Near-death experiences are 'electrical surge

[White Crane Feather]

Have reported what? Going to another existence, or an unusual experience that relates directly to their lives?

You know what I would find convincing? Someone coming back with information they did not already have when they died, like a plumber offering a cure for Cancer immediately after the experience.

I do not believe your belief allows for a global propagation that is consised into two basic concepts, each of which cover a significant portion of the globe. It strikes me that historically, too many people know about the afterlife for it to have spread from 12% of the population who have survived a close encounter with death.

So as far as I can see, your "facts" contradict themselves.

None of which answers why a spirit world exists. I just do not believe it does, why would it? Do houseflies have an afterlife? If not, why? And why do Ghosts wear clothes? Clothes have spirits? Where do we draw the spirit line in the sand?

You can read NDE accounts yourself.

It happens all the time. There are some very convincing cases of people doing things like that. No cures for cancer of course, but descriptions of things they should have no way of knowing about. From conversations in the lobby, to the bone saw used to cut their sculls open.

I'm not getting what you are trying to say. If NDE/OBE themes are a cultural meme, then it would have happened long long long before the Egyptians. They did not "invent" the afterlife. In the case of OBEs, it has been the core of shamanic practice for many thousands of years before Egyptian culture. Precolumbian even prenordic Native Americans have had these themes in their spiritual life. The last contact with the rest of humanity would have been the ice age. NDEs , really just a class of OBEs, also exist in tradition and documentation cross culturally, but necessarily rare as we go back in time... Why? Because if the spiritual interpretation of NDEs, is correct, then the incidence of which must have a positive corolation with the invention of life saving technology. This is exactly what we see. In other words 100 years ago you were much less likely to survive a heart attack and be able to tell the story of your meeting with dead uncle George and the light.

We don't know why this reality exists. Why a spirit world would exist is a silly question. Houseflys do not have individual spirits, they all have the same one... But that's another topic. Spirits sometimes where cloths because because if people can perceive them, they are going to perceive them in a way that makes sense. It's hard to indentify a pinpoint of light as a being like yourself when you still have your physical attachments, and what will really get your goat in the end is that a pinpoint of light isn't really light either but now we are in a metaphysical discussion.

You cannot draw a line if you don't understand the dynamics of the subject matter

Edited November 27, 2013 by White Crane Feather

[White Crane Feather]

Because it is one persons interpretation, and that person is near death, and not in optimum operating condition. Like with Goblins and Aliens, one might see a shape in a photograph described by a religious person as a goblin or daemon, yet a more modern minded person might conclude the same is an alien. We seem to think we can resolve things we cannot. Sometimes, we need more information to make a valuable guess. How many people say their life flashes before their eyes? That really sounds like random neuron firing to me.

How so? When we have evidence of such? Remember the link in the OP? It said:

We identified a transient surge of synchronous gamma oscillations that occurred within the first 30 s after cardiac arrest and preceded isoelectric electroencephalogram. Gamma oscillations during cardiac arrest were global and highly coherent; moreover, this frequency band exhibited a striking increase in anterior–posterior-directed connectivity and tight phase-coupling to both theta and alpha waves. High-frequency neurophysiological activity in the near-death state exceeded levels found during the conscious waking state. These data demonstrate that the mammalian brain can, albeit paradoxically, generate neural correlates of heightened conscious processing at near-death.

Might be just me, but it sounds much more convincing than someone travelling to a white light to see everyone else they know that already died.

Please feel free to demonstrate.

Is that what you think is it? I believe it is impossible? Not always, I believed it was very possible, and years of looking for something specific took me to many shady avenues that only left me jaded. I wanted there to be an afterlife more than anyone when my Father passed away in 2006. And I still remember a mortal fear of dying as a small child. I took it hard that his was going to happen to me. How dare it! My father was a devout Catholic, My Mother wandered from religion to religion, I was brought up on faith it exists. Looking for it tells me that it's a load of crap designed to help us with this reality that we are all going to die. Nobody gets out of that one.

ETA, I remember reading an interesting book, but I forget the name, perhaps you know it? A women dies in it, and goes to her personal hell, same house, same kids same husband, but the lawns are always overgrown, the paths heavily cracked, the house filthy, husband and kids never home, but just endless grudging work, and the weather was always rainy and miserable - every day. Her husband does an NDE thing and tries to help her out of this bad place, and my memory gets hazier from there....... been a while. I do not suppose you know the publication I speak of?

What about the heavy illusions that poor health and age can bring? My Father who was suffering Alzheimers and some dementia when he passed had extremely vivid hallucinations all the time, at the end it was ongoing, some in 3D, like people in the room with him, sometimes like a movie playing out inside or on a wall. He would wake to Nazi Soldiers with SS bands and the faces of Pigs, he saw religious figures, he saw a small girl that he said apparently was fond of me and would stay close to me. I remember being a bit freaked out one day when he said she was sitting on the arm of my chair with me. He saw her with me all the time, but did not know who she was.

