Article: Near-Death Experiences Explained by Science

[Myrina]

http://www.livescience.com/16019-death-experiences-explained.html


Hmmm. Not sure what I think.

[Celebration]

1. some thing "lift the veil"

They talk about drugs and out of body experiences, seeing ghosts, etc. Their approach is to see it as the brain being altered by chemicals producing hallucinations. I would agree with that up to a point, but would characterize the whole thing differently. I see it as lifting the veil between the physical, material world, and the ethereal, or spirit world.

It isn't exactly an either/or. The difference is in how the phenomena are explained.

[MorningGlow]

2. Yeah, these explanations have been kicking around for quite a while

It still doesn't explain how people who were clinically dead knew what was going on in the hospital room while they were gone (no vitals, even declared dead in some cases, so they couldn't have heard or seen stuff around them). Or even knew what was going on in OTHER places, for that matter.

I think people spend way too much time trying to fit round pegs (paranormal experiences) into square holes (the scientific facts we already know) instead of investigating paranormal experiences with an open mind to maybe perhaps discover something NEW that we didn't know before. Instead, we're all too eager to "explain away" stuff we don't understand within the limited parameters of our present knowledge. I think that's a shame--and a lost opportunity.

On edit: speling

[kentauros]

3. I skimmed it and read the last few paragraphs instead.

What I think is that they are being dismissive of anything that's not materialism. They probably wouldn't like the following story:

Croydon hospital studies life after death

I found that story here: Update on AWARE Study from UK Hospital (from IANDS)

[Kind of Blue]

4. Ooh, I love the words they use to "explain"

Like "suggests," "possible explanation," "a variety of explanations might explain," "Although the specific causes of this part of near-death experiences remain unclear," "the lore regarding near-death episodes might play a crucial role in experiencing them," and "potential underpinnings." And my favorite "potential obstacle to further research," why further research when it's already been "explained." :rofl:

[SheilaT]

5. What MorningGlow said.

These sorts of attempts to explain away NDE's have been around for quite some time, and simply don't ever consider those cases where the person saw and heard what was going on around them, including cases where they saw and heard things happening in another room. There are also various reports of the person with the NDE reporting seeing someone who has just died themselves, and the NDE person did not know the other one was dead.

[emcguffie]

16. See my post below re: book by Pim van Lommel, MD n/t

[GliderGuider]

6. I'm always fascinated by these attempts to understand the numinous through science.

After all, the two realms are fundamentally orthogonal (i.e. the two domains are "at right angles" to each other, and intersect only at a single point - our perception). The desire to "solidify" experiences from the subtle realm into the material terms of science reflects our fear of the unknown, the strange, the incomprehensible. To assuage that fear we try to make everything as certain as possible. That is the psychological role of science: to remove our fear of the unknown by replacing it with a sure feeling that we have dominated reality by defining it.

There is an indescribable bliss to be found in surrendering to the unknown, accepting the unknowable, embracing the mystery. Trying to "understand" such things strips away their true personal value. Even worse, it feeds the illusion of control that landed us in the soup to begin with.

More heart, less head!

[CanSocDem]

7. Well said! (eom)

[MorningGlow]

9. It occurred to me several decades ago

that the "faith" Jesus was talking about is not, as most critics think, blind adherence to what the "Church fathers" tell you to believe, but instead is the utter certainty of knowing a mystery to be true, even though there is no "rational" way to prove it.

[GliderGuider]

12. Have you read the Gospel of Thomas?

I've never been a Christian, but once I understood what the mystical/non-dual path was about, I read that gospel with deep interest. Thomas makes Jesus sounds like a Zen master. Now that's my kind of savior! :evilgrin:

In the last 5 years I've opened my awareness to a lot of ideas I would never have considered letting through the door before. One thing that helped was the realization that letting them inside and sitting with them over tea was the important thing, that there was no requirement to "believe" in anything at all. I am learning to separate the concept of "value" from the arbitrary box called "Truth".

Chemtrails, UFOs, astral travel, Akashic records, channeled entities, devas, the consciousness of quarks, life beyond life - all that stuff used to get tossed straight into the hokum hamper. Now I have less fear of being "manipulated into a shameful belief," so even though my monkey-mind still shrieks and flings poop from the top of his ego-cage, I do my best to just let it all in and take its place in my awareness alongside Newton and Niels Bohr. I just let it be, watch to see what resonates, and let the ego's questions just stay unanswered. After all, the more stuff there is to correlate with, the more correlations will appear. Carl Jung would have approved, I think.

