Clinical Death and the Afterlife

Well, unless you have anything "scientific" to back up your claims I can only say it sounds very much like a dream. You did not die or anything, instead just lay down and had something similar to an nde, (ergo a dream).

It was a lighthearted way of making a point, which you seemingly missed.

As to your experience then.. what were they wearing? Where were they? Clear/obscure? Got any pictures?

I'll provide you with what I can:

'Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts'

'In science, "theory" means "a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed'.

'"a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena"' (Barnhart 1948).

Now,seeings as you want me to be less emotive and more scientific, I shall repeat my last statement..

"Given that there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest the existence of a 'soul' it's not really a 'theory', it's an assumption, a baseless idea - nothing more. 'Theory' does not mean: any old nonsense we can think of."

An appeal to authority or argument by authority is a type of argument in logic, consisting on basing the truth value of an otherwise unsupported assertion on the authority, knowledge or position of the person asserting it. It is also known as argument from authority, argumentum ad verecundiam (Latin: argument to respect) or ipse dixit (Latin: he himself said it).

I did not say it was irrelevant, I said it had no value to anything seeings as you used them to try and add weight to your claims; 'I have no proof but a famous person believed it'.

Funnily enough it seems you missed all the "scientific" parts of my post. However, if it cheers you up I was responding to a post, (your post), that had nothing of science in it, but was purely emotive, (e.g 'my boyfriend dumped me, but he was a nice guy I suppose').

My points tend to not beat around the bush and perhaps that's why you're making the error of assuming they're emotive. As it stands: You made an appeal to authority, misused the term theory, and provided no evidence for anything. 'Of no value', 'worthless' and 'nonsense' are clearly justified.

I see, you want me to sweet talk you and tell you your post was accurate, informative and interesting?

Absolutely, it's always off-putting when people disagree with you.

Not really, no.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I always wondered about that. I can imagine a 'spirit body', but clothing???

You cant take your shoes with you to some other dimension.

So, what are people actually seeing when they see clothed spirits...assuming they are actually seeing something real, and not a hallucination?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

That's actually a very good question, but then even ghosts can get embarrased by showing their private parts.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

No, but my grandmother has, and it was the typical yet beutiful 'light all around and loved ones near.' But when she returned to her body, she said that the sickness that was in her body was gone. Pneumonia I beleive.

 

and, we are going to take, anything you say seriously ragnorok, after your last effort.
so your gran had a NDE of course she did, just like your lungs got cured overnight, still waiting for your evidence for that claim.

 

I have no desire to trade insults but it is often difficult to know whether I am conversing with a primary grade student (albeit relatively bright) or someone with a great deal of knowledge and limited empathy and/or communicating skills. So no, I do not find some non sequiturs on this forum particularly amusing. They do not progress the argument in any shape or form, and only serve to highlight the mental limitations of the person who made them. … whoever that person might be.

Re disagreement, you could not be more wrong. … It seems that by making rather feeble requests (‘Got any pictures?’) you are looking to ridicule, when the best way of demolishing a belief is to empathise with it first.

Re theory: you have picked your definition. Subjectivity applies to all beliefs. So, for the purposes of balance, here are my definitions:

Abstract reasoning; speculation: a decision based on experience rather than theory
A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment
An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.

cf Answers.com.

I have never claimed to be a scientist. As I write about mysticism and spiritual intelligence, I have no need to provide ‘proof’.

The reason I joined this forum was to add balance to my writings by empathising with those of differing beliefs. So, as I said before, you could not be more wrong in your assumptions.

Unfortunately, with a few honourable exceptions, there is a tendency to disparage any experience or belief that has no current ‘proof’. And the emphasis is on current. Yet when I said, on one thread, that many scientists get ideas and then spend lifetimes seeking proof, that too was ridiculed.

At the risk of being accused again of appealing to authority, even Richard Dawkins on a recent TV programme agreed that the Big Bang was an assumption.

As I write about ideas, I do not need to prove anything. Now you can dismiss out of hand any esoteric experiences with scant or nil ‘proof’. However, any scientist worth his or her future Nobel Prize should display both empathy and curiosity – however difficult that may be. You never can tell what proof might suddenly appear simply by being prepared. As the expression goes Luck is where opportunity meets the prepared mind.

Lastly, any scientific assimilation must have gone awol when reading what I actually did write. As a non-scientist, I am allowed to be emotive but I can assure you I did the dumping and, if you read what I wrote, I said he was ‘a complete dork’.

