Talk:Near-death studies

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 17 January 2022 and 11 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Candles59, JDJ44, Chifu07, Roxlef, Mylo27, Jbeditor16 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: The Best Wiki Writter, Finnigan71, Seankingston101, EV0 Abbott.

Overlap with Near-death experience article

This article already contains (and will contain even more) material that overlaps with the article on Near-death experience. This is unavoidable considering the common interest of both articles. My suggestion is to let the article on Near-Death Studies focus on the distinct school of academic research known as Near-Death Studies (its theory-building, its instruments, its journals and its professionals) while the other article, Near-death experience, handles the broader subject of near-death experiences viewed from professional and popular standpoints. --Hawol 16:07, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Removing Simpson ref.

I have removed the reference to Simpsons (2001) article since he is not so closesly associated to the the field of Near-death studies as the other authors that are mentioned in the list of references. --Hawol 10:44, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Removing Peake ref.

Peake A, "Cheating The Ferryman - A New Paradigm of Existence?". Journal of Near Death Studies, Vol.23 No 2 (2004)

I have removed this reference from the reference section, since it is not cited in the text. The reference section is reserved for titles that are cited in the text. --Hawol 13:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

New material on neuroscience

New material presents valid information on the topic, but is "out of touch" with the general tonality of the section, which is about the development of a particular academic field called Near-death studies. I am temporarily removing this section and placing it here until we can sort out a few details. (Reference formating is removed from this copied text, but the source that is used for background is a blog update by writer Sam Harris called "This Must Be Heaven, published October 12, 2012 on his blog http://www.samharris.org/).

Modern contributions to the research on near-death experiences have come from several academic disciplines that generally do not include neuroscience. Because the study of NDEs is a topic that addressed multiple possible feelings, sensations and their origins, research on NDE should be conducted primarily by researchers with credentials in cognitive neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience addresses the questions of how psychological functions (for example, human feelings and sensations) are produced by neural circuitry (including the human brain). There is very little interest on the topic of NDEs among neuroscietists and there are multiple reasons for this trend. For example, brain activity scans are not typically performed when a patient is undergoing attempts at emergency resuscitation. Claiming that there is no measurable brain activity without having a variety of different EEG, catSCAN, FMRI, etc. is not considered a good scientific practice.

Two problematic expressions:

• "research on NDE should be conducted primarily by researchers with credentials in cognitive neuroscience"
• "claiming that there is no measurable brain activity without having a variety of different EEG, catSCAN, FMRI, etc. is not considered a good scientific practice."

These are normative expressions, and might therefore not be considered encyclopedic in tonality. We don't know which single academic approach that is best for the study of NDE's. They might even be complementary. That is, they all bring important bricks to the puzzle. It is also unclear who it is that represents these normative views. Is it a blogger called Sam Harris, or is it the medical establishment? If particular commentators have expressed criticism of the field of Near-death studies, then let's include it, but I read this new material as a general defence of a normative neuroscientific approach to NDE's. It is possible to include this new material, but I believe it has to be re-written and presented as a criticism of the particular field of study called Near-death studies. This is possible, as I am planning to construct a new section called "Criticism". Also, a quick search in the PubMed database will reveal that Neuroscience is interested in the topic of NDE's, but the field of neuroscience has not been understood as a major catalyst for the particular field called Near-death studies. Neuro-cognitive views on NDE's are also represented in the article on Near-death experience. The Journal of Near-Death Studies does include neuroscientific observations, but the present article is still a work in progress, and these studies have not been cited yet. In summary, the new material is valid, but I believe it needs a rewrite in order to be relevant for the development of the particular academic field called Near-death studies.

--Hawol (talk) 13:15, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Newspaper sources

Recent editor comments: "excessive newspaper use. please use reliable scientific sources."

Most of the newspaper sources used in the article are, in my view, credible sources: New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Telegraph, Houston Chronicle, Seattle Times, The Guardian. These are leading news sources in the U.S and Europe with a solid editorial and journalistic base. Also, a few periodicals are cited in the article, mainly Psychology Today a leading periodical in the field of psychology, and TIME magazine and Newsweek, major international periodicals. I believe the source-critical question in this matter is wether these sources present too much of the medical information of the article. That can of course be discussed further, but I believe that these sources are good starting points for the presentation of an overview of the field of Near-death studies.--Hawol (talk) 16:26, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

"Unreliable sources"-tag

I am removing the tag that says: Some or all of this article's listed sources may not be reliable. (March 2014)

Reasons for using newspaper sources: 3 of the sources are obituaries. A few of the sources are relevant to historical development of the field (for example reports from IANDS conferences).

11 newspaper sources are removed in this new edit. According to my notes the article now consists of 40+ references from academic peer-reviewed journals or doctoral dissertations, 9 refs. from periodicals, 7 refs. from books, 10+ refs. from newspapers, and a few unsorted refs, (brochures etc).

