Your thoughts needed,atheists and agnostics! A near-death experience (NDE) is the sensation reported by a person who nearly died or who was clinically dead and revived. They are somewhat common, especially since the development of cardiac resuscitatation techniques, and are reported in approximately one-fifth of persons who experience clinical death. The sensation often includes an out-of-body experience. Typically a near-death experience involves the sensation of floating above one's body and seeing the surrounding area, followed by the sensation of passing through a tunnel, meeting deceased relatives, and encountering a being of light. There have also been accounts of patients seeing things they apparently could not have seen had they not been out of their bodies. Although near death experiences have been taken by some as evidence of an afterlife, there are no known elements of NDEs which cannot be explained in natural terms. There have been numerous experiments in which a random message was placed in a hospital in a manner that it would be invisible to patients or staff yet visible to a floating being, and thus far, no person experiencing a near death experience has been able to reproduce the message (however, one is known to have accurately described a surgical instrument she had not seen previously, as well as conversation that occurred while she was clinically dead). In addition, it has been pointed out that children who experience NDE's sometimes report seeing their living friends and playmates in their visions, contrary to the implication that the persons seen during the experience are the souls of dead loved ones. Nevertheless, the subjective reality of NDEs is well documented. One scientific hypothesis that attempts to explain NDEs was originally suggested by accounts of the side-effects of the drug Ketamine (see link to Dr. Karl Jansen below). Ketamine was used as an anesthetic on U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War; but its use was abandoned and never spread to civilian use because the soldiers complained about sensations of floating above their body and seeing bright lights. Further experiments by numerous researchers verified that intravenous injections of ketamine could reproduce all of the commonly cited features of an NDE; including a sense that the experience is "real" and that one is actually dead, separation from the body, visions of loved ones, and transcendent mystical experiences. Ketamine acts by blocking the receptor for the neurotransmitter glutamate. Glutamate is released in abundance when brain cells die, and if it weren't blocked, the glutamate overload would cause other brain cells to die as well. In the presence of excess glutamate, the brain releases its own glutamate receptor blocker to defend itself; and it is these blockers Dr. Jansen (amongst others) hypothesize as the cause of many NDEs. Critics of this hypothesis point out that although some aspects of the experience may be similar, not all NDEs exactly fit the ketamine experience; and that while it might be possible to chemically simulate the experience, this does not refute the possibility that true NDEs have a spiritual component. As even Dr. Jansen notes: Claims that NDE's must have a single explanation (e.g. Ring, 1980), or that a scientific theory must explain all of the experiences ever given the name of NDE (e.g. Gabbard and Twemlow, 1989) are difficult to justify. An explanation for the out-of-body experience can be gived by a research of swiss scientists published in 2002 on Nature.They found that electrical stimulation on a specific brain region repeatly caused out-of-body experiences to all of the patients who had near-death experiences-here is the link: http://www.nature.com/nsu/nsu_pf/020916/020916-8.html Also,these are also,the newest researchments on this NDE(Near-Death Experience) subject: Britain's leading medical journal, The Lancet, has published a study which shows that many people believe that their souls left their bodies while they were 'clinically dead'. In a two-year study in ten Dutch hospitals, doctors interviewed 344 heart attack victims. They found that 12% of cardiac-arrest survivors reported having ‘near-death experiences’ (NDEs) before being resuscitated. They had experienced emotions, visions or lucid thoughts while unconscious with no signs of pulse, breathing or brain activity. Some reported having ‘out-of-body’ experiences. One man remembered a nurse removing his dentures while he was unconscious. He believed he had seen this while floating above his body and watching the doctors working on him. The study also showed that patients felt better about death, and more ‘spiritual’, for as long as eight years after their NDE. Point of no return The research will be seized on by those, academics among them, who theorise that the mind may continue to work after the brain has stopped — that the mind (or soul) can survive death. Over the last few years, research teams from different universities and hospitals have been trying to make sense of NDEs. Last year it was reported that doctors at the University of Southampton had spent a year studying patients resuscitated in the city’s general hospital after a heart attack. All the people ‘brought back to life’ were, for varying lengths of time, clinically dead with fixed dilated pupils, no respiration, and no pulse. EEG studies confirmed that the brain’s electrical activity, and hence brain function, ceases during this time. Out of 63 patients who survived, seven recalled emotions and visions while they were ‘dead’. The survivors were interviewed within a week of their cardiac arrest and asked if they remembered anything during their period of ‘death’. Some recalled feelings of joy and peace; lost awareness of body; heightened senses; time speeded up; seeing a bright light; entering another world; encountering a mystical being or deceased relative; and coming to a point of no return. Pushing the limits Not all NDEs are alike. Typically, they involve feelings of deep peace, followed by sensations of floating up through a tunnel towards a bright light and into a beautiful kingdom. But other NDEs involve terrifying accounts of being pulled downwards — towards a pit ‘inhabited by demons’. An article in The Daily Telegraph was entitled ‘Patients near death see visions of hell’. It focused on the research of Tony Lawrence, lecturer in psychology at Coventry University, who has probed the nature of negative NDEs. There was a startling account of a woman who fought for life after a miscarriage: ‘It was an awful feeling — like I was going down a big hole and I couldn’t get up. I was going into this big pit. I was going further and further down, and trying to claw my way back up and kept slipping’. But what do the results show? The cardiologist who led