Hard To Write Off Ndes

[decafaholic]

As someone who is terrified of death, I LOVE hearing about NDE's. A few years ago when I was having a lot of anxiety about death, I checked out a few books with data about people who experienced near-death experiences and combed through some websites. One statistic that comforts me still, is a very high percentage of people who reported NDE's affirmed afterward that they no longer fear death.

 

Also, very few of the NDE's were negative. The vast majority were positive experiences. I think it's a wonderful thing to not fear death. Knowing that people who have come so close can come back and say it's not so bad after all makes me feel like maybe death won't be so bad. My attitude is "Who cares if you can't empirically prove whether it's real or not? To those people, it was real and it greatly improved their lives."

[florduh]

I say again, near death is not death. Whatever perceptions, hallucinations or "profound" feelings one may have due to a variety of physiological/psychological conditions, none have anything to do with actually being dead.

[Guest Furball]

I have heard the brain stays active for a few minutes time even though the body is lifeless. Since there are countless stories that all vary, i believe it's just the brain going through weird stuff. LIke people can be unconscious during sleep but still dream. I think that's all that is happening.

[Leo]

I've had sleep paralysis before. It's not pleasant. As a Pentecostal Xtian, even not so Pentecostal, I misinterpreted these as being spiritual attacks. The reason they are unpleasant is your body is trying to wake itself up, so it dreams of something disturbing to try and get out of that state. Plus, being paralyzed induces panic. That's why the heart beats terribly. Instances have gone way down since starting on my sleep apnea treatment 11 years ago.

Interestigly, most NDE's are very visual. People seeing what's behind them, floating, etc. I have to say that the sensation of floating or spinning out of control I never felt like distance from my body -- you feel with your body, if that makes sense. I mean, you see with your body too, which most don't realize. But anyhow, those were never pleasant. I never made the connection to what people call out of body experience before, I think because if you're operating by feel and by sound only, you have a sort of orientation to your body, feeling like your body itself is tilting or spinning out of control. I could see how visually someone could have the illusion that they were seeing things, like MyMistake was saying, based on subconscious memory.

Also, waking up after a seizure can do this sort of stuff to you, seeing hellish things, very unpleasant, it's not real though it's a product of the mind. Or rather, the electrical disturbance in the brain. I now wonder if a lot of the horrible thigs I saw in dreams as a kid were due to either sleep paralysis or mild seizure activities, something neither I nor anyone responsible for me would have never had the ability to realize without some sophisticated equipment.

I know the Christians carry on and on against new agers doing the out of body experiences, and the new agers carry on and on about their out of body experiences. But deep down, I never really understood either, because as someone who can't see, you can get tactile illusions, and of course more profound auditory illusions, even olfactory ones. But your "body" in that event is always "with you", as it were. Never had the idea of a bright light or a tunnel or racing away from my body. If I was trying to right myself from spinning out of control, during what I know now to be sleep paralysis, I was literally trying to right my body.

I may be a bit of an answer for some on here who still wonder about this, because if there is a "soul", then it should be capable of "sight" the way you experience it, 3-D visual perception based upon light and shadows. But I have no such experience, even though I visualize the world in 3D like you do. -- There's nothing at all wrong with my visual centers of the brain, and science under Functional MRI tests shows that blind people's visual centers light up just like yours do. I just have no optic nerves, and so no memories of sight at all.

If you read about blind people with NDE's where they can see, just remember blindness is not binary. If you see so much as a speck of light, you are miles ahead of me in the visual department. And if someone has seen that light just as a young child or even a baby, it's likely to have modified their perception.

The more I've come to understand about myself and my prior misconceptions, and the ways in which neither I nor anyone looking after me as a child could have possibly understood this stuff, I am on board more and more with Mymistake. This is not some kind of dogma, as is often pitched at us rationalists. To anyone who wants to argue for NDE's or OBE's, I invite you to explain for me how it is I have never seen a thing during these alleged "out of body" experiences. if "souls" or "consciousnesses" have "sight," some kind of disembodied platform-agnostic software, then it stands to reason that removed or unplugged from the "defective" hardware the "sight" part of the software would light right up like a Christmas tree. But instead, every experience of spinning or being whipped around, or anything unpleasant like that, was always heard and felt, never outside the body.

