All language subtitles for Is There Life After Death1

[Music]

[Applause]

Charlotte villains I'm here for one

reason that is I am a celebrity you see

but I'm a celebrity is fascinated in

what these guys do and I think that

they're dealing were the most

interesting things that you can possibly

deal with and they're here to tell you

about some of them today and I don't

know they're their labels so they should

I think they should just explain to me I

mean starting with Bruce Bruce Grayson

who are you anyway professor no but just

keep talking I'm professor emeritus of

psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences

at UVA and former director of the

division of perceptual studies neuro

behavioral sciences I'm gonna let handle

that okay

let's find it then we go Jim Tucker yes

I'm Jim Tucker I'm a a child

psychiatrist at the division of

Professional Studies and I'm the current

director okay Emily Kelly I go there's

something wrong with the my Kevin no it

was always a trouble with Mike's don't

worry but teetley in the afternoon we'd

never get a microphone away in the

afternoon so there's a nice embarrassing

pause now if we don't get embarrassed

away yeah I'll take this one

okay I'm Emily Kelly and I'm a research

assistant professor in the same division

of perceptual studies and Kim Penberthy

compan Buffy yes I am NOT British I'm

American I'm a clinical psychologist in

the division of perceptual studies and I

am currently being blinded by that light

so forgive me if I'm squinting at you

I'm not winking I promise

q I'm Emily's husband and also a

professor in adop's and an experimental

psychologist

[Laughter]

