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What about NDE's (Near Death Experiences)?

There are just too many verified examples of accurate cognition mixed with stories of an afterlife. Do you just explain them all away by physical phenomenon? What about that Harvard neurologist who was brain dead for 6 days? or the surgeon ho had the massive stroke disabling the left side of her brain (Dr. Jill Bolte-Reynolds or somesuch)? I'm not sure you can just explain them all away as lies or brain farts.

JeffMesser 8 Aug 16
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33 comments (26 - 33)

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I don't call them lies. The brain is a great mystery, still, even as our knowledge grows. Machines can only measure so much. NDE's are interesting because they often bring about profound changes in some peoples personal lives. The Egyptians used to lock future leaders in trunks, depriving them of oxygen and trying to bring on NDE's. All that said, always go with the simplest explanation - they are not supernatural; they are, in some way, related to brain activity.

but "supernatural" is completely relative to what you're willing to open your mind to. consciousness is impossible to measure and not limited to static testing. it's a dynamic thing. That Oprah interview with Dr. Bolte-reynolds is really informative in that regard.

@JeffMesser Oprah is great for suggesting book titles; I do not know that doctor, but her introduction to the world of such hacks as Dr Oz and the fucking big ass, stupid Dr Phil doesn't bode well for any appreciation of said doctor.

@Beowulfsfriend sure, but just saying "the brain is a complex organ" is not different than saying "we don't know so it must be god". I found positives with Dr. Oz, and Dr. Phil, and Wayne Dyer. The TRUTH will end up explaining all things and encompass science as well as spirituality so just poo-pooing away these things as so much guff doesn't help a seeker at all. namaste

@Beowulfsfriend . . . Dr Phil, beady eyed, hog-jowl, nipple head charlatan

@thundergod charlatan of what?

@JeffMesser . . . selflessly helping others

0

Verified hallucinations of an oxygen deprived brain? Yes, I can dismiss those.

Also, being "brain dead" isn't the same as being actually dead. The body is still alive even if there is no detectable brain activity. But this in no way provides any evidence of an afterlife.

What does a stroke have to do with the afterlife at all? Many people have strokes and continue to live their lives.

How does any of this provide a single bit of evidence toward the existence of an afterlife?

0

I prefer the FDEs, the Far Death Experiences also called life. A fresh notebook every year and the discipline to write down what happens is all that is needed.

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I have sleep apnea. At least twice in my life I've had sleep paralysis or "night terrors". I can speak from experience about how real it feels. But I've never experienced this as a non-believer.

So let me explain the experience and then explain why it happened.

What I saw was the gostly figure of an hag kind of swim up and press down on my chest. This is what is called a Succubus. As she pushed down on my chest I couldn't breathe. I thought I was going to die. I tried to get up. I tried to scream. Couldn't do anything. Completely powerless. And then I called upon God and Jesus. And soon enough I was released.

This this was a testimony? Hold on. Let me explain.

Since I was a believer at the time, my brain was able to conjure images of angels and demons to explain the situation that I wasn't consciously aware of. I physically wasn't breathing. But I wasn't awake either. So my brain was creating, in my imagination, images to match the experience.

People with sleep apnea are very rarely killed by it because at some point your body wakes up enough so that you can get more oxygen. I imagine during sleep paralysis it takes more to wake you up, even if your eyes are open you might still be "sleep".

Death is total unconsciousness; sort of the ultimate, really. So a near death experience is kind of a self serving pairing of words. You're either alive or dead. You may have a situation where you're body is shutting down but either you are dead or alive.

Until you are actually dead, you are still alive which means you can still record memories, use your imagination, etc. But like with weed, the shutting off or cutting off the focus or attention to all those parts of your body like a concert of many choirs of organs, the less you're mind is processing information from all of them the more it can focus on itself and your experience becomes more intense.

When we're sleep the brain is still active and its having having fun playing video games with our imagination and isn't consciously aware that it is only dreaming. Many people have used the bathroom in their sleep because they thought they were awake only to find out, nope... never got out of bed and now you're wet.

So the NDE is really the same as a powerful dream; a dream that draws on your imagination to explain what's happening to you and the fact that you believe you're dying. What you expect to see becomes what you see. What you don't expect to see is simply not part of the equation. This explains all the examples. I can only imagine how real the dream would be if you could disable just the left (logical) side of the brain and fully experience the right (creative). I don't want to find out but it would be amazing.

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The only NDE I’ve ever had was when I was around 5 years old and just learning to swim. We had a big pool, and there was a rope sectioning off where I couldn’t go into the deep end. Well the rope didn’t stop me and I drifted off into the deep end. My dad was cleaning the pool and went into the pool house for, what he said was a min and a half. He then saw me and dove in and had to give me CPR. But all I remember is me completely out of my body and was floating up and I could see everything that was happening. It was like a dream and when I came to, it felt like I was in a lucid dream. No telling how many chemicals are releasing when you have a NDE or about to die. Oh, but my dad filled the pool in the next weekend ☹️

0

Read the atheist afterlife by David Staume.

0

. . . hard not to notice that others have provided links to support claims, you have provide nothing but words.

until you answer my question I'm not engaging your bullshit. all you do is keep picking up the goalposts and moving them. that's why I require to know the standard you expect before offering up anything in that regard. so you can keep up with your infantile little jabs and shit to your heart's content ... perhaps you just don't understand epistemology and the difference between static and dynamic testing? is that it? maybe you need some schooling? don't be ashamed. ignorance is a choice - choose to get past it.

0

I never died!!!

Was pronoun dead twice only to revive each time before being be removed once from the scene of crash, the other by a medic just as they tried to put me into an OD body bag!!!

There was no bright lights, just a sense of blind warmth with no sense of time!!!

I was hit by a bicycle at the age of four on a hill in San Francisco, I woke up two days later as they prepped me for surgery for a brain clot, I have vague memories of people talking around me and my mother calling my name!!!

Another time April 21 1975 I was Dusted off from Tan Son Nhat to the hospital at Clark Field where I awoke on 25th when they were about to catheterized me, funny I could hear them the medic, nurses and the doctors discussing what they thought they should do!!! I remember watching the fall of Saigon on Armed Forces TV were I had been nine days earlier!

I have had other experiences of watching the surgeries performed on me from above while under anesthesia!!!

It seems the unconscious mind does have strange abilities that may be considered by many to be a NDE.

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