Near Death Experience (NDE)

[North Cali Sammy]

If you watch the various videos on YouTube, you get the idea that no two near death experiences are the same. While I was in the hospital and in critical condition, I hallucinated that I was in different environments, my mind building stories around what I was experiencing.

I wonder whether near death experiences are a mechanism of the mind that removes the fear of death when an individual nears the point of no return.

I almost added a poll to this thread, but it would have been limited.

 

[(Q)]

It would appear that when the brain undergoes trauma, it fires off neurons causing the person to hallucinate.

 

[exchemist]

If you watch the various videos on YouTube, you get the idea that no two near death experiences are the same. While I was in the hospital and in critical condition, I hallucinated that I was in different environments, my mind building stories around what I was experiencing.

I wonder whether near death experiences are a mechanism of the mind that removes the fear of death when an individual nears the point of no return.

I almost added a poll to this thread, but it would have been limited.

Hard to see what evolutionary function such a mechanism could have, though.

Delirium is commonplace enough when the body’s biochemistry is upset, as it will be when death is close at hand. I suspect the reported hallucinations are more likely due to that than any latent mechanism.

Judging by my experience of watching people die (wife, parents), they are not afraid, even when more or less lucid. Actually I suspect the whole fear of death thing is overdone. The fear, or distress, in my experience, is more on the part of those left behind.

 

[Pinball1970]

H

Hard to see what evolutionary function such a mechanism could have, though.

Delirium is commonplace enough when the body’s biochemistry is upset, as it will be when death is close at hand. I suspect the reported hallucinations are more likely due to that than any latent mechanism.

Judging by my experience of watching people die (wife, parents), they are not afraid, even when more or less lucid. Actually I suspect the whole fear of death thing is overdone. The fear, or distress, in my experience, is more on the part of those left behind.

A person close to me was in bad state due to alcohol abuse. His liver/kidneys were in trouble leading to a build up of toxins affecting his brain, causing hysteria and hallucinations.
He got through it luckily but he did not for one minute think he had been elsewhere.
My body temperature during COVID took me to places in my head that only a fever can.

 

[TheVat]

The only selective selective advantage I imagine would be that neurological states that lessen fear would be useful for hunter-gatherer bands. A HG band that was more fearful of death might start opting for timid/cautious measures whose net effects could be less food, less useful exploration, less success fighting off marauders, less climbing up shaky tree branches to snatch eggs, etc. So some endorphin release and comforting visions near death might be neurologically adaptive for one's kin group. It would be hard to tie this to particular alleles, but I think there are anthropologists who have argued for the possibility.

 

[TheVat]

He got through it luckily but he did not for one minute think he had been elsewhere.
My body temperature during COVID took me to places in my head that only a fever can

It was a faulty wood burning stove for me, one year when we lived in a cottage in Oregon. I fixed the stovepipe the next day and bought a CO alarm. Floating out of my body as a blue wraith with some sort of gold corona (my OBE self saw itself in a mirror and shat itself) and hovering various places in the house was definitely the "wake-up call" needed.

 

[Seattle]

I think the NDEs that are common, which is usually described as a tunnelling with a bright light at the end, is just a lack of oxygen.

There are some other fairly common repeated experiences like calmly looking down on the room from the ceiling. It can feel like an out of body experience but again it's just a hallucination. James Randy, the skeptic, was ill (almost died) and felt that he was looking down on his bed at himself and he described the scene down to the pattern on the cover. It felt very real to him.

Even though he was a sceptic, he almost fooled himself but his partner reminded him that the cover he was describing wasn't the one that was on the bed that day. So your mind can do a lot of things, including dreaming, but that doesn't mean any of it is "real" including NDEs.

I also don't doubt that there is a natural "narcotic" or numbing effect that kicks in as you are close to death that would help to make you at peace with the situation. Given that and everything that has lead up to that point, you could well be "ready to go".

 

[HonestJoe]

Hard to see what evolutionary function such a mechanism could have, though.

That's because you're assuming these are examples of that function working correctly.

In times of perceived threat or danger, both our bodies and minds can go in to a kind of "overdrive", to try to quickly understand the threat and defeat or avoid it. This is why people who went through extreme events often report feeling like time slowed down or people who apply great strength to save a loved one. Because this is an extreme, rapid and (hopefully) rare process though, it's not going to be perfect, especially if you're ill, injured and/or heavily medicated. A lot of reported NDE experiences could be explained by this kind of mental overdrive process simply getting messed up.

 

[exchemist]

That's because you're assuming these are examples of that function working correctly.

In times of perceived threat or danger, both our bodies and minds can go in to a kind of "overdrive", to try to quickly understand the threat and defeat or avoid it. This is why people who went through extreme events often report feeling like time slowed down or people who apply great strength to save a loved one. Because this is an extreme, rapid and (hopefully) rare process though, it's not going to be perfect, especially if you're ill, injured and/or heavily medicated. A lot of reported NDE experiences could be explained by this kind of mental overdrive process simply getting messed up.

On the contrary, I am expressing scepticism that this could be the product of any mechanism working correctly. Like you, I think it is just a product of upset biochemistry.