still the chairs are excellent aren't

they they've got really really good

chairs together here and they put them

they they've spaced them nicely - the

thing about tonight you see when I'm

talking to an audience I usually love to

have some idea of what the audience is

like and by that I mean you know what

you know and what you're not likely to

know what's likely to make you cross and

what's likely to make you interested but

with you like I haven't the slightest

idea whether you were very open to these

ideas or convinced that there's

something going on that the materialist

reductionist scientists don't think is

possible all whether you are here to

shoot us down in flames but anyway it's

gonna be it's gonna be great fun I think

you should just start with Bruce Bruce

tell us what you're doing at the moment

what are you looking at what are you

trying to find out about thank you John

thinking more clearly than ever before

while your heart has stopped and there's

no blood going to your brain looking

down and seeing your body on the

operating table and noticing details

unexpected details that you're searching

later verifies for you

meeting deceased loved ones family and

friends who you thought were still alive

meeting deceased people who you don't

know but later recognize from family

photos all these are things that happen

in some new death experiences that may

have some bearing on the question of

whether we survive death of the body

which is our topic for tonight is it

possible that our consciousness or our

mind survives bodily death there's a

wide range of human experiences that

suggest this is exactly the case

near-death experiences occur to us when

we're on the threshold of death and

therefore they raise the possibility

that they may teach us something about

what happens after death now I've been

collecting and analyzing near-death

experiences for more than 40 years and I

have detailed information about more

than thousand of these cases

each one is unique filter through the

individuals background and personality

but there are some features that they

all share in common and some of these

common features have important bearing

on the question of whether we survive

death and whether some part of us does

and if so what what part is that one of

these features that may have some

bearing on the question of survival is

enhanced mental functioning thinking

clearer than ever seeing more vividly

forming more detailed memories at a time

when your brain is seriously impaired

now how is that possible it seems to

defy common sense and yet it happens

James was a 25 year old nurse who got

deeply depressed and decided to end his

life he took some medications from the

hospital where he worked took an

overdose and lay down in his bed

expecting to die he didn't in fact he

became sicker and sicker very nauseous

with painful stomach cramps and decided

maybe he better call for some help so he

roused himself tried to get out of bed

and get to a telephone but by this time

the drugs had kicked in and were making

him very unsteady he had trouble

standing trouble walking not only that

but the drugs were making him

hallucinate and he was seeing little

people all around his bed making it hard

for him to get to the telephone at this

point he told me he drew up out of his

body and was several feet above his body

and behind him

thinking very clearly then he looked

down at his body staring up staggering

around looking very confused

he remembered being in the body and

hallucinating but from where he was up

above he couldn't see these little

people now that convinced James that his

mind in his body were not the same thing

and it suggests that I need to think

about that also are they the same thing

another feature comment and ease that

makes us question whether we survive is

seeing things accurately from some

visual perspective not in the body this

too defies common sense heckling you see

if you're not in the body and yet it

happens out was a 55 year old truck

driver who went to the emergency room

with irregular heartbeat in the Opera in

the emergency room during diagnostic

testing his heart condition deteriorated

rapidly and he was rushed to the

operating room for what eventually

became quadruple bypass surgery in the

middle of this operation he felt himself

rising up out of his body and floating

weightless above it he looked down and

to a surprise saw himself there lying on

the table with a sheet over his body and

you saw his surgeon down there looking

very perplexed and as L described it the

assertion was flapping his arms as if he

was trying to fly l didn't understand

that and frankly I didn't either I've

been working as a doctor for more than

40 years nostrils I've never seen a

surgeon do that I later talked to Al's

doctor and asked him about this and he

acknowledged that yes he had done that

that were he had trained in his home

country to be a surgeon he developed

this habit when he walks into the

operating room all scrubbed in with

sterile gloves on in his residents and

it in a tent and in turns his assistants

are starting the operation he doesn't

want to risk touching something not in

the sterile field with his clean hands

so he puts them where he knows they

won't touch anything sterile and then he

instructs his interns here come over

there go back over there

so what Alfa was trying to fly was just

instructing his assistants on how to do

the operation now how did I'll know this

how could he see this this is not an

isolated case a recent survey of more

than a hundred near-death experiences in

which people reported seeing things from

an out-of-body perspective found that

more than 90 percent were completely

accurate in what they said another

common feature that people report in

NDEs is seeing deceased friends and

family now many of us would expect to

see deceased loved ones when we die so

that's not so surprising but sometimes

more surprising things happen for

example people sometimes see deceased

loved ones that they thought were still

alive

Eddie was a nine-year-old boy who was

hospitalized in a coma from meningitis

he was a coma for about 36 hours before

his fever finally broke his family were

erected around him by the bedside all

night long and finally about 3:00 a.m.