The point of mentioning it was to empathise with the view that strong emotions could have triggered a 'peak experience'. See?

Re dream: Was it merely a dream? That begs the question of what is a dream. Many scientists have found their dreams progressed their experiments.

Re clothes: I do have an answer of sorts but it would take too long to write it now and I must work.

Have a good new year, y’all.

Euphrosene

 

"No desire" and yet here you are taking a stab at me through various different means - and while it's subtle, it is clearly meant in a way whereby a person would clearly be offended. The difference between us right now is that my comments were reflections upon your statements, not your personality.

Compare if you will me saying using famous people as an argument for support of a claim is 'worthless' to you telling me I either lack communication skills or am a primary grade student. I only hope you can see the distinct difference between them.

As it so happens I am neither a primary grade student and nor do I specifically have any communication problems. Your statements on the other hand are still worthless. Argument from authority has no value, it's as simple as that.

How bizarre.. First you ask me to be more scientific and less emotive and now you're asking me to be more emotive and less scientific. I'm sorry euphrosene but if you're going to make a claim, (while expecting me to be scientific), then me asking for a picture is what you're gonna get. I fail to see how you could consider someone asking for evidence as ridicule... That's how science works euphrosene, but then you're not asking me for that anymore are you? Nope, now you want me to express emotion while forgetting all about evidence.

Once again however, to your claim: What did it look like/was it wearing/where/pictures/video/anything?

I apologise but you did ask me to be scientific. Now you're asking me to be less scientific and more emotive. I just can't win. As I tried to explain earlier, I was being largely scientific but you focused more on what you would call the emotive statements such as me calling a specific argument style as worthless. Now, I have been kind enough to give you the 'scientific' definition of theory, which concludes my original statement that what you came up with was not a theory but an idea, a belief, a thought. And to that you dare accuse me of not being scientific but emotive?

Why ever not? I do understand that needing no proof for your mysticism/spiritual stuff is not needed for you, how about the people you are putting it upon? Do you not care what their needs are? Do you not understand that your say so isn't good enough for everyone? The need is paramount if you intend to express those beliefs on others and them to take them seriously, (from a scientific standpoint instead of an emotive one).

Why do you think that is?

Evidence is essential. Why, this would be a very messed up world if people just went around believing everything they were told. I'd have 100 people stood outside my house right now believing there was an invisible leprechaun in my garage.

Even with the very basics man is still someone that seeks evidence foremost - if someone told you the cup of tea wasn't hot you wouldn't just throw it down your throat - no, you would still sip it to gain evidence that is vital for progression and for survival. I understand that the example I used could have dangerous repurcussions if you didn't test it - but then being able to claim anything without having to support those claims is just as dangerous.

There is a guy in this very thread making the claim that his grandma had an nde and then low and behold her pneumonia vanished into thin air. Can we really afford to just believe what he says? The same would go for this very same guy and his lungs. Is it not a mockery of man's intelligence to just believe him for the mere sake of it?

Of course having said all of that we cannot question everything. For instance, how could we show right now that Saddam really has been killed? Are we therefore 'just believing for the sake of it' in this instance? To a degree certainly - although evidence will come in the form of photographs, news reports and what not. Now move on to something far beyond that - something that calls into question that which has no evidence whatsoever and by it's very nature is mystical and magical?

You don't just believe me when I say Lenny the leprechaun is in my garage - and until such time I can show evidence to support that 'belief' I wouldn't go around expressing that belief without expecting people to call me on it. That is the way things are.

And any prepared scientist must also know and accept that evidence is paramount to claims made. They'd undoubtedly also ask you for photographs of your ghost.. it's a start at least.

That's what we would need to establish.. Was it a dream?

Question 1) To have defined it as something other than a dream there must have been a significant difference between the event and any other dream you've had. You qualify it as something other than a dream, (an nde of sorts). How did it differ exactly?

Other questions later. The important thing is not to make a conclusion before even going through the questions. Your very original statement was: "I had an nde in 1989". By saying this you have already established what it was and I'm asking you to justify how you reached that conclusion.

Snake

 

Im wondering what kind of evidence would be required by science to prove the existence of a consciousness or 'spirit' that survives the death of the human body.

Seeing as science only deals with matter and energy, any kind of concrete evidence would be an impossibility...assuming this 'spirit' doesnt involve matter or any kind of energy science knows and accepts.

However, there is another kind of evidence that has been observed and recorded by medical investigators, and that is 'knowledge-based' evidence.