the Dutch research team, Dr Pim van Lommel, says their study ‘pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the relationship between mind and brain’. Dr Peter Fenwick, a consultant neuro-psychiatrist at London University, told The Sunday Telegraph: ‘If the mind and brain can be independent, then that raises questions about ... a spiritual component to humans and about a meaningful universe with a purpose’. For him, the evidence points to the existence of human consciousness without a body — in other words, a soul. Out of their minds? But are these people out of their bodies, or just out of their minds? Perhaps the drugs given to the patients can explain their experiences. However, the Southampton researchers were able to rule out unusual combinations of medications as the cause, because the resuscitation procedure was the same in every case. Other critics have attributed these experiences to a collapse of brain function caused by lack of oxygen. Yet the medical records of the Southampton cases show that none of the subjects had low levels of oxygen. The Lancet report also mentions that epilepsy and electrical stimulation of the brain are possible causes-OBE(Out-of-Body Experiences) are brief sensations that occur when a person feels as if his mind separates from his body. During OBEs, people sense that they are floating above their own bodies. No one knows what causes OBEs, but some people believe that OBEs are religious or spiritual events. Interestingly, many people who have come close to death report that they have had an OBE.are brief sensations that occur when a person feels as if his mind separates from his body. During OBEs, people sense that they are floating above their own bodies. No one knows what causes OBEs(Out-of Bodies Experiences), but some people believe that OBEs are religious or spiritual events. Interestingly, many people who have come close to death report that they have had an OBE.Researchers from the University Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne (Switzerland) have found that OBEs can be produced by direct electrical stimulation of a specific part of the brain. Dr. Olaf Blanke and his colleagues worked with a 43-year-old female patient who suffered from right temporal lobe epilepsy. In order to identify the location where the seizures occurred, the researchers implanted electrodes on the brain under the patient's dura. While the patient was awake, the researchers could pass electrical current through the electrodes to identify the function of the brain area under each electrode. Electrical stimulation of the angular gyrus on the right side of the patient's brain produced unusual sensations. Weak stimulation caused the patient to feel as if she was "sinking into the bed" or "falling from a height." Stronger electrical stimulation caused the patient to have an OBE. For example, the patient said, "I see myself lying in bed, from above, but I only see my legs and lower trunk." Stimulation of the angular gyrus at other times caused the woman to have feelings of "lightness" and of "floating" two meters above the bed. The angular gyrus is located near the vestibular (balance) area of the cerebral cortex. It is likely that electrical stimulation of the angular gyrus interrupts the ability of the brain to make sense of information related to balance and touch. This interruption may result in OBEs. Blood flow changes within the angular gyrus may alter brain activity during "near death experiences." This is the result in OBEs reported by people who survive such events. Dr Fenwick says: ‘In a coronary, the brain goes down within 16 seconds and it then stays off-line until you recover slowly. Now, either these accounts arise because brain and consciousness become split or because they are a retrospective construction of the experience of unconsciousness. I would probably go for a splitting’. Proving nothing? Dr Parnia, a clinical research fellow and registrar at Southampton Hospital, said: ‘I started off as a sceptic but, having weighed up all the evidence, I now think that there is something going on. ‘Essentially, it comes back to the question of whether the mind or consciousness is produced from the brain. If we can prove that the mind is produced by the brain, I don’t think there is anything after we die because essentially we are conscious beings. ‘If, on the contrary, the brain is like an intermediary which manifests the mind, like a television will act as an intermediary to manifest waves in the air into a picture or sound, we can show that the mind is still there after the brain is dead. And that is what I think these near-death experiences indicate.’ However, Dr Sue Blackmore, a psychiatrist who has made a special study of these phenomena, declares that although the research is good work, ‘it proves absolutely nothing about the soul. All claims about this being evidence for consciousness existing without a brain are unfounded, baseless rubbish’. Difficulty The problem with near-death experiences is that they are exactly that — near-death experiences and not death experiences. Does the cessation of electrical activity mean that the person is dead — or are they just in the process of dying? Body tissues are sensitive, and real death rapidly brings irreparable damage. The fact that these patients were resuscitated means that little damage occurred and thus begs the question as to whether they actually did die. As to the question of emotions and visions, the difficulty lies in understanding what happens to the brain when it is ‘nearly dead’. When brain cells begin to die, and brain chemicals are no longer controlled, what sort of hallucinations are possible? The strikingly similar experiences of ‘clinically dead’ patients might simply be a common psychological phenomenon, which occurs as the mental software begins to crash.The essential point is that such experiences provide no reliable information about an after-life.Any true after-life experience occurs, by definition, in another dimension. We can have no confidence that the tools and methodology of science apply — the laws of that ‘universe’ would be totally different from ours." My own conclusion:Is the brain truly dead,while people are aware of things that are happening in that moment? Reasearchments showed that patients were aware of the doctor who was checking them,while the brain was supposedly completely shut down.But how can we be sure,since in every brain you have 10-100 billion nerve cells(neurons),and each of these neurons is the centre for something!Aas far as I know,we have study only 130 neurons of 10-100 billion neurons present in each of all of our brains! I'm 100 sure that there is a centre for every single unexplainable thing/phenomenon in the brain. Once more,your thoughts needed,atheists and agnostics! Thanks!