he opened his eyes and excitedly told

his parents that he had just been to

heaven and it seemed his dead

grandfather and Auntie Rosa and uncle

Lorenzo and then you said they also saw

my sister Teresa

we're told me I had to come back now

Teresa was this older sister who was in

college in Vermont and as far as anyone

knew was perfectly healthy later that

morning when his parents went home they

immediately called the college and they

found that choice to have in fact been

killed in a car accident just after

midnight how did Eddie know about that

Jack was a 25 year old electrical

engineer who was hospitalized with

pneumonia one day as his young nurse

Anita was fluffing up his pillow she

mentioned him that this weekend was

going to be her 21st birthday and she

was going to be gone for a few days

visiting her parents shortly after she

left

Jack's condition went downhill and he

had trouble breathing he eventually

stopped breathing entirely he then had a

near-death experience you know what she

saw nurse Anita surprised to see you

there he said what are you doing here

and she said I've come to fluff your

pillow up one more time and I'd like you

to go back and tell my parents that I

love them and I'm sorry I wrecked the

red sports car when Jack recovered he

told the nurse about this experience she

started tearing up and left the room in

me Utley later Jack learned that Anita's

parents had an effect surprised her with

a red sports car for her birthday and

excited to try it out she raced down the

highway and crashed into a concrete

barrier dying instantly the hakka jack

notice how could any novice how can

these things happen and finally there

are some people in near-death

experiences who meet what appeared to be

deceased people who they don't know Levi

was a 35 year old man who was born in

Holland who had a cardiac arrest his

heart stopped

he had a near-death experience saw his

grandmother who had died and then saw a

man who didn't recognize us but who

looked at him very lovingly he didn't

over this was didn't know what to make

of it

so he didn't talk to anybody about this

ten years later when his grandpa his

mother was on her deathbed she confessed

to him that her husband who are raised

Levi as his father was not in fact his

biological father

Levi's biological father was in fact a

Jewish man who had been captured by the

notches when they came into town taken

to a concentration camp and never seen

again and then his mother showed Levi a

photograph of his father which he

recognized immediately as the man from

his near-death experience so we have in

near-death experiences heightened mental

thoughts when your brain isn't

functioning we have accurate perceptions

from outside the body we have meeting

with deceased loved ones who you didn't

know had died

we have decease meetings with loved ones

who he didn't know period and we don't

have a good physical explanation for

this

so all these things should make us think

about is there something about us that

survives the bodily death and if so what

is that thing

when I started getting interested in all

this nonsense some time ago I I was

reading a lot about out-of-body

experiences which are obviously not

necessarily connected with dying now-u

don't mention them is there any reason

for that because they're very similar

they are they are an out-of-body

experience where you feel you're leaving

your physical body

it's something that often happens as

part of a near-death experience but it

can also happen under other

circumstances as well and the reason I

chose just to talk about the near-death

experiences is because we have some

other information about what's going on

with the body at that time so it's a

little easier to study what's going on

with it fascinates me any body

experiences there's almost a better

chance of being able to check what

happened you know people I know woman on

the operating table bad car accident who

said she left her body and went into the

waiting room and saw her parents there

right and her brother was there and his

sister arrived late and Gilligan's

Island was on me on the television and

when she recovered consciousness and

started talking to her family of course

it it scared them and she stopped

talking about but those kind of things

are particularly fascinating because

again how did they get the knowledge

right right go on what were you gonna

say I was going to say that that what

makes the near-death experience

out-of-body experience so much more

interesting to me is that we know the

brain is not functioning very well with

us when this is happening so we know

that it is more than just the brain

imagining this something that is

happening when the brain is not

functioning right right good Jim

well I'm going to talk about children

who report memories of past lives and

this was work that has been going on at

UVA for over 50 years

division for sexual Studies officially

started in night

67 so we've now celebrated 50 years but

Ian Stevenson who started our division

actually started studying these cases in

the early 1960s and we have continued on

even after he is no longer with us

and we've now studied over 2,500 cases

from around the world basically of young

children who reported memory of a past

life and what they typically do is

describe a recent ordinary life that

often ended violently or ended when the

person was young and Ian spent many many

hours and traveled many miles trying to

find these cases and mostly found them

in Asia because in cultures was a belief

in reincarnation people talk about the

more but now with the internet and was

people known but our work we hear from

American families all the time so I'll

give you a couple of examples and this

first one is one that we talked about

yesterday so there's we got a letter one

day from this mother in Oklahoma and she

said that she and her husband were just

ordinary people her husband was a police

officer and her she worked in the County

Clerk's office

but for the last year their

five-year-old boy Ryan had talked about

a past life in Hollywood and he would

cry about Hollywood wanting his mom to

take him back there so to try to help

him kind of process this stuff she

decided to go to the public library and

check out some books on Hollywood and

they were looking through when one day

when they came to a picture from an old

movie called night after night and Ryan

pointed to one of the men in the picture

and said hey mama that's George we did a

picture together and he pointed to

another one of the men and said and mama

that's me I found me well the first

person he pointed to was George Raft who

was quite a well-known

back in his day but the other man he

pointed to that he said he had been was

an extra with no lines in the movie so

Ryan's mom wrote to me to see if I could

help figure out who this guy was so I

