Dr. Steven Novella
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for the second in a two-part series with Yale University Neurologist, Dr. Steven Novella. During the hour-long interview Dr. Novella had this to say about the near-death experience research, "It's descriptively very broad and it may have as many different causes as there are types of experiences that people describe, that are being lumped into this sort of broad category of experiences we're calling near-death experiences."
But, this view was immediately challenged by Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris, "I don't see where in the literature… particularly among near-death experience researchers, where there is this broad collection of different symptoms that are being lumped together, or experiences that are being lumped together. If anything, it seems like they're honing in more and more…"
Novella and Tsakiris also discuss anesthesia awareness as a possible explanation for near-death experience accounts, " Any anesthesiologist will tell you… that patients can wake up during anesthesia… that is a perfectly plausible explanation for those cases.", Novella stated.
Tsakiris replied, "It doesn't hold up… first of all its rare… the other thing is it has all sort of symptoms associated with it that don't show up in any of these cases.
The complete Skeptiko interview with Dr. Steven Novella (audio and transcript) is available at: http://www.skeptiko.com/
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