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Near Death Experience
Topic Started: Jun 20 2006, 11:43 AM (305 Views)
TexasShadow
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Jane
http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=5370

Scientists, including medical doctors, are meeting in France for the first international conference about near-death experiences. The conference will also contain delegates who have themselves had a near-death experience.
One of the scientists and medical people who will be attending is intensive care doctor Jean-Jacques Charbonnier, who has interviewed patients who have had NDEs. He says, "People who were brain-dead could see what was going on in a waiting room, or around them, in precise detail. We are not talking about an hallucination here because it was quite real." Once he felt an unconscious communication coming from one of his patients, in which he was being told to look in the patient's wallet. When it did, he found a note asking to be removed from life support if he was ever in such a condition.

Conference head Sonia Barkallah says, "These are people who have come close to death, whether through an accident or during an operation, and who have brought back from their unconscious state accounts that are quite out of the ordinary. They are floating above their bodies, they can hear what the doctors are saying about them, they feel themselves getting sucked into a dark tunnel with a bright but not blinding light at the end of it. At the end of the tunnel they often meet 'light beings' or dead relatives who tell them it is not their time." She organized the conference because "I noticed that doctors were very interested in the subject, but that they conducted their research in secret, afraid of being considered quacks. The aim of this international day is not to prove that there is life after death, it is to show what this can teach us on a human and scientific level."

A 1982 US survey found that 8 million people here have had an NDE. Despite this fact, NDEs are a topic that is avoided by mainstream U.S. media, so you won't read about this in your papers or hear about it on the news, but we will try to keep you posted on developments as we learn about them.

__________________

I, for one, am glad to see someone is studying this scientifically to see what's going on.
I've read that some of the experience is most likely due to loss of oxygen to the brain, however, that doesn't explain why some people seem to have heightened clarity during the experience instead of the kind of fading out we have when we faint.
Is it a one-last-shot at hanging on to life, all life support of the body moving to the brain before the final end?
It's an interesting phenomenon, no matter what one believes about it.
Posted Image "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
If science is bound by a materialistic worldview rather than a mysitic one, if science relies on empirical evidence rather than circumstantial, and so on, then won't it, if successful, explain it as a natural event rather than a supernatural one? And because it is not in the nature of science to prove anything, won't believers simply go on believing what they believe in the first place?

A quick google turns up this which may be of interest: Scientific Theories of the NDE. It is written by a non-scientific believer who tosses in an afterlife theory and doesn't really seem to get science, but does give a sketch of what science says.

BTW, loss of oxygen to the brain results in hallucinations, which can be every bit if not more lucid than waking consciousness.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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TexasShadow
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Jane
re natural event vs supernatural
and hallucinations...

yes, I know and so I'm pleased to see some scientific study of the experience.
I've not had the near death experience, but I have passed out a couple times in my life and experienced something like a tunnel, spiral shaped, all red, etc and heard what sounded like bongo drums :) (there were no bongo drum players in the delivery room, I'm pretty sure)

but what I'd like to see explained is how people who are near death, unconscious, etc. can describe, in detail, what went on in the room while they were "out".... as if they were floating up near the ceiling, etc.
it's known that folks in comas can hear, and folks who are anesthesized can hear, but if you're lying in a bed looking up, how can you see what it looks like from above you..... looking down?
maybe they don't, but by hearing everything, they can determine what went on.



Posted Image "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
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Lon Frank
Member
Jane, my father told me about a NDE he had with one of his heart attacks. He was in a green vale or garden, and didn't want to return, but had no choice. He really loved it, I think, and knew thereafter where he would go, when he passed through that portal again.

I, myself, encountered the following with my mother. I think I posted it about 4 years ago, and it gave me an insight to the 'hereafter', which is populated with human spirits, where everyone is your most 'beloved'. She didn't recognise my father, who had passed earlier, or her parents, but just people she somehow knew.

---------------------

SEVEN DAYS

I just returned from seven days of staying around the clock in my mother's hospital room. The hospital is 3 hours from here, and my brother had to leave town for a while, so I had it by myself.

My mother had fluid buildup which collapsed one lung, but which we drained on Wednesday, giving her some relief. As it turns out, she has cancer in both lungs (and probably elsewhere) which is causing the fluid. She continued to have respiratory distress, sometimes severe, which broke my heart to see her struggle and be in panicked confusion. Yesterday, she had a sudden stroke and lapsed into a coma.

However, I am so grateful for the week. My mom has lived up there for years now, and I got to see her very infrequently. This week, I had the chance to reestablish our relationship. I had dozens of opportunities to hold her hand, smooth her hair, soothe her pain. We spent evenings in conversation, remembering old friends and shared experiences. I became accustomed to touching her skin again, to looking in her eyes, to telling her that I loved her. It afforded me a well of emotion to draw on this morning, when I had to kiss her forehead and tell her it was all right for her to go, she has done her earthly work, she has left us all better for her being here.

I will return on Wednesday, after picking up my brother at the airport. I hope she has been able to depart by then. She always was an adventurer. My father died when I was fairly young, and she raised me alone on our little place out among the ranches of central Texas. When I left for college, she left also. At 53, she learned to swim, to paddle a canoe, and volunteered to teach school in the highlands of New Guinea, where she lived in a grass hut for 12 years.