went to Oklahoma and I talked with the

parents I talked with Ryan and then

afterwards as we were trying to figure

out who this person was Ryan's mom was

emailing me sometimes on a daily basis

with all these details that Ryan was

given about his past life he was

describing quite a life that to be

honest I thought was rather unlikely for

an extra with no lines in a movie

eventually with the help of a Hollywood

archivist we were able to figure out who

this guy was this archivist she went to

the library of the Academy of Motion

Picture Arts and Sciences got all the

materials on the movie night after night

and there was one picture that included

an identification of this guy and he was

a fella named Marty Martin who died in

1964 it turned out that Marty Martin did

have quite a life so Ryan said how he

had danced on stage in New York and

Marty Martin danced on Broadway Brian

said even went to Hollywood and worked

in the movies which Marty Martin did

mostly working on dancing in movies he

said that he then worked for an agency

and Marty Martin started a successful

talent agency in fact Ryan said is an

agency where people changed their names

and then it Marty Martin worked at a

talent agency Ryan said how he had seen

the world from big boats and talked

about visiting Paris Marty Martin and

his wife went to Europe on the Queen

Mary and we have pictures of them in

Paris Ryan said he had a big house with

a swimming pool which Marty Martin did

and Ryan said that the street address

had the word Rock or mount in it

and Marty Martin lived on north Roxbury

Ryan also said one time that he didn't

understand why God would let you get to

be 61 and then make you come back again

as a baby which is sort of an

interesting philosophical question on

its own but we got Marty Martin's death

certificate which said that he was 59

but then I talked with his daughter and

with his stepson who both said no he was

actually 61 so I looked into it and I

found three census records to marriage

listings in a passenger list that all

gave ages for Marty Martin that meant in

fact he was 61 when he died and not 59

and all together we verified that over

50 of Ryan's statements matched with

Marty Martin's life another example that

I will tell you about is a recent case

that I studied a little boy that I'll

call Steven he was also five years old

when he started talking about how he had

been a soldier who died in a war and

that it was in the jungle and his

parents asked him if it was Vietnam and

and he said yes and then he gave a last

name which was an unusual last name and

the state where he was from so his mom

went on to Vietnam Memorial website and

found that in fact there was a soldier

killed with that name from that state

who had been killed in Vietnam she

pulled up pictures of a bunch of the

people who had been killed and when she

got to the one of him the little boy

said that's me so she didn't do any more

research she wrote to me and to let me

know what what Steven was saying so then

I did do a little more research online I

got a subscription to a online newspaper

collection did a little sort of

detective work and when I went to see

the family I brought some pictures

with me now I didn't want to overwhelm a

five-year-old little boy with lineups of

pictures so what I did was show in pairs

of pictures where one of the pictures is

from this man's life and the other one

wasn't so for instance I showed him a

picture of the man's high school and

then a different high school and he

picked the correct one I showed him

pictures of two houses and again he

picked the correct one so then after

that visit I continued to do online

detective work I also wrote to the man's

sister and I heard back from his niece

the sisters daughter and she sent me

some family photos so then I sent some

more pairs of pictures to Stephens mom

and the good thing about these tests

when when she showed them to Steven was

that she didn't know which was the right

picture either so there was no chance

that he was picking up on cues from

anything as he looked at the pair's

now all together we showed him eight

pairs of pictures a couple of them he

didn't make a choice on but for the

others he was six out of six now along

with the knowledge that these kids

seemed to have about a past life a lot

of them also show emotions and behaviors

that seemed linked so I mentioned Ryan

crying about Hollywood and we hear this

all the time of kids sometimes crying on

a daily basis about missing their family

begging to be taken to their family for

the kids who where the previous person

died violently a lot of them will have

nightmares repeatedly about that death

so there's an a well-known American case

for a little boy from the time of his

second birthday started having horrible

nightmares multiple times a week of a

plane crash and as the case developed it

became clear that that he had memories

of a particular pilot who was killed

during World War two also it's a violent

death cases a lot of them will the kids

will show phobias intense fear toward

the mode of death

and this seems particularly true in

drowning cases where these kids will

just be intensely afraid of being put in

water and also there are cases where and

and Ian Stevenson was really interested

in these and studied several hundred of

them there are cases where the children

will be born with birthmarks or even

birth defects that match wounds usually

fatal wounds on the body of the previous

person so for instance there was one

little boy where the previous person had

been killed by a shotgun blast to the

side of his head at the man's neighbor

said he mistook his neighbor for a

rabbit and shot him in the side of the

head

with shotgun and then this little boar

he was born with this just a stump for

an ear and underdeveloped right side of

his face

Ian also listed 18 cases where the

children were born with two birthmarks

ones that matched both the entrance

wound and the exit wound on the body of

the previous person so with all this

these cases you know I think provide

pretty good evidence that something is

going on that there is this carryover

from the past life but I have never

argued that these cases mean that we all

reincarnate that we all come back here

in fact you can make the case that these

are exceptional cases because the

previous person typically died violently

or died young came back quickly with

intact memories so maybe that the usual

pattern for most of us is not that we

come back here but we may have all kinds

of different types of existence after we

die but regardless I do think that these

cases contribute along with near-death

experiences and the other things to a

good body of evidence that there are

times where consciousness does survive

after the body dies and and in these

cases attaches to it too new like and

anything has a new life here that's what

I

[Applause]