He was alive, not on the other side, and he was nearing the end of his life, and his brain was defective at the end.

What about him having what some describe, or at least similar with regards to another existence, as an NDE? How did he have these experiences? And why do they remind me of NDE?

I am sure it is, it is hard to push aside your beliefs and come to a realisation that you never wanted. Much easier to come up with some superstitious mumbo jumbo to make life more bearable, people do it with things like drugs all the time. Some parts of life are hard to get through, that we tend to have in common largely.

Greeting long winded here, ill try and keep up. That's not the way the the life review always happens. Sometimes it's a very pointed accounting with another being walking the person through it. ..... Yes you are onto something about context and perception. This goes back to spirits with cloths.

I don't find those findings inconsistent with a spiritual interpretation. Indeed a heightened consciousness near death seems to me to be evidence for not against. The problem of course is that you are still trying to draw that line. The spiritual and the physical probability is not in the form of a duality. More like two sides of a coin or an integrated system.

Read the whole thread read the other NDE threads. Mountains of evidence... circumstantial, statistical, even a bit of empirical Note, I did not say proof.

I don't Believe I have read that book. Yes. As I have been explaining all that is perfectly consistent with the brain being a receiver. Do note, that his experiences did not bear the standard themes of an NDE, but yes interesting none the less. The idea of an afterlife may be comforting, but I can tell you that's not where it originates. If the whole thing is purely a physical phenomenon, then it's a very unlikely accident of our physiology. this I can tell you for sure. Here have a look at this. This person has had an experience. I created a whiteboard video to help others deal with some of the problems during this experience. I'm able to do that because the experience is universal and has the exact same elements... Countless people have come to me for help with this, that's why I created the video so I don't have to explain it all the time. I have personally met dozens of people that have these exact things happen to them without every even knowing any of it was possible from vibrations to altered state encounters. Now... My purpose is not to convict you of the metaphysics, I want you to see that it's universal. If its physical, then it's physiological or apart of our evolutionary psychology NOT!!! Made up for comfort. This person has had an experience that many people have.

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=258446&pid=4994930&st=0entry4994930

Edited November 27, 2013 by White Crane Feather

[spacecowboy342]

Well yes. The physical cannot be ruled out just yet, and I don't think it can be. The physical and "spiritual" are going to be ultimately be in a partnership to produce physical experiences. Radio waves and the radio are both needed to produce music that you can listen to. Tweak the radio even a bit and the signal goes haywire.

Good analogy. One that I would use as an example to show why I think the brain is the generator of consciousness. I'm not sure the spiritual even exists

[White Crane Feather]

Good analogy. One that I would use as an example to show why I think the brain is the generator of consciousness. I'm not sure the spiritual even exists

I have faith in your exercise of logic. You have demonstrated that refreshingly. It's interesting that you say that and how we can both use the same metaphor. If you look unbiasedly at the subject, you will see that all evidences for the dying brain hypothesis, ( the brain as a producer of consciousness) are perfectly and absolutely consistent with the brain as a receiver of consciousness which is the commonly held metaphysical belief. evidence for both is evidence for neither if the ideas are mutually exclusive. It's like an equation. You start eliminating the common variables. Until its boiled down to what's left. Then no matter what your bias is, you have to at least acknowledge what is in front of you, even if you can get creative afterward.

[spacecowboy342]

I have faith in your exercise of logic. You have demonstrated that refreshingly. It's interesting that you say that and how we can both use the same metaphor. If you look unbiasedly at the subject, you will see that all evidences for the dying brain hypothesis, ( the brain as a producer of consciousness) are perfectly and absolutely consistent with the brain as a receiver of consciousness which is the commonly held metaphysical belief. evidence for both is evidence for neither if the ideas are mutually exclusive. It's like an equation. You start eliminating the common variables. Until its boiled down to what's left. Then no matter what your bias is, you have to at least acknowledge what is in front of you, even if you can get creative afterward.

Yeah, I think a big part of that is looking at it without bias. I'm not sure if that is 100% possible for anyone. I would agree that the evidence seems consistent for both ideas.. Edited November 27, 2013 by spacecowboy342

[SSilhouette]

I did not say it proved anything. I have been saying it Is striking evidence for the metaphysical interpretation. The problem of course with the psychological explanation of the universality of NDE themes is that quite often the brain is in no shape for coherent motifs or drawing upon psychological wants, comforts, and cultural conditioning.

What makes you so sure the brain is involved at all in NDEs? And your explanation for remote-viewed events described in detail when the patient is revived? Fantasy? Fantasy that describes with pinpoint accuracy events and scenes far away from the lifeless body at the time? There is more to life than the body. Once you realize this, NDEs make perfect sense. So do ghosts for that matter. The bubble of awareness lives on apart from the body.

