# I survived... beyond and back **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 8, 2011, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836 "2011-01-08T03:11:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/21 "2011-01-08T13:53:25Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It is by all the evidence just a dream/hallucination. I’ve come to believe as you seem to, that it’s the misfires of a dying brain. What I wonder is, if they are your last moments of thought, do you then, from your perspective, perceive that you spend eternity there? Is this, in effect, an, “afterlife”? If so, I need to get to work on creating mine, in hopes that I can stay focused on it as I pass, so that I can have a really kick-ass hereafter. Perhaps I need to watch [Machete](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13318640&postcount=27)a bunch more times. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/22 "2011-01-08T13:55:14Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > I’ve come to believe as you seem to, that it’s the misfires of a dying brain. What I wonder is, if they are your last moments of thought, do you then, from your perspective, perceive that you spend eternity there? Is this, in effect, an, “afterlife”? No; the brain has a finite processing speed, therefore it’s simply impossible for it to provide you with an eternal experience in finite time. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/23 "2011-01-08T14:49:51Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No; the brain has a finite processing speed, therefore it’s simply impossible for it to provide you with an eternal experience in finite time. But it could be an illusion of eternity, followed by death. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/24 "2011-01-08T15:10:47Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No; the brain has a finite processing speed, therefore it’s simply impossible for it to provide you with an eternal experience in finite time. Understood and agreed. Since there is no way to perceive non-existence, though, your final thoughts might have the feel of ‘forever’ to them, without providing many day-to-day details - you’d essentially be stuck in those last few seconds, without really noticing, because you’re dead. It IS the product of a misfiring mind, I would imagine most of it is nebulous and generalized anyway. Hmm, sounds like I’m heading down a whole weird road of perception and semantics. I think I’ll just back slowly away from myself now. . . I’m just spitballin’. Random thoughts I never really get the opportunity to talk about, for fear of those looks I so often get. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/25 "2011-01-08T16:51:05Z")
> [@mike\_ahndembroak](#): > > I imagine a few of you have seen this show on the bio channel, it deals with stories of people who have clinically died and come back to life. While there stories have some things in common ( bright beautiful light, an overwhelming sense of peace) there are some drastic differences, some see angels, while others see relatives. some are on stairs while others are floating. some are getting life reviews while others are whisked back to there childhood homes. am I alone in thinking that the “hereafter” would be more systematic than that. wouldn’t everyone have the same experience as everyone else. could this be evidence that these are nothing more than a “dream state”? Just watched a movie on this and they pointed out that astronauts in training in the centrifuge thingy would black out and experience some of the same things that people in near death experiences reported,leading doctors to think it was all brain related. They did cite one case where a man said he was hovering over the operating table and reported things accurately that they could not explain him knowing. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/26 "2011-01-08T18:05:06Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > They did cite one case where a man said he was hovering over the operating table and reported things accurately that they could not explain him knowing. Being unconscious on an operating table doesn’t mean that your brain still isn’t taking in information. It’s a bad idea to for example comment on how “boy, that’s really going to hurt when he wakes up” because the patient then probably _will_ hurt more when he wakes up thanks to the power of suggestion. He may have been unconscious, but his brain was listening. As for “hovering over the operating table”, as I said that’s a common feature of memories and imagination, we often picture scenes as if viewed from the side and up in the air a bit. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/27 "2011-01-08T19:16:12Z")
What about people who wind up in hell? Do they have truly terrifying NDEs? I’d like to read about these! ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/28 "2011-01-08T22:01:56Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Being unconscious on an operating table doesn’t mean that your brain still isn’t taking in information. It’s a bad idea to for example comment on how “boy, that’s really going to hurt when he wakes up” because the patient then probably _will_ hurt more when he wakes up thanks to the power of suggestion. He may have been unconscious, but his brain was listening. > > As for “hovering over the operating table”, as I said that’s a common feature of memories and imagination, we often picture scenes as if viewed from the side and up in the air a bit. It wasn’t just that. The operation required that his head and face be covered and yet he described things he couldn’t have seen or known without seeing. Only a report, doesn’t prove anything. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/29 "2011-01-08T22:42:01Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > It wasn’t just that. The operation required that his head and face be covered and yet he described things he couldn’t have seen or known without seeing. > > Only a report, doesn’t prove anything. I’d like to see a cite on this particular case. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/30 "2011-01-08T23:54:53Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I’d like to see a cite on this particular case. Just went and looked it up. It was from National geographic, called, The Moment of Death. It was made in 2008 and looks like it will air on their channel again Jan 21 [National Geographic TV Shows, Specials & Documentaries](http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/moment-of-death-3815/Photos#tab-Videos/05707_00) You can watch a brief clip. It was pretty interesting. Most of the show was about what we’ve learned about cells and the brain concerning death. Hypothermia Comas, etc. It’s fairly scientific and that particular case is offered at the end as something they can’t quite explain. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/31 "2011-01-09T00:11:08Z")
