The Terminal Experiment

CHAPTER 8

Tuesday was the standard night for Peter and Sarkar to have dinner together. Sarkar’s wife Raheema took a course on Tuesdays, and Peter and Cathy had always given each other time to pursue separate interests. Peter was more relaxed this evening, now that he’d decided not to discuss Cathy’s infidelity with Sarkar. They hashed through more prosaic family news, international politics, the Blue Jays’ stunning performance and the Leafs’ lousy one. Finally, Peter looked across the table and cleared his throat. “What do you know about near-death experiences?”

Sarkar was having lentil soup this evening. “They’re a crock.”

“I thought you believed in that kind of stuff.”

Sarkar made a pained face. “Just because I’m religious doesn’t mean I am an idiot.”

“Sorry. But I was talking to a woman recently who had had a near-death experience. She certainly believed it was real.”

“She have the classic symptoms? Out-of-body perspective? Tunnel? Bright light? Life review? Sense of peace? Encounters with dead loved ones?”

“Yes.”

Sarkar nodded. “It is only when taken as one big thing that NDEs are inexplicable. The individual components are easy to understand. For instance, do this: close your eyes and picture yourself at dinner last night.”

Peter closed his eyes. “Okay.”

“What do you see?”

“I see me and Cathy at the Olive Garden on Keele.”

“Don’t you ever eat at home?”

“Well, not often,” said Peter.

“DINKs,” said Sarkar, shaking his head — double income, no kids. “Anyway, realize what you just said: you picture yourself and Cathy.”

“That’s right.”

“You are seeing yourself. The image you conjure up isn’t from the point of view of your eyes, a meter and half off the floor or however high up they are when you’re sitting down. It’s a picture of yourself as seen from outside your own body.”

“Well, I guess it is, at that.”

“Most human memory and dream imagery is ‘out of body.’ That’s the way our minds work both when recalling things that really happened and in fantasizing. There’s nothing mystical about it.”

Peter was having another heart-attack kit. He rearranged the slices of smoked meat on the rye bread. “But people claim to be able to see things they couldn’t possibly have seen, like the manufacturer’s name on the light unit mounted above their hospital bed.”

Sarkar nodded. “Yeah, there are reports like that, but they aren’t crisp — they don’t stand up to scrutiny. One case involved a man who worked for a company that manufactured hospital lighting: he had recognized a competitor’s unit. Others involve patients who had been ambulatory before or after the NDE and had had plenty of time to check out the details for themselves. Also, many times the reports are either unverifiable, such as ‘I saw a fly sitting on top of the X-ray machine,’ or just flat-out wrong, such as ‘there was a vent on the top of the respirator,’ when in fact there was no vent at all.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” said Sarkar. He smiled. “I know what to get you for Christmas this year: a subscription to the Skeptical Inquirer.”

“What’s that?”

“A journal published by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. They blow holes in this sort of thing all the time.”

“Hmm. What about the tunnel?”

“Have you ever had a migraine?”

“No. My father used to get them, though.”

“Ask him. Tunnel vision is common in severe headaches, in anoxia, and lots of other conditions.”

“I guess. But I’d heard that the tunnel was maybe a recollection of the birth canal.”

Sarkar waved his soup spoon in Peter’s direction. “Ask any woman who’s had a baby if the birth canal is even remotely like a tunnel with a wide opening and a bright light at the end. The baby is surrounded by contracting walls of muscle; there’s no tunnel. Plus, people who were delivered by Caesarean section have recounted the NDE tunnel as well, so it can’t be some sort of actual memory.”

“Hmm. What about the bright light at the end of the tunnel?”

“Lack of oxygen causes overstimulation of the visual cortex. Normally, most of the neurons in that cortex are prevented from firing. When oxygen levels drop, the first thing to cease functioning is the disinhibitory chemicals. The result is a perception of bright light.”

“And the life review?”

“Didn’t you take a seminar once at the Montreal Neurological Institute?”

“Umm — yes.”

“And who was the most famous doctor associated with that institute?”

“Wilder Penfield, I guess.”

“You guess,” said Sarkar. “He’s on a bloody stamp, after all. Yes, Penfield, who did work on directly stimulating the brain. He found it easy to elicit vivid memories of long-forgotten things. Again, in an anoxia situation, the brain is more active than normal because of the loss of disinhibitors. Neural nets are firing left and right. So the flooding of the brain with images from the past makes perfect sense.”

“And the sense of peace?”

“Natural endorphins, of course.”

“Hmm. But what about the visions of long-dead friends? The woman I spoke to saw her dead twin sister, Mary, who had died shortly after birth.”

“Did she see an infant?”

“No, she described the vision as looking like herself.”

“The brain isn’t stupid,” said Sarkar. “It knows when it may be about to die. That naturally gets one thinking about people who are already dead. Here is the crisp point, though: there are cases of little children having near-death experiences. Do you know who they see visions of?”

Peter shook his head.

“Their parents or their playmates. People who are still alive. Children don’t know anyone who has already died. If the NDE really was a window into some afterlife, they wouldn’t see people who are alive.”

“Hmm,” said Peter. “You know, the woman who had seen her sister Mary had her NDE while on the phone talking to another woman named Mary.”

Sarkar looked triumphant. “The power of suggestion. It’s all just a normal, explicable brain reaction.” The server came with the bill. Sarkar glanced at it. “My religion teaches that we do continue on after this existence, but the near-death experience has nothing to do with real life after death. If you want to know what that’s like, I’ll give you a copy of the Koran.”

Peter reached for his wallet to pay his half of the tab. “I think I’ll pass.”