[Frank Merton]

If our spirit leaves us when we die, then it packs up and gets outta there. This would not in any way I can tell produce NDEs, which happen while we are still alive and seem to be like dreams.

[White Crane Feather]

What makes you so sure the brain is involved at all in NDEs? And your explanation for remote-viewed events described in detail when the patient is revived? Fantasy? Fantasy that describes with pinpoint accuracy events and scenes far away from the lifeless body at the time? There is more to life than the body. Once you realize this, NDEs make perfect sense. So do ghosts for that matter. The bubble of awareness lives on apart from the body.

It's funny... Because I don't think you realized a few things. Go back a read harder

[White Crane Feather]

If our spirit leaves us when we die, then it packs up and gets outta there. This would not in any way I can tell produce NDEs, which happen while we are still alive and seem to be like dreams.

They are not like dreams. There is title to equate the two actually. But "the spirit leaves us" is probably a very unsophisticated description of a much more complicated relationship.

[SSilhouette]

They are not like dreams. There is title to equate the two actually. But "the spirit leaves us" is probably a very unsophisticated description of a much more complicated relationship.

Elaborate. Then fewer of us will "miss things" that are points you're trying to make.

[Frank Merton]

They are not like dreams. There is title to equate the two actually. But "the spirit leaves us" is probably a very unsophisticated description of a much more complicated relationship.

I don't know. It would seem simple enough -- leave the house and don't even bother closing the door -- this place is dying.

[psyche101]

You can read NDE accounts yourself.

I have, which leads me to the questions I am proposing.

It happens all the time. There are some very convincing cases of people doing things like that. No cures for cancer of course, but descriptions of things they should have no way of knowing about. From conversations in the lobby, to the bone saw used to cut their sculls open.

That's what I am saying, all local, things they could hear, albeit unconscious. The lobby may well have a vent going near the room for instance, these are what I consider Clayton's Miracles, the miracle you have when you don't have a miracle. Nothing significant ever comes back, just worthless ambiguous crap. Why does our entire history only gives us these Clayton's miracles? Why don't we see something that makes everyone, even skeptics go, WOW! hat's impressive, no idea how that could happen naturally, but there is always some mundane explanation, wether it is accepted or not. The way I see things, if there is a viable simple explanation, it should take precedence over any exotic explanation every time.

I'm not getting what you are trying to say. If NDE/OBE themes are a cultural meme, then it would have happened long long long before the Egyptians. They did not "invent" the afterlife. In the case of OBEs, it has been the core of shamanic practice for many thousands of years before Egyptian culture. Precolumbian even prenordic Native Americans have had these themes in their spiritual life. The last contact with the rest of humanity would have been the ice age. NDEs , really just a class of OBEs, also exist in tradition and documentation cross culturally, but necessarily rare as we go back in time... Why? Because if the spiritual interpretation of NDEs, is correct, then the incidence of which must have a positive corolation with the invention of life saving technology. This is exactly what we see. In other words 100 years ago you were much less likely to survive a heart attack and be able to tell the story of your meeting with dead uncle George and the light.

How PreColumbian? By definition, that's anything before 1492 isn't it?

As far as I can see, they did invent the afterlife, what earlier specifics exist in written form? Or what evidence supports that? I do not call an OBE an afterlife, I mean when you die you take on a new form, that's what afterlife is isn't it? I Think OBE's are a combination of sleep paralysis and or drugs.

And Norse Mythology began at about 1AD didn't it? That does not predate the Egyptian book of the dead.

From what I can see, the further back you go, the more vague the details be, all we did was sharpen up the idea as we went along.

We don't know why this reality exists. Why a spirit world would exist is a silly question. Houseflys do not have individual spirits, they all have the same one... But that's another topic. Spirits sometimes where cloths because because if people can perceive them, they are going to perceive them in a way that makes sense. It's hard to indentify a pinpoint of light as a being like yourself when you still have your physical attachments, and what will really get your goat in the end is that a pinpoint of light isn't really light either but now we are in a metaphysical discussion.

I guess it was a silly question, because it has no answer does it?

We know how and why we got here physically, evolution has left a fossil record to follow. One wonders if cavemen are in the afterlife? But why would a spirit world exist? No reason. No big bang, no actual place to reside, nothing. We have a reason here and now, we are the conscious matter of the Universe, we are the Universe wondering about itself, we are organic, we know how we come to be, we know how we die, but we have no reason for an afterlife other than it would be really cool.