I'm fascinated by the idea that they

might happen to some people and there's

a correlation with bad endings bad

deaths isn't there but that's not always

the case because in this one with the

agent there's a 40-year gap between the

guy dying

and the child being born so it's a

little bit more about that yeah and with

that World War 2 case and there's a

fifty-year yeah there but the average

interval is only four and a half years

so it's it's typical that they come back

very quickly I mean there are always

exceptions pretty much to anything but

it does seem that for many of the cases

it's or you can make a reasonable

argument that the previous person had

sort of unfinished business and that it

might have led them to stay attached to

this room or this world and then be

reborn and start another life very good

thank you thank you Emily give us give

us a picture of what you're interested

in okay well um I hope this new one

works alright you know and hear me okay

good

several years ago I did a survey asking

people whether they had ever experienced

any of a number of the kinds of things

that were interested in near-death

experiences past life memories

out-of-body experiences apparitions that

sort of thing and I learned about a lot

of really interesting experiences that

way but maybe the most interesting thing

I learned was that the single most often

reported experience was being at the

bedside of a dying person who seemed to

be talking with and seeing someone who

was not physically present usually

someone who had died earlier such as a

spouse parent a sibling there's been

virtually no systematic research done on

these so-called deathbed visions and so

I really had no

about how common they might be but in

addition to the survey I've also over

the years talked to a lot of hospice

workers who tell me that these

experiences in fact are quite common in

fact one hospice doctor told me that he

has learned that when such visions start

it's time to call the family and make

sure they're there in addition to the

dying person sometimes people at the

bedside will also have unusual

experiences sometimes shared by the

dying person sometimes not shared by the

dying person and this actually happened

in my own family my grandmother had had

a stroke and she was at home dying she

was in a coma and her son-in-law was

sitting beside the bed with her he

himself as a physician and all of a

sudden he saw standing at the foot of

the bed my grandfather who had died

about seven years previously with his

arms outstretched to my grandmother and

calling out her name and a few moments

later my grandmother died

another kind of experience that actually

has been studied quite a lot over the

years is something that we call crisis

cases and these are experiences that

happen not at the bedside of a dying

person but some distance away and often

quite a long distance away typical

experience of this kind is one in which

a person hasn't sees a vision sees an

apparition of a particular person and

then later learns if that person had in

fact died at about the time of the

vision there have over the years there

have been reported literally thousands

of these experiences reported and

investigated thousands of these

experiences and I learned about a few

more in my survey some very interesting

ones but one in particular that I found

very interesting

was not natural vision but involved a

physical event and I wanted to just read

to you the description that the woman

who had the experience sent to me

because she expressed it a lot better

than I could the day my grandma died I

was headed out to work about 3:00 a.m. I

knew she was very sick and I had planned

to fly to New Jersey later that day to

see her because I knew time was short as

I went to put the key in the car I felt

this overwhelming presence and all of a

sudden my driver window shattered and I

thought to myself grandma just died as I

got to work I could not shake the

feeling of Grandma right next to me the

phone call came grandma died at the same

time I felt her and that the window and

the window shattered I felt this was

grandma's way of telling me she's gone

now I don't have any idea how often car

windows shatter spontaneously but I

don't think we can tribute this

experience to chance there's still

another kind of experience that we are

particularly interested in learning

about and we call these revival cases or

terminal lucidity cases and these are

involve people who are suffering from

Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia

and who seem to recover their mental

faculties shortly before they die again

I learned about some of these in my

survey one woman in particular wrote to

me about her grandmother her grandmother

had had Alzheimer's and for quite some

time she had not recognized anyone but

shortly before she died she seemed to

recover and the woman actually had a

conversation with her a normal

conversation in which they sort of went

over family affairs family events things

that had been happening the woman told

me she said it felt like I was talking

to Rip Van Winkle another experience

like this it was a similar one that was

reported was actually reported in US

issue of Time magazine that came out

several years ago it was reported by a

physician named Scott Hague and this

special issue of time was devoted to

talking about the mind brain problem

mind brain issues and nearly all of the

issue really all the issue was taking

the position that is the predominant

position in science today which is that

the brain produces the mind produces

consciousness and that therefore

consciousness is totally and wholly

dependent on the brain

well dr. Haig wrote a little essay that

took quite a different position and he

what he did was he described a case of

his a patient of his named David who was

had brain cancer that had literally been

eating away much of David's brain so

that toward the end of his life he was

completely unresponsive one night doctor

Haig went home and he knew that David

was gonna die that night and he did he

died that night when dr. Haig got back

to the hospital the next morning the

nurse came up to him and said you know

last night David woke up and was able to

talk to his family before he died

now these experiences these sort of

revival cases I think are extremely rare

we have we know about a fair number of

them but I think they are extremely rare

but they're also extremely important

because they suggest that as the brain

is shutting down the mind is somehow

being freed as dr. Haig put it he said

David's that night David's mind somehow

broke through his diseased brain so that

he could say goodbye to his family as I

said earlier there's been practically no

systematic research done on these sort

of deathbed visions and and revival

cases and cases of this sort there's

been a doctor in a physician

in the UK has started doing some

research over there in connection with