For example, if someone was able to relate very specific details of what was happening in the room while they were merely unconscious, that would be extraordinary enough.

But what if they were able to do the same while they were clinically dead, with no measurable brain activity whatsoever???

This has apparently happened in some cases, and this is what this video is about. Take the time to watch it.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1095220859246890757

 

Slightly more than none, or someone's say so. It has to be that way otherwise we'd all be thinking leprechauns exist for the mere sake of it and so on and so forth.

If the dead interact with this world and can even be seen, felt, heard and communicated with, (as is claimed), then it stands to reason that evidence could be gathered by science. All we have right now is a couple of shoddy photographs and Mystic Meg. It does not look very hopeful.

I personally wouldn't call that extraordinary. Just because they're unconcious doesn't mean the brain isn't working.

But who really wants to do this under controlled conditions with full brain monitoring etc? The usual scenario would be the site of an accident victim or some such thing and very few tools with which to measure anything other than heart beat. If the heart has stopped, the person isn't breathing and whatnot, these are not specifically indications that all brain activity has ceased - indeed by the very fact that these people are "brought back to life" as it were would by itself indicate that these people were not totally brain dead. The things they describe, (NDE's), might seem like long, played out events, (like dreams), that actually only last a split second - indeed people that have their 'life flash before their eyes' can apparently see events spanning back decades that all happens in a split second. The why's to this seem quite apparent..

If you were to be squished by a bus how would you rather go out of existence? By seeing that bus smack you full on in the face or images of loved ones and so on? The brain is a very clever thing, and while people are running around with their heart monitors, syringes and whatnot if there is still any kind of activity in the brain, (and you would need to run controlled tests to find this out), there will be stories to be told once the person is up and about - from knowledge of what was going on around them to peaceful moments with lights, (one of the things medics generally do is shine a light in the eyes to check for pupil dilation).

 

I have been watching this thread and have found it somewhat interesting.

I was in fact was smacked full on by a bus on December 29, 1998. My stance here is that some wold call my experience a near death one as I had no visible signs of life (pulse, heartbeat or respiration), I am quite positive that I had a great deal of brain activity. I am also very positive that the NDE is due to the influx of chemicals which flooded the brain due to the trauma. I can identify parts of the NDE with actions that were being done while I was being resucitated, from cutting my clothes off, being intubated, and even wiping the dirt off my face, my brain intervened to make the physical trauma easier to cope with. I have not found any conslusive evidence that would make me alter my opinion.

There is a journal which I do not have access to at home but will try to post from later in the week if anyone is interested.

Journal of Near Death Studies

I find it quite difficult to believe that someone can sustain an NDE without trauma or a medical condition, and that no medical intervention was sought after such an experience.

 

When a person is alive but unconscious the brain is still functioning at the basic level of maintaining heart rate, breathing and so on, but there is no perception or consciousness. So it would be inexplicable that an unconcious person would later be able to relate details of what happened during that time.

Equally inexplicable during periods of death, with no brain activity whatsoever.

Brain activity ceases approx. 8 seconds after the heart stops beating. And it stops throughout the brain, not just a certain areas. This happens often in hospital settings where every kind of monitoring is entirely possible...as the documentary video I posted demonstrates in great detail.

 

and you know this how, ever had deje vu, you are absolutely sure you been there before, could the recovering patient not have some form of that, thus seeming able to relate some details.

thats the brain activity that we can measure at this time, there could be extremely faint residual impulses.
it is called near death for a reason, mainly because the subject, hasn't died
nobody comes back from the dead.

 

Bitter as always. A question was asked, and i answered it. Who cares about your opinion? not me. Get over yourself, i dont go around attacking your posts.....

 

these no bitterness towards you, I dont know you, but what I am against is you or anybody for that matter making bold unsubstanciated claims, and I am not the only one, as shown here, from snakelord
"There is a guy in this very thread making the claim that his grandma had an nde and then low and behold her pneumonia vanished into thin air. Can we really afford to just believe what he says? The same would go for this very same guy and his lungs.
Is it not a mockery of man's intelligence to just believe him for the mere sake of it?"

we all feel the same about such claims ragnorok, you as a person could be one of the nicest, it just those little flights of fantasy.

 

Journal of Near-Death Studies: Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 235–249.