I went back and watched it again. The guy’s name was Al Sullivan and he was having a multiple bypass. He was behind a drape and his eyes were taped shut. The surgeon had a habit of holding his hands in and pointing with his elbows as he instructed his assistants. Al said he saw this actions and other things from outside his body. It’s the only mention in the show of something they have no explanation for. > [@](#): > > Dr. Bruce Greyson documented perhaps one of the most compelling examples of a person who had a NDE and observed events while outside of his body which were later verified by others. The only way that these events could have been observed by the experiencer was if in fact he was outside of his body. Al Sullivan was a 55 year old truck driver who was undergoing triple by-pass surgery when he had a powerful NDE that included an encounter with his deceased mother and brother-in-law, who told Al to go back to his to tell one of his neighbors that their son with lymphoma will be OK. Furthermore, during the NDE, Al accurately noticed that the surgeon operating on him was flapping his arms in an unusual fashion, with his hands in his armpits. When he came back to his body after the surgery was over, the surgeon was startled that Al could describe his own arm flapping, which was his idiosyncratic method of keeping his hands sterile. ---
**Author:** ![Grateful-UnDead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ccd318/32.png) [@Grateful-UnDead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grateful-UnDead)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/32 "2011-01-09T00:42:41Z")
I did a quick Google on the “Near Death Experience” and came up with this from The University of Virginia Health System; it seems relevant to many of the questions being discussed in this thread: [http://www.nderf.org/FAQs.htm](http://www.nderf.org/FAQs.htm) ---
**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/33 "2011-01-09T21:05:41Z")
(how do I do quotes?) Aruvqan, I had an experience much like yours. Dead for 7 minutes and I only knew about it because I was told afterwards. I felt cheated. The most amazing thing I’ve seen in the beautiful desert skies was a bright, bluewhite object about as big as my little fingernail suddenly flew out of the sky at incredible speed, got to about 80 degrees above the horizon then exploded into 5 - 7 fragments. I am so lame that I never considered that it was anything but a metorite. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/34 "2011-01-09T21:36:36Z")
> [@flatlined](#): > > (how do I do quotes?) > > Aruvqan, I had an experience much like yours. Dead for 7 minutes and I only knew about it because I was told afterwards. I felt cheated. > > The most amazing thing I’ve seen in the beautiful desert skies was a bright, bluewhite object about as big as my little fingernail suddenly flew out of the sky at incredible speed, got to about 80 degrees above the horizon then exploded into 5 - 7 fragments. I am so lame that I never considered that it was anything but a metorite. I think that most of the time they don’t bother telling people, though I would be more than willing to bet that once some people are told, they retro imagine something happened because they can not conceive of _not_ having a NDE. I never thought it was anything except a meteorite =) I just like yanking peoples chains because technically I do not 100% know it was a meteorite because I never bothered finding out so by the technical definition of the term it is an actual no shit _UNIDENTIFIED_ flying object. Not all objects in space have to be ships =) ---
**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/35 "2011-01-09T21:46:34Z")
I do remember that the day after surgery, there was a HUGE earthquake. I woke up and everything was shaking. I could hear things falling off shelves and people falling. Scared me to death because I knew I should get into the doorsill and I couldn’t get up. That didn’t happen. Drugs and physical trama can do some really interesting things to the mind. I have now deceided that what I saw was a UFO that had been shot down by Home Land Security. Of course the media was blacked out by the evil government. Don’t try to confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/36 "2011-01-09T22:18:57Z")
> [@flatlined](#): > > (how do I do quotes?) You can: Click “Quote” at the bottom of the post you want to quote, or click the multiquote button to quote more than one. Or, you can copy and paste what you want to quote into your own post, then highlight it and click the quote icon above the posting box; it looks like a comic strip word-bubble. Or you can manually add the quote tags, like so (remove the \* to make it work): [_QUOTE]What you want to quote. [/QUOTE_] ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/37 "2011-01-10T01:15:54Z")
> [@mike\_ahndembroak](#): > > am I alone in thinking that the “hereafter” would be more systematic than that. wouldn’t everyone have the same experience as everyone else. could this be evidence that these are nothing more than a “dream state”? You are not alone, but you are using what we expect from this world which is order, rules, repeatable results. It doesn’t work that way, nor are we designed to operate that way. We are loved children of God, God has designed our eternal (after) life based on how we are made on a personal level. You will not experience the same thing as anyone else, though there may be similarities to some, differences to others. From what I know I would expect very different experiences. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/38 "2011-01-10T03:16:21Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > From what I know I would expect very different experiences. And yet we are told we will meet relatives who died before us. How does that work, if our experiences are very different? ---
**Author:** ![fuzzypickles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9d8465/32.png) [@fuzzypickles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzypickles)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/39 "2011-01-10T03:40:48Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > And yet we are told we will meet relatives who died before us. How does that work, if our experiences are very different? I’ve had NDE-style experiences where I met my relatives who haven’t been born yet. Which makes sense, in a way, if you’ve read Stephen Hawking. 🙂 > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It is by all the evidence just a dream/hallucination. How do you know that the dream isn’t actually reality? Many faiths, esp. Hinduism, believe exactly that. ---
**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836/40 "2011-01-10T05:38:42Z")
Thank you so much! > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > You can: > > Click “Quote” at the bottom of the post you want to quote, or click the multiquote button to quote more than one. > > Or you can manually add the quote tags, like so (remove the \* to make it work): [_QUOTE]What you want to quote. > [/QUOTE_] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-survived-beyond-and-back/566836.md?page=3)