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Near-Death & Out-Of-Body Experiences

Mythopoeika said:
It may be that the brain sends all stored memories and thoughts to all parts of the brain simultaneously. Kind of like a computer backup system.

This may have evolved because a person who is close to death may sustain some brain damage. If they live, some part of that person and their memories may still remain because the memories have been 'backed up' all over the brain.
I don't see much pressure from Natural Selection to favour this.

Of course, we don't know how many people do survive after an NDE, but it was probably very few before modern medicine and its resuscitation techniques came along. Natural Selection is not interested in minor details like whether you lose your memory or not - it's only interested in the bigger picture, ie whether your genes lead to prolific breeding.
 
rynner2 said:
I don't see much pressure from Natural Selection to favour this.

So how did your intradimensional soul-transfer process evolve? :D
 
Mythopoeika said:
rynner2 said:
I don't see much pressure from Natural Selection to favour this.

So how did your intradimensional soul-transfer process evolve? :D
No idea! Perhaps it was inherent in all life, or even all of the universe - after all, there are cosmological theories that reckon universes may evolve by natural selection to favour the growth of consciousness.

But my theory is mostly speculation, seeded by wide reading in evolution, cosmology, and other, more esoteric subjects. I'm just feeling my way to a best 'fit' of all this various stuff.

But it's good that we're getting more data on NDEs - the Truth is Out There (somewhere ;) )
 
rynner2 said:
Afterlife exists says top brain surgeon
A prominent scientist who had previously dismissed the possibility of the afterlife says he has reconsidered his belief after experiencing an out of body experience which has convinced him that heaven exists.
By Mark Hughes, New York
7:52PM BST 09 Oct 2012

Dr Eben Alexander, a Harvard-educated neurosurgeon, fell into a coma for seven days in 2008 after contracting meningitis.
During his illness Dr Alexander says that the part of his brain which controls human thought and emotion "shut down" and that he then experienced "something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death." In an essay for American magazine Newsweek, which he wrote to promote his book Proof of Heaven, Dr Alexander says he was met by a beautiful blue-eyed woman in a "place of clouds, big fluffy pink-white ones" and "shimmering beings".


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... rgeon.html

Here's a pretty comprehensive debunk of Dr Alexander and his claims:

http://www.esquire.com/features/the-prophet
 
And here's a pile of anecdotal data: it's not all NDEs or OOBEs - at least one is a case of precognition. Far too much to copy and paste, so just the Intro and one random sample:

Our astonishing near-death stories... by some of the thousands of you touched by our thought-provoking series by an intensive care nurse
PUBLISHED: 23:00, 28 January 2014 | UPDATED: 15:41, 29 January 2014

This week the Mail has been serialising intensive care nurse Penny Sartori’s compelling research from her amazing new book The Wisdom Of Near-Death Experiences.

The response from our readers has been unprecedented, with thousands getting in touch to share their moving stories.
Here, we publish a selection of the most remarkable — with more to come tomorrow...

Childhood near miss that still haunts me

Anne Sanderson, 64, a retired medical secretary, of Larbert, in Falkirk, lives with her husband Derek, a landscape artist. They have two grown-up children.

She says: 'I had a near-death experience 62 years ago when I was just two. My twin sister, Lesley, and I had been put into our shared cot by our mother, Susan.

'I recall the sparse but sunny room clearly, with its linoleum on the floor. Lesley was standing in one corner of the cot and I was standing opposite her when she suddenly sneezed.
'I got such a start that I fell over the raised cot side and onto the floor. At the same time I had one of the strangest and most lasting memories I’ve ever experienced.

'It was a dream-like scene where I found myself floating high above Earth, looking down from outer space.
'The blackness was all around highlighting the colours I could see below me — all blues, greens and yellows marking out the countries and seas.
'I could see the entire globe so I must have been a long, long way away. There was also a slender, silver cord attached to my left hand side, reaching all the way back to Earth.

'I felt very tranquil as though it was the most natural thing to be happening, even though I had no idea what I was looking at.
'This happened in 1951. No colour photos of the world like that had yet been taken, let alone produced for a toddler to look at, and we didn’t even have a black-and-white television. How could I have known what the Earth looked like?

'Fortunately, it was not my time to go.
'I discovered much later that I’d cracked my collar bone. I regained consciousness in the hospital and have gone on living for six decades.'


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... nurse.html

It's a long time since I've heard a Silver Cord story.

Plus several more stories.
 