In fact, when I dream, I dream actively. Running down the beach? I feel the wind in my hair, the sand under my feet, and hear the roar of the ocean / the call of the seagulls. People talk about watching themselves in dreams? I have never done that. I have always been an active participant. The only exceptions are when I am standing in a crowd and watching something happen, the same way that I watch things happen when I'm awake.

I think I now finally understand what both the Christians and the new agers have been talking about for years. I don't buy either side, but I understand it now. Visual virtual reality just needs an optical illusion. You can even be made seasick this way. Auditory illusions, with headphones on, can do a really good job for having fun, can even disorient to some extent. I have a Nature Space app which has a river scene. It sounds like you're on a spinning boat, turning very slowly, the sound pans around you and the direction of the motor moves in a fluid, natural motion. It's really a weird, though not unpleasant, experience.

As someone who has awakened after several grand mall seizures in my time, I can say that I completely get what people are saying with the hell experiences. It's a storm, and it's not fun at all. You do feel out of sorts with yourself when you wake up. Disconnected, I should say. Not panicked like when experiencing sleep paralysis. Although I will say now that understanding it is sleep paralysis has done something in my brain that I don't fully understand: I now don't feel as panicked in that situation anymore because I understand it, so it's more like an effort to climb out of a sand pit than anything else. I guess they're right when they say if you don't know, your mind fills in the gaps. I don't have hellish scenery anymore with the sleep paralysis, the times I've had it. I get goose bumps during it, but that's about it.

Anyway none of this is trauma like the near death experiences. But it is difficult stuff, stuff as a kid I lacked the words to even explain to anyone, and as an adult, I simply had the wrong ideas about for years.

So, I'm merely left with the notion it's possible they have the wrong impression of what's happening. But I'm not like some other skeptics out there that dismiss the xperience. Hell yes, the xperiences are real! They're just not really what you or I thought they were. An electrical storm in the brain, or lack of oxygen / the brain still keeping the body paralyzed during sleep, things like that sound a lot more plausible when you apply Occam's Razor.

[midniterider]

To anyone who wants to argue for NDE's or OBE's, I invite you to explain for me how it is I have never seen a thing during these alleged "out of body" experiences. if "souls" or "consciousnesses" have "sight," some kind of disembodied platform-agnostic software, then it stands to reason that removed or unplugged from the "defective" hardware the "sight" part of the software would light right up like a Christmas tree. But instead, every experience of spinning or being whipped around, or anything unpleasant like that, was always heard and felt, never outside the body.

 

I now and then have short OBE's where I fall thru the bed. I dont usually see anything visually  when this happens. Nor am I visually impaired in waking life. But I do have visual dreams. Maybe the assumption that souls must have vision is false. Maybe souls dont have vision all the time. Maybe OBEs and NDEs are hallucinations... How often do we hallucinate but aren't aware of it? Have you ever had a weird experience that only affected one minor item but left everything else in tact. And later you're like WTF! lol (I have no history of hallucenogenics either...then again, maybe the drugs erased those memories..muhahaha). :-)

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/

 

(for fun)

[♦ ficino ♦]

One of my former students while still in high school had taken the wrong combo of drugs and drink, and she had a near death experience.  She was basically comatose in someone's bedroom at a party.  She "saw" a tunnel of light leading upwards and felt the sense of how inviting it would be to just float up the tunnel.

 

Somehow, she knew it was or represented death.  And she thought of how her mother, her family, her friends would miss her, and how she loved them.  So she "made" herself focus on "coming back."

 

After a while, some other kids found her.

 

She regards this as an NDE.  She thinks her heartbeat and breathing were way down, but blood never stopped flowing to the brain.  She does not hold that her soul was being separated from the body;  she thinks her experience was all brain-centered.

 

She came out of it with the conviction that it is love that holds us to this world.

