Neuroscientist Has a Near-Death Experience!!!

DaltheJigsaw

Enter the light! Enter the Light!

I think we’ve all heard of Near Death Experiences (NDEs), tunnels of light and out of body experiences occurring during medical events in our lives. Well, they don’t just happen in cardiac wards or in the split-seconds between car hitting pedestrian; they’ve been reported and recorded for centuries and happen anywhere at any time of physical or mental crisis.

One of the earliest recorders of such mysterious events was Albert von st. Gallen Heim who reported the experiences of mountain-climbers and soldiers who faced death. They often explained how they had felt a timeless quality and some measure of calmness that was at odds with falling off cliffs or dodging bullets.

More intense, and genuinely mysterious adventures into the unknown, tend to involve being welcomed into a place where we feel truly joyful and meet people we’ve known in life. From suicide leapers to dying infants, survivors come with stories that challenge our ideas of what it means to be alive.

These snips are from 1st hand accounts of NDEs. A couple are from attempted suicide jumpers and the others are from hospital NDEs…

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread779873/pg1

ajnast4r

DaltheJigsaw

Seen this and it is truly amazing!:) Thank you for reminding me!:)

EarthSnake

Thank you for posting this!

DaltheJigsaw

Thank you for posting this!

Welcome!

aura

Observe and experience
making careful and thorough note of what you have observed and experienced
and you will eventually observe that illness and accident...
all illness
all accident
up to and including death itself
exist for the sole purpose of the growth of consciousness...
and that they are very, very effective teachers indeed.

Beyond the east-west hemispheres of brain her stroke made obvious to her
are also the front-back layers of the sum total of all one has ever been throughout lifetimes
and the north-south connection of the center of all of them with the heart
(which has its own separate "brain"/nervous system).
True health and growth are the balanced expansion and expression of all of those aspects of mind, and she is absolutely right that it is indeed a choice we make every moment of every day of our lives.

andyrobyn

Powerful video - having the human brain example is great ... good evidence of the usefulness of leaving body to medical schools.

poptart

Inspiring story. Thanks for this.

Dakini

Thanks for plugging away on the NDE theme, Leon. Much better response this time.
Finally, a neuroscientist on the NDE team!
Jill Taylor (the neuroscientist in the second film) wrote a book about her experience and her analysis of it: "My Stroke of Insight". Great book. It's a good explanation of what happens in meditation: the left brain is quieted, allowing the properties of the right brain to come to the fore.

FoibleFull

Yes, it is a great explanation of the state of meditation. No wonder my lamas smile so much!
Great book. Great insight.

DaltheJigsaw

Thanks everyone!:)

compassionate_warrior

This is a great post, thanks. I looked up the scientist in the first video to see if he's published any books on his experience. So far, he's just giving lectures on it, but his site says he's working on a book that'll be published and available in 2012.

DaltheJigsaw

This is a great post, thanks. I looked up the scientist in the first video to see if he's published any books on his experience. So far, he's just giving lectures on it, but his site says he's working on a book that'll be published and available in 2012.

ThailandTom

So, take away the left side of your brain and you will be totally in the moment. hmm, quickly than years of meditation :scratch:

Dakini

So, take away the left side of your brain and you will be totally in the moment. hmm, quickly than years of meditation :scratch:

Yes, but without the left side, you won't be able to function in the world. She said the left brain is what helps us have a separate sense of "I", and without it we wouldn't be able to tell where our bodies end, and where the atmosphere and world around us begins. "Oneness with all creation" is great, but only in small doses, not 24/7. And the left brain is the one that filters sensory input so we don't get overwhelmed by input flooding in from all our senses, like Taylor did, after her stroke. The left brain is the part that helps us get through the day, reminds us of what we have to do during the day, analyzes for us, and also it's the seat of language.

IronRabbit

Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, in 1954 researched LSD in Prague, and after 1967 he explored ketamine, and other methods for exhibiting non-ordinary states of consciousness like holotropic breathing. Grof concluded that some near-death experiences are virtual recollection of birth memories, actual re-experiencing of parts of the process in symbolic form, and "movement towards the light tunnel being a memory or symbolic re-experience of being born : a memory of the 'near-birth experience'."

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/10/the_left_brain_right_brain_myt.php

Dakini

Grof was amazing! There's a psychologist in California, Emerson, who has continued Grof's work, using breathwork to bring patients into, as you call it, a "near-birth experience", recalling the conditions of their birth, the first year of life, and even conditions in the womb. This has resulted in the spontaneous resolution of serious health issues, such as diabetes. Emerson has had doctors examine patients afterward their sessions and certify that medical conditions have resolved.

The neuroscientist in Leon's post says that what he experienced, and what other NDE-ers report, though it has commonalities with this or that other phenomenon, still includes details that are not present in any other phenomenon used to explain the NDE symptoms. He says NDE's have aspects that are unique to NDE's. So if he's writing a book, I'll look forward to checking that out, to get a more detailed professional analysis.

Leon, be on the lookout for us, could you, for the announcement of the book's publication. You're our NDE reporter.

misecmisc1

@ironrabbit: But in some NDE experiences, it is reported that the experiencer has met some persons who were already dead and even some person who he did not know had died and later when the experiencer came out of NDE experience, then he came to know the fact that the other person he had met had also died. This NDE experience cannot be related to NBE experience as only people who have died are viewed in it. Any theory which negates this thing. Please let us know.