hospice and nursing homes over there but

there's still so much that we just basic

information that we don't know about

these experiences things like how often

do they happen to whom do they happen

under what circumstances do they happen

one of the most important questions that

we know very little about is what's the

relationship between drugs and these

deathbed visions we do have some

preliminary information that suggests

that drugs may actually inhibit the

experience and not cause them but again

this is something we just know very

little about at this point so we here

our group wants to start a study here in

Charlottesville and I'm now in the

process of looking for funds to support

this but as I don't know how many of you

all were here last night but as John

said last night funds for this kind of

research ain't easy to find so but I'm

optimistic that we'll be able to find it

and maybe in a few years we can come

back to the tomtom festival and give you

an update on what we found

this is fascinating to me at any rate

including here's to you and now we've

had three people talking I think it

might be fun to Stonebridge out to the

audience for a bit before we come back

to Kim

otherwise the just the repetition of the

shape of this might become helps cause

people to lose their concentration do we

have some questions there's a microphone

there

we've got people I think yes yes

so can you stand up and shout oh that's

good just working yeah cool so this is

more of a philosophical question than it

is maybe a scientific one but let's say

based on the premises of the stories

that you guys have told we believe that

there is some form of experience or life

after death what then becomes I don't

know the point of a corporeal existence

versus whatever else you guys have

experienced or seeing people experience

after death and did you hear that I'm

sorry do you mind again I think the

shorter way of saying that is if we have

life after death what is the point of

life itself

right

thanks for the easy question that was

can we postpone that there's a softball

for you Ed

[Laughter]

I remember my good friend Peter Cook who

was a genius in the chameleon he was

much more concerned with whether there

was sex after death it's an interesting

question Wells I mean what is the point

of any of it do you sort of anything you

can ask you that at any point but the

point is this is um this may be the way

it is at least for some people and if

anything's accomplished this afternoon I

hope it's that that people are curious

because many people in the scientific

communities don't have a theory so they

say it couldn't have happened which is

not really terribly impressive Stan Stan

Grof they gave her the recounted and

experience to Carl Sagan at the end of

which Sagan said it couldn't have

happened you know that's an odd what can

I say defense so what I'm hoping we'll

do today is not convert you to some new

situation but cause you to be more

curious about this kind of stuff just so

that you begin to read the literature

because one woman who was a very hot had

a very high position in the American

Statistical community she was a famous

statistician she she pointed out how the

amount of evidence there is for this it

was unarguable from a status

statisticians point of view that the

odds were that this was a great deal of

truth in this stuff and she commented

that the extraordinary thing is that

many of the people who felt strongly

that it was imagined early or something

to do with fraud or something like that

that they hadn't read any of the

literature and yet they still felt they

were in a position to say this is

nonsense it couldn't have happened so

all I'm saying to you start reading the

literature because after a time it's

very very hard I think for me to accept

anything other than the idea that

something

as on after we die and if if quantum

physics is is incomprehensible

as it is and that's the best way we have

at the moment of of describing reality I

don't see that life after death could be

any simpler than that so the key is does

it happen not whether do we have a

theory to explain it hi first I'd like

to say thank you to mr. Cleves for

coming to our small town it is a small

town I've lived in a lot of big cities

but each of you so far have spoken about

very segmented things do you find have

you encountered people who have multiple

experiences because I've experienced

some rather strange things in my life

but one is I tend to get visits from

other people's relatives when they pass

and I'll know about it

before I get the phone call before they

get the phone call I've had family

members that experienced I have

experienced the my step grandmother died

of glioblastoma and she had the clarity

before she passed away and she was able

to have a conversation

my roommate some years later had the

same experience with her father very

severe case of glioblastoma in both

cases both died and six months and they

had no cognition whatsoever and her

father woke up was able to have a

conversation with her and her brother

and we were all adults that when in both

of these cases and very clear and he was

able to kind of rectify some things and

just kind of say goodbye peacefully but

I feel like I've been exposed to a lot

of these kinds of things I'm wondering

do you find that there are certain

people who are sensitive or where there

are multiple experiences there

definitely are and it differs with some

of these different experiences I know

with near-death experiences people who

have near-death experiences often do not

have hist

of unusual events but after the nd after

the near-death experience there opened

up and the door doesn't close and they

often have many experiences after that I

think it's somewhat different with the

reincarnation memories well it is

although there do seem to be some

families where the reincarnation

memories actually it's almost like a

genetic thing but to answer your

question I think in general there are

people who report a number of different

kinds of experiences and you know some

people seem to be basically sort of more

psychic than others and they can have

all different kinds of things I will say

I think I think ed can speak to this

better than I can but there is a fair

amount of experimental evidence showing

that people who do well in experimental

tasks have certain personality profiles

so in addition to the what you're

pointing out that people do have I mean

you having just one-off experience it's

not very common most people do have

multiple ones but I think there is a

definite personality profile of some

sort that that contributes to that my

question is related to past death

experiences my mother always had a near

phobia regarding necklaces turtleneck

sweaters and always jokingly said I

think I was strangled in past life my

father of course told her that it was

probably more likely in her future

[Laughter]