[Joshpantera]

There's even stranger cases like the Russian who was dead in the morgue but came back to life: http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence10.html#a01

 

 

 

Reverend George Rodonaia (died October 12, 2004) underwent one of the most extended cases of a near-death experience ever recorded. Pronounced dead immediately after he was hit by a car in 1976, he was left for three days in the morgue. He did not "return to life" until a doctor began to make an incision in his abdomen as part of an autopsy procedure. Prior to his NDE he worked as a neuropathologist. He was also an avowed atheist. Yet after the experience, he devoted himself exclusively to the study of spirituality, taking a second doctorate in the psychology of religion. He then became an ordained priest in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He served as a pastor at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Baytown, Texas. Reverend Rodonaia is one of the NDE experiencers profiled on this page who was dead for days during his NDE.

 

 

I saw a TV show about extreme cases of NDE. His experiences are more readily viewed as pro-New Age than pro-Christian, although he interpreted this in the only sense he seemed to understand as either atheist with no explanation for the experience or as theist, and if theist then Christian. So he joined the Eastern Orthodoxy which is probably the only outlet he saw as fitting. But if you read his experience it sounds more Panentheistic and Primacy of Consciousness oriented than it does Christian. In fact many things he had to say would be considered down right heretical to Christianity. 

 

'God is all of existence, light and darkness'

 

'Everything is one'

 

I'm not sure how he got away with talking like this? 

[bleedblue22]

The truth is the content of the vast majority of NDEs contradict traditional Christian doctrine regarding the afterlife. Yet Christians continue to cite NDEs as evidence for Christianity by selectively choosing a tiny section of experiences which follow their preferred doctrine and ignore all the rest.

[bleedblue22]

People who have these experiences tend to drift towards spirituality rather than organized religion

[Guest Furball]

The truth is the content of the vast majority of NDEs contradict traditional Christian doctrine regarding the afterlife. Yet Christians continue to cite NDEs as evidence for Christianity by selectively choosing a tiny section of experiences which follow their preferred doctrine and ignore all the rest.

Yes, these stories completely contradict what scripture tells us. Great truthful post-peace

[Guest Furball]

There's even stranger cases like the Russian who was dead in the morgue but came back to life: http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence10.html#a01

 

 

 

Reverend George Rodonaia (died October 12, 2004) underwent one of the most extended cases of a near-death experience ever recorded. Pronounced dead immediately after he was hit by a car in 1976, he was left for three days in the morgue. He did not "return to life" until a doctor began to make an incision in his abdomen as part of an autopsy procedure. Prior to his NDE he worked as a neuropathologist. He was also an avowed atheist. Yet after the experience, he devoted himself exclusively to the study of spirituality, taking a second doctorate in the psychology of religion. He then became an ordained priest in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He served as a pastor at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Baytown, Texas. Reverend Rodonaia is one of the NDE experiencers profiled on this page who was dead for days during his NDE.

 

 

I saw a TV show about extreme cases of NDE. His experiences are more readily viewed as pro-New Age than pro-Christian, although he interpreted this in the only sense he seemed to understand as either atheist with no explanation for the experience or as theist, and if theist then Christian. So he joined the Eastern Orthodoxy which is probably the only outlet he saw as fitting. But if you read his experience it sounds more Panentheistic and Primacy of Consciousness oriented than it does Christian. In fact many things he had to say would be considered down right heretical to Christianity. 

 

'God is all of existence, light and darkness'

 

'Everything is one'

 

I'm not sure how he got away with talking like this? 

A strange but interesting story. Thank you for posting it joshpantera.

[Leo]

Interesting story, Joshpantera.

 

Some panentheists, and certainly some 'hard' atheists, will probably disagree with me. But I think there may be some considerable overlap, or at least common ground, between atheism and panentheism, so far as I understand panentheism. I don't mean dogmatic atheism, where one must never deign to take a supplement or meditate or have some other kind of spiritual type experience, but more what the daughter calls 'soft atheism.' I admit I fall into the 'soft' category for the same reasons the Christians called me a double-minded Christian. While I can't really comprehend woo, I can't settle with dogma either.

 

But I still say the hellish experiences can be very easily explained. have a seizure, what they call the grand mall, and then you'll know. Actually, don't: not fun. Or sleep paralysis. Both will give you hellish images: the sleep paralysis is trying to make you wake up, and the seizure, you just had a major electrical storm and now feel totally disconnected, not in a wooey way like so many talk about either.