What I understand is that it's a place like that which has never existed, and where our spirit energies go to when we die, problem is, I do not believe we have a spirit energy, I think a person makes their own spirit, and it defines who we are, not what we are made of, and I believe it dies as part of us. It's our persona, that individualism, the mind. Not another ghost me in a physical me. Why would that be wrong? It is not like I do not understand what people are trying to tell me, it is not because I do not want it to exist, I do more than anything, but I am honest with myself. The only way I can see for one to accept that a spirit world actually exists is to convince oneself is it not?

You cannot draw a line if you don't understand the dynamics of the subject matter

What do you feel I am missing? From my perspective, all I seem to be missing is willingness to believe blindly?

[psyche101]

Greeting long winded here, ill try and keep up. That's not the way the the life review always happens. Sometimes it's a very pointed accounting with another being walking the person through it. ..... Yes you are onto something about context and perception. This goes back to spirits with cloths.

I don't find those findings inconsistent with a spiritual interpretation. Indeed a heightened consciousness near death seems to me to be evidence for not against. The problem of course is that you are still trying to draw that line. The spiritual and the physical probability is not in the form of a duality. More like two sides of a coin or an integrated system.

Read the whole thread read the other NDE threads. Mountains of evidence... circumstantial, statistical, even a bit of empirical Note, I did not say proof.

I don't Believe I have read that book. Yes. As I have been explaining all that is perfectly consistent with the brain being a receiver. Do note, that his experiences did not bear the standard themes of an NDE, but yes interesting none the less. The idea of an afterlife may be comforting, but I can tell you that's not where it originates. If the whole thing is purely a physical phenomenon, then it's a very unlikely accident of our physiology. this I can tell you for sure. Here have a look at this. This person has had an experience. I created a whiteboard video to help others deal with some of the problems during this experience. I'm able to do that because the experience is universal and has the exact same elements... Countless people have come to me for help with this, that's why I created the video so I don't have to explain it all the time. I have personally met dozens of people that have these exact things happen to them without every even knowing any of it was possible from vibrations to altered state encounters. Now... My purpose is not to convict you of the metaphysics, I want you to see that it's universal. If its physical, then it's physiological or apart of our evolutionary psychology NOT!!! Made up for comfort. This person has had an experience that many people have.

http://www.unexplain...0

[media=]

[/media]

Thanks for the video, that is a good effort.

You know how you say, don't sleep on your back, get plenty of rest, and live a healthy lifestyle.

I get hardly any sleep, always sleep on my back, and eat Junk Food a few times a week at least.

I do not dream, not at all. I wish I did, and I used to as a child, I have not since I was about 17 or 18. I'm in my mid 40's now. Any thoughts on that? I would be genuinely interested to hear them.

You know how at the start you say it is different, sometimes it is like another being walking through it, you remind me of the last days of my Father, and the experiences I described earlier, some of those sure sound like an NDE experience, he even claimed to have seen angels a few days before he passed, yet it was surely the product of a brain going out of commission, and recalling many life events....

which reminds me. He had a serious heart operation over 20 years ago, one of the first recipients for a new valve here, when he woke, at first he was entirely lost, he had missed about 30 years of his life, and thought he was a young man back in NSW, he had no idea who I was, it took several hours for him to "come back" to the present day, a bit wierd, but an interesting experience, and I have heard of this more than once. This shows the brain goes back to earlier memories when serious trauma happens, how does that sort of thing not indicate this is all in the brain, and not some sort of spirit world?

[psyche101]

What makes you so sure the brain is involved at all in NDEs? And your explanation for remote-viewed events described in detail when the patient is revived? Fantasy? Fantasy that describes with pinpoint accuracy events and scenes far away from the lifeless body at the time? There is more to life than the body. Once you realize this, NDEs make perfect sense. So do ghosts for that matter. The bubble of awareness lives on apart from the body.

Probably meant for me, not WCF.

Anyhoo, what makes you certain that such a realm exists? Surely not vague anecdotes? Is that really all that some require to purchase your faith?

[Frank Merton]

What ever happened to the secret things that were stored near the ceiling out of sight from the operating floors that were to be a test to see if anyone ever identified what they were after such an out of body experience?

[psyche101]

What ever happened to the secret things that were stored near the ceiling out of sight from the operating floors that were to be a test to see if anyone ever identified what they were after such an out of body experience?

That's the thing, these things never go to plan.......

[SSilhouette]

Probably meant for me, not WCF.

Anyhoo, what makes you certain that such a realm exists? Surely not vague anecdotes? Is that really all that some require to purchase your faith?

Eyewitness corroboration such as medical professionals & EMTs. Often the revived person will describe in impossible detail the things done to them by the EMTs, precise color, patterns, labels, even hidden labels and in the operating room, procedures, commands given to specific nurses, MDs etc. My conclusions are based in eyewitness accounts. Dead or unconscious people have been revived to describe events that were happening some distance away from their body such as relatives arriving in the waiting room, the precise conversations they had, other people who came in and out, what they said. That's impossible, unless the spirit left the body. Biochemical processes simply cannot account for these descriptions and corroborations. The human brain can't lift out of the body, travel to a distant room and hear conversations while it is pronounce dead.