[Applause]

he was a character well I guess I have

two questions one I mean it sounds like

that's very typical to things that

you've heard elsewhere and I would like

to reassure her of that and also

reassure her that if that's the case

maybe she's safe in the future well as

far as so you're suggesting she's

suggesting that as a memory of a past

life that then led to this unexplained

phobia basically and that's certainly

possible I mean with our child cases

typically the kids lose the memories and

lose the fears as they get older but

there are certainly exceptions and you

know the question is how much do we

generalize from our cases where people

have actual intact memories of a past

life compared to people who don't so you

know with an unexplained phobia we

certainly can't say for sure that it's

connected to past life experience but

it's plausible that it could be and as

long as she doesn't have other

precognitive abilities you know

hopefully she can be rest assured that

she's not actually seeing her future but

more likely to be seen her past sorry I

know it's hard to hear through this I

have an extremely rare form of

paroxysmal dyskinesia if you're familiar

with that basically I have what appears

to be grand mal seizure but I mean I've

attained consciousness and one thing

that I've noticed in that is I can be

completely paralytic for up to 16 hours

but my friends have found that they can

snap me out of it by being wrong and

making me angry so I was but I'm an

English literature major they'll start

talking about bacon ism and things like

that

yeah the English majors get it yeah or

saying that early modern literature is

not relevant to the modern life but I've

noticed that what you were saying about

mind when the brain is not fully

functional because I've probably

experienced neural storm more closely

than any person with a functioning brain

at this point has so with the mind being

able to get me out of a paralytic state

that's one kind of example that we're

definitely interested in I mean a lot of

a lot of the stuff we study cases

near-death cases in particular we have a

lot of that occur under conditions like

deep general anesthesia or cardiac

arrest heart stopping which basically

abolish --is the conditions that most

neuroscientists think are required for

anybody to have a conscious experience

and yet people are not only reporting

experiences but the most intense

transformative experiences of their

entire lives so this is another example

of that sort of thing okay so with the

children who have these memories from a

previous life and children stop

remembering things you know they don't

remember things before they're what

seven or eight or something like that um

do they lose this recollection and also

I'm curious the families of the dead

people do they engage with them and

really relate to them after this all

kind of comes out well most of the well

almost all the kids stop talking about

the past life as they get older and and

usually around the time or six or seven

and many of them seem to lose the

memories and as you say that's when all

children lose memories of their early

hood but we have learned that a fair

number of them if you go back you wait

long enough and energy than when they're

adults they say they do still have some

memories so they have stopped talking

about it gone to school tried to be

normal or whatever but it may be that

some of those memories still stay now in

a lot of cases the two families do meet

and it varies the amount of connection

some of them establish a big connection

and the the previous family will visit

the child or vice versa

repeatedly as the child gets older

sometimes actually the previous family

develops more of an attachment for the

child and the child has for that family

often with the kids once they meet the

previous family see the previous place

they see that their memories are

validated but they also see that time

has moved on and it seems that the

emotional intensity from their

standpoint lessens even though for the

previous family of course it may get

more intense as they see the child okay

we won't add any more to this queue

we'll go back to him and head after

these we've done these gentlemen the

blue stripes hi as someone that was

raised in a fundamentalist family I'm

someone that came from a history of you

know blind belief I've gone back and

forth between both sides I'm dealing

with a lot of skepticism these days I

have two questions I'm only gonna ask

one and I was very I was very torn on

which one I wanted to go with because

one is very positive and I'm I would

love to talk with you guys about that

more later right now give you two mister

please thank you you're my hero

okay first well I I've been working with

a theory for a long time and I just

wonder I would love to hear your opinion

on it that the idea for life if if

reincarnation is true or if we are able

to live many many lives is this idea

that the only way human beings could

ever live together in a perfect after

after

is if there was such a thing as perfect

empathy and the only way you could ever

experience perfect empathy is if you

would actually experience what it was

like to be everyone else and I love to

think that it's possible that when we

become who we are it's actually just an

obligation of every single possible

experience so we're still ourselves but

we still know what it's like to be

everyone else and I just wonder if you

guys have talked about that or if you

thought about that are you you time that

should reincarnation I wasn't clear I'm

sorry were you tying that um it could be

reincarnation it could be parallel

universes it could be all kinds of

different ways that it would all come

together well you may have a more

positive point of view on life than I do

per house but I I tend to think of it

more it's just a naturalistic process

where consciousness exists and it

continues to exist after the physical

body and brain die and it continues to

have experiences but it is whether

there's sort of an intention to it there

there is hope that there is the

potential for progress that even if we

don't come back with intact memories

hopefully our consciousness or whatever

you want to call it is affected and that

we do learn or like you say we have

empathy because we experience different

viewpoints so hopefully through all this

course of different lives we do grow and

make progress

the white shirt mr. Cleese I've always

wanted you to ask me my name so that I

could respond by saying some call me Tim

[Laughter]