Canadian Grad Student ‘Can Leave Her Body at Will’

A psychology graduate student at the University of Ottawa sheds light on the strange brain activity involved in out-of-body experiences

  • Researchers at the University of Ottawa, Canada, studied the brain activity of a student who can drift outside her own body at will

    Scientists believe the left side of several areas of the brain associated with kinaesthetic imagery are responsible for extra-corporeal experiences

    They think the experiences could be more common than thought or that people only retain the ability to have them if they practice from childhood
People have long been fascinated by out-of-body experiences – are they just tricks of the mind or do they have some sort of spiritual significance?

Now new research has shed light on what it terms as ‘extra-corporeal experiences’ by studying the brain activity of a Canadian woman who claims she can drift outside her own body at will.

Scientists believe the left side of several areas of the brain associated with kinaesthetic imagery (the perception of the sensation of moving) are responsible for the sensation of being able to leave your body and float above it – and that more people might have similar experiences than thought.

Researchers at the University of Ottawa came across a psychology graduate who admitted she could have voluntary out-of-body experiences before she fell asleep.

The 24-year-old revealed she is able to see herself floating and rotating horizontally in the air above her body and can sometimes watch herself from above while remaining aware of her real body.

However, as she said she feels no emotions when she has the experiences, the scientists decided to classify her experiences as extra-corporeal experiences (ECE) as strong emotions such as shock, often accompany out-of-body experiences, Popular Science reported.

The Student’s Description of Her Extra Corporeal Experience:

  • ‘I feel myself moving, or, more accurately, can make myself feel as if I am moving,’ the student told the researchers, who documented her report in their study.

    ‘I know perfectly well that I am not actually moving. There is no duality of body and mind when this happens, not really.

    ‘In fact, I am hyper-sensitive to my body at that point, because I am concentrating so hard on the sensation of moving.

    ‘I am the one moving – me – my body. For example, if I “spin” for long enough, I get dizzy.

    ‘I do not see myself above my body. Rather, my whole body has moved up. I feel it as being above where I know it actually is.

    ‘I usually also picture myself as moving up in my mind’s eye, but the mind is not substantive. It does not move unless the body does,’ she said.
Andra Smith and Claude Messier used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner to examine the student’s brain and believe she is the first person studied to have an ECE on demand without any brain abnormalities.
http://consciouslifenews.com/canadian-g ... /1171389/#
 
First hint of 'life after death' in biggest ever scientific study
Southampton University scientists have found evidence that awareness can continue for at least several minutes after clinical death which was previously thought impossible
By Sarah Knapton, Science Correspondent
12:00AM BST 07 Oct 2014

Death is a depressingly inevitable consequence of life, but now scientists believe they may have found some light at the end of the tunnel.
The largest ever medical study into near-death and out-of-body experiences has discovered that some awareness may continue even after the brain has shut down completely.

It is a controversial subject which has, until recently, been treated with widespread scepticism.
But scientists at the University of Southampton have spent four years examining more than 2,000 people who suffered cardiac arrests at 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Austria.
And they found that nearly 40 per cent of people who survived described some kind of ‘awareness’ during the time when they were clinically dead before their hearts were restarted.

One man even recalled leaving his body entirely and watching his resuscitation from the corner of the room.
Despite being unconscious and ‘dead’ for three minutes, the 57-year-old social worker from Southampton, recounted the actions of the nursing staff in detail and described the sound of the machines.

“We know the brain can’t function when the heart has stopped beating,” said Dr Sam Parnia, a former research fellow at Southampton University, now at the State University of New York, who led the study.
“But in this case, conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes into the period when the heart wasn’t beating, even though the brain typically shuts down within 20-30 seconds after the heart has stopped.
“The man described everything that had happened in the room, but importantly, he heard two bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three minute intervals. So we could time how long the experienced lasted for.
“He seemed very credible and everything that he said had happened to him had actually happened.”

Of 2060 cardiac arrest patients studied, 330 survived and 140 said they had experienced some kind of awareness while being resuscitated.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scie ... study.html

The stories aren't really new, but the scale of the research moves us away from a collection of a few stories towards a proper scientific database.
 
CATHOLIC PRIEST WHO DIED FOR 48 MINUTES CLAIMS THAT GOD IS A WOMAN

A Catholic priest from Massachussetts was officially dead for more than 48 minutes before medics were able to miraculously re-start his heart. During that time, Father John Micheal O’neal claims he went to heaven and met God, which he describes as a warm and comforting motherly figure.