Edited December 3, 2013 by SSilhouette

[Frank Merton]

Are you sure of all these things or is it just things you've heard about?

[White Crane Feather]

If our spirit leaves us when we die, then it packs up and gets outta there. This would not in any way I can tell produce NDEs, which happen while we are still alive and seem to be like dreams.

You are drawing your own line of death. The margins of the line are thick and its more like a process, until you are totally dead without possibility of return.

[White Crane Feather]

I have, which leads me to the questions I am proposing.

That's what I am saying, all local, things they could hear, albeit unconscious. The lobby may well have a vent going near the room for instance, these are what I consider Clayton's Miracles, the miracle you have when you don't have a miracle. Nothing significant ever comes back, just worthless ambiguous crap. Why does our entire history only gives us these Clayton's miracles? Why don't we see something that makes everyone, even skeptics go, WOW! hat's impressive, no idea how that could happen naturally, but there is always some mundane explanation, whether it is accepted or not. The way I see things, if there is a viable simple explanation, it should take precedence over any exotic explanation every time.

"May well have"? Do you realize how many lobby vents would have to be connected to hospital rooms? Its only "worthless ambiguous crap" because you were not there, and it was not your family member telling you about the conversation you were having in the lobby when they were in a coma! Its very significant. The problem is that we are dealing with human experiences here. It necessarily has to be filtered by humans, but we have marginalized individual experiences even if they can be corroborated. I can come up with claytons miracles to describe entanglement, the photoelectric effect, or why the Josephson's junction works as well that doesn't speak an iota to truth. An imagination can be used to create "mundane" explanations as well as what you call "exotic" ones. After all the sky is blue because it is reflecting the ocean right? Its perfectly reasonable to assume so.

How PreColumbian? By definition, that's anything before 1492 isn't it?

As far as I can see, they did invent the afterlife, what earlier specifics exist in written form? Or what evidence supports that? I do not call an OBE an afterlife, I mean when you die you take on a new form, that's what afterlife is isn't it? I Think OBE's are a combination of sleep paralysis and or drugs.

And Norse Mythology began at about 1AD didn't it? That does not predate the Egyptian book of the dead.

From what I can see, the further back you go, the more vague the details be, all we did was sharpen up the idea as we went along.

Before the Europeans arrived, native American's already had well developed spiritualties that include a spirit world, an afterlife, and many other typically spiritual concepts. Just take a native American studies course at your local JC if you want to learn more. Or maybe an religion in anthropology course. I assure you the Egyptians did not create the concept of the after life. Hell even graves of Neanderthals' show evidence that someone left things in their graves for them to use. You may not call on OBE afterlife, but an NDE certainly is an OBE, and at least appears to the person that their consciousness is separate from their bodies. You kinda get that feeling when you see your body laying there. The point wasn't that the nords influenced the native American's and their spirituality, the point was that they did not. There was no recorded contact between Ancient Egyptians and Ancient NA. Plenty of archeological evidence that NA had a deeply spiritual component to their grave sites. Im not sure why you are holding on to this idea about the Egyptians...Maybe. And a big maybe they influenced culture in that part of the world. Not in the Americas before technology could cross the ocean. Certainly not in isolated Polynesian spiritualties.

I guess it was a silly question, because it has no answer does it?

We know how and why we got here physically, evolution has left a fossil record to follow. One wonders if cavemen are in the afterlife? But why would a spirit world exist? No reason. No big bang, no actual place to reside, nothing. We have a reason here and now, we are the conscious matter of the Universe, we are the Universe wondering about itself, we are organic, we know how we come to be, we know how we die, but we have no reason for an afterlife other than it would be really cool.

What I understand is that it's a place like that which has never existed, and where our spirit energies go to when we die, problem is, I do not believe we have a spirit energy, I think a person makes their own spirit, and it defines who we are, not what we are made of, and I believe it dies as part of us. It's our persona, that individualism, the mind. Not another ghost me in a physical me. Why would that be wrong? It is not like I do not understand what people are trying to tell me, it is not because I do not want it to exist, I do more than anything, but I am honest with myself. The only way I can see for one to accept that a spirit world actually exists is to convince oneself is it not?

