I didn’t notice any cites, or any discussion of the research.
::raises hand::
I had some questions that were of profound import for me at the time (the question of the existence of God, questions about my sexual identity & chances for happiness, questions about the fate of the species and the prospects for an idealistic future, and so on) and I did have a personal-contact-with-God / revelation-from-God experience which absolutely positively changed my life.
I did get locked in the nuthouse shortly after. (Isn’t it odd how apparently disparate concurrent threads seem to converge?).
I did not believe I was delusional or psychotic, but under the circumstances I found it necessary to seriously consider the possibility. Frankly I think anytime someone is under the impression that they’ve experienced divine revelation they should perpetually consider that possibility, in fact, along with other variations on “I might be wrong”.
Wisdom is as light and its source shineth of its own accord — in other words, if the revealed content is valid, its validity does not depend on being spotlighted with the claim “God told me this”.
The stuff that I “saw” made more and more sense over the years as I understood it in deeper layers (not to mention vastly improved ability to put it into words).
“They do not feel the expanded consciousness”??? Are you kidding me? LSD is usually revered as a “consciousness expanding” (those words exactly) substance, and has been labeled that way for a many decades. I wasn’t even born in the LSD era, like you were, and I know that.
Dude, seriously, look into shamanism. Shamanism is doing drugs for spiritual reasons and it has been around alot longer than your Christianity. We aren’t idiots. You take 3.5 grams of cubensis mushrooms and tell us we don’t know what we’re talking about. We have proof to what we’re saying, and it can be found in any cow pasture across America. You had a pseudo-“near-death” experience late at night, but you weren’t anywhere near death. I don’t understand how you can claim it was near death at all.
You’re so pavlovian conditioned, and you can’t see around it. When the word ‘drug’ enters your ears your brain automatically associates it with “bad…bad…bad”. This is exactly why young people who are open to the concept of doing drugs, because old people are so robotically conditioned they can’t see from other points of view.
Jesus’ first miracle was making wine. What is wine…? A DRUG. Yes wine is a drug and Christianity seems naively obsessed with it. Alcohol causes nothing but family abuse, drama, and death, and yet Christianity inadvertently advocates it. Talk about mind-dulling.
Arguing with lekatt on these subjects is mildly pointless. While he provides some good material in his posts (admittedly, I’ve seen the post with all the cites near-identically three times today), he is convinced that A) any attempt to explain NDEs as anything other than 100% divinely inspired is wrongheaded, and B) any attempt to explain any other phenomenon as being as spiritual as an NDE is wrongheaded.
On the topic.
I have experiences nearly every day of a “religious” nature. While I consider myself first and foremost a Deist/Watchmaker-style theist, in terms of what god I believe in, I also practice meditation and thus often feel “connected” in a global sense. I have also, at times, experienced visual and auditory interactions with beings who are best described as supernatural, of varying motivations and personalities.
I’m skeptical enough that I am unwilling to say for sure WHAT I’m experiencing, but I’m also (perversely) afraid to test my perceptions in any empirical way (and I’m fairly sure there are ways I could do that).
In essense, I feel like I’m dodging the thrust of the OP by saying that I have religious experiences every time I sit down to meditate, even if it’s in my chair at work for a five-minute break. Whether it represents self-awareness, a connection with a higher power or global consciousness, or just self-deception, the RESULT is the same–I feel better, more motivated, calmer, and at peace with events and problems in my life.
So it’s my opinion here that the “truth” of exactly what the experience is becomes irrelevant if the experience itself is a positive force.
lekatt: I’m glad you returned! I’ve had a chance to peruse your links. Two of them didn’t work (the ntdaily link and the scotsman link). You didn’t provide a link to the Pam Reynolds case, but a Google search yielded many.
Remember where I’m coming from: I’ve had a number of religious experiences, and one similar experience outside a religious setting. In my gut and in my reasoning I do not, today, believe them to be spiritual in source - but I’m not closing the door on that possibility. It does not seem apparent the experiences themselves give any indication as to their source - often it’s the religious setting in which they occur that provides God/spirit as the answer. So, in the course of this discussion, the need for corroborating evidence was raised.
On Pam Reynolds: This is the link I’ll refer to. The two things that would make this a compelling case are: 1) was she able to perceive things while “out of body” that she could not otherwise have know about? 2) did the experience occur while her brain was completely non-functional? If the answer to either of these is yes, the claim is supported.
The fact that she was able to “hear” things said in the OR or what was playing on the radio is not convincing of a spiritual occurrence. The explanation of the beautiful details of the experience itself are the subject of this discussion, the experience for which we’re seeking corroborating evidence. The one thing that stands out is her description of the saw. If indeed she had no prior knowledge of what that saw looked like, and afterwards based solely on the experience itself, she was able to describe it that accurately - now that’s compelling corroborating evidence of an out-of-body experience. If indeed she was “out of body” then what exactly was out of the body? “Spirit” is a good candidate answer.
