By Stuart Hameroff, MD and Deepak Chopra, MD

The idea that conscious awareness can exist after death, generally referred to as the ‘soul’, has been inherent in Eastern and Western religions for thousands of years. In addition to spiritual accounts, innumerable subjective reports of conscious awareness seemingly separated from the subject’s brain and physical body occur in conjunction with so-called near death experiences (NDEs) in patients resuscitated after cardiac arrest (1,2). Such patients describe remarkably consistent phenomenology including a white light, being in a tunnel, serenity, deceased loved ones, life review and, in some cases, floating out of the body (out-of-body experiences – OBEs). Comparable experiences have been reported in various types of meditative and altered states, traumatic psychological events, or seemingly without cause. A Gallup poll estimated some 10 million Americans have reported NDEs/OBEs (3). The drug ketamine, used as a ‘dissociative’ anesthetic, can produce subjective reports of conscious awareness outside the body (4), as can various other psychoactive drugs. (more…)

Fear is a natural reaction built into the mind-body system,. It is triggered by danger, and after the danger is past, so is the fear response. But when fear spreads out into a general condition, it becomes a mysterious thing: anxiety. Anxious people are afraid even though there is nothing “out there” to be afraid of. Others overreact to triggers that ordinarily should be fairly easy to handle, such as being left alone for a day on their own. Still others are nearly paralyzed by highly specific phobias such as fear of heights, open spaces, or insects. What is going on and what can we do about it? (more…)