Science or Supernatural? Near Death Experiences Explained
Barbara Harris Whitfield has heard 22 scientific explanations for near-death experiences like the one she had in 1975. So far, she isn’t satisfied by any of them.
“Yes it was brain chemistry that might have fine tuned my ability to pick up this,” said Whitfield, 67, an author and therapist in private practice in Atlanta, Ga. “I think the brain is like the radio, and what [science is] explaining is the hardware of the radio, but what we can’t explain is the broadcast.”
Whitfield doubts science can ever completely explain her experiences when a ventilator malfunctioned as she recovered from spine surgery.
Yet scientists continue to search, and some are intrigued by a small study of cardiac arrest survivors that shows there may be a physical link between carbon dioxide in the blood and the likelihood that someone will wake up remembering floating above their body and moving towards a peaceful light.