I do have some questions about this case. What did she know about that saw beforehand? What did she learn about it afterwards that may have contributed to her accurate description? I imagine she was becoming acquainted with medical science through her likely long involvement as a patient, and more so pre-op. If I walked into a OR I’m not sure I could identify a heart/lung machine or respirator by name as she did. Are there other instruments that were not used that also fit her description, that maybe she did know about - or has coincidental similarity?
On the experience itself, how well can we correlate the time she actually underwent the experience to the observations of lack of brain activity? Maybe it occurred just before the brain shut down? The cite says “Interestingly, while in this state, she encountered the “deepest” NDE of all Atlanta Study participants.” By “in this state” they mean clinically brain dead. They did not describe how they knew it was during this time the experience occurred, and not in the moments before? If the claim is true, this is very compelling. Do you have a cite where they describe how they arrived at this surprising statements?
Please remember, the foregoing is not an attack. It’s not meant in any way to diminish the people experiencing these things, the meaning the experiences have for them, or anthing like that at all. The questions are legitimate. I do not claim they are unanswerable - just I haven’t found the answers to them. Maybe you have?
On Dr. Schwartz: Your first link is a news report on the work done by Dr. Schwartz on medium communication with the dead. I grant that if indeed we can communicate with the dead, that is definitely compelling evidence that consciousness lives on beyond brain death. I find Dr. Schwartz’s work, though, to be highly suspect. He and James Randi have been having at it for a while. I find Randi’s treatment of this correspondence to be unfair, arrogant, and inflammatory. But he does raise some valid concerns. Look at Schwartz’s rebuttal, the part where he quotes Randi’s concerns (search for the words “striking example”). I concur, that cold-reading technique of a spiritual medium is reproducible by any stage with no claims to spiritual or psychic ability.
A doctor with a book to sell must be treated as having a conflict of interest. I know he has published to peer reviewed journals, but have these findings been so published? I haven’t been able to find anything yet (not to say it’s not there).
Let me restate: This is not an attack. It’s a search for the truth. You offered these cases as evidence, and I question them. The questions I’ve raised are not hard-nosed stubborn skeptical obstinance. I think they’re fair. Also, the absence of answers to these questions doesn’t mean I’m right and you’re wrong.
An important part of your thesis appears to be: NDEs are spiritual in explanation because look at how experiencers are changed afterwards. You go on to suggest if we could induce this experience for everyone we’d live in a utopia. There appears to be evidence that we can induce this experience with drugs and with a centrifuge. Assume for the sake of argument this is true. How would you incorporate these into your position? (again, not an attack - I’m truly interested)
Finally, do you agree that the life-changing aspect of these experiences - at least in some cases - may not be the experiences themselves, but what those experiences lead one to believe? If I could pull of a convincing practical joke in a church, say cause an large image of a face to appear in a prominent place, wouldn’t most assembled swear to the fact they saw the face of God? For those that really believed it, wouldn’t they redouble their efforts to live a more godly life? Is this not at least a possilbe explanation for why people’s lives change?
It’d be just as irrelevant if the experience were negative, wouldn’t it?
What would it mean for someone to deny that you were “connected”? Not much, I think, and thus it doesn’t mean much to assert that you are connected during such an experience. I’m not disagreeing with you here, just emphasizing the ineffability of the mystical experience. I’m at a loss at this remark though.
Test them for what?
Gyan (and others in their own way) have rightly asked “Just what is a physiological explanation?” This has introduced a thread of discussion about the biological role of the brain in these types of experiences.
It has been established here that mere coincidence of an experience with distinct brain activity proves or indicates nothing. I buy that. But what we’re really after is what is the cause. Brain activity is an important indicator because it looks like there’s evidence these experiences can be induced by the effects on the brain caused by drugs or by G-LOC in a centrifuge (I love jargon: G-LOC, acceleration (+Gz)-induced loss of consciousness). AHunter3 raises the possibility of mental illness.
If the above is true, is there anything else in other less drastic situations that can trigger this effect? High emotion during a religious service? Over-exerting one’s thinking after a thought provoking movie?
I don’t want to appear like some smug skeptic who has all the answers - but I just don’t see the “proof” of there being a spiritual dimension to these experiences. Why hasn’t there been an NDE where someone sees a dead relative where the experiencer didn’t know the person had died, came back and said, “I didn’t know Uncle John was dead”? Why isn’t there a report of a spiritual experience wherein the voice of God said, “There will be a tsunami - go help these people” or some other predictive fact?