 

BTW I've heard Christians for years discount the NDE's for the same skeptical reasoning, because you haven't actually been dead. And of course, most NDE's don't match a Biblical account of what a heaven is supposed to be like. Of course, neither did a dream I had about an uncle who had committed suicide. Mine is pretty explainable as me having been concerned for a cousin of mine deeply affected by his death, but the dream was not at all in line with a Biblical account. A Christian who wasn't connected to the family situation would probably have called it heresy, something I wondered about from the beginning.

 

Anyway just a few more thoughts.

[Joshpantera]

Hey Leo, this overlap you speak of may be Natural Pantheism which is where I reside. 

 

anti-theism > atheism > pantheism (natural) (supernatural)< panentheism < theisms

 

Natural Pantheism is spiritual, but naturalistic. Crossing over to panentheism we find belief in the supernatural and it runs through the poly, mono, and deism's. Natural Pantheism is the bridge between atheism and theism. And it's a lack of positive belief of the mythological Gods, and so qualifies as soft atheism or what we've been calling agnostic atheism around here recently. We're probably of a similar mind set, you and I. 

 

This story is very interesting because he was pronounced dead. His heart must have been beating so slow so as not to make any detection and he must have appeared brain dead too. How else was he tossed in the morgue? And for three days, no apparent breathing. The doctors go to perform an autopsy on what looks and appears as a lifeless body, not breathing, and cut into it. At that point he struggled for breathe and claims that he felt his collapsed lungs trying to fill with air! That was discussed on the TV program when it first aired. We're to assume that he must of been alive, near death but not totally dead for a three day period. That to me is more amazing than the bit about out of body experience. Life persisting with little to no heart beat, not breathing, and yet dreaming up all sorts of fantasy in this condition. How did the brain receive oxygen with collapsed lungs? The whole things is really strange to consider. 

 

The flip side is that he was really dead.

 

And rather than going off to Christian heaven or blanking out of existence entirely, his mind rejoined eternal consciousness which would be the consciousness of existence itself, the consciousness of nature which is all of the light and darkness as a collective whole.

 

That seems as off beat as Christianity or any other woo, but what he described is what you would expect if indeed consciousness is primary and exists from the sub atom right on through. He spoke of seeing atoms and particles darting around. I've researched a lot of mind oriented material and the general idea is that conscious may go all the way down. Particles with a faint and primitive type of consciousness of their surrounding particles through information and energy exchange. Real basic seeds of awareness that can later intensify with the evolution of living matter. His description is strangely similar to what you'd expect in this type of scenario where "all is mind."

 

But perhaps as a learned individual he knew all of this speculation about consciousness before hand, which, played into his fantasy while in the near death state that lasted 3 days? Who knows? 

 

The whole thing is amazing on many levels though....

[mymistake]

How is this for writing off NDEs?  Making up a story is a great way to make money.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/01/15/boy-who-came-back-from-heaven-going-back-to-publisher/

 

 

Earlier this week, Alex recanted his testimony about the afterlife. In an open letter to Christian bookstores posted on the Pulpit and Pen Web site, Alex states flatly: “I did not die. I did not go to Heaven.”

[RedStar]

The human brain is a very interesting thing. I've experienced sleep paralysis numerous times, but there was only one experience I had where I thought I heard and saw something. It was a while after I'd the The Passion Of The Christ, I was 14 and was pretty deeply impacted by it a the time. I woke up in a state of sleep paralysis one morning and heard someone walking toward my door. At first I thought it was my mother coming to get me up for school but the footsteps were too slow for that.

 

I couldn't move but I was able to get one eye open. A person walked into the doorway and stared at me, it look similar to the person who played Satan in the movie. In my fright I tried to move and came out of the paralysis. The whole experience seemed so real but it wasn't. The human mind is a very powerful thing. I've also noticed that my dreams have much more detail than my imagination does.

 

While awake when I imagine things there's not much detail, but sometimes when I dream there's a lot of detail and things I can't or don't think of when conscious. Sometimes I have really vivid dreams where I touch someone and it's like I can actually feel it, I don't hav those dreams often but they stick in my memory when I do have them. I think we sometimes underestimate what our minds are really capable of which could be why people think they're experiencing the afterlife when having an NDE.

