What I meant was, this is an operation in which someone’s brain is supposedly being shut down completely, and not, say, an appendectomy.
Well, I’m not talking about trying to induce an NDE, just being prepared in case one should happen to take place. The “sign on top of the cabinet” is more or less along the lines of what I was thinking of, I guess.
I saw a show similar to that on the Discovery Channel.
A woman who had an emergency brain surgery had an NDE in which she saw herself being operated on. She described to the doctor with amazing accuracy on what they did to her while she was unconscious. She was rushed to the hospital, nearly dead, so she wasn’t given an explanation on what or whom will be performing the operation on her.
Ahh well, life is filled with enigmas.
Regards,
B. Williams.
A.k.A
Slayer of Science.
Cite?
MEBuckner’s first post addresses this. The woman had detectable brain activity before and after surgery, obviously. Somewhere on either side of the ‘flatline’ she had brain activity that was increasing/decreasing, but non-zero. If she had a 10 hour NDE in 5 seconds of near-flatline brain activity, you wouldn’t know the difference from if she had a 10 hour NDE in 10 hours of flatline state.
What I mean by “10 hour NDE” is the experience/memory of the NDE lasting 10 hours. This memory could be implanted in the brain, scientology style, at any point in between losing consciousness and regaining it, and it doesn’t necessarily have to come from the flatline portion of the surgery.
The only way to know for sure is if she was able to describe beyond a doubt what was going on while she was flatlined. Hearing the saw doesn’t impress me because she could have just interpreted a buzzing/ringing experience as the saw, and not actually heard the saw. Describing an OR conversation is more impressive, but still subjective. Reading the sign on top of the cabinet would be more impressive still.
a few thoughts:
People with synesthesia can be completely conscious, rational, responsive, etc., while their neural cortex is completely suppressed to flatline (and they should be unconscious, but are not). This just indicates to me that just because they expect no function, and see no readout, does not mean there is no function. And boy, do we not know everything there is to know about how consciousness works.
Heck, there’s some suggestion that part of the memory process is stored chemically in brain FLUID, not cellularly, so maybe this info is being processed from a non-brain-cell memory system? Not to mention that our sense of when something happens and the actual timing of when it happens are not absolutely correlated. There can be (relatively) huge gaps between decision and awareness of decision, which your brain edits on the ‘awareness’ side, to match up decision and awareness. You think you acted the instant you decided to act, but actually you decided long before that, but your time sense was ‘fixed’ to match details of physical experience and mental experience. And that’s while you are fully conscious, and not on any kind of meds. The OBE/NDE could have technically occurred after brain awareness returned, but was self-edited back to meet the flatline state, using residual information collected from the delayed processing of info.
People taught to do lucid dreaming in experiments designed to track brain function during those states sometimes slip into ‘out-of-body’ experiences instead. In which case, the ‘consciousness’ part of you (that which ‘owns’ awareness and active-recall memory) identifies with the external body instead of the internal dream process. So they watch themselves dream. Accurately (like, body position, observers, etc.). I’ve yet to see a good study of why this happens, but that it is related to the dream process is, I think, important information. Your awareness is immense, even if you don’t actively or consciously use the info all the time.
Dissociation during trauma also induces ‘out-of-body’ experiences, where you see from a perspective that is ‘not available to you otherwise’ and where you see things that you ‘technically’ cannot know. I have experienced this myself (‘floating on the ceiling’ during a massively traumatic experience). I have no idea how I collected the information about what was happening outside my physiological range of view. However, I also don’t know how my brain can create a full-blown experience of flying over the ocean without any means of support (dreaming). And I don’t know if what I ‘saw’ from above was 100% accurate, or just close enough to be immediately recognized (and stored) as accurate.
I am agnostic on such things. There is sufficient evidence that they are just physiological experiences that I will not suggest that they are truly ‘real’ in an obective sense. However, I also do not think that it is invalid to assign a spiritual meaning to them IF that is functional for you. Hey, I met my three future sons in dreams when I was a child - long before the first (and so far, only) one was born. I also have had my son tell me things about those dreams that I have never told anyone (things that were not important enough to pass on, but identify the dreams). I also saw my son sitting on my bed while I was pregnant with him, and he does indeed look just like that (I wrote it down, so it isn’t just a memory-edit), even though his hair color is not at all usual in our family, or even close. I also have ‘apparent’ non-verbal distance communication with him (waking up with a start - in England - at the exact time that he fell out of bed in America; thinking something at him when he wakes up at night and having him respond out loud to what I ‘thought’ at him) I could go on and on and on…
Was I/am I getting psychic messages? Do out of body experiences mean there is an awareness that exists outside of out physical form? Does god/heaven exist, and are we independant souls? Heck if I know. I choose to follow my spiritual definition of my experiences, because they have meaning for me. I’ve certainly had enough of those experiences to stack up quite a load of ‘holy sh*t’ reactions. But, I don’t think anyone else needs to beleive them. Beyond the borders of my life, hey, think what you like. 
I’d be sad to know that absolutely they were figments of my imagination, because, for example, that would mean that I really never did meet the soul of the first child I miscarried, and therefore I should not feel reassured, loved, or understood by something that is beyond my ‘ken,’ nor should I have processed my greif so easily. Etc. (Though I did not meet the soul the second time I miscarried, which was further along and more traumatic, but with NO reassurance… don’t ask, I don’t know.)
I’m hoping there’s more conclusive research done before I die, so I know one way or the other. Even if it is terribly disappointing.
Insightful Post, Hedra.
hedra said:
While I am aware that synthesics have been reported to have brain activity in certain brain areas greatly reduced during a synesthetic experience, I’ve never heard of a responsive person while the entire neural cortex is flatlined. It has been a while since I read The Man Who Tasted Shapes, though. 
Do you have a source for this?
that was indeed from The Man Who Tasted Shapes. Okay, maybe I’m remembering it wrong (that happens sometimes), and of course, my copy is on loan to someone who hasn’t remembered to give it back, so I can’t go check (never loan books, never loan books!). What I recalled was that they suppressed cortex function, but subject was still able to talk, move, do math, etc. They suppressed the cortex function because synesthesia seems to be enhanced by depressed cortical function, so they pushed the limit to see what happens.
Someone want to look that one up for me?
Where a group of medical students brought themselves to a state of near death? They had interesting experiences…I wonder if this experiment has ever been carried out in real life…
I twould be interesting if the near death experiences reported by Dr. moody (et al) are actual experiences, and not the product of imagination. This would setle the question, I think.
Any volunteers?