First hint of 'life after death'

[free at last]

No, I was definitely awake and checked in with the others I was interacting with on the volleyball team. They confirmed that I was running around the court with them, hitting the ball, etc.

Sushi

Right I am a little confused. Are you saying that you was both consciously aware on the court, and high up on the ceiling. Or just consciously aware high up on the ceiling ? I have never heard of a OBE where two conscious thoughts existed at the same time. So are you saying that when you was high up. looking down. you had no thoughts inside the person on court. This is bizarre isn't it

 

[Sushi]

Right I am a little confused. Are you saying that you was both consciously aware on the court, and high up on the ceiling. Or just consciously aware high up on the ceiling ? I have never heard of a OBE where two conscious thoughts existed at the same time. So are you saying that when you was high up. looking down. you had no thoughts inside the person on court. This is bizarre isn't it

During the experience, my awareness/perception was only up at the ceiling, I had no perception located in my body--so no dual consciousness. Then after about 5 minutes, my awareness was suddenly back in my body.

Sushi

 

[xrunner]

I will continue looking at this subject. until have i learned more. At the moment I do not know enough, to have a real voice about it, Other than I find it interesting. And I remain open minded.

Anybody who's open minded can find out whether some nde experiences are genuine and the reality of life after death. Bu you won't find that out by reading studies...

 

[free at last]

Its just the way of the world Lo

free at last said, ....."And I remain open minded."

I like that, and you are sure in agreement with a pretty smart guy named C G Jung who once said, "I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud."

I wonder how deeply those here who debunk NDE's out of hand and even those who offer more conventional medical explanations have looked into the vast accumulation of information and study about these extraordinary experiences. I suspect not too deeply.

Maybe it's 'beneath' them to even consider, or simply that their interests lie elsewhere. I think it's the certitude of their differing thoughts that trouble me.

One thing is for sure, they have not had this experience. Statistics of the prevalence of NDE's make it almost a sure bet someone on PR has, however.

its just the way of the world Lou. to find explanations that seem to fit our more down to earth experiences. And perhaps that is a good thing. Perhaps it is what we should try to do in the first instance. We all do it. And we should.. Because we have to start somewhere. So we start with what we know. Or what we think we know. Which is where problems can sometimes arise. What we think we know, May not be correct I am afraid. But the belief may hang on stubbornly. Against mounting data. We know this for a fact.

I agree it can on occasion, seem at odds with other evidence, and it is here. that we should at least be prepared to modify or change our ideas to better fit the data that we are presented. To not do so, can become stubbornness, borne out of ignorance, and mistrust for anything new.

That we have already decided can not be possibly real. Even though the data, may take us to this place.

 

[free at last]

During the experience, my awareness/perception was only up at the ceiling, I had no perception located in my body--so no dual consciousness. Then after about 5 minutes, my awareness was suddenly back in my body.

Sushi

It opens the question Sushi if your consciousness was high up on the ceiling. Who was it that was running around playing volleyball ? Un

Because if that persons consciousness had left its body was floating elsewhere. Shouldn't your body have stood there motionless. And without being in control.
Unless there was a dual consciousness occurring. But you couldn't feel the other one. Either way. Like a split consciousness. But you remembered only the One ? weird beyond belief. I am interested in what your thoughts on this are. BTW well done for having the courage to speak about this here. I certainly believe you.

 

[Sushi]

I have no explanation either! I was dumbfounded to see my body running around without being aware of body-locus perception. But, like you said, there must have been some dual perception or I couldn't have hit the ball. I just wasn't aware of it.

And yes, I thought twice about "coming out of the closet" on this one!

Sushi

 

[free at last]

Anybody who's open minded can find out whether some nde experiences are genuine and the reality of life after death. Bu you won't find that out by reading studies...

No you may not x runner. But it might suggest strongly the possibility of NDEs OBEs and a afterlife are possible. And even possibly likely. Especially if image regognition , is discovered by those with there eyes shut. on a hospital bed. who accurately recalled a placed photo. They had no prior knowledge of. That they saw when floating high up on the ceiling looking down. We could learn that from studies. ?

