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Near-Death Experiences (NDEs)

NewEra

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I've seen programs on people who have undergone NDEs. Most of them involve a tragic incident, in which a person was on the brink of death. In many of these, the people have noted seeing and approaching a bright light and having a sense of peace. Also they've noted having an out-of-body experience while close to death, and actually observing their own body from above (on the operating table while being operated on, for example).

Wikipedia article: Near death experience - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

People who have experienced NDEs noted a euphoric sort of feeling as they were close to death. And they say if death feels great, then one is not afraid to die. And if you're not afraid to die, you're not afraid to live.

What is your take on NDEs?
 

Usehername

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I had one near-drowning experience when I was 3 (pulled under by the tide for long enough to almost die) but I don't remember it. Sometimes I wish I would just so I could speak on this subject with some sort of experiential authority.
 

Not_Me

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The same phenomenon can be experienced simply by depriving the brain of oxygen. As the brain begin to shut down, the subject undergoes an intense experience. Test pilots in a centrifuge commonly report this.
 

Snow Turtle

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The same phenomenon can be experienced simply by depriving the brain of oxygen. As the brain begin to shut down, the subject undergoes an intense experience. Test pilots in a centrifuge commonly report this.

Basically what he said. It certainly takes away the validity of NDEs but at the same time I wouldn't claim that it's definitely the same thing being produced. NDE ties in nicely with the idea of Astral Projection, and the idea that a soul exists and departs from the body. From a spiritual/religious perspective I'm inclined to think that there might be some truth from it, but there's still lots of questions to be answered when information like the above get thrown up.

An interesting question is: What is so speacial about light tunnel idea? Are there different visions from NDE experiences?
 

erm

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The same phenomenon can be experienced simply by depriving the brain of oxygen. As the brain begin to shut down, the subject undergoes an intense experience. Test pilots in a centrifuge commonly report this.

That doesn't count as a NDE or something?

A good test would be to see if someone not exposed to the "light", "tunnel" and other common afterlife themes still experiences the same thing.

It is awesome to see, that the odds of your last moments before death being pleasurable, are quite high. Apparently drowning, for example, ends in euphoric state. After the painful part though.

This:-

Out-of-body experience - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The patients remembered details of their conditions during their cardiac arrest despite being clinically dead with flatlined brain stem activity"

And things like this:-

YouTube - Ken Wilber Stops His Brain Waves

Are slowly convincing me that consciousness is still a big mystery. It certainly has debunked a few of the current materialistic explanations for consciousness and qualia.

I certainly don't buy into the "oblivion for eternity" stuff. Simply one of many possibilities. I'm surprised people who make such a claim aren't seen as "religious wackos". They are making a claim that casts over an infinite scale, and claiming answers to many profoundly unanswered philosophical questions (Most notably, the problem of identity, as well as the consciousness debate), with no evidence. Usually citing Occam's razor or something to that effect. Forgetting they have to prove conscious emergentism first for even Occam's razor to support them.

I am looking forward to this:-

"In the fall of 2008, 25 UK and US hospitals began participation in a 3 year study, co-ordinated by Dr. Sam Parnia and Southampton University. Following on the work of Van Lommel in the Netherlands, the study aims to examine near-death experiences in 1,500 cardiac arrest survivors and so determine whether people without a heartbeat or brain activity can have documentable out-of-body experiences."

And what results from such theories as:-

Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory - Langan Especially the need for a supertautology.

To see whether any of these help understand what is going on with this whole "existence" thing.
 

Nonsensical

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When I was four, I was lying down in a flower field by myself. I turned over on my stomach and looked straight into the face of an enormous Copperhead snake staring straight back at me, no less than 6 inches away, nose to nose.

I got up and ran.

Must have been somebody looking out for me..
 

LucrativeSid

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I actually just read a book on NDEs. (The Light Beyond by Raymond Moody, 1988.) It just randomly appealed to me when I saw it at the library, even though I've never studied this subject before. They had a whole section devoted to what people (scientists) think they could be, and many of them seemed plausible except for one major thing that the author kept pointing out about all of the theories - they don't account for out of body experiences where the patient who nearly died was able to see things that didn't even happen in the operating room they died in.