No we don't!!!!!!!!!!!! We have a body of knowledge that takes us back. We don't know why or how life started!!! If you were a hypothetical "nonliving" scientist that had never encountered life before, with todays understanding of science, you could not predict life. Fossil records and evolution answer part of the how... Not the why. Another kind of dimension would exist, because after many years of science we are started to understand and LOGICALLY deduce that their probably is many other dimensions and even other types of realities, there are even proposed ways to test this empirically, but may have to wait for technology to improve. Something that mystics have been aware of for many years before science started to catch up. You only assume that consciousness is a product of matter without understanding how fully integrated nature could be. Yes..there are many differences in perceptions of such places...but then again their may be many kinds of places. The Big bang was not a bang by the way...current speculation is that it was an intrusion of another dimension, or a mass quantum fluctuation possibly caused by an extremely rare tunneling event. Hmmmm What do you know? We don't know why these things would exist either? You should read "The way of the peaceful Warrior" and Carl Jung's "the undiscovered Self" and remember the terms "foolish jackass" and "Marginalization of the individual."

Yes we are the universe wondering about itself....I agree. But no we do not know why or ultimately even how we came to be.

Its not that your point of view is wrong...its that ultimately it doesn't take into account all the evidence, and more logical leaps need to be made to support a physicalist interpretation.

What do you feel I am missing? From my perspective, all I seem to be missing is willingness to believe blindly?

Its not what you are missing.....Its what everyone is missing. You cannot draw those lines logically. You do not understand how deep ultimate reality goes or how or why fundamental reality manifests this one, nor do I. After speaking with me do you believe I believe blindly? If you do, then research all the NDE threads on this forum, read through my arguments and ask yourself if I have blind faith in this matter? This is of course a part of the physicalist bias in general. A blind unwillingness to look at real evidences simply because of a world view. I am perfectly willing to consider the dyeing brain hypothesis, but ultimately it does not hold up to scrutiny, and is permeated by scienceism and physcalist bias.

[White Crane Feather]

Thanks for the video, that is a good effort.

You know how you say, don't sleep on your back, get plenty of rest, and live a healthy lifestyle.

I get hardly any sleep, always sleep on my back, and eat Junk Food a few times a week at least.

I do not dream, not at all. I wish I did, and I used to as a child, I have not since I was about 17 or 18. I'm in my mid 40's now. Any thoughts on that? I would be genuinely interested to hear them.

I guarantee you dream every single night. You just cant remember them, this is an awareness issue...or maybe you simply sleep well. I wish I could not dream sometimes. Im the other way around. I remember all of them. Only about 40% of people ever have an SP event. if you would like to have an OBE to see for yourself what the commotion is all about, id be happy to help you try. No drugs.... I promise. Just some early mornings and a little meditation.

You know how at the start you say it is different, sometimes it is like another being walking through it, you remind me of the last days of my Father, and the experiences I described earlier, some of those sure sound like an NDE experience, he even claimed to have seen angels a few days before he passed, yet it was surely the product of a brain going out of commission, and recalling many life events....

which reminds me. He had a serious heart operation over 20 years ago, one of the first recipients for a new valve here, when he woke, at first he was entirely lost, he had missed about 30 years of his life, and thought he was a young man back in NSW, he had no idea who I was, it took several hours for him to "come back" to the present day, a bit wierd, but an interesting experience, and I have heard of this more than once. This shows the brain goes back to earlier memories when serious trauma happens, how does that sort of thing not indicate this is all in the brain, and not some sort of spirit world?

That is a very large leap to assume saying its "all in the brain". The brain is certainly a major part of what is happening...but so is your television when you watch a movie

I think you would be very interested in this study. http://www.horizonresearch.org/Uploads/Comfort_for_the_dying_PDF_article.pdf

[White Crane Feather]

What ever happened to the secret things that were stored near the ceiling out of sight from the operating floors that were to be a test to see if anyone ever identified what they were after such an out of body experience?

Its part of the Aware Study. They will not release the results until they have completed the extensive study. But I if you look under publications you can find some interesting study's associated with the subject.

http://www.horizonresearch.org/main_nav_pages.php?cat_id=13

[spartan max2]

I do not dream, not at all. I wish I did, and I used to as a child, I have not since I was about 17 or 18. I'm in my mid 40's now. Any thoughts on that? I would be genuinely interested to hear them.

You can try what I did to get myself to dream. I was talking to someone one time and they said that their psychology professor told them if you repeat to yourself three times before you go to sleep " I will remember my dream". Then when you wake up you will remember your dreams.

It sounds kind of dumb but hey it worked for me. Worked the first night and I continued for a week or two and started remembering like 3 dreams a night, and then I stopped and now I just remember most of my dreams as second nature.

[psyche101]

"May well have"? Do you realize how many lobby vents would have to be connected to hospital rooms? Its only "worthless ambiguous crap" because you were not there, and it was not your family member telling you about the conversation you were having in the lobby when they were in a coma! Its very significant. The problem is that we are dealing with human experiences here. It necessarily has to be filtered by humans, but we have marginalized individual experiences even if they can be corroborated. I can come up with claytons miracles to describe entanglement, the photoelectric effect, or why the Josephson's junction works as well that doesn't speak an iota to truth. An imagination can be used to create "mundane" explanations as well as what you call "exotic" ones. After all the sky is blue because it is reflecting the ocean right? Its perfectly reasonable to assume so.

