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Death and NDE
misecmisc1
I am a HinduIndia Veteran
hi all,
while browsing internet, i came across this video https://youtube.com/watch?v=tOHKcDrfc9U explaining the stages of death. then watched this video https://youtube.com/watch?v=OFJrow7yaec on the process of human decomposition.
then watched this video https://youtube.com/watch?v=10--R6fm540, which gives information on death process. this video is in 4 parts, the last part https://youtube.com/watch?v=ar2f9UOI5io refers to NDE and is very interesting.
so what do you all think are Near-Death Experiences(NDEs) or Out of Body Experiences (OBE) real?
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Comments
-- This may sound a bit too airy-fairy, but one of the things a meditation practice makes apparent is that death (so-called) is something that happens in every moment. You don't need to believe or disbelieve, adore or abhor ... it's just what happens. As my Zen teacher's teacher once observed, "There is birth and there is death. In between is enlightenment." Take away the "in between" and I agree with him.
-- As a news reporter, I once interviewed a very plain woman who got out of her body, to hear her tell it. When I asked her how it worked, she said she would lie down on the bed, tell her husband to shut up and then "roll myself up from my toes and pop out the top of my head." She told me she was not allowed to play the peeping Tom ... poke around where she was not welcome. In some way, that was against the rules. She also told me she was engaged in some serious experimentation with a seriously accredited paranormal research group in New York, a city she said she had never visited. Her tests included entering a locked room in which there was a table with several objects on it. Her job was to identify the objects. She remembered screwing up on one ID when she looked at a cigarette box with geometrical designs on top. She mischaracterized it because, she said, it looked three-dimensional.
Naturally, I soaked up the tales she told and tried to imagine writing an article about her. But in what way could I verify for readers that this woman was not just some brown-rice wack-job? I called up the paranormal-studies agency. They confirmed they were running experiments with the woman. But when I asked what her batting average was (was she a credible subject), they clammed up. I begged and pleaded for some indication I could pass along to readers. Finally, after getting no where and as I was about to hang up, one of the researchers told me quietly, "she is very, very good."
The only trouble with all this stuff is that, yes, it may be as true as sunshine or as phony as a $3 bill. Either way, as far as I can figure out, it's not of much use in anyone's efforts to assure a bit of peace.
But it's sort of like eating potato chips -- who doesn't like a good story, whether true or false?
I think they're real. I tried an OBE meditation technique once and I had an experience of crawling out of my body, like you would crawl out of a sleeping bag or something, being outside my body and being able to see into the next room. It was a really strange experience. As far as the usual goals of meditating which usually provide some insight and clarity, it was almost the opposite it made me feel very confused and I've also read somewhere that while you are out of your body it may be possible that spirits might try to enter your "vacant" body. I don't know if that's true or not, but I decided not to try it again. The benefit didn't seem to be worth the risk.
I also believe I had a near death experience when I was younger as a result of an allergic reaction to medication. I slowly started losing all my 5 senses, my mouth completely dried up and finally loss all sensation of heat or cold. It was really terrifying.
It sounds crazy and sometimes I question what those experiences where all about, but I believe they really happened.
Well I have done some research into NDE experiences as well as some different facets of paranormal experiments. I know this generates discussion all along the continuum of belief but at certain points of one's life these subjects become more important. I continue to research because it is important for me to know where my loved ones have gone and if I will have the opportunity to see them again. I had a son who died a little while back and that changed my whole mindset on this subject. Actually I have lost my entire immediate family now and I am not that old. Its a struggle. While I have been able to use the Buddhist practice to ease some of the emotional factors my curiosity and longing remain. Not in an obsessive way but in the sense of discovery. I think that some day we might just be able to shed more light on this aspect of our lives in a scientific way.
I agree that so much of the information out there is airy fairy and not worth the time it takes to search Mr. Google. I tend to stay in the areas that lean more towards sorting these things out in a scientific manner as much as is possible at this stage of our development and knowledge.
I do believe in NDE/OBE and spirits due to personal / family incidents. Unless you hear the story directly from the horse's mouth and someone you know and feel you can trust not to make up stuff, then it's very easy to believe.
I tend to believe that the mind can fabricate quite complex delusions. I have no doubt people cling to the emotional certainty and comfort of such experiences ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-body_experience#AWARE_study
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2390236/Near-death-experiences-explained-Surge-brain-activity-trigger-paranormal-visions.html
These so-called cerebral surges also don't explain why so many people have similar - but not identical - tunnel experiences - or how they manage to describe, in great detail, certain images, experiences and incidents that occurred, while they were dying and viewing the room from an impossible angle.
I think as a researcher it would be much easier to try and disprove NDE experiences. After all how can you prove something that is not measurable?
But it looks like there is some scientific evidence that indicates it NDE/OBE might be real.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/life-after-death-largestever-study-provides-evidence-that-out-of-body-and-neardeath-experiences-may-actually-be-real-9780195.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2503370/Quantum-physics-proves-IS-afterlife-claims-scientist.html
In Buddhism there are a lot of things that cannot be proven scientifically, but we choose to believe them, because we try them and after trying them they work for us. Sometimes i think it's weird how we can believe in string theories, dark matter, God particles and ten dimensions, but this kind of thing cannot exist.
such as....?