The last experience I had was of a very similar nature as both Zoe and Psilocybe. It was very similar to the few NDE accounts I’ve read, and lekatt above says (of Zoe’s description) “The experience you described is nearly always a part of near death experiences.” That sense of Oneness is what I was trying to describe as “weight of eternity” and “fibres that connect everything” and so on.
It was very profound, and it has led me to “believe” that indeed the entire universe is one “organism” of which I and everything is a component. I put “believe” in quotes because I don’t want to overstate it, as if I thought this is a new religion or something (indeed it’s not very new at all). This is close as I can come to saying I believe in God. I’ve said similar things in other posts here. I like the way Heinlein puts it, “Thou art God.” But so what?
I’m not sure what the implications of that belief are. Not sure how “deep” that really is: Everything is everything? Is that the extent of truth the spirit behind these experiences is trying to relate?
Very true, although if the experience were negative I’d be more inclined to treat it than continue it. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that, since I derive some positive things and no perceptible negatives from my experiences, I am disinclined to explore them too deeply (or treat them as psychological problems which need investigation or treatment)
Which is sorta what I was getting at–it doesn’t matter what I call it, or how I percieve it, in the long run it only matters that it’s doing something for me.
I dunno, truth? A different phrasing: At least one of the “spirits” I percieve has shown itself to be inclined to follow verbal commands, even from people who can’t see it. Given that, I can pretty easily construct a double-blind test to determine if I’m actually seeing and interacting with a seperate intelligence.
I’m sorry if I sound incoherent, it’s very hard for me to put these experiences into English without losing important parts of the concepts. If there’s a language to describe precisely what it is I feel when I enter a meditative state, I don’t yet speak it. =)
Gyan: I stand corrected on “pantheism” vs. “polytheism.” :smack: In my defense, I’ve only had a theologically-related vocabulary in the last few months, previous to my experience I was definitely a materialist/agnostic.
Also, FWIW, I wasn’t criticizing the use of psychoactives, just the fact that they make me pretty ooky afterwards. In fact, I wish I could have more experiences like I did, but I think that’s going to take a good deal of practice at meditation (simran) for me. Qualia, she is a harsh mistress.
OK, to plunge into the fray: I know I’m going to get brickbats for this, but why isn’t the Penrose quantum gravity effect theory (or a variation of it, given some of the problems with microtubule collapse rates) considered a valid hypothesis here as to how the brain handles consciousness? If the brain is influenced by quantum processes, perhaps this could make possible consciousness existing outside of the physical brain in something other than purely biological form. It would certainly explain the NDEs cited above, even if the full mechanism is not yet known. </creaky knowledge of Penrose QGE theory pulled out of ass>
Both those conditions were met, it spelled them out in the link you read.
I had no trouble with the links from my site, but did from the board, so I will give the link to the news sites.
http://www.aleroy.com/newsitems.htm
It is not so much that Pam Reynolds surgery “proves life after death.” It is the accumulation of hundreds of NDEs showing the same evidence. It is even more than that, the info exchanges, the deceased relatives, and pets, the unknown that becomes known during the experience. It is a huge lot of data from literally millions of sources that shows we will live after death and that a higher intelligence exists.
I grow tired of the arrogance of skeptics, who don’t study the material, yet believe they are knowledgable on all aspects of it. So I guess it is mainly what you want to believe.
If someone posts an honest inquery I will answer, otherwise the skeptics can argue among themselves.
Well, microtubules don’t explain phenomenal consciousness any better than classical-scale neuroscience, which is to say, no explanation. Neuroscientists just assume that consciousness is physical, and hope that some form of emergentism will bridge the explanatory gap. I think that project is fundamentally misconstrued. And that’s the same reason I don’t make much of Penrose’s theory either.
That said, one can refresh one’s (quantum, har har) memories here.
I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ve never before looked deeply into NDEs and it’ll take me more than a day or two to amass the expertise you have. I had hoped by asking those questions you’d consider it an opportunity to guide me. Nothing personal, but I guess it’s mainly what you want to believe.
One of the links from your web site is a BBC article detailing one research team’s findings. If you care to, how do you respond to the very last section of that article?
On quantum mechanics: Gyan’s probably right that any QM based explanation of consciousness is no better/worse than one neurologically based. But for those of use (like me!) who aren’t up on the details, can you, um, dumb it down a shade?
I remember reading that certain quantum events “exist” as a cloud of probability (i.e. in a sense the particles involved exist simultaneously in all of the places in which they “could” be) until they are observed. That observation may be by way of a photograph, but the probability wave does not collapse until that photograph is then observed, even if the observation is a week after the event. Am I anywhere close with this?