The authencity of the data of the experience is a question, but it seems that some observations done by the experiencer during lying on the operation bed cannot be explained without an Outside Body Experience. All views are welcome.

IronRabbit

misecmisc1: All NDE experiences have one commonality - the subject relating memory of experience was NOT dead.

Clinically declaring one dead when pulse and detectable brain waves cease clearly is not infallible. Whether by outside or internal means people do resuscitate - therefore they were not - are not dead - and were very likely dreaming - or in a dreamlike state - an activity we associate with the living!

In lucid dream states it is possible to direct - indeed, orchestrate dream content. In dreaming and unconsciousness external stimuli is still processed by the brain - the living organ of the dreamer responsible for the dream. The distinction between the sleeping, the comatose or the unconscious cannot be characterized as hard-edged. Although the comatose or deeply anesthetized may not dream, (as in a story with a plot) random, incoherent or visionary images may be experienced and remembered once consciousness is regained.

Meeting another found later to be dead - or floating above an operating room - or past life regressions have the same commonality - they are experienced by the living reporting the dream. Corroboration by the dead parties met is not to be had - certainly not even anecdotally - much less clinically. This is not proof of consciousness persisting beyond death - this is proof of the utterly vast and misunderstood magnitude of the complexity of human consciousness.

The human brain filters the massive amount of sensory information it is subjected to through our senses. Approximately 2000 bits of information per second enter the human brain. A fraction of that information is processed and utilized for personal "wants" and "needs" - the rest is fodder for dreams - past life regression - nde's - astral travel - out of body experience. But make no mistake - these interpretations of "altered consciousness" - whether shared or categorized by researchers have everything to do with a living, breathing organism capable of filtering, storing, processing, and actualizing sensory data in this and no other plane of existence.

person

misecmisc1: All NDE experiences have one commonality - the subject relating memory of experience was NOT dead.

Clinically declaring one dead when pulse and detectable brain waves cease clearly is not infallible. Whether by outside or internal means people do resuscitate - therefore they were not - are not dead - and were very likely dreaming - or in a dreamlike state - an activity we associate with the living!

In lucid dream states it is possible to direct - indeed, orchestrate dream content. In dreaming and unconsciousness external stimuli is still processed by the brain - the living organ of the dreamer responsible for the dream. The distinction between the sleeping, the comatose or the unconscious cannot be characterized as hard-edged. Although the comatose or deeply anesthetized may not dream, (as in a story with a plot) random, incoherent or visionary images may be experienced and remembered once consciousness is regained.

Meeting another found later to be dead - or floating above an operating room - or past life regressions have the same commonality - they are experienced by the living reporting the dream. Corroboration by the dead parties met is not to be had - certainly not even anecdotally - much less clinically. This is not proof of consciousness persisting beyond death - this is proof of the utterly vast and misunderstood magnitude of the complexity of human consciousness.

The human brain filters the massive amount of sensory information it is subjected to through our senses. Approximately 2000 bits of information per second enter the human brain. A fraction of that information is processed and utilized for personal "wants" and "needs" - the rest is fodder for dreams - past life regression - nde's - astral travel - out of body experience. But make no mistake - these interpretations of "altered consciousness" - whether shared or categorized by researchers have everything to do with a living, breathing organism capable of filtering, storing, processing, and actualizing sensory data in this and no other plane of existence.

No brain waves, maybe they aren't dead, it all depends on how you define it. But how does someone have memories or experience without brainwaves? An image in your mind of a red circle isn't a random or incoherent experience it takes several areas of the brain working together in harmony to experience such a 'simple' image. Brain waves don't just measure plot line, besides people with NDE do report a somewhat coherent story. Brain waves are at an excited state when people are dreaming, they're non exsistent during and NDE.

NDE's aren't 'proof' that conciousness can exsist after death, its evidence. I too would reject NDE as proof. That is too high a bar.

compassionate_warrior

NDE's aren't 'proof' that conciousness can exsist after death, its evidence. I too would reject NDE as proof. That is too high a bar.

Well said. NDE's are evidence that there's more to reality, and to science as we know it, than meets the eye. I'm glad some people are investigating this, and now we have a neuroscientist weighing in from his personal experience. Even if we don't believe, we can enjoy this journey of discovery.

DaltheJigsaw

Grof was amazing! There's a psychologist in California, Emerson, who has continued Grof's work, using breathwork to bring patients into, as you call it, a "near-birth experience", recalling the conditions of their birth, the first year of life, and even conditions in the womb. This has resulted in the spontaneous resolution of serious health issues, such as diabetes. Emerson has had doctors examine patients afterward their sessions and certify that medical conditions have resolved.

The neuroscientist in Leon's post says that what he experienced, and what other NDE-ers report, though it has commonalities with this or that other phenomenon, still includes details that are not present in any other phenomenon used to explain the NDE symptoms. He says NDE's have aspects that are unique to NDE's. So if he's writing a book, I'll look forward to checking that out, to get a more detailed professional analysis.

Leon, be on the lookout for us, could you, for the announcement of the book's publication. You're our NDE reporter.

You got it!:0