I do not feel I marginalised anything, I see that all vents are connected, they end up at a central handling unit, which blows air in every direction, and could carry sound. I feel where a prosaic explanation can exist, it should take precedence. It strikes me that a physical thing we know can happen is more likely that something we do not understand or can adequately explain.

I could say to an extent I have witnessed such first hand, when my wife's mother was very near death due to an aneurysm that had burst during the night, we got a visit from Police as she lived quite some way away, and we had just finished building our house, and just moved into yet, and had no phones. We jumped in the car, and raced to the Hospital - about a 2 hour drive, only to find as we approached the town, only ten or so minutes from the Hospital, she passed, we missed her by minutes.

Now the people in the room with her when she went said the a dove had been sitting on her window all morning. And as we hit the town outskirts, they say somehow the dove let her know this, so she let go, and as she took her last breath the dove flew off.

Personally, I think that it was more likely a Pigeon, as many of them frequent the hospital in hope of scarps, and that more likely, something like sunlight was more the reason the bird sat there for a certain amount of time, however, the family members thought some spiritual rubbish was going on, when all I could see was a roomful of people looking for any coincidence they could to deal with the grief, and accept while gone, she was still in existence. Of course I did not say Boo, I am not about interfering with how people deal with a situation, but it was clearly as I described above, "worthless ambiguous crap" that people had convinced themselves was so much more.

My sisters used to frequent the psychic fairs here too. That is just a gathering of charlatans, and people with personal problems. Nothing mystical there whatsoever. My little sister spent some time with the RAAF, and has grown out of her mystical outlook.

Before the Europeans arrived, native American's already had well developed spiritualties that include a spirit world, an afterlife, and many other typically spiritual concepts. Just take a native American studies course at your local JC if you want to learn more. Or maybe an religion in anthropology course. I assure you the Egyptians did not create the concept of the after life. Hell even graves of Neanderthals' show evidence that someone left things in their graves for them to use. You may not call on OBE afterlife, but an NDE certainly is an OBE, and at least appears to the person that their consciousness is separate from their bodies. You kinda get that feeling when you see your body laying there. The point wasn't that the nords influenced the native American's and their spirituality, the point was that they did not. There was no recorded contact between Ancient Egyptians and Ancient NA. Plenty of archeological evidence that NA had a deeply spiritual component to their grave sites. Im not sure why you are holding on to this idea about the Egyptians...Maybe. And a big maybe they influenced culture in that part of the world. Not in the Americas before technology could cross the ocean. Certainly not in isolated Polynesian spiritualties.

Whilst I feel you suggestion is a very good one, I do not have the time to take additional courses right now, I am an engineer with a high pressure job, and am already doing a course myself that will complete mid next year.

But if I could ask you to point me at any concise sources I would appreciate it. There is no writings from the times of the Neanderthal., and their cave art is well known so nothing can confirm they believed in an afterlife, being a different species, they may well have had an entirely different concept for death. It just seems to me that any literal interpretations from that time period would require some specific, and convincing evidence none of which I am aware exists.

I can see how an OBE could influence an afterlife ideal, but I do not feel they are connected more than that. Could I ask you to point at these extremely early examples that specifically note an afterlife? As I said, I feel the concept goes back to tales of Gilgamesh, but I think the Egyptians refined the Concept into an actual place that we can envisage, and made up the rite of passage. They gave us the guidelines and the rules, which only seems to be adapted to certain cultures.

How do you figure ancient culture managed to attain more knowledge than the modern world with regards to a subject like this? Remember, these are the guys that saw Lightning, and said, well, that's not something we do, must be a massive invincible man throwing those powerful explosive spears. Why would an afterlife be more accurate than that?

No we don't!!!!!!!!!!!! We have a body of knowledge that takes us back. We don't know why or how life started!!! If you were a hypothetical "nonliving" scientist that had never encountered life before, with todays understanding of science, you could not predict life. Fossil records and evolution answer part of the how... Not the why.

You are talking about the spark that initiated life, I am not, I am talking about the rise of man over the last 6 million or so years. We do know why we evolved, we do know how we evolved. We do not have a need for an afterlife to exist.

You hypothetical scientist is confusing, because in that scenario, nothing can be predicted as there is nothing to work with and never will be, we are not bound by any such restriction.

Another kind of dimension would exist, because after many years of science we are started to understand and LOGICALLY deduce that their probably is many other dimensions and even other types of realities, there are even proposed ways to test this empirically, but may have to wait for technology to improve.