 

[free at last]

I have no explanation either! I was dumbfounded to see my body running around without being aware of body-locus perception. But, like you said, there must have been some dual perception or I couldn't have hit the ball. I just wasn't aware of it.

And yes, I thought twice about "coming out of the closet" on this one!

Sushi

The only explanation I can think of is you experienced a waking OBE. One that was a split OBE
Your mind in two places at once. But you remembered the one high up.
But not the other.

It seems to suggest you can only have one OBE memory at a time. Even if your mind has split in some way. I can't believe I am saying this. Damm Sushi how Bizarre.

How many people have you told this too ? perhaps you should contact a researcher. I am sure they would be interested.

 

[Lou]

@Sushi My sister, whose beliefs are traditional, surprised me once by telling me of an incident, somewhat like yours, that happened years before.

Her husband brought home a new dirt bike and coaxed her into taking it for a little spin. She'd never driven one and he gave her basic instructions. When she made the first turn in their back yard she mistakenly turned the throttle wide open and ran into a brick wall. With no helment.

On the way to the hospital she remembers viewing her body from somewhere above and outside the ambulance. She told me it was not some fuzzy, dreamy thing, but a quiet distinct experience.

 

[Sushi]

The only explanation I can think of is you experienced a waking OBE. One that was a split OBE
Your mind in two places at once. But you remembered the one high up.
But not the other.

It seems to suggest you can only have one OBE memory at a time. Even if your mind has split in some way. I can't believe I am saying this. Damm Sushi how Bizarre.

How many people have you told this too ? perhaps you should contact a researcher. I am sure they would be interested.

I once sent this story to Raymond Moody, through his publisher, but I don't know if he ever received it.

Sushi

 

[MeSci]

I have no explanation either! I was dumbfounded to see my body running around without being aware of body-locus perception. But, like you said, there must have been some dual perception or I couldn't have hit the ball. I just wasn't aware of it.

And yes, I thought twice about "coming out of the closet" on this one!

Sushi

It sounds like a much more dramatic version of the thing I have often had, which is hearing myself talking, and panicking because I realise that one or more people are listening to me, and I am worried because I am only partly aware of what I am saying and may end up talking gibberish! It does feel partly as though it is not me talking, as I don't feel properly in control of it.

Your experience sounds as though your body was functioning fine whilst most of your consciousness was elsewhere or otherwise occupied.

Maybe these experiences have a boring explanation such as false memory. OTOH we can do a lot of things without really thinking about them, such as driving, and these can include reacting appropriately to events as they occur. I think this is procedural memory (IIRC).

Another example is people doing quite complex things whilst listening to the radio. For example, my artist friend believes that she works better when doing this.

Whether you were in any way really high up could only be tested by putting something in place that you could only see or discern from above. I don't know how rigorous the studies into OBE are with regard to this.

 

[natasa778]

Whether you were in any way really high up could only be tested by putting something in place that you could only see or discern from above. I don't know how rigorous the studies into OBE are with regard to this.

Yes, but how on Earth can anyone design a study to test something that happens once in a lifetime, to one in a thousand people, if that. And for something that usually happens out of the blue without the person having any control or being able to induce it ... (I am talking about OBE here, not NDE, which you sort of 'almost' can study under controlled circumstances by hanging around ERs for long enough

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Yes, but how on Earth can anyone design a study to test something that happens once in a lifetime, to one in a thousand people, if that. And for something that usually happens out of the blue without the person having any control or being able to induce it ... (I am talking about OBE here, not NDE, which you sort of 'almost' can study under controlled circumstances by hanging around ERs for long enough

I am afraid I will annoy the mystics, but designing such studies is easy and done regularly in neuropsychology labs and it is easy to get the sort of experience Sushi describes, if not quite as gross.

