Conscious While Unconscious?
As seen in , Assistant Professor of Psychology and Counseling Robert Alexander, Ph.D., is featured in an article discussing veridical near-death experiences (vNDEs)鈥攖he phenomenon where people accurately describe details occurring while they were clinically unconscious.
To uncover whether this medical anomaly is true or if the brain is simply piecing together memories from consciousness, experts and artificial intelligence systems scored case studies against the vNDE Scale, which includes eight criteria to validate patients鈥� vNDEs.
鈥淔or claims that consciousness can operate outside the brain or body, Carl Sagan’s standard applies: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,鈥� says Alexander, who maintains that while the scale is a methodological advance, a high score is not necessarily extraordinary evidence. Instead, he believes the most important piece of a vNDE is its timing鈥攁t what stage of brain function did it occur? 鈥淐ases that withstand rigorous scrutiny may deserve attention,鈥� he says.
The article also appears on and , as well as across multiple Yahoo!聽sites, including those in the and .