Academic refs. include the following publications, which are listed in academic databases such as PubMed and PsycINFO:

Crit Care Nurse, Psychiatry (Edgmont), Psychiatry, Resuscitation, Psychiatric Services, The Lancet, Nature magazine, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Research in Nursing & Health, Journal of Near-Death Studies, JAMA, Am J Psychiatry, Perspect Biol Med, American Journal of Diseases of Children, Perceptual and Motor Skills, Am J Kidney Dis, British Journal of Psychology, PLoS One, Int J Behav Med, Crit Care, Subst Use Misuse, Death Studies, The British Journal of Psychiatry, Trends Cogn Sci.

--Hawol (talk) 16:01, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Rehabilitation of article: Medical references, primary sources and newspaper sources

I think it is fair to say that this article has been rehabilitated along the lines that has been suggested by other editors, and the the insertion of tags. The article now contains approx. 45 references from academic peer-reviewed journals that are listed in databases such as PubMed and PsycINFO. The number of newspaper refs. has been reduced considerably, and the article now contains 10+ newspaper refs. These newspaper refs. are mainly from major newspapers such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, Wall Street Journal etc. Some of these articles are obituaries. Others are reports from IANDS-conferences. Newspaper articles are not used to present the major medical findings in the field, but a few of them are used to present the historical development of research in the field. The article also contains approx. 10 references from major periodicals - mainly from TIME magazine, Newsweek, Psychology Today - that I consider to be reliable.

Based on this overview I am removing the tag that says "This article needs more medical references for verification or relies too heavily on primary sources, specifically: Sources are generally out of date.. (March 2014)".

I make the following argument for doing this: Medical references have been improved. Most of the newspaper references dating from the 1980's have been removed. Primary sources, from the Journal of Near-death Studies and books by authors associated with Near-death Studies, are still present in the article, but they represent a minority of the sources. For example: The psychometric Instrument developed by Thornburg (and used by psychologists in the field), is (to my knowledge) so far only described in The Journal of Near-death Studies. It is therefore necessary to include references from this journal in order to describe this instrument.--Hawol (talk) 12:49, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

"Primary Sources"-tag

I am removing the "Primary Sources"-tag at the top of the article (added March 2014). The article has undergone rehabilitation to improve the quality of sources. The number of secondary sources, from academic peer-reviewed journals, now clearly outnumbers the number of primary sources from publications close to the field. I still believe that it is important to also include primary sources in order to be able to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the field.--Hawol (talk) 17:59, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Overlap with Near Death Experience article

The subject matter of this article seems to have way too much overlap with Near-death experience. What can be done about this?? RobP (talk) 16:31, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree, I think it would make a lot of sense to start a call for merging this article into Near-death experience. I think this article could be put under Research or Explanatory Models. The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 21:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Discussion open at Talk:Near-death experience#Merge discussion (Near-death studies into Near-death experience); input welcome, —PaleoNeonate – 01:16, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Unclear sentence

This sentence (emphasis added) is unclear. I don't know how to fix it. Can somebody help? "Prospective studies, reviewing groups of individuals and then finding who had an NDE after some time and costing more to do, had identified 270 individuals." Tom Haws (talk) 22:49, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

This Article has been translated for the German Wikipedia and I am trying to improve the German version here and there (excuse my English!) With this sentence I had to struggle too. I think, retrospective studies are such, where indiviual people come and tell you their stories and you collect them and perhaps do further research. In prospective studies you first define a group, i.e. every person having a heart attack in a certain hospital. And after he or she has been treated you ask everybody in this group if they experienced anything while they were unconscious. So "after some time" is a bit misleading. It is "after they were defined as participants of a certain group". This type of research certainly is more costly in every sense.--Facetten (talk) 21:49, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Sentence fragment

The second of these three sentences is a fragment. I don't know how to fix it. Can somebody help? "In the book Moody outlines the different elements of the NDE. Features that were picked up by later researchers. The book brought a lot of attention to the topic of NDEs." Tom Haws (talk) 22:55, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Updated References

The last major update on the History and Background section comes from a paper off of the 2008 project, published in 2014. Additionally in the references, the most recent one comes from 2015. Checking various databases including PsychINFO and PUBMED, there have been more studies that have come out in the years since, and it might be beneficial to include a few of them either as references to statements in the article they discuss, or as a way to expand the History and Background section based on anything new or major that may have come out in the past 7 years. Sethvogt (talk) 06:30, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Cross-Cultural Aspects - two uncomplete citations

An unknown user has added content to a section on cross-cultural aspects of NDE's but the user has not included the complete reference to the sourced content. The sources are Kellehear (2009) and Moody (1975; 1977). Does anyone know the details of these publications? Hawol (talk) 19:07, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Apparently nobody did, Hawol. I see the user has made a renewed attempt to add the material, without improving the referencing; IMO you did right to remove it, both times. I have written to the latest IP, on User talk:2607:FA49:5740:800:C00A:1D8E:44FB:55CB, to explain the problem. They may already have moved (or rather, have been moved; it's not their fault) to a different IP in the same /64 range, though, so there's no telling whether they see my post or not. It's very difficult to communicate with IPv6'es. :-( Bishonen | tålk 16:40, 7 May 2022 (UTC).

