Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (Book)

[Jim]

I found this interview fascinating. Listen to this interview with Mary Roach on her book "Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife."

There was a study where cardiologists at the University of Virginia were interested in trying to verify the out-of-body experience. What they did was setup a laptop open flat facing the ceiling. The laptop displayed different images at different intervals.

The cardiologists were specifically looking at patients that had diffibulators being inserted (to kick-start their heart; installation requires the stoppage of the heart briefly). The cardiologists asked all of their patients if they remember anything from their experience in the operating room and of the 24 that claim that they did, none of them could identify what was on the laptop screen at the time of their heart stoppage.

Not that this proves much of anything, but these are the sorts of controlled studies I enjoy hearing about when studying the after-life.

Part of me clings to the hopes of an afterlife but I have never felt comfortable leaving my objective grounding (hence, why I was so attracted to this book)!

The author is extremely entertaining; it's definitely worth a listen.

Also, here are some excerpts from the book. Booknoise.net | Spook

[Erin Pavlina]

All well and good, but if I'm going out of body because my heart is being defribbed, checking out the pretty pictures on a laptop probably wouldn't be the first thing I'd be interested in or even notice.

Plus, if I was out of body in that circumstance, I'd probably be staring down at my own body in shock, doing my best Neo impression and saying, "Whoa!"

[TechnoGuyRob]

Not even one person bothered to follow their directions, even if its a second-long glance?

Then again, perhaps they claimed the laptop showed pictures it never really displayed. The rationale? They're in a subjective reality, of course, and they definitely saw an egg on that laptop screen, even if the only displayed images were a tree and a hammock. They also saw a train in some other subjective reality they decided to create for themself, but they decided the egg was a better mental picture.

[Erin Pavlina]

But the patients weren't told to look at the laptop were they?

What instructions were the patients given? "If you find yourself out of body, take a peek at this laptop here?"

I'm just saying if they found themselves out of body they would have more pressing concerns than noting waht was on the laptop. Maybe there was glare on the screen.

[TechnoGuyRob]

But they couldn't look down on their own body without looking at the laptop. This was the setup:



As for me, I don't know how they could have seen anything without eyes. :P Unless, literally, they experienced some kind of deitical form and saw everything, including all the stuff in the background like radio waves, microwaves, visible waves (what we see), infrared, ultraviolet, neutrinos, etc. Interesting how one would visualize that without a physical visual representation system, though.

[Erin Pavlina]

I can see when I'm out of body. I think it's the same eye I use to detect a deceased person or a spiritual presence.