Even so, this is so mind-boggling that I have to admit I can’t internalize it. What are the implications? I suppose one implication is: if matter, which is comprised of quantum particles, does not solidify until observed, and if the brain is made up of matter, the brain cannot exist until it’s observed. Therefore the brain cannot be the centre of observation. If this is logical, the question this gives rise to is: where, then, does consciousness live?
Whoa! Psilocybe can I borrow 3.5g from you, real quick?
Does this mean, then, that these religious experiences could be explained by this non-matter based observation centre catching a glimpse of itself in the mirror? How many observers are there? If only one, then that observer is responsible for collapsing all probability waves that result in all matter, inclusive of each individual. Is that why these experiences have a sense of Oneness?
Please tell me I’m waaaaay off on this! And what the hell is a microtubule?
Be fair lekatt - your ignorance has never stopped you from sharing your opinion on evolution, has it?
I’m interested in spontaneous religious experiences outside of a religious setting. We need more reports!
I’ve heard of people having dreams that changed their lives. Have any of you had spiritual dreams? Or perhaps an interesting sleep paralysis…?
I’m curious. Does speaking in tongues cause the change in consciousness, or does the speaking of the tongues occur after one ‘feels funny’?
OK, the researcher said:
The skeptic said:
This is a common situation, the researcher has been studying NDEs for years, and his research shows that the experience happens after the brain has ceased to function, and the body is dead. A common finding of all NDE research.
But the skeptic, who is not a researcher, says its possible the research is wrong. What else could he say and remain a skeptic. This is the common denial of skeptics.
Pam Reynolds was brain dead for almost two hours, during which she said she was conscious and watching the operation, proving it by accurately describing such.
A further reading of NDEs shows that some experiencers leave their body and “float” into the lobby of the hospital observing their family grieving for them. In one case when the experiencer woke up he related how he saw an aunt in the lobby with the family, which was true, that he could not have known about before his death and revival.
The literature is full of experiences such as this. One noticed a shoe on the window ledge outside the hospital. The shoe was found just where it was observed.
All serious researchers come to believe in the NDE as a real spiritual experience, all skeptics just keep on denying it while not doing any real research.
I personally know that the body and brain are separate, there is life after death, and a higher intelligence, a prime energy force created the universe and us. When a Oneness experience takes place as talked about earlier it is a connection to that force that we feel. We are all part of the force.
The only way for one to prove that to themselves is to read near death experiences, at least a couple of hundred, I have over 200 on my site, and the internet contains thousands.
Try searching the internet for religious experiences.
There are many levels of dreaming. Lucid dreams are more likely to change consciousness than others. Try getting some information from the Robert Monroe Institute. This place does a lot of experimenting with dreams and out of body experiences.
Sleep paralysis is the result of out of body dreaming. The “spirit” is reintering the body at the same instance the body is awaking. Just relax, wait, it will pass quickly.
I have no knowledge of speaking in tongues other than watching it happen. I have no idea how it comes about or why.
I didn’t consider sleep paralysis as under the category of religious experience, but now that you mention it if we’re exploring “altered states…” Isn’t sleep paralysis a common thing? There have been maybe two or three times times I thought I woke up, discovered I couldn’t move, continued dreaming - a lucid dream that felt like an out-of-body experience.
I don’t buy that I actually left my body. I’ve had all kinds of dreams about all kinds of things - I don’t see why an out-of-body dream has any special significance.
About speaking in tongues: The feelings I described earlier happened just the first time, after which I could speak in tongues whenever I felt like it (still can) with no special effort, no special feelings at all. The jig episode was an emotion carbon copy of the first tongues episode. In neither case did I feel a sense of Oneness - just a close warmth and a feeling of - not detatchment as much as profound distraction, I just wasn’t paying attention to here and now.
Each was a very pleasant experience. If I had to choose, though, between the tongues type feelings and the post-movie episode, I would take the movie! I didn’t go into great details with my explanation earlier cuz I felt I was hogging the floor. It was a breathtaking, powerful, deeply moving experience I would love to have again.
Do you have a link to this? If this shoe was in no way visible to the patient prior to reporting the NDE, this is truly convincing.
Just a note: any researcher worth their salt must be skeptical. Skepticism is not the same as pig-headed stubborn refusal of evidence contrary to one’s bias. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. It is far too easy to make an outrageous claim convincingly and fool people - or fool oneself. Skepticism is a necessary stance before blindly embracing a new piece of knowledge. (If you haven’t already, read Carl Sagan’s “Demon Haunted World”).
For example, you mentioned the case where an NDEer saw his aunt in the waiting room. On the face of it this is not compelling. I am skeptical. Why, because I refuse to believe out of hand? Well, yeah, I guess, but on the details you provide here are my questions: How close was this guy to his aunt? Could he have presumed that his aunt would show up? Is it not equally likely it was a lucky guess? These questions arise not because I’m