Yesterday morning she asked me to read my poems to her. She always liked poetry, and I remember well, she and I laughing over the rhymes and puns of Ogden Nash. So, after all the other stuff, I read her one I had just written in the room, about hospital food. She giggled and declared me a writer after all.

There's a bug in my
lemon Jello. Dead,
immobile, encased in
shimmering yellow, like
fine Baltic amber
with it's inclusions
of insect or pollen making
jewelry of ancient saps. Perhaps,
in a million million years,
a future Cartier in another life
will hang this bug in Jello upon
a golden chain and sell it
...to my wife.


As you may tell, I look forward to celebrating her reunion with friends and loved ones. Yesterday morning, she was looking intently at the blank wall, when suddenly she asked if this was Grace Methodist Church. We had belonged to that congregation 50 years ago, and she had many friends there.

I said, "what?", but it wasn't me she was asking. Keeping her eyes fixed on the wall, she said in a clear strong voice, "I was married many years ago, and am now a retired missionary."

I was speechless at her intense attention focused on the wall. She then turned to me and asked, "Do you all live here?" I said no, and asked if she knew me. In a second, she recognized me again, and came back to the room. But, for a minute there, I believe she was looking through a portal I could not see, where gathered friends and loved ones past. An hour later, her eyes closed, and she left me, the effort of breathing taking it's toll on the tissues of her brain. For an evening and a long night, I sat holding her hand and thought about the gift of a week together.


In this cold room
smell of antiseptic and
faded curtains
one of us is bored
to death, the other just
dying
A woman in a yellow sweatshirt
wins from Bob Barker
A NEW CAR! and I'm
suddenly wakened by the voice
of God, saying, " Dorothy G.,
come on down".



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TexasShadow
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Jane
Lon,
thanks for sharing your vicarious experiences. I've not had any like that.

My one experience with what I attibute to the supernatural is a sense of being wrapped in an infinite sea of love/acceptance/reassurance... that was, at the same time, a Person. No words, no missions or obligations, no recriminations...just total acceptance, coming at a time when I truly needed it.

as to your mother's "vision", it could have been hallucination... or not.
Same with your dad's. Like you, I prefer to consider them as real and hope I pass away with such a comfort.
what is interesting to me is that these pleasant experiences happen to un-believers as much as believers. Believers, of course, usually interpret them as God or heaven.
and then, there are a rare few who experience negative things....a gray world, depressing, etc.

but these experiences can't be observed in any scientific way because there's no way science can get hold of it or test it.
the "floating above the bed" thing can be studied. could the patient see? were his eyes open? were his/her descriptions precisely correct or just generally so?
Posted Image "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
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tomdrobin
Member
Well, I went through the operation where they saw open your chest, stop your heart by lowering the temps I believe, while they operate. I remember nothing, until I woke up breathing out of sync with the respirator. But, I do remember well, several weeks of the most horrible nightmares and night sweats. Perhaps the result of the trauma or an after effect of the anesthesia. Or maybe I'm destined for hell. I talked to an uncle who went though the same thing, and he had similar experiences and he is a very devout Christian, so maybe I'm not going to hell after all.
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
What's the difference between NDE and dreams?

If it's neurobiological activity, it can be measured.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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TexasShadow
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Jane
generally speaking, from my own experiences, dreams are different in that you know you are dreaming. I can change my dreams if they go in the wrong direction. I can wake myself up from nightmares, or I could... I don't have them anymore.
the supernatural experience... you know you aren't dreaming. How? You just know it the way you know you are dreaming when you are dreaming.

but... I haven't had any drug induced hallucinations. my FIL had them bad when he was on any kind of pain meds. bugs crawling everywhere, flames all around him, etc.

I know the mind can do things. When I'm at the dentist and he's going to have to do a long job in my mouth, I can drift away, deep down into a hole where I don't feel it, or think about it. I become so relaxed, the dentist will stop to check to see if I'm conscious. I've learned to tell them "I'm going away, so don't bug me until you're done".

but none of this addresses my question of how a person wh is flat on his back, with his eyes closed, can later relate everything that went on while he was unconscious.
Posted Image "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Assuming he was unconscious. Flat on back, eyes closed is not really indicative. And it seems counterintuitive that the unconsious mind can experience something consciously.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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Fr. Mike
Member
I have witnessed a few strange incidents around dying people. I don't know what to make of them. If they bring comfort to living, then I suppose what harm is there in believing a dying friend or relative is visiting with loved ones long since passed.

Te idea that somebody can witness other events going on while lying flat on a bed unconscious would need to be investgated in my opinion. This coulod be the brain playing a game on a persons mind while it was under stress or medication.

A humble servant of the Lord Jesus Christ

Don't forget to say your prayers!
The unborn have rights too.
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roscoe
Member
I remember in my twenties after surgery for a broken ankle coming home and lying in my bed.

I had my headphones on playing the latest sixties music.

All of a sudded I started rising above my body feeling very weird. Off came the headphones and I managed to scramlel out of the room quickly. Strange feeling.
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bikemanb
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Liberal Conservative
There are levels of consciousness, like people that appear to be under in the operating room yet can recount the jokes being told and by which medical person.

Our lifestyles changes and the development of technology over human history has caused the atrophy of many of our "animal" skills that can explain some things like this.
Bill, Rita and Chloe the Terror Cat

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

Benjamin Franklin
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