[Kind of Blue]

8. NDE: 30 Years of Research - Part 1

Researcher says, ‘We’ve just scratched the surface’

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=61547&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=1

[dbt]

10. I have never understood the reluctance to accept

that there are things that exist outside the realm of Science, of the "rational," things that cannot be explained by what has been proven in laboratories. To me, it violates Occam's Razor (among a whole lotta other stuff) in that it overcomplicates the world.

For instance, why do some people go to such lengths to try and convince me that what I've seen was swamp gas, an aberration of the light, or a distant mirage--when it would be so simple and respectful of my intelligence to just admit that I saw a UFO? Where's the harm to your scientific method in that?

:shrug:

[kentauros]

11. Then you need to reiterate to them what the "U" stands for.

No matter what it may have been, whether alien or terrestrial, it remains "unidentified" ;)

[MorningGlow]

13. Fear

Fear fear fear. Plain and simple.

People who refuse to admit that there might be things in the world that we don't have any knowledge of (yet) are drop-dead terrified to think that we might not know everything there is to know.

That doesn't describe every scientist in the world by a long shot--there are plenty who are fascinated by the unknown and willingly admit that we don't have all the answers--but it does describe the most vocal naysayers. I think people who shrug and say "This is outside our realm of experience at the moment" and/or "Cool! Let's investigate this!" are far more secure in their sense of self than those who demand that everything fit into their personal scope.

[Kind of Blue]

14. "A Reply to Scientific America" by P. M. H. Atwater

"What is glaringly missing from the article by Charles Q. Choi is the fact that the scientific community he speaks for, investigates only in piece meal fashion some of the various aspects of near-death states without viewing the phenomenon as a whole, and completely devoid of the pattern of physiological and psychological aftereffects which follow. No skeptic that I know of, and none of the scientists Choi uses as references, has ever done a full study of all aspects of the experience and its aftereffects and in numbers acceptable as a valid study. I am quite certain that Choi would lose no time trying to invalid my voice. However, 33 years of mostly fieldwork with nearly 4,000 adult and child experiencers and their significant others, gives me at least a unique lens in which to observe, cross-compare, and analyze.

If the scientific community wants to make a point and inform the public in a credible fashion, I suggest that they know more about their subject before they try to explain it away."

http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=e1987e10867e1be15381585f0&id=b4042174b8

[emcguffie]

15. Not true.

I've just finished a book that nicely debunks that. Ha! Take that!

This is the third time I've posted this (although not in here, thank you to someone for the star!). It's a good book. Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience. It's by a Dutch cardiologist, Pim van Lommmel. He spends endless chapters demonstrating, scientifically, that NDEs happen when people are indeed clinically dead, without a heartbeat and with no brain activity. You can't see a tunnel with no brain activity, even if deprived of oxygen. At least, not in your MIND. Because apparently people do see those things. His point is that oxygen deprivation cannot be causing all of the things that take place during NDEs typically.

Another common element of NDEs is the out-of-body portion, where people see and recount things that THEY COULD NOT HAVE SEEN AT ALL, unconscious, with their eyes closed, even, say had they not been clinically dead at the time. One such incident was of a patient, in cardiac arrest, who was being intubated. This person had left their body and was looking down, from up near the ceiling, watching what was happening to his body. Apparently his dentures got in the way, and the person doing the intubating removed them and put them in a drawer in a cart.

Later on, the patient, now recovered, asked someone to retrieve his teeth from the drawer in the cart, which he described. ANd, lo and behold, someone went looking and found his teeth in the drawer in the cart, wherever it was.

The point of the whole book is to refute that stuff about oxygen deprivation. It is also about, I think -- if I remember this correctly -- the first study of NDEs where they actively asked all patients who had had cardiac arrests if they remembered anything from the time they were unconscious, and recorded the stories of those that did. USually, it's done the other way around; stories are recorded of people who volunteer such information. And apparently most people to whom NDEs happen do not volunteer this information, for fear of being ridiculed.

So, it's a good read, and it's full of good facts, good ammunition. I Really should do a decent post using some of those facts for those ***es out there who behave so badly. You know who I mean. Mr. *id *ithers? Is it against the rules for me to name anyone?

Funny, it seems to me some of them are the same folks who are always debunking stolen elections. Hmmm.

Some regulars from in here just got royally shoved around out there. I did not jump in, thought I'd rather come in here. There's just no point in trying to change the minds of people like that. I started reading Lisa Williams' book in Barnes and Noble the other day (couldn't afford to buy both books), and she talked about the same problem -- proving she was legit to confirmed skeptics. She said, forget about it, you can't change them. Don't bother. Let it go. At least, I think that's what she said.

ETM