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During her near-death experience, she says she chatted with her dead grandmother and uncle, who escorted her back to the operating room.

My uncle pushed me," she says, laughing.

"From a scientific perspective," he says, "I have absolutely no explanation about how it could have happened."

Spetzler did not check out all the details, but Michael Sabom did. Sabom is a cardiologist in Atlanta who was researching near-death experiences.

what she said happened to her is actually what Spetzler did with her out in Arizona

How, Sabom wonders, could she know these things?

"She could not have heard [it], because of what they did to her ears," he says. "In addition, both of her eyes were taped shut, so she couldn't open her eyes and see what was going on. So her physical sensory perception was off the table."

That's preposterous, says anesthesiologist Gerald Woerlee. "This report provides absolutely no evidence for survival of any sort of consciousness outside the body during near-death experiences or any other such experiences," he says.

Woerlee, an Australian researcher and near-death experience debunker who has investigated Reynolds' case, says what happened to her is easy to explain.

"There are various explanations," Woerlee says. "One: that the earphones or plugs were not that tightly fitting. Two: It could have been that it was due to sound transmission through the operating table itself." So Reynolds could have heard conversations. As for seeing the Midas Rex bone saw, he says, she recognized a sound from her childhood.

That doesn't convince cardiologist Sabom or neurosurgeon Spetzler. They believe the combination of anesthesia and the sluggish brain activity caused by hypothermia meant that Reynolds could not form or retain memories for a significant part of the operation. At the very least, Sabom says, Reynolds' story raises the possibility that consciousness can function even when the brain is offline.

In the end, Reynolds' story is just an anecdote. And in fact, that's the problem with all the studies of near-death experiences.

it seems that these people have a different sort of brain," Beauregard says in his soft French accent. "It's like there's a shift in their brain, and this shift will allow these people to stay in touch with the spiritual world more easily, on a daily basis."

"It's like the near-death experience triggered something at a neural level in the brain," he said. "And perhaps this change, in terms of brain activity, is sort of permanent."

Their brains in the spiritual state look a lot like those of Catholic nuns and Buddhist monks who have spent tens of thousands of hours in prayer and meditation. Both groups showed extremely slow brain wave activity

The researchers also saw significant changes in brain regions associated with positive emotions, attention and personal boundaries, as subjects who had had near-death experiences lost their sense of their physical bodies and merged with God or the "light."

Skeptic Woerlee says there's nothing remarkable — and certainly nothing spiritual — about these findings.

It's brain chemistry, he says, not a trip to heaven.

n other words, Woerlee a

nd Beauregard looked at the same images and came to opposite conclusions.

It’s not easy to remember names, since brains are more equipped to forget a name than to remember one. How so?

To hear your name spoken respectfully, is to spike wellbeing in the area of the brain that operates personal self-awareness.

Myth #3 – Introverts are rude.

Myth #4 – Introverts don’t like people.

Myth #5 – Introverts don’t like to go out in public.

Myth #6 – Introverts always want to be alone.

Myth #7 – Introverts are weird.

Myth #8 – Introverts are aloof nerds.

Myth #9 – Introverts don’t know how to relax and have fun.

Myth #10 – Introverts can fix themselves and become Extroverts.

labeling someone as an Introvert is a very shallow assessment, full of common misconceptions. It’s more complex than that.

Laney’s book maps out the human brain and explains how neuro-transmitters follow different dominant paths in the nervous systems of Introverts and Extroverts. If the science behind the book is correct, it turns out that Introverts are people who are over-sensitive to Dopamine,

Conversely, Extroverts can’t get enough Dopamine, and they require Adrenaline for their brains to create it.

Unfortunately, according to the book, only about 25% of people are Introverts.

here are a few common misconceptions about Introverts (not taken directly from the book, but based on my own life experience):

1. The Physical.

human beings operate best when we pulse between spending and renewing energy.

In our rush to get things done, it doesn't occur to most of us that intermittently renewing and refueling energy prevents us from relentlessly burning down our energy

The Emotional

most of us embrace the notion that confidence lies at the heart of success. Vulnerability and uncertainty are seen as signs of weakness. 

it feels dangerous to acknowledge our limitations and difficult to admit we don't know the answer, much less that we got something wrong.

Humility comes from the Latin word "humilitas" which translates as grounded, or from the earth.

The Mental

we've long worshipped at the altar of scientific method and observable facts and admired rigorous, analytic left-hemisphere thinking.

we've paid precious little attention to cultivating the more subjective, imaginative, and integrative capacities of the right hemisphere of our brain, which is visual rather than verbal, and capable of big intuitive leaps and creative breakthroughs. 

The ability to embrace both of these ways of thinking – to recognize that each is essential but neither is sufficient by itself – lies at the heart of whole brain thinking.

When we talk about spiritual energy, we mean the energy derived from serving a purpose larger than yourself.

far too few leaders in companies recognize the galvanizing impact of creating a shared and compelling sense of purpose

By contrast, we've found that people in professions such as health care, education, social work, and the military often run almost solely off spiritual energy.

Self-care is a prerequisite to being most effective on behalf of others.

That’s exactly the point, and here’s why it should matter to Christians.

They are horrifying because they represent what ought to repulse us: the rotting decay of death. But they still walk. And, beyond that, they still crave. In their search for human brains, they are driven along by their appetites, though always under the sway of a slavemaster’s will.

That’s our story

The biblical story of the Fall of humanity is one of a humanity that comes under the sway of death by obeying the appetite.

He sentences us to the curse of death so that, ultimately, we can be redeemed.

The Gospel tells us that, apart from Christ, we were walking in the flesh, that is slavishly obeying our biological impulses and appetites without the direction of the Spirit. As such, we were “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).

This walking death, the Apostle Paul writes, was driven along as we “carried out the desires of the body and the mind” (Ephesians 2:3).

Caribbean people could resonate with the horror of zombies because they knew what it was like to be enslaved by evil people, with no hope of escape.

The Gospel doesn’t just extend our lives forever into eternity. That’s what we, left to ourselves, think we want.

Jesus points out that he wants to eternalize his present state rather than to be hidden in the life of Jesus Himself. That’s a zombie walk, and Jesus loves us too much for that.

Jesus offers instead life, and that abundantly, as we eat of His flesh, drink of His blood, share in His triumph over the accusing slavemaster.

A similar concept you may be familiar with is the 80/20 rule (technically the Pareto principle)

Since vision trumps all other senses, the rate of return on importing a picture is high.