The 71-year old cleric was rushed to the hospital on January 29 after a major heart attack, but was declared clinically dead soon after his arrival. With the aid of a high-tech machine called LUCAS 2, that kept the blood flowing to his brain, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital managed to unblock vital arteries and return his heart to a normal rhythm.

The doctors were afraid he would have suffered some brain damage from the incident, but he woke up less than 48 hours later and seems to have perfectly recovered.
http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/catholic-priest-who-died-for-48-minutes-claims-that-god-is-a-woman/
 
Other "breaking news" stories above that one on the page are "mysterious wales discovered 3800 metres above sea level" and "Archeologists in Syria find long lost cavern of Alibaba".
 
Death is a depressingly inevitable consequence of life, but now scientists believe they may have found some light at the end of the tunnel.

Erm, only if the light at the end of the tunnel is a flamethrower.

So maybe people have some awareness for a few minutes after death, what are they going to do with it apart from lay there and think "Oh bugger, now I am dead". :eek:
 
Woman has NDE, sees Peter Andre
Kerry MacKinnon was close to death when she contracted bacterial meningitis and fell into a coma at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, Kent.

The 36-year-old catering assistant had a hallucination she was heading towards a bright light when she was stopped by the singer and reality TV star.

Kerry was quoted in The Sun, saying: "There was a bright light behind him when I approached. He told me it wasn't my time. After that, I woke up, terrified."
...
Peter, 42, said: "I'm glad to have helped this lady recover in some way
 
What happens to you just before you die? Chemists explain exactly how death feels
A quick jolt of fear, pain — and then a mysterious process that sees the brain have an extra jolt of life just before it dies forever
VIDEO:

Slasher films are a lot of fun to watch. But what exactly would it feel like to get stuck in one?

Scientists have explored many of the things that happen to the body and the mind as it approaches death — and while much of it still remains mysterious, the experience can be understood through the various chemical reactions and events that are happening in the brain.

Just in time for Halloween, a new video from the American Chemical Society explores exactly what would be happening inside someone’s body as they are being chased by a murderer in a slasher film.

The creators of the video point out that the experience of watching people get chased through a slasher film is actually similar to being there — though the actual thing is presumably a little more intense. The same sense of adrenaline and fear is activated in the same way in both cases.

The function of fear is to get people ready to react, or run away. It is a way of alerting the mind and body about trouble, but it is also a chemical process that allows the body to try and be safe.

The sensory information is sent through a person’s central nervous system, and into the thalamus, which works a little like a switchboard. That’s then transmitted to other important parts of the brain.
That information initially makes a person startled — moving towards getting them ready to react. And then the fight or flight response is triggered, which begins a process that began in our very early ancestors as a way of deciding whether to take on an attacker or try and escape.
That process pumps out adrenaline through the body, and pushes out glucose through the blood stream. Other chemicals keep those processes working.

You might not get away from the axe murderer or whoever else is chasing you down. In which case, you’re likely to start screaming.
The video points out that process originates in a different part of the brain from language, and serves a different function.
Screams come out almost by instinct. And when they are heard, they trigger a similar response — encouraging other people to become fearful and react, and so presumably helping them run.

If the screaming doesn’t help, and your axe murderer catches up with you, you’re going to be in a lot of pain.
When you’re injured, special neurons called nociceptors send messages up to the brain. Those are collected by the thalamus — which in turn tries to instruct the brain to do whatever it can to stop the injury happening again.

Even after clinical death, your brain probably keeps ticking on for a while. According to recent studies, the brain appears to undergo a final surge — in a way that would normally be associated with consciousness.

It may be that the surge might be responsible for near death experiences. Studies have supported that hypothesis — though scientists are still entirely unsure why the surge happens, or what it signifies.


Then comes biological death. And it’s not clear what happens then…
There’s little way of knowing what happens after all that is over, because people tend not to come back.
But some have. In an Ask Me Anything session earlier this year, people described their experiences of having briefly passed away.

“"Pure, perfect, uninterrupted sleep, no dreams,” wrote one.
But others described more vivid experiences that apparently hinted at an afterlife.

"I was standing in front of a giant wall of light,” wrote another. “It stretched up, down, left and right as far as I could see. Kind of like putting your eyes 6" from a fluorescent lightbulb.
“The next memory I have is waking up in the hospital."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...explain-exactly-how-death-feels-a6710551.html

The most interesting bit here, about 'brain surges', I've bolded in the piece above. It would have been good to get more detail.
 

