Near-Death Experiences - links to medical findings.

[Joe Chi Minh]

A secular "fundy" asked me, a while back, for a link to the medical findings I mentioned concerning Near-Death Experiences". Well, here is a link to a host of accounts relating to them.

http://www.near-death.com/evidence.html#a1

[MistressOverdone]

1. Did you forget the link?

[Joe Chi Minh]

12. Hi. Yes, I did. Sorry abut that. It's more patchy than I'd realised.

Much of it doesn't impress me a lot, to be honest. But I recognised the name of the British neuropsychiattst, Dr Peter Fenwick.

Article #11 concerns his findings. I first came to know about him through a cable programme, in which much more detail about the patient, Pam Reynolds was given than appears in the article. However, I see that, the first link in Article # 1 concerns her case (which he commented upon in the cable programme, and it looks like it give much more details. too late at night for me now.

I suspect there'll be one about the American Wall Street high-flyer type, whose life was turned around. Must look for it tomorrow.

[Sydnie]

2. sounds interesting to me

but, did you forget something? ;)

[Cleita]

Is this the website you are referring to?

http://www.near-death.com/index.html

[Joe Chi Minh]

13. Yes, I see that it is.

[nebenaube]

3. hypnogogic phenomena...

call it angels, guardian spirits, near-death, out of body or alien abduction... it's all just a misfire in the brain circuity that supports switching from NREM sleep to REM sleep.

[FlaGranny]

6. I have obstructive sleep apnea and

have actually had hypnogogic experiences that took place before I was diagnosed and treated. Very strange things happen in your brain when you are sleep deprived. One time as I was sitting on the sofa nodding off, I was hit head on by a semi trailer. I was always falling into chasms, too. A couple of times I woke up with sleep paralysis. That was frightening. I never saw any aliens though in any of these events. I imagine it is possible to imagine them, because I absolutely know there was no semi in my living room so I obviouisly had to imagine it.

[soothsayer]

10. Could it have been a past life? Just sayin?

[FlaGranny]

24. Hmmmm. That would have been

one HELL of a past life. ;-)

[MistressOverdone]

26. Sounds rather

like the DT's.

[FlaGranny]

35. I don't know. Never had DT's.

But DT's give you hallucinations while awake. Hypnogogic hallucinations happen when you're asleep or falling asleep. If ya read up on the symptoms of prolonged sleep deprivation and/or sleep apnea - it pretty much fits that picture.

[MistressOverdone]

41. I haven't had them

but have observed them. I have a family member who has them regularly and "has parties" with the elves that come out of the wallpaper.

[FlaGranny]

47. Yikes! Reminds me of my

mom, just before her death. She was 94 and had cancer and was on pain meds and such. About a week before her death, she started "seeing" things crawling on the walls. She wasn't frightened by them. She actually thought they were amusing. I told her it was probably "shadows" and she accepted that. She was a sweetheart and completely mentally alert up to that point.

[nebenaube]

55. DT's are an example of acute physiological stress... n/t

[Stuckinthebush]

39. Me too...man eating sleep apnea

At least that's what the sleep doc said. I stopped breathing 88 times every hour. I experienced some of the same phenomena due to lack of REM sleep I guess.

Strange stuff!

[kdpeters]

45. Me too

I've had visitors in my room and paralysis. Sometimes it's frightening and sometimes I can remind myself that I'll probably be waking up soon and just wait it out.

[nebenaube]

52. You nailed it... sleep deprivation...

The interpretation offered by anyone who experiences this phenomena is totally dependent on the constructs of his/her belief system. It also occurs with narcolepsy, insomnia, stimulant abuse and extream but acute stress.

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. If only Dr Peter Fenwick had had the benefit of your wisdom, he could

saved himself probably more than a decade of medical studies. You'd better tell him and put him out of his misery fast.

[nebenaube]

53. yep... I studied it for a decade too

Why don't you invite him here and I'll debate him all night.

[cool user name]

23. You didn't read everything at the link n/t

[nebenaube]

54. didn't need to...