It is worth remembering that everything we think we know about what the world is like and where we are in it is invented by our brain for us as a result of calculations it makes. We do not 'see' the world just by having the world send in messages about itself. Seeing is the manufacturing of signs that indicate what our brain has inferred about the patterns of changes the world can offer us in the context of what we might do. (The explanation is not boring, it is quite fascinating and involves believing in the reality of 'experience', which is something quite different from matter or energy, but it is not black magic.) The red that we see does not exist in the world. It is a code sign we use to indicate certain possibilities of interest to us. Space is a code sign too. The real world of physics is not 'spacious'. Even Newton told us that. So all that we need to get strange experiences about how the world is or where we are is a little glitch in brain processing.

The most standard experiment is a variant on the 'rubber hand illusion' in which, using a computerised image or an actual rubber hand and a mask for your own hand you can experience your hand being in two places at once, fully awake and absolutely clear about that. With mirrors you can get people to feel their face is both somewhere and not there at the same time. The experiences are so weird that people regularly fall about laughing or sometimes scream. Sushi saying that she saw the top of her head might seem impossible but during these experiments people often report things that they feel they must have experienced even though they cannot have done. The brain tries to make sense of what it tells us - maybe it feels embarrassed about serving up a story that does not make sense. My memory of lying on the floor with no heartbeat is a memory of seeing myself lying on the floor, whereas in fact at the time I had no vision - just blackness.

It's all great fun and the explanations are wonderful but they are to do with brain physiology not magic - and people are working out more about how the physiology works all the time!!

 

[Gijs]

I think it would have been Greenfield. Susan Blackmore is a sort of eliminativist about consciousness, I think.

I agree with barbc56 that this is no very big deal I am afraid. I have had people aware while I kept them alive for many minutes with heart massage despite their heart having stopped. OK you might say that then their brain had enough oxygen but the reality is that most of the time we start heart massage before anybody has got an ECG on to tell the heart has stopped. You can stay aware for quite a few minutes with just the occasional tweak from a heart - I have had it myself with a Stokes Adams attack when I was 23.

I think the business of 'out of body' experience is easily enough explained. When you are anaesthetised or suffering from shortage of blood to the brain in a faint it is not unusual for some sensations to disappear but others, often hearing, to remain. When I had nitrous oxide as a kid for tooth extraction I remember hearing the dentist talking but not feeling any touch or seeing anything. My guess is that if you lose proprioception and touch you fell pretty much 'out of body' because you cannot have any sense of being in a body you cannot feel. I think the thing about being on the ceiling is a bit fanciful and as far as I know nobody confirmed it.

For me the best account of what consciousness is comes from Leibniz in 1714, exactly 300 years ago. He got one or two things wrong technically but explained that everything in the universe exists only in the sense that it perceives the rest of the univere. In most cases the perceiving is confused but for our 'souls' the perceiving is clear consciousness. Leibniz did not know quite what a soul would be but he gave an account of something that sounds exactly like what you get in modern quantum mechanics. But is would not just be an electron or a proton, it would be a unit of 'force' that occupies an entire body. Quantum theory actually has things like that, so I think he was pretty nearly right.

I thought this was an ME site though?!!

I have an open mind. How can we explain a person who is blind and have a near death experience and can clearly see? And someone who can see details from a position what is impossible to see? Read this book and study http://www.pimvanlommel.nl/

 

[free at last]

I think consciousness, is not understood to the levels some might think they are. If evidence ever comes, that strongly shows the mind can exist free from the brain. Which I admit sounds very unlikely.

Then we will have to re think all our old assumptions. Its interesting that Dr Parnia believes one patient during the aware study. The one who interestingly sushi, also believed he's mind was floating in the corner of the hospital room.

Accurately described events visually.

While he's heart was trying to be re started. One of the people that was working on the guys heart from what I thought I read, in the aware study. Hadn't been seen before by the patient before. But from what I gathered, correctly identified her as doing certain things to him during resuscitation.

If this is all true. Then it seems unlikely to me Jonathan Edwards explanation of hearing certain things while the patients heart was being restarted, Is the explanation for this guys experience.

I agree there is too many unknowns in this particular case to make too many assumptions though.

But I do find it interesting that the lead researchers, who are closest to this data. Believed beyond any mentioned doubt. That this individual. Was reporting things visually, that they considered. very unlikely, with any other explanation, other than a OBE experience ? Should we dismiss there conclusions out of hand ?