"No wonder. He would have been the last person she was expecting to see! "

Surely he wouldn't have been the last person she was expecting to see? There must've been hundreds, thousands, of less-likely contenders. The relative ranking of them all might be challenging...

But this....is solid gold: Peter, 42, said: "I'm glad to have helped this lady recover in some way."

When what he should've said was 'Please....it was nothing'. It opens the Pandora's Box of unattributable accolades, fictional contributions made in mind only. Latter-day nonsense non-saints, saving us all via osmosis from their aura
 
Kid suffers severe brain trauma, nearly dies, starts to recover just before he was about to be taken off life support, reports NDE.

He has been walking and talking, even reading and doing maths, Ms Reindl said, calling it "a miracle".

Trenton himself told WALA he thought he was in heaven while he was unconscious.

"I was in an open field walking straight," the 13-year-old said.

"There's no other explanation but God."


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44032831
 
I did not have a near death experience, but died multiple times before waking from coma.
When I was gone, I saw present and future in strange ways, I can only explain it as parallel universes, I was shot, bitten by a Ningen and died multiple times of heart failure, which was the reason I was kept comateus for nearly 4 weeks.
All this happened 11 years ago, even now I have moments that I feel dying somewhere and have flashes of strange memories.
In my eyes life moves thru the universes like a multidimensional river delta, sometimes our information spreads out, sometimes it comes together again, at the end our lives come together in one big stream.
Who knows what happens in a 11-dimensional universe.
 
When I was younger, I came down with Viral Encephalitis, wont go into details but it put me in a coma, during this time my heart stopped, and I still to this day vividly remember a light, then a couple thick Scottish accented voices speaking (my Dad's side are from the west coast). I can't account for it, or explain it away really but I'm certain it was an NDE
 
When I was younger, I came down with Viral Encephalitis, wont go into details but it put me in a coma, during this time my heart stopped, and I still to this day vividly remember a light, then a couple thick Scottish accented voices speaking (my Dad's side are from the west coast). I can't account for it, or explain it away really but I'm certain it was an NDE
What did the Scottish voices say?
 
What did the Scottish voices say?

From what I remember I couldn't properly make out the others but the clearest one said "He's a fighter, he'll be ok". Mum was told I would be in a vegetative state at the best but to expect the worst, and it turns out possible hallucination voice was right
 
From what I remember I couldn't properly make out the others but the clearest one said "He's a fighter, he'll be ok". Mum was told I would be in a vegetative state at the best but to expect the worst, and it turns out possible hallucination voice was right
Was it an hallucination, or was it someone at the hospital?
 
Was it an hallucination, or was it someone at the hospital?

I have asked my Mum about it and she doesn't remember anyone other than my Granddad being there with a thick Scottish accent, she does remember him saying something similar to what I heard but when getting lunch so nowhere near me at the time. It could have been any number of things, time distorting memory, some kind of hallucination, I've always leaned towards weird hallucination too but it does seem to "fit" some of the other NDE stories I've read
 
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Sounds like a historial NDE here from 563AD (learned via Mike Stuchbery) :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oran_of_Iona

One popular legend surrounding Odran's death is that he consented to being buried alive beneath a chapel that Columba was attempting to build at Iona. A voice had told Columba that the walls of the chapel would not stand until a living man was buried below the foundations, and indeed, each morning the builders would arrive at the site to find all their work of the previous day undone. So Odran was consigned to the earth, and the chapel was erected above him. One day, however, Odran lifted his head out of the ground and said: "There is no Hell as you suppose, nor Heaven that people talk about". Alarmed by this, Columba quickly had the body removed and reburied in consecrated ground – or, in other versions of the story, simply called for more earth to cover the body.
 
I'm not sure why they call it a "chilling" message.

It's the tabloid way. You're not allowed to have your own reaction. If the Daily Star decides the message is 'chilling' then that's what it is.
 
Here's a video on the Guardian site about a man who had a NDE. It changed how he felt about death, and of course life.
Afterwards although he'd never painted before he felt the urge to express his experience though art. His pictures have a slightly Blake-like feel.

After David Ditchfield was dragged under a moving train, the way he looked at death changed.

Before his accident he didn’t consider the afterlife, but now Ditchfield says he knows there is nothing to fear after we die. He tells Leah what he saw the day he almost died

It's part of a series called Death land, all about fear and acceptance of death.

(Must say that at one time I'd've loved this series. These days I'm older and wiser. I don't need educating about how to approach feelings about death.)
 
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