A recent San Antonio Eyewitness news story reports that researchers at the University of North Texas are exploring the near death experience (NDE) and its unique perspective on consciouness, “whether it’s real, whether it’s in the mind, or whether it matters.” An extended report is also featured on video.

I salute Dr. Jan Holden for including this third dimension to her work: “or whether it matters”. Too often are the discussions of extra-normal phenomena mired in the classic objective/subjective (real/imagined) debate which often clouds the full spectrum of the experience and the value it holds to the experiencer.

Deftly using popular media metaphors to model our understanding, she also chimes (in an older story) in on the utterly relevant yet age old question, “What is Consciousness?”—

“If consciousness is a product of the brain, then when the brain dies, consciousness dies. If the brain is like a cell phone in the field of consciousness, then when the brain dies, consciousness continues,” she said.

One truth outshines the many other observations made in Holden’s 20 years of looking into near death experiences, that everyone who has one is changed by the experience.

[Image via Dogzine. Can’t read the comic? Try this.]