I am not sure bias. Could be playing a part here. I would like to think not. But I a have no real way of knowing. Those that feel all these things can be explained. May well be right. And as I learn more. I may well end up agreeing with those that feel there is more simple explanations.

On the other hand. depending on the data, that may be gathered in the coming years if this felid is studied more. We could all be in for a shock

But evidence is what is needed. Any study design has to get evidence. The image placement idea is a good one. But has many problems. not least of which, is getting those images in places where people have OBE experiences.
As we have learned from the aware study. this is a lot more problematic than I think the researchers bargained for.

Sadly In the aware study this individual was not in a room with the hidden image, and even if he was. And the OBE experience was real in the sense, the mind was free from the body.

Would he have noticed or remembered the image ?

If I was having the experience I think I would be watching the commotion happening around my body.

Study design. And other problems make it difficult to prove this. But it is not. a field that should be laughed at. If Jonathan is right there is still some very interesting human senses coming into play here in ways that we would at first thought unlikely perhaps.

But if he is wrong. Then clearly we have learned next to noting about the nature of consciousness.
I personally find the most interesting possibility the latter one.

 

[free at last]

I have an open mind. How can we explain a person who is blind and have a near death experience and can clearly see? And someone who can see details from a position what is impossible to see? Read this book and study http://www.pimvanlommel.nl/

Interesting. here is the English.
http://www.pimvanlommel.nl/home_eng

 

[Gijs]

Free at least wrote:''I think consciousness, is not understood to the levels some might think they are. If evidence ever comes, that strongly shows the mind can exist free from the brain. Which I admit sounds very unlikely'''.

I am not sure if there ever will come strong objective evidence. You can also turn this statement around. Scientist must prove that consciousness is produced by the brain. I have read many books about this subject what dr. Edward says about a ''feeling'' leaving your body is near far the discription what people with a NDE descripe. It sounds to me like some doctors explain ME/CFS by stress and the mind There all stuck in science. Science can't explain many things.

 

[natasa778]

Free at least wrote:''I think consciousness, is not understood to the levels some might think they are. If evidence ever comes, that strongly shows the mind can exist free from the brain. Which I admit sounds very unlikely'''.

I am not sure if there ever will come strong objective evidence. You can also turn this statement around. Scientist must prove that consciousness is produced by the brain. I have read many books about this subject what dr. Edward says about a ''feeling'' leaving your body is near far the discription what people with a NDE descripe. It sounds to me like some doctors explain ME/CFS by stress and the mind There all stuck in science. Science can't explain many things.

I am very much with you on this. There is a fine line ...

Also to add that what tells me most of all that we are far from understanding consciousness and NDE/OBE are first-hand reports from cardiologists and ER docs, such as patients describing in great visual detail what was going on during resuscitation and during times they were supposed be 'very dead'.

Those events where unconscious/pronounced dead patients can recall events in such detail are not very frequent and even those who resuscitate people on daily basis may only encounter a couple of cases during their entire working life. So no, it is not quite true that it would be easy to design controlled studies.

 

[Lou]

I am afraid I will annoy the mystics, but designing such studies is easy and done regularly in neuropsychology labs and it is easy to get the sort of experience Sushi describes, if not quite as gross.

It is worth remembering that everything we think we know about what the world is like and where we are in it is invented by our brain for us as a result of calculations it makes. We do not 'see' the world just by having the world send in messages about itself. Seeing is the manufacturing of signs that indicate what our brain has inferred about the patterns of changes the world can offer us in the context of what we might do. (The explanation is not boring, it is quite fascinating and involves believing in the reality of 'experience', which is something quite different from matter or energy, but it is not black magic.) The red that we see does not exist in the world. It is a code sign we use to indicate certain possibilities of interest to us. Space is a code sign too. The real world of physics is not 'spacious'. Even Newton told us that. So all that we need to get strange experiences about how the world is or where we are is a little glitch in brain processing.