They are not new worlds and new realms as in science fiction though, they are new directions, new ways we can move. And in the same place. String predicts more dimensions, but Science Fiction has put something of a weird spin on it, and I am not sure if people really grasp dimensions. I found the short series "The Elegant Universe" a very good introduction into dimensions.

Something that mystics have been aware of for many years before science started to catch up.

I am honestly not convinced that is the case. It seems to me that anyone who has been embellishing tales of the dead could easily shoehorn them into the dimensions predicted by string theory based on science fiction models of the physical realities.

You only assume that consciousness is a product of matter without understanding how fully integrated nature could be.

Yes I am, I am hoping someone like you can help me fathom more, it is becoming quite apparent that you are not the average kook, and know your subject well, I appreciate that, but with the entire field relying so heavily on mysticism, it takes more than say so, and it seems that is all that is available.

Yes..there are many differences in perceptions of such places...but then again their may be many kinds of places. The Big bang was not a bang by the way...current speculation is that it was an intrusion of another dimension, or a mass quantum fluctuation possibly caused by an extremely rare tunneling event. Hmmmm What do you know? We don't know why these things would exist either? You should read "The way of the peaceful Warrior" and Carl Jung's "the undiscovered Self" and remember the terms "foolish jackass" and "Marginalization of the individual."

Perceptions: - I think that's where you hit the nail on the head.

Indeed, and another claims says the Universe crystallised into Ice to from the beginning. There are many, but the big bang theory os the best supported still. LINK - Big Bang Was Actually a Phase Change, New Theory Says

Yet how could the Universe being born from another dimension have anything to do with an afterlife? We are still the end product of this dimension.

Yes we are the universe wondering about itself....I agree. But no we do not know why or ultimately even how we came to be.

Indeed, but we are part of that which we see, and all other matter in the Universe is recycled, why would our intelligence be special enough to do more than the rest of the Universe?

Its not that your point of view is wrong...its that ultimately it doesn't take into account all the evidence, and more logical leaps need to be made to support a physicalist interpretation.

I am not good with leaps of faith, I admit. But is not all the evidence regarding an afterlife faith based?

Its not what you are missing.....Its what everyone is missing. You cannot draw those lines logically. You do not understand how deep ultimate reality goes or how or why fundamental reality manifests this one, nor do I. After speaking with me do you believe I believe blindly? If you do, then research all the NDE threads on this forum, read through my arguments and ask yourself if I have blind faith in this matter? This is of course a part of the physicalist bias in general. A blind unwillingness to look at real evidences simply because of a world view. I am perfectly willing to consider the dyeing brain hypothesis, but ultimately it does not hold up to scrutiny, and is permeated by scienceism and physcalist bias.

But why can we draw logical conclusions that lead to a clinical death?

After speaking with you, I have to admit, my respect for you has grown immensely, which normally does not happen with people who support fringe ideals, you are a cut above the average bear, I'll give you that for sure. But I still feel your evidence requires a giant leap of faith, I am bewildered by what you might consider "solid" evidence for an afterlife, but find I can resolve that which the OP presents quite likely and logical.

So you do feel it is quite possible that we do just die as well as possible we might not?

Edited December 6, 2013 by psyche101

[psyche101]

I guarantee you dream every single night. You just cant remember them, this is an awareness issue...or maybe you simply sleep well. I wish I could not dream sometimes. Im the other way around. I remember all of them. Only about 40% of people ever have an SP event. if you would like to have an OBE to see for yourself what the commotion is all about, id be happy to help you try. No drugs.... I promise. Just some early mornings and a little meditation.

But for 25 years + straight?

I have many early mornings, but usually long days, I would like to try what works for others to experience it for myself, as with many other so called metaphysical experiences, I find they tend to let me down as one has to do all the work, including imagine that what is happening to them is special. I do not mean that in a derogatory way, but people make certain interpretations that seem very much personal to me, and from an outside perspective do not seem mystical at all, to see something like that for myself, and be convinced it is more than mundane would be quite an amazing thing for me.

That is a very large leap to assume saying its "all in the brain". The brain is certainly a major part of what is happening...but so is your television when you watch a movie

I think you would be very interested in this study. http://www.horizonre...PDF_article.pdf

But a movie does not sit in the TV, when the brain starts to falter as with Dementia or Alzheimers. or even great shock like a very serious operation, very often, regressive memory is one of the first and most apparent effects, as I said, my father lost decades in one operation that slowly came back over the period of 24 hours, I do not see how that much is not in the brain, but similar life flashing events are regularly recoded in NDE's. The movie is always in the brain, unlike the TV.

Considering that surgery trauma results in this, how is so different from that described in an NDE?

Thank you for the link, that is exactly the sort of thing I am looking for, I will let you know how I go with it.

Edited December 6, 2013 by psyche101