This phenomena has been exploited by every huckster since the beginning of time. We have the capacity to hallucinate. Period. There are many paths to hallucination and sleep deprivation is the main course, followed closely by fasting, oh and then there's the various psychoative substances around us. Have you ever had a nutmeg in your nog?

[ret5hd]

4. So, let me get this straight...

Man can scarcely make sense of (much less truly understand) his own mind when the body/brain is functioning 100% correctly...yet we should take seriously that which is experienced at/near death? okey dokey.

edit: typo

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. Smart kid. You'll go far.

[lonestarnot]

5. Are you having one of those experiences?

[Connie_Corleone]

7. Your link seems to have floated away.

[bananas]

9. Maybe it will reincarnate in another thread. nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Secular fundy?

WTF?

[Joe Chi Minh]

15. You gadit!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1599503,00.html

[trotsky]

28. "Secular fundy" = made-up term for those who ask for evidence.

REAL evidence, not the speculative anecdotal crap that is passed off as evidence for NDEs.

[Orrex]

48. There you go with your "Reality Based Community" again

When will you ever learn?

[conscious evolution]

11. A Relative of NDE's

can be found during DMT trips.
A DR. Rick Wassman of the University of New Mexico did a study on DMT and it's effects.One of the things he discovered was that the observations from his test 'subjects' displayed similarities with NDE's and,get this,alien abduction stories.
DMT,by the way,is a natural secretion of the pineal gland in the human brain.

Here is a link to his website: http://www.rickstrassman.com/

Also,as a person who has actually had a NDE experience,along with a trip on dmt myself,I can say that ,while differant in some ways,they were also extremely similar.The 'launch' part was identicle.The difference was where I ended up on 'arrival'.

[Joe Chi Minh]

17. You may find # 12 interesting then. Aldous Huxley used Mescalin.

[Zhade]

43. And boys and girls, what does that gland do? Helps regulate sleep!

From wiki:

The pineal gland was originally believed to be a "vestigial remnant" of a larger organ (much as the appendix was thought to be a vestigial digestive organ). It was only after the 1960s that scientists discovered that the pineal gland is responsible for the production of melatonin, which is regulated in a circadian rhythm. Melatonin is a derivative of the amino acid tryptophan, which also has other functions in the Central Nervous System. The production of melatonin by the pineal gland is stimulated by darkness and inhibited by light. <7> The retina detects the light, and directly signals and entrains the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). Fibers project from the SCN to the paraventricular nuclei (PVN), which relay the circadian signals to the spinal cord and out via the sympathetic system to superior cervical ganglia (SCG), and from there into the pineal gland.

[uppityperson]

16. My mom had 1. It was disorientingly painful

she said she was spinning and spinning and spinning out of control, felt very painful, very sick, then heard faint voices and knew she had a choice. She chose to come back. She told me that next time she had the choice she would pick death. 3 wks later she did. She was disappointed because she had heard so much about the peacefulness and going to the light and all that, but found it extremely nasty. RIP mom, and we will all eventually find out.

[madrchsod]

18. so did my mom

she said she was walking to the light and someone called her back. several years later she finally made the journey

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. Yes, may your mother's soul soul rest in peace.

[papau]

21. secular "fundy" usually deny they are "fundy" - but I know what you mean - and NDE

seems rather real and specific.

My dad saw a person - came back - and later asked who was that person watching us, just before he died.

But like many things, NDE, I think, falls into the not proven yet file - and indeed may not be provable or disprovable. The NDE floating out of body experiments in hospital's critical care rooms has found no one to my knowledge that has seen the planted signs there or in the operating room - but then the stories do not seem to focus on what is atop a given cabinet - so it may well be a poorly designed experiment.

In any case, we all will see what the process is soon enough.