The most standard experiment is a variant on the 'rubber hand illusion' in which, using a computerised image or an actual rubber hand and a mask for your own hand you can experience your hand being in two places at once, fully awake and absolutely clear about that. With mirrors you can get people to feel their face is both somewhere and not there at the same time. The experiences are so weird that people regularly fall about laughing or sometimes scream. Sushi saying that she saw the top of her head might seem impossible but during these experiments people often report things that they feel they must have experienced even though they cannot have done. The brain tries to make sense of what it tells us - maybe it feels embarrassed about serving up a story that does not make sense. My memory of lying on the floor with no heartbeat is a memory of seeing myself lying on the floor, whereas in fact at the time I had no vision - just blackness.

It's all great fun and the explanations are wonderful but they are to do with brain physiology not magic - and people are working out more about how the physiology works all the time!!

I haven't read of anyone here claiming to be a mystic, it's likely most came to this thread because we find NDE's fascinating. Where's the harm in that? If it's Drs. Raymond Moody, Eben Alexander or like individuals to which you refer, they, too, have never to my knowledge, claimed to be mystics, either. Or proposed magic or black magic involved in these experiences. I can't speak for her, but I'd bet a lot, as well, that Sushi doesn't think magic had anything to do with her OBE.

If it's the case you'd not be the first here to think me dumb, but I and probably everyone here already know that red does not exist except as a wavelength of light and subjective visual perception. What I'd rather you explain, if you would, please, is where's the glove and mask or equivalent in Sushi's experience?

The OBE might be too easy and I'd probable not disagree, but what about the NDE and the intricate detail and apparent realism and deep emotional impact that last a lifetime and often change people in marked fashion? Where's the experimental impetus for that when an individual has no heartbeat or discernible brain function? Wouldn't a purely physical explanation rely more on haphazard, chaotic, and nonsensical images in such a state?

 

[free at last]

I haven't read of anyone here claiming to be a mystic, it's likely most came to this thread because we find NDE's fascinating. Where's the harm in that? If it's Drs. Raymond Moody, Eben Alexander or like individuals to which you refer, they, too, have never to my knowledge, claimed to be mystics, either. Or proposed magic or black magic involved in these experiences. I can't speak for her, but I'd bet a lot, as well, that Sushi doesn't think magic had anything to do with her OBE.

If it's the case you'd not be the first here to think me dumb, but I and probably everyone here already know that red does not exist except as a wavelength of light. What I'd rather you explain, if you would, please, is where is the glove and mask or equivalent in Sushi's experience?

Yes I think those words were not chosen particularly wisely. And perhaps speaks more of the persons views saying those type of words. Than it does others who are not particularly fools. But just have a different way of looking at the world. And do not adhere to flat earth beliefs or possible trends in thinking, which is always possible, if one dismisses out of hand other possible possibilities.

if it doesn't fit very well with current scientific, worldview.

I say flat earth beliefs, only in the context of those type of individuals that likely said, we would fall off the earth if we sailed too far, because everybody knows the earth is flat, it is the current trend of course.

The current thinking, of our scholars. How could anyone say otherwise when we know they are wrong ?
There is another subject with a abundance of evidence, that suffers from this also. But I wont go there I promise

I am absolutely 100% sure that some scientist or scientists will make this mistake again. I can not say in what field.
But this kind of blinkered worldview based on current knowledge, and or personal beliefs. has happened so many times throughout history. That it is a given that it will happen again, and from a individual or individuals that, are likely very intelligent people. Possibly being experts in any given field. But still the mistake will happen

I don't think in the slightest that anything was meant from it, and I take such things with good humour, we are all friends here. Its just a way of distancing ones self from a viewpoint, that seems unlikely, unpopular. Not fitting in with peers thinking.

All the very things that proved the world was round. When some one had the courage to question that particular worldview at the time. Now I am drifting into philosophy. But how easy is it to drift into that when, our own knowledge, personalities, Beliefs, reveal our own psyches so easily, in just a few short words. I have immense respect. for everyone on here. So I don't take that personally. its actually quite humorous. But revealing none the less.