Thanks God I am not an athiest or agnostics, but hey, you were quicker than me to this, I was about to start a thread about this very interesting topic. The fact that people with near death experiences see sometimes things we dont see ( Angels for example ) make the existence of God a certain assured fact. Near-death experiences of Muslims: The way of the heart Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! http://www.near-death.com/muslim.html
PM, You are joking right? How can experiencing a hallucination prove the existence of a god? Even if it wasn’t a hallucination all you have is an unexplained phenomenon – the giant leap to conclude a god exists isn’t warranted from such claims. Kat
Gravage, Any expereince recalled from a period when the brain is subjected to serious trauma is incredibly unreliable. There is no justification to suggest these extreme dreams are anything other than natural effects. Kat
can you see atoms or DNA? but you still believe it because a limited amount of people (scientists) tell you and they provide proof (pics, text etc.) well to religious people the scientists are the Prophets, the evidence is the miracles/prophecies etc. in the books and the signs of creation. the answer is simple. there is either a God or not. the answer depends on the individual. science has proven that 15 Billion years ago the universe was created at a certain point and it will come to an end at a certain point from now. before that nothing existed including time and space. it would be impossible to imagine what the universe was like before the Big Bang because "nothing" (and this really is "nothing") is unimaginable. when someone asks you to imagine nothing, in your head, you'll probably be thinking something like a blank white space with "nothing" there. well even this is wrong. first off white is something and the actual "space" that "nothing" covers is something! and before the big bang according to science and religion these things didn't exsist (it is impossible for these to exists). not even the space that nothing covers existed or the time that "nothing" existed for. if it is scientifically proven that something as bizarre as this is possible then why is the idea of God ridiculous to some people. also it is proven that the universe will inevitably come to an end, which is according to (some) religions going to be the doomsday. CONCLUSION the common argument for atheism is that if God made the universe, then what made God, well if humans can't even imagine "nothing" then how on earth can we imagine what God can do.
If visions seen during the beginning of brain death are reliable indicators of the nature or existence of God, why not psilocybin mushroom trips? Often, the mood/beliefs/expectations of mushroom poppers affect(s) the hallucinations. To that end, I wonder how many fervent Christians have visions of Vishnu when they die... or how many hardcore Muslims visit Buddha? The better religious test of NDEs would not be whether or not people see disturbing visions, but whether or not the experiences cross cultural divides. It's one thing if a Christian or someone who has grown up in a culture pushing the Christian Heaven and Hell sees one or the other. It would be something else if members of all the world's religions saw the same Christian vision of Heaven or Hell despite their own preconceptions about the afterlife. Josh
everything is made of atoms,so yes you can see them Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! first you need to define God,then we will see if it exists. and you know this how? also, what was universe created from? since you cannot create something from nothing (matter/energy=the stuff everything is made of,cannot be destroyed nor created only changed) so the universe must have always existed in some form or shape dont you think? as far as NDEs go,never had one so cant comment,though its probably all in your mind,just like dreams,or halucinations.
first you have no scientific proof that this is hallucination. Secondly, I believe what those people have witnesses because I had near death experience my self when I was 7 years old and I still remember it until this very day.
for hopless pagan atheists, everything is dumb as long as it is not against their illogical pathetic denial of God. You deny God ---------> you are intelligent You accept God--------> you are dumb. for me: You are atheist---------> you are not only dumb but BRAINLESS.
NDE´s? Funny stuff that is. So lets see, some people get "visions" when they are clinically dead or near death. So what, it would not be far fetched if it is explained with a lack of blood in their brains. This results in malfunctions of the brain. From this some kinds of "visions" may happen. Hey, if you are stoned and nearly dead resulting from alcohol poisoning you also get a lot of weird "visions" and "spiritual" experiences. You can only find out if there is a life after death (or whatever) after you died yourself. So if anyone really wants to know the truth, I advise that you take a loaded pistol, hold it to your head and pull the trigger. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
