Nde's

[Guest aldous]

I always noticed something fishy here.. When people have NDE's and see their grandmother ethel beackoning them toward the light, at what point in her life is her appearance then? Is it the time of death? I hope she had a peaceful death then, or it might be easy to confuse heaven with hell. Seriously, this is just one little incongruity that reinforces my belief your brain is simply trying to make sense of random neural firing gooky stuff. The 'tunnel effect' is present because it mirrors the layout density of the visual cortex. If your neurons start firing semi-randomly, the place where they are most dense (the fovea) seems to be the brightest because there are the most neurons there. It's tunnel vision in pure. Have you ever closed your eyes after accidentally taking one too many tablespoonfuls of NyQuil? Same effect. Bright in the middle, random appearences around the edges. Actually, psychedelic chemicals are said to mimic random neural firing that occurs in death and even in some healthy dreams, and those that affect the visual cortex usually produce similar effects.

[pandora]

A thought just occurred to me...maybe it's supposed to be God's sperm?

That's fucked up.

[Guest Howard Pepper]

So on tuesday a show will be on tv called. 'Is Their Life After Death'. So ill watch it, but its a subject i touched on before my departure from Christianity. I was looking for a more 'love' approach to christianity i.e 'Universalist'. Anyway i read up on NDES and i couldnt figure out why they all varied so much. Most were about love, but some were negative 'hell' and other confirming the Christian beleifs. So did anyone do somer esearch on NDES and can anybody show me conclucions they have made, maybe with some supporting evidence. People like to beleive their is life after death that is of what we percieve as love. That is why i beleive people need/want religion.

 

http://www.nbc10.com/news/3253894/detail.html

 

I dont mind if theirs life after death, so as long as it isnt inline with the whole 'hell, punishment and doom' thing.

 

Hi Matt,

 

As you probably can tell by now, with the variety of responses I see you've gotten already, the NDE phenomenon is very complex, and elicits many conclusions. If a person hasn't studied it fairly extensively, I wouldn't put a lot of stock in their opinion. It's related to a number of issues of neurology, consciousness, and spirit (perhaps--I think likely). In evaluating it, one needs to read enough that one gets a sense of the various aspects of it: what triggers it, the variety of experiences and what they may represent (certainly not a universal, concrete reality, but not necessarily illusion or non-reality either), how it differs from other states like dreaming, etc.

 

There are verifiable evidences that the person/soul, at least in many cases, either is "outside" the body, or at least is tuned into extraordinary perceptive powers. At the least they demonstrate the "nonlocality" that is also well documented by physics and by the "remote viewing" phenomenon. I've read the female British physician's (I think it's Dr. Blackwell or something similar) attempts to classify it purely internal brain phenomena, before complete death (she's generally recognized as a leading expert on it). I find that she, among others, does not speak adequately to all aspects of it, by any means.

 

A couple of the best sources I've found are the classic by Kenneth Ring, Ph.D. (I forget the title right now) and one by another great author, PMH Atwater: "Beyond the Light: What Isn't Being Said About the Near Death Experience" (1994). These are both very worth reading, as of course is the "father" of the modern study of it, Dr. Raymond Moody. And there are other physicians, etc. with careful, thoughtful studies from many cases in their practices, or others.

 

Before one reaches solid conclusions on what may be going on with NDE's it's important to read, as in Ring's book, and I think Atwater's also, a fair amount about the long-term effects on those who have them. They are quite consistently positive, often very powerfully so, even in those who have had the frightening "hellish" experiences, and those who'd attemped suicide. Still, some NDE experiencers do attempt or succeed in subsequent suicide attempts, so there's nothing absolute about NDE's. One general observation re. religion is that, while preceding beliefs are often (far from always) seemingly validated, overall, people tend to soften on dogmatism, and become more accepting and broadly loving, often "universalistic."

 

Blessings,

Howard