Cardiac Arrest and Near-Death Experiences
G. M. Woerlee, M.B.B.S., F.R.C.A.a, b

Leiden, The Netherlands

G. M. Woerlee is a physician specialized in anesthesiology, a medical specialty he has taught and practiced for more than 20 years in the Netherlands in both university and general hospitals. For many years he has been engaged in a study of the ways the functioning of the human body can generate the idea of a human soul, paranormal experiences, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, astral travel, and auras. Reprint requests should be addressed to Dr. Woerlee at Kagerstraat 4, 2334CR Leiden, The Netherlands; E-mail: mortalminds@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT

Recent prospective studies of the incidence and character of near-death experiences (NDEs) during cardiac resuscitation have aroused new interest in the true nature of these profound experiences. Those who believe in the reality of an invisible and immaterial soul claim these studies support their belief. However, careful analysis reveals these experiences can be explained by changes in body function. This article describes the process of cardiac resuscitation in some detail, explains how known data on cardiac resuscitation predict the incidence of these experiences, as well as how the functioning of the body during cardiac resuscitation explains the experiences undergone during NDEs such as out-of-body experiences, tunnel and darkness experiences, sensations of transcendence, and ineffability. Furthermore, the functioning of the human body during cardiac resuscitation also explains the veridical observations made during some NDEs. This article offers a full explanation of NDEs occurring during cardiac resuscitation based solely upon human physiology.

His website is quite informative and it actually cites some of the cases used in the video that Carcano posted.

 

Well, could we have the explanation, then, instead of just words that tell us there is one? I can't see any plausible explanation for the OOB experiences these people had, with the exception of the one dealing with quantum physics - and even that takes the concept of consciousness into an entirely different realm from the typical physiological one.

Thanks for that video, Carcano. It was highly interesting, worth the hour.

Snakelord, did you watch it?

There are documented cases of people seeing what was going on around them, conversations etc, while under complete anesthesia. These people were able to clearly see and understand what was happening.

This has been documented many times and has not been explained. It wold seem impossible for a person to hear and see what is going on around them when their eyes are shut, indeed taped, and their ears plugged up.

I, along with Carcano, suggest you watch the video.
It is scientifically based for the most part, fear not.

 

Here is one explanation for you to read, citing specifically the case that you are referencing.

mortalminds.org/reynolds.html

Here are some other links to journal articles which might interest you in regards to OBE.

Brain. 2004 Feb;127(Pt 2):243-58. Epub 2003 Dec 8. Links
Erratum in:
Brain. 2004 Mar;127(Pt 3):719.
Comment in:
Brain. 2004 Feb;127(Pt 2):239-42.
Out-of-body experience and autoscopy of neurological origin.
Blanke O, Landis T, Sinelli L, Seeck M.
brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/127/2/243

Neuroscientist. 2005 Feb;11(1):16-24. Links
The out-of-body experience: disturbed self-processing at the temporo-parietal junction
Blanke O, Arzy S.
nro.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/1/16

Prog Brain Res. 2005;150:331-50.
The out-of body experience: precipitating factors and neural correlates.
Bunning S, Blanke O.

J Neurosci. 2005 Jan 19;25(3):550-7.
Linking out-of-body experience and self processing to mental own-body imagery at the temporoparietal junction.
Blanke O, Mohr C, Michel CM, Pascual-Leone A, Brugger P, Seeck M, Landis T, Thut G.
jneurosci.org/cgi/reprint/25/3/550

J Neurosci. 2006 Aug 2;26(31):8074-81. Links
Neural basis of embodiment: distinct contributions of temporoparietal junction and extrastriate body area.
Arzy S, Thut G, Mohr C, Michel CM, Blanke O.
jneurosci.org/cgi/reprint/26/31/8074

I hope you find these enjoyable!!

best-

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Flights of fantasy? Heh? (btw, 'nice' isn't really a word I would choose to describe myself)

The brain is not a potato. It still gathers and processes data. Data introduced through the ears etc still makes it's way to the brain nonetheless. While it might not work on the data right there and then is not to suggest that the data never made it through the ears etc in the first place. The brain does not specifically act upon data it gathers at that precise moment - yet it still gathers that data as long as it is functioning. There are people I know that got raped 30 years ago but only found out about it last week. I understand that's a vastly different issue, and I suppose the only point is really that the brain is an awesome machine - capable of more than keeping a heart beating - even at times when a person is out cold or 'technically' dead which is not 'really' dead otherwise we'd have nothing to talk about here.

 

snakelord that was in reply to ragnorok not you sorry if it came out that way I was using you as reference.
I've now edited the post to make it read right ok.
sorry again.

 

Oh cool.. Wait, no it isn't.. You didn't call me nice! Bastard

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!