Thanks for your input. I appreciate the contribution from this anonymous user, the article needs more content on the cross-cultural aspects of NDEs, but the sourcing, as you also suggest, needs to be better than this.--Hawol (talk) 19:18, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

The treatment of cross-cultural NDEs is so thin and out of date it's an embarrassment. Nothing on Kellhear, McClenon, Zaleski, Shushan. But I'm already in a dispute about this on the main NDE page, so maybe someone else can correct it here. I don't want to waste my time writing and referencing a section only to have it deleted by on ideological grounds by someone who knows the subject less than I do. 2600:1700:A790:63B0:8096:E1CE:F7E8:DBA3 (talk) 22:00, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

NDEs are already completely explained, since 2006 (or 800-1200 years ago)

Based on Dr. Moody´s book ´Life after Life´, NDEs are completely explainable - as a simple recall activity. Only the two scientific ideas ´predictive coding + state dependent retrieval´ are necessary to explain NDEs. Let´s use Dr. Moody´s book (" " = Quotations): "Hearing the News" is the trigger to start NDEs. (Usually our brain reactivate immediately a comparable experience from the memory when we perceive a new stimulus. But for the idea ´I am dead/I will die´ we do not have an experience - therefore the brain concentrate on the job to process this strange stimulus and now we might have a NDE.) "Feelings of Peace and Quiet" are a recall of experiences from the 5th month of foetus age (the other physical senses do not yet work - thus we recall only peace/quietness). "The Noise" - these recalled experiences are from our acoustic sense, which is working since the 20th week of pregnancy (But these experiences are re-evaluated at the recall with the mind of an adult person). "The Dark Tunnel" - are the recalled experiences from the development of our acoustic sense with a very high speed. Thus the optical illusion is perceived, to move through a dark tunnel towards a light-spot of increasing size. "The Being of Light" - when the light perception change from dim to brightness - then is this the recalled light perception before(dim) and after birth(brilliant). And the encounter with a ´being of light´ is, how we recall memories about our first social encounter with our parents. (Memories might be altered/changed at a recall - the reason is our ´state dependent retrieval´. Therefore the fist social experiences in a baby age are transformed/evaluated at the recall with the intelligence/mind of an adult person.) "Meeting Others" + "The Review" are recalled experiences from the memory which are from an age where we can describe our experiences with own words (We learn to express our thoughts by words - since the 2nd year of childhood.) "The Border or Limit" + "Coming Back" - is the stop-trigger who will end the NDE. (e.g. when we move our attention/thoughts towards another stimulus, then the NDe will be stopped). "Out of the Body" - the OBE is created by our mind as an attempt to create a virtual simulation of the actual situation. But this is only a mental simulation - because important details are obviously wrong (e.g. a man who had lost the better part of his leg - ´saw´ himself with the complete leg: this is 100% wrong). "Meetting Ohters" - is only a recall of memories. (All our experiences are made/perceived, stored and recalled in PRESENT TENSE - therefore ecvery recall is a RE-EXPERIENCE: This is the reason why even deceased persons are perceived like in a vivid/real-encounter). This was the complete explanation of NDEs - this explanation-model is published since 2006 and now available in the book ´Kinseher Richard: Pfusch, Betrug, Nahtod-Erfahrung´ (in German language). BUT THIS IDEA IS NOT NEW: ´The Tibetan Book of the Dead´ was published 800-1200 years age - and in this book such experiences (which we describe as NDEs) are seen only as recalled memories (or ´illusions´ as the book said). REMARK: We have chemical senses (smell, taste) and physical senses (touch(skin contact, warmth, pressure) > acoustic sense (ear, hearing) > optical senses (eye, visual perception). The order of recalled experiences which was described already since 1975 in Moody´s book ´Life after Life´ fit exactly to order of the sensual development of the physical senses since the 5th month of foetus-age! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:D4:70F:5E70:4422:13CC:D15A:6379 (talk) 13:46, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Rehab 2024

I am starting a rehab of this article with the following changes in mind:

• 1. The section on "Near-death experience" is covered by the main article on Near-death experience. I will remove this section. The article should be about the field of Near-death studies and the activities of this particular field of study. The contents and the dynamics of the phenomenon called NDE is covered by the main article on Near-death experience.
• 2. I will keep the section on Explanatory Models, for now, since it is relevant to the field of Near-death Studies.
• 3. I plan to update many of the old sources with new sources that are more in line with Wikipedia guidelines recommending review-articles and secondary sources. I want to introduce more review/secondary-source material.
• 4. I wil try to improve upon the timeline of the field of Near-death studies and find new content to the sections on Psychometrics and Prospective Studies.
• 5. This is a work in progress.

--Hawol (talk) 09:23, 26 October 2024 (UTC)