I know I know that the talk is only half

way over and I don't mean to minimalize

or generalize anything but I'm trying to

get a certain grasp on certain sort of

thematic intention for all of your

studies it does it have some have

something to do with closure a lot of

what we've been talking about has kind

of focused in on a way to close the book

and all of what everyone else is talking

about is kind of opening so that there

is an opportunity to close the book and

I just wanted some sort of elaboration

on that I'd rather respond to that

actually by talking about the two books

sounds good lists there I look forward a

little bit I will say though that

science is not really about closing the

book it's about opening it up and

getting more and more better better

questions I think Woody Allen said I

don't believe in an afterlife but I am

taking a change of underwear thank you

very much gentlemen blew your negative I

am unworthy but uh okay so what I've

heard so far the thing that I feel most

skeptical about and that's hardest for

me to understand is this idea that

there's some kind of physical carry over

into the next life I had never heard

that before the idea that something

could mentally carry over it makes a lot

of sense to me or emotionally but the

idea that you were killed by a gunshot

wound and then you're killed you're born

with birth marks I can't even begin to

imagine any kind of reason for that or a

mechanism that would create that do you

all have any theories for that or any

explanation for that yeah no I will say

that was sort of a big pill for me to

swallow also when I got involved with

this work and we know from other

research that sometimes mental images

can produce very specific changes in the

bodies so for instance there are cases

of in hypnosis where you tell someone

you're burning them with a hot poker

whatever and they'll develop as a burn

purely from the mental image of being

burned so in these cases I don't think

it's literally the physical wound the

shotgun to the head but it may well be

the sort of the mental image of that the

mental experience of being killed that

is obviously a very strong experience

that if the consciousness does continue

it continues with it almost in a PTSD

kind of way and then rather than like

hypnosis producing a temporary mark in

these cases the consciousness if it does

in fact to enter a developing fetus it

would then lead to a similar wound that

would be permanent on the child so it

wasn't literally the physical injury but

more the mental aspect of it that

produced the mark J made an interesting

point to me couple of days ago when you

pointed out that it was a very strange

way for karma to work as someone who has

been killed

seems the you know they're continuing

what do we say they're continuing

experience seems like a punishment for

having been killed yeah so you know a

lot of these cases came from places for

instance with with Hindu beliefs where

karma is a big part of that and I'm a

karma is certainly a a more subtle

philosophy than we often know about but

in any case that the idea of of karmic

retribution would lead you to think that

if somebody's murdered than the murderer

would then be reborn with the injury

that he caused but in fact that's not

what we see it's the victim that comes

back with the wound so again it seems to

be I would view it as a naturalistic

mental trust experience that that leads

to that gentleman in the white shirt

just

comment and a question the gentleman who

first came up and asked what's the point

of it all why bother being human and I'd

like to offer that hmm maybe the

hokey-pokey really is what it's all

about so my question is where any of you

non-believers or highly skeptical before

you started this research and what one

or two of you care to comment on what

might have changed your minds I don't

know that we've changed our minds I

think we all are fairly skeptical about

these things were experience we're

investigating and it certainly opened

our minds see these things in fact one

of the most profound things that open my

mind to seeing the way these experiences

affect people hmm

the profound and long-lasting

after-effects of near-death experiences

for example persuaded me that these are

not a type of mental illness they're a

real event that people are going through

I still I'm very simple about how we

understand them what their meaning of it

is yeah and I would agree that I think

we're still skeptics in the sense that

every case that I approach I approach in

some ways looking for the defects in the

case so I mean obviously we're open to

this stuff or we wouldn't be devoting

much of our lives to it but as I think

we do approach it with the scientific

point of view that I could speaking for

myself I'm trying to find out for myself

what all this means I'm not trying to

convince anyone of a particular

religious belief or whatever but but

just trying to see really put where the

evidence takes me okay I was just gonna

say I think we would all raise our hand

and that that's a big part of the

scientific approach to it that we don't

come in with our mind already made up

that we really are curious about this my

dad that we're all just a poor empirical