Supposedly there have been many cases where a person who's had an NDE was able to explain the operating room, the doctors, what they said, what the doctors did and in what order, and sometimes they are even able to read the doctors' minds or go out of the operating room and see what their families are doing. They are able to describe things they couldn't possibly have known about from where they were, especially since they were unconscious or completely dead when these things happened.

If these accounts are true, then yes, that is pretty hard to explain away. But it's extremely hard to verify such an account. This reminds me of remote viewing or the countless accounts of stories I've heard about psychics who were able to find lost children or help the police find a serial killer or something like that. There's that one million dollar prize for anyone who can prove they are doing something paranormal, and the prize has never been claimed, even though there's been thousands of stories of people who believe they can do these things. If people can have out of body experiences or view things remotely, then you'd think at least ONE of them would be able to prove it. Not everybody wants a million dollars, but surely someone would want to prove it, after all, they often spend their whole lives trying to convince other people that they are being honest about what they claim they can do.

One interesting thing, I thought, was that many of the researched NDEs were similar regardless of age, sex, culture, or religion. A five year old with no concept of death or life after death would often describe the same stuff as a 40 year old atheist from Japan or a 45 year old Christian from America.
 

AphroditeGoneAwry

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i saw something once by carl sagan (?) i think where they proved that when antimatter and matter collide, pure light is created. so, i've always thought that when you approach death, your soul is leaving your body and approaching the Other Side, and the meeting of your soul with the Other Side is like the collision of matter with antimatter and that's why you see Light. for me, Pure Light = Pure Energy = Where Soul Exists = Where Life Comes From = God (if you believe in god) = Omniscience = ^Why you can know what's going on in other rooms, etc^

EDIT: i personally do not believe in esp and that psychic-helping-police stuff. hunches and luck and intuition is what i chalk that up to. but that's just me.
 

Son of the Damned

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umm, your brain gets flooded with a host of chemicals, some of which make you trip balls? There are several chemicals in the brain that induce intense psychedelic experiences. Seems like a more likely explanation to me.
 

erm

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umm, your brain gets flooded with a host of chemicals, some of which make you trip balls? There are several chemicals in the brain that induce intense psychedelic experiences. Seems like a more likely explanation to me.

It would be. Problem is, everyone would have to be tripping the same way, with similar experiences.
 

millerm277

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As an observation, I've seen the same "Bright light" while passing out due to medication issues causing it (Allegra, naturally low blood pressure, and high levels of physical exertion....in me, result in light headedness and passing out if I don't sit/lie down) and I do recall feeling a bit peaceful...but really, I couldn't think.

Seeing as I wasn't exactly "near-death" in my opinion, I would strongly believe that it is a natural result of oxygen deprivation to the brain or something along those lines (in my case caused by lack of blood flow, remedied by falling down, bringing my head closer to the level of my heart), and that the "feeling peaceful" is pretty much the result of being unable to think normally, as most people would consider the absence of much in thought "feeling peaceful", which is exactly what happens.
 

wank

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It would be. Problem is, everyone would have to be tripping the same way, with similar experiences.

Although not proven, DMT could be an explanation here in.
We've got all the right precursors for it, and it wouldn't be a long stretch in that it seemingly turns up in nature consistently.

That's kind of like a sensorum of over stimulation with regards to psychological(or what have you) experience, where as oxygen deprivation would be as like dissociation of that aspect,... kind of two paths to the same ends...
 

NewEra

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Saw a special on this yesterday on National Geographic. They were basically saying a large part of NDEs are when there is immense pressure on the brain. The result is the activities very close to the brain stem get accentuated, and this part deals with very bright light, so that's why we get the images of bright light during NDEs. It also said that the most ingrained things in our brain are our personal experiences - that's why our 'life flashes before our eyes' during NDEs.

However, the show did not have any possible explanation of the soul rising over the body (and viewing their own body) during an operation room for example.
 
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