No, we don't CHOOSE to believe them. We believe them because they work for us. There is no trying to believe, if they have been proven to work. (whatever 'they' are....)
....Because Science has proven they exist...
Nobody said they cannot exist.
That's why Scientists are investigating. Because of the occurrences...
Such as reincarnation. There are even Buddhist who do not agree on this let alone science.
Like I said " because we try them and after trying them they work for us." I still think it's a choice, because there is an option to still have disbelief even after having a Buddhist practice work for us we can still justify and dismiss results as coincidences or placebo effects etc. But, instead we choose to believe and then try to investigate the occurrences with science and to prove we are justified in our beliefs.
well they did build the Large Hadron Collider with a budget of 7.5 billion euros (approx. $9bn) in order to prove the god particle/higgs bosson theory. Not so sure string theory has been proven though.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/large-hadron-collider/8337880/AAAS-Large-Hadron-Collider-to-prove-God-Particle-theory-within-two-years.html
I meant that a lot of people believe that after you die that is it. There is no soul or afterlife or NDE/OBE and that those experiences can be explained through hallucinations and the release of chemicals at death and nothing more.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/peace-of-mind-near-death/
Science has proven that dark matter exists?
I thought it was just implied because without it all current theories go out the window.
Go to the bottom of any teenager's room and look in their laundry basket. It exists...
(I'm not a spectacularly science-minded person, you will have noted....)
I iz not Buddhist Faithful? Woe is crustacean!
Fellow unbelievers is not Mount Meru the centre of the universe as the Buddha taught?
http://buddhism.about.com/od/buddhisthistory/a/mountmeru.htm
... and now back to the present life cherry picking non-fantasy for the good of ones future soul travel ... ahem reincarnation ... wait ... birth in the Pureland/heaven ...
There is an issue with gravity, in that by the accepted models (which are the best we have), there is nowhere near enough stuff in the universe to maintain its structure as we see it and understand it now - shockingly, all actual matter that we can perceive (i.e. what is considered to be everything) makes up about 5% with dark matter and dark energy making up the rest. Therefore, at the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, dark matter / energy is an interim solution referring to additional stuff that should be there if waveparticle theory and gravity broadly are as we consider they might be. There is a project 'mapping' dark matter by measuring the incidence of diversion of light due to gravitational effect of dark matter / energy - in very broad summary, dark matter and 'normal' matter seem to manifest close together and it is proposed that gravity is at least one form of interaction between the two.
String theory, what is now quantum wave theory, M-theory (multi dimensions) etc are similar in that they are derived from precise calculations and predictions which, utilising the same standards that uphold classic theory, are 'true' to the same standard but to a much higher degree of accuracy - so in that sense, string theory (to pick one) shows what could be considered inescapable conclusions based on the same process that provides classical conclusions - therefore, that the conclusions do not fit with classical observations, at this stage, must be accepted as a fault with our understanding / classic models because if it is not a fault somewhere then we also lose the basis of relying on classic models.
I suspect that most religious belief stems directly or indirectly from the fear of extinction at death, and NDEs are no exception.
So are you willing to stare into the void? If not, then choose a practice which is less demanding than Buddhism.
In my early teens I thought I was having OBEs or astral traveling but it turned out to be subtle form of lucid dreaming.
It dawned on me once that the street signs were gibberish and that was the end of that.
I went to Wales once, and I thought all the signs there were gibberish too.....
OP, NDE/OBE incidents seem to support the Mahayana Buddhist contention that consciousness survives death. Other aspects of those experiences don't conform to Buddhist teachings, FWIW: encountering a Divine Light or other form of Divinity, and other spiritual beings, for example.
As to your question re: whether they're real, there's a book you may enjoy, by a Dutch cardiac surgeon, who has studied the matter, after too many of his patients to ignore reported such experiences, even as their monitoring equipment showed no brain activity:
"Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near Death Experience", by Pim van Lommel.
Thing is, it was my neighborhood so it was like catching a glimpse of the little man behind the curtain.
That is my own experience though and in no way is it meant as being glib about the experiences of others.
It was I, being glib, not you....
I had a number of these experiences in my early twenties too. The most disturbing was the occasional one where it felt like someone was sitting on my chest when I woke up and i couldn't move. It was an awful feeling!
I often dream about being drunk or stoned these days which apparently means i don't feel in control of my life. Tell me something i don't know!
They are probably as real as what you did yesterday. What they are are experiences. Just like you experience being embodied in the body. They are real to the experiencer.
Even some Therevada teachers also seem to support NDE, as seem implied from their dhamma talks.
This might explain what was happening
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
... and now back to the dreams of the undead ...
Living 'is' and has always been a 'near' death experience (if you get my drift) ....
Sooner or later we'll all experience the real thing, (up close and personal) so why fuss over a mere NDE....
hi all,
today while i was browsing internet, i came across this beautiful documentary, so thought of sharing it with you all: https://youtube.com/watch?v=O6eF7B3Vk9w .
metta to you and all sentient beings.