He's interested in precognition and parapsychology, which, if anyone has seen the masterpiece of theoretical psychoanalysis, the movie Ghostbusters, will know.
The second, and largest, faction of near-death researchers were the parapsychologists, those interested in phenomena that seemed to undermine the scientific orthodoxy that the mind could not exist independently of the brain.
And part of that is because Parapsychology, as with psychology, likes to study things in the lab because you can apply the scientific method more easily.
Parnia, the resuscitation specialist, who studies the physical processes of dying but is also sympathetic to a parapsychological theory of consciousness, has a radically different take on what we are poised to find out.
I guess part of the message and a good part of your question, although you weren't implying it, is the need for parapsychologists and ghost hunters to work closer together.