[JadedAtheist]

I had sleep paralysis once on the night I became a Christian. I felt like I was stuck in my bed and the devil was trying to harm me. Eventually I was able to speak and called upon Jesus to vanquish him sort of a thing. The room became still and the devil's presence left. That was as real to me as anything that's happened to me in actuality. With that experience in mind, I find it hard to take NDEs too seriously. The human brain is amazing in what it can produce, and I have no doubt that NDEs are just the result of the mind playing tricks.

[Guest Furball]

I had sleep paralysis once on the night I became a Christian. I felt like I was stuck in my bed and the devil was trying to harm me. Eventually I was able to speak and called upon Jesus to vanquish him sort of a thing. The room became still and the devil's presence left. That was as real to me as anything that's happened to me in actuality. With that experience in mind, I find it hard to take NDEs too seriously. The human brain is amazing in what it can produce, and I have no doubt that NDEs are just the result of the mind playing tricks.

I have a had the exact same experience. I had sleep paralysis and felt like multiple demons were trying to drag me down to hell. I struggled to say the words "jesus is lord", but when i was finally able to say that, the demons left and let go of me and i woke up. 

[Lucy]

I experienced some bad sleep paralysis. I saw a shadowy female figure sitting on my chest, holding me down, trying to choke me. It feels like some vague evil presence in the room lingering.

 

I didn't know what to think about it. It happened pretty regularly. Mom thought it was a demon.

 

I figured out when I sleep on my side it doesn't happen. Apparently evil demons can't attack you in certain sleeping positions. Ha!

[Guest Furball]

Weird lucy. The brain sure comes up with some odd stuff when we're asleep.

[bleedblue22]

Certain NDE groups have begun to form where people discuss their experiences. I was initially interested in what they had to say as they seemed to have an understanding of higher reality beyond religious dogma, but so much of what they talk about is blatant woo. It's the kind of stuff you hear new agers talking about where all religions are somehow true (logically contradictory) and all this psychic power and ability to supernaturally heal people is discussed. If these people do in fact come back with paranormal powers, why doesn't a single scientific test vindicate them? They talk like it is given that psychic powers are real and they swallow the most outlandish claims without evidence. The lack of critical thinking makes it unbearable

[midniterider]

I experienced some bad sleep paralysis. I saw a shadowy female figure sitting on my chest, holding me down, trying to choke me. It feels like some vague evil presence in the room lingering.

 

I didn't know what to think about it. It happened pretty regularly. Mom thought it was a demon.

 

I figured out when I sleep on my side it doesn't happen. Apparently evil demons can't attack you in certain sleeping positions. Ha!

 

Back-sleeper demons.

[FreeThinkerNZ]

 

 

 

That isn't going to convince me souls are real.  The subconscious mind often withholds information from our perception.  I believe your statement accurately describes what you experienced but to me it sounds like another example of the human mind playing tricks.

 

 

If the mind plays tricks then how can it be trusted to make accurate scientific observations?

 

 

Because the observations are made using instruments, and when they are not made this way, the independently acquired observations of several people are compared with each other.  The statistical probability of several people (truly) independently making the same observations is remote.

[♦ ficino ♦]

I gather that stories of resurrections, and of heavenly journeys out of the body, are widespread in certain Christian circles.

[mymistake]

I gather that stories of resurrections, and of heavenly journeys out of the body, are widespread in certain Christian circles.

 

 

In the original Christian circle, as well.

[midniterider]

 

 

 

 

That isn't going to convince me souls are real.  The subconscious mind often withholds information from our perception.  I believe your statement accurately describes what you experienced but to me it sounds like another example of the human mind playing tricks.

 

 

If the mind plays tricks then how can it be trusted to make accurate scientific observations?

 

 

Because the observations are made using instruments, and when they are not made this way, the independently acquired observations of several people are compared with each other.  The statistical probability of several people (truly) independently making the same observations is remote.

 

 

I knew someone was going  to bring up scientific instrumentation...darn it. :-)  Alright then, you win.