyson’s research for the past half century has focused on the aftereffects and implications of near-death experiences and has resulted in more than 100 presentations to national and international scientific conferences, more than 150 publications in academic medical and psychological journals, 50 book chapters, and numerous research grants.

He is a co-author of Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century; co-editor of The Near-Death Experience: Problems, Prospects, Perspectives and of The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation; and author of After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond.

Please enjoy!

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Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform. Watch the interview on YouTube.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#774: Learnings from 1,000+ Near-Death Experiences — Dr. Bruce Greyson, University of Virginia

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Want to hear another episode that ponders the nature of consciousness? Have a listen to my conversation with Professor Donald Hoffman here, in which we discuss the science of consciousness, how perception may influence the physical world, the holographic model of the universe, panpsychism (and influential panpsychists), cosmological polytope, the use of hallucinogenic drugs to tap into deeper reality and interact with conscious agents, QBism, the probability of zero that humans evolved to see reality in full, and much more wild stuff.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

  • Connect with Dr. Bruce Greyson:

Website

SHOW NOTES

  • [06:00] Bruce’s scientific upbringing and his attraction to psychiatry.
  • [09:03] Bruce’s first encounter with a near-death experience (NDE) that changed everything.
  • [15:37] Development of the NDE scale and its characteristics.
  • [19:59] Challenges in studying NDEs and distinguishing genuine experiences.
  • [21:31] Examples of NDEs and out-of-body experiences verified by third parties.
  • [29:16] Attempts to explain NDEs through biological mechanisms.
  • [33:58] Does the manner of someone’s misadventure have a bearing on their NDE?
  • [36:54] Prevalence and consistency of NDEs across cultures and time.
  • [40:42] How new tools may deliver scientifically viable NDE evidence.
  • [51:23] What’s happening when people report seeing dead loved ones during NDEs?
  • [52:49] What can research tell us about the practical applications of NDEs?
  • [52:49] Are there reliable ways to simulate an NDE-like state?
  • [59:35] What’s really happening during an out-of-body experience?
  • [01:04:43] Mind vs. brain.
  • [01:09:42] Bruce’s career challenges and motivations for studying NDEs when few would.
  • [01:12:36] Can studying twins find a genetic component to NDE susceptibility?
  • [01:16:24] The difficulties of replicating out-of-body experiences in controlled settings.
  • [01:20:58] The mysteries of terminal lucidity phenomenon.
  • [01:23:01] The concept of time in NDEs.
  • [01:25:01] Auditory hallucinations after NDEs.
  • [01:26:33] Researchers who demonstrate open-mindedness and rigorous skepticism in NDE studies.
  • [01:28:07] The irreducible mind concept.
  • [01:29:08] Want to read Bruce’s books? Start with After.
  • [01:29:49] Common characteristics and after-effects of NDEs.
  • [01:30:37] Parting thoughts.

MORE DR. BRUCE GREYSON QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“If you study things that we pretty much understand already, you can make little inroads here and there about fine points. If you really want to make some impact, you need to study things we don’t understand at all.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“I started out as a materialist skeptic. After 50 years, I’m still skeptical, but I’m no longer a materialist. I think that’s a dead end when it comes to explaining near-death experiences and other phenomena like this.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“I’m not a philosopher. I’m an empiricist. And when people say to me, as many do, ‘If you have this non-physical mind, how does it interact with a physical brain?’ And I have no idea. On the other hand, if you take a materialistic perspective and say, ‘How does the brain, the chemical and electrical changes in the brain, create an abstract thought?,’ we have no idea about that either.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“Whether you’re an empiricist, a materialist, or not, we can’t explain how thoughts arise and how they get processed to us. What we do know is that all our experiences are filtered to us through the brain.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“I was taught in college and medical school that the mind is what the brain does and all our thoughts and feelings and perceptions are all created by the brain. And I cannot believe that anymore. I’ve seen people whose brains were either offline or severely impaired telling me they had the most elaborate experience they’ve ever had. So I’m inclined to think that the mind is something else and the brain filters it.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“About five percent of the general population—or one to every 20 people—has had a near-death experience. Secondly, they are not associated in any way with mental illness. People who are perfectly normal have these NDEs in abnormal situations that can happen to anybody.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“The more I learned about [NDEs], the harder they seemed to understand. So I’ve gotten more comfortable with not knowing all the answers.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“Right now, people are listening to us and there’s electrical activity in parts of their brain that process hearing. It always happens when they’re hearing us. This part of the brain always lights up. That doesn’t mean that electrical activity is causing our voices; it’s just a reflection of it. So when you find these physiological concomitants of a near-death experience, you’re finding perhaps the mechanism for it, but not the cause of it.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“Most people who study near-death experiences, whether they’re spiritualists or materialists or neuropsychologist or philosophers, they agree on the phenomena, they don’t agree on the interpretation of it, of what’s causing it and what its ultimate meaning is.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“Many near-death experiencers have tried drugs afterwards to try to replicate the experience, and they universally tell me it is not the same thing. One person told me, ‘When I was on psilocybin, I saw Heaven. When I was in my near-death experience, I was in Heaven.’”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

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