[cool user name]

22. This is very interesting:

From your link:


(12) NDEs support the "holonomic" theory of consciousness.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One particular theory of consciousness which is supported by NDE research involves the concept of consciousness expansion after death. Stanislav Grof, a leading consciousness researcher, explaind this theory in the documentary entitled "Life After Death" by Tom Harpur: "My first idea was that it has to be hard-wired in the brain. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how something like that is possible. Today, I came to the conclusion that it is not coming from the brain. In that sense, it supports what Aldous Huxley believed after he had some powerful psychedelic experiences and was trying to link them to the brain. He came to the conclusion that maybe the brain acts as a kind of reducing valve that actually protects us from too much cosmic input ... I don't think you can locate the source of consciousness. I am quite sure it is not in the brain – not inside of the skull ... It actually, according to my experience, would lie beyond time and space, so it is not localizable. You actually come to the source of consciousness when you dissolve any categories that imply separation, individuality, time, space and so on. You just experience it as a presence."


Sources:


(a) Harpur, T. (1998) "Life After Death: Reincarnation / The Testimony of Science" (video), Sleeping Giant Productions, Wellspring Media.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000007QTQ

(b) Wikipedia Encyclopedia on "Transpersonal Psychology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpersonal_psychology

(c) Association for Transpersonal Psychology
http://www.atpweb.org/




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(13) The expansion of consciousness reported in NDEs supports consciousness theories.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following NDE descriptions of consciousness expansion supports the theory of consciousness described above by Stanislav Grof. It theorizes that the brain acts as a reducing valve of cosmic input to produce consciousness. At death, this reducing-valve function ceases and consciousness is then free to expand. The following NDEs support this:


(1) "I realized that, as the stream was expanding, my own consciousness was also expanding to take in everything in the Universe!" (Mellen-Thomas Benedict)


(2) "My mind felt like a sponge, growing and expanding in size with each addition ... I could feel my mind expanding and absorbing and each new piece of information somehow seemed to belong." (Virginia Rivers)


(3) "In your life review you'll be the universe." (Thomas Sawyer)


(4) "This white light began to infiltrate my consciousness. It came into me. It seemed I went out into it. I expanded into it as it came into my field of consciousness." (Jayne Smith)


(5) "My presence fills the room. And now I feel my presence in every room in the hospital. Even the tiniest space in the hospital is filled with this presence that is me. I sense myself beyond the hospital, above the city, even encompassing earth. I am melting into the universe. I am everywhere at once." (Josiane Antonette)


(6) I felt myself expanding and expanding until I thought, "I'm going to burst!" The moment I thought, "I'm going to burst!", I suddenly found myself alone, back where this being had met me, and he had gone. (Margaret Tweddell)


(7) Susan had an out-of-body experience where she left her body and grew very big, as big as a planet at first, and then she filled the solar system and finally she became as large as the universe. (Susan Blackmore)

[Joe Chi Minh]

30. I've long held that what we call "intelligence, i.e. primarily "worldly

intelligence" is (unless appropriately grounded on spiritual wisdom) is actually a degradation of intelligence. I mean this is the implication of its being a reducing valve.

Huxley postulated that without it, we'd be in a perpetual state of beatitude, so it's a dedicated and very necessary tool for our physical survival in this world.

It's why Christ warneed us not to call anyone a fool - even though he called the very common-sensical businessman a fool for building another barn. We're too stupid in our human societies to know the true meaning of intelligence (unaided).

[Octafish]

25. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

She helped survey the field...

http://www.elisabethkublerross.com/

Good readings, too, from Robert Monroe (Journeys Out of the Body)...

http://www.monroeinstitute.com/

Fascinating stuff. Thank you for an excellent post, KCabotDullesMarxIII.

[roguevalley]

44. I read robert's book. My dad had a couple of NDE and it changed

him from someone terrified of death to someone even more loving and kind (if that was possible) and someone who had no fear. A year before he died, my Uncle John appeared before him and told dad he loved him and he was fine. My father saw people coming to comfort him as he lay dying and I know he saw them. They came to take him home and they did. RIP, my beautiful dad.

[peanutbrittle]

27. Thanks for the site.....

Did you see the apparent picture of the orb?






http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research17.html

Scroll down a little

[Joe Chi Minh]

29. My pleasure. No I hadn't, but I know if I'd seen it, I'd be fascinated.

I've always been fascinated by light, torch bulbs, Christmas lights, you name it.

[YankeyMCC]

31. NDE post gets to the greatest page??

That's a little disheartening.

[nashville_brook]

32. KnR for secular "fundy" call out!

:evilgrin:

[Marie26]

33. Is a website run by

a self-described "near-death evangelist" really the best source for this?

[Poll_Blind]

34. As an atheist, I think I might consider having the opportunity to....

...experience an NDE under clinical conditions if the proceedure was possible. I am not sure that it would, in any way, change my opinions about the existence of a God or Gods but it would be interesting to know whether or not I retain some form of (even temporary) consciousness in the event of (simulated, in this case) brain death.

  If I were to do it, I would probably contact James Randi to set up some experiments in the other room to determine my level of perception during the event. It would certainly be of more use to me, personally, than say traveling to the moon or being able to go backwards in time.

PB

[shrike]

60. I knew an atheist who did

A relative. It didn't change his mind much, but he found it an interesting experience. What he remembers most vividly is floating around the hospital and witnessing people and events that ended up bearing up under his questions when he asked them later.

Hey, who knows?

[Zhade]

36. LOL!

"Secular fundy" - that's like "military intelligence".

[Joe Chi Minh]

37. No, that's an OXY moron. Secular fundies are the most pristine

archetype... Brothers-in-arms with the right-wing, televangelist fundies: militant arch-materialists.

[trotsky]

46. LMAO

Let me know when you find a "militant arch-materialist."

I think it's an imaginary boogey-man made up by people afraid of rational thinking.

[Joe Chi Minh]

49. The world has been waiting with bated breath for your take on the term.

Rest assured.

[trotsky]

50. I did not know that!

Shoot, I should have posted it earlier! Sorry, everyone, for the delay.

[Joe Chi Minh]

56. There you are! Life is a learning experience for us all. Even fundies,

secular as well as religious.

[trotsky]

57. Oh, did you think of a definition yet?

Just wondering if you can identify this mysterious beast known as a "secular fundie." Perhaps it's just an insult you like to throw at people you don't care for?

[Joe Chi Minh]

58. Read the Guardian article, nutbury.

[trotsky]

59. I did. It's terrible. You're going to hold it up as some kind of insightful piece?

Atheists and secularists are two different groups that have a large overlap but are not the same. There are Christian secularists - did you know that? Fraser is either too stupid or too intent on misrepresenting others' positions to make note of this, so whatever other point he was trying to make is ruined.

Most disturbing is how Fraser takes his most "damning" quote (the one from Howard Thompson) completely out of context to dishonestly make his point. What follows that quote is...

"I am not talking about force or coercion. Total victory is every human mind freely choosing to accept reality as their reasoned belief. A mind that accepts reality because of programming did not choose freely." (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/8666/ht-bonfire.html)

Does that sound like a fundie? Insisting that people CHOOSE what to believe?

Absolutely pathetic. You have a hit piece written by a dishonest and deceitful believer as your resource to show the dangers of atheism. Ha ha ha!

[Joe Chi Minh]

61. Not to you. It would be above your head.

[trotsky]

62. That's it? That's your comeback?

Go ahead and slink away with your tail between your legs. I exposed the writer of your pet article as an intellectually dishonest fraud. Your point, if you ever had one, is completely in tatters.

And all you can manage is some pitiful attempt at an insult. I'm sure God is pleased with you. Love your neighbor indeed.

[Joe Chi Minh]

63. Do you seriously think I would waste my time and

energy reading your posts.

You butt into a spiritual thread with an aggressively dismissive question, but you're not militant! And you're an atheist but not a materialist! So, I'm making up stories, when I say you and your religious fundie pals are both militant arch-materialists!!!! Duuuuh!

You must know the adage: argue with a fool and you just get two fools. Who the first fool is, you may consider open to debate. But not with me. Bubbye, fundie!

[trotsky]

65. My, my.

You start a thread by insulting someone who merely asked for evidence. Others inquire about the insult. I voice my opinion, and you launch your attack at me. You've made it quite clear in many of your posts on DU the dripping disdain you have for anyone who does not share your religious outlook - but you save a special virulent hatred for those evil militant atheist materialist secularists, despite not being able to define exactly what one is. Well, I shouldn't say that. Obviously a non-believer who disagrees with you is all it takes to be branded with that label.

I pity you, KCDM the 3rd. You take a religion that's supposed to be about love and peace and turn it into anger and abhorrence at all who dare disagree with you. To me, that is far more of a brothers-in-arms approach with the Jerry Falwells of the world than any atheist I have ever met, read, or heard of. I hope that as you mature, you mature in your faith as well.

[MilesColtrane]

38. Plenty of research subjects at Free Republic.

Whole lot of flatliners there...

[Joe Chi Minh]

51. I once had the wits scared out of me as young man by an

out-of-body experience I had been seeking, but not really expecting - certainly not with the suddenness it came upon me (and which I resisted in panic), but truth to tell, I see it as a bit like drug-taking. I mean by that, that trying to get heaven into our head can never in the remotest degree be a worthwhile substitute for getting our head into heaven.

The fact is that the most powerful and worthwhile mystical experiences always come at a price. They are meant to strengthen us for an impending trial of some severity. St Paul of the Cross begged God not to send him any more theophanies, because he knew that they presaged a heavy cross coming his way.

Negative mystical experiences can be experienced whether we're in a state of grace or in serious sin. As St Paul states we are primarily fighting against the Principalities and Powers who govern this world. They are orders of powerful angels (pure spirits, though they can assume a bodily form) of the kind who fell from grace with Lucifer (who Jesus saw falling like a lightening bolt from heaven), i.e. devils.

God always makes some allowance for our culture and the influences it exerts on our ways of thinking, so spiritualism, necromancy, whatever you call it, while proscribed since at least the time when the medium of Endor raised Samuel's spirit for Saul, would not incur the same culpability for most people in our Western world today, who yearn to get in touch with the spirits of family and friends who have passed on. Our motivation is the primary basis upon which our actions are judged. In fact, St John Bosco made a pact with a seminarian fiend of his that whoever died first would appear to the other one, and that was what happened, though I don't know the details of any conversation they may have had.

But to revert to NDEs, many years ago, I saw a great programme of Phil Donaghue, in which the guests were people who had had such experiences. It was absolutely fascinating. Paticularly, the account of it related by an air hostess thrown out of hi-jacked aircraft onto the runway. The other one that most intrigued me was told by a mountain woman, who recounted how her spirit left the operating theatre and went into the lobby, where her family were sitting. And she remarked that, though it sounded foolish to her in the circumstances, the first thing that came into her head was that the frock her daughter was wearing was wrong, in that the colours clashed with her blouse or pullover. Something like that.

On UK TV, I saw a retired air-traffic controller and heard him recounting his experiences. Though he himself seemed very prosaic by nature, they were fascinating, but the thing that most struck me was that he was in tears of, well, a kind of a mixture of happiness and longing. He said he came came back for the sake of his younger wife, but when he thought of what he missed by doing so, it made him very emotional. And when you saw him smiling, beaming, through his tears, you knew that nobody, not the most brilliant actor in the world, could have feigned those emotions and the expressions on his face.

[FourScore]

40. Thanks for posting this.

I was just looking into this sort of thing yesterday. How timely to see it posted here today.:D

[Joe Chi Minh]

64. Pleasure, whereismyparty.

[hedgehog]

42. It only makes sense to me that Near Death experiences could be

reproduced by stimulating specific spots in the brain. The only way we ever experience anything is if it stimulates part of the brain. How else would we be aware of a supernatural event?

People in my mother's family have always been visited by other family members on the way out. My mother had a near death experience back in 1953 before the term became popular knowledge. I myself had a conversation with a dead cousin that was very comforting for both of us. Can I prove that any of these stories were more than coincidence or dream? Of course not. You pay your money and you make your choice. Just remember that as Shakespeare said,"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"