Fizzing neurons more likely than hint of afterlife

OPINION: Death is all very well, but the concept of an afterlife is truly terrifying.

Reports from the other side suggest it's like the worst Christmas Day you've ever experienced: trapped indoors with relatives you've managed to avoid all year, with nothing to say, nothing on the telly, and nothing to look forward to except an eternity of cold ham.

In this life, at least, you can fritter away some of December 25 driving round the block on the pretext of trying to find a dairy that's still open and hasn't yet run out of cream.

Try getting away with that in heaven. Actually, no- one who has had a near-death experience has reported on whether heaven even stocks cream, let alone gin.

It's this lack of detail that makes near-death experiences so frustrating, as two Massey University researchers exploring the subject will soon discover.

They announced last week that they are about to embark on what will apparently be the country's first large-scale study of near-death experiences.

The researchers aim to interview 100 people who have been through the phenomenon, partly to see if there are any cultural differences in New Zealanders' trips to the afterlife.

And it would almost be worth coming close to death if you knew you'd emerge from the tunnel of light to see St Peter in full All Blacks regalia, standing against a backdrop of the Cardrona bra fence and Paeroa's giant L&P bottle while Crowded House blared in the distance.

The researchers are certain to come up with some fascinating accounts of what might await us all in the great beyond, but this is one subject we'll never agree on.

Most of us either believe near- death experiences reflect a genuine encounter with the god of our choosing, or put it down to the neurochemistry of a brain that is stressed, drugged or dying.

One recent study found that the single factor a group of cardiac arrest patients who reported a near-death experience had in common was not religious belief, or fear of death, but high carbon dioxide levels - a finding certain to be dismissed by people convinced it's all about peace and love, rather than the mysteries of human consciousness.

Up to a quarter of people who come close to dying are estimated to have a near-death experience. Curiously, I happen to be one of them.

Twenty years ago, I was trapped below decks on a burning ferry on the Irish Sea.

The thick black smoke made it impossible to see my hand in front of my face, let alone a stairwell that might have led me to safety, and eventually there was no more air to breathe. But as I lost consciousness, the room was illuminated by a bright red light, and I saw dozens of half-naked figures writhing on the ground.

Some people would say this was a vision of hell - indeed, about 15 per cent of near-death experiences are said to be of hell rather than heaven, although survivors are much less willing to talk about them.

I didn't buy it then, and I don't buy it now.

Even at the time, the experience struck me as a sign my body was shutting down. It felt more like a lucky dip of images plucked out of the fizzing neurons in my oxygen-starved brain, than a god-sent vision of what might happen if I didn't repent.

If anything, the scene reminded me more of Dirty Dora's, a sleazy Welsh nightclub I'd been to the day before the ferry sailed. (Hell and Dirty Dora's were probably similar, although I'm assuming hell doesn't have the dancing, the drugs, the fist fights and the half- price drinks for girls willing to queue at the bar with the top four buttons of their shirts undone.)

What made the afterlife interpretation even less likely was that my hell vision was only one of several surreal images I'd had before losing consciousness.

These included seeing a bloke in a large, furry bobble hat. In reality there was no hat-wearer, and he would have been a fairly unlikely figure to encounter in the afterlife.

It's hard to believe that anyone sent to the underworld would get away with nothing more punitive than being forced to wear a woolly hat in the burning pits of hell, unless eternal damnation has been scandalously downgraded as a punishment over the years.

Frankly, bring back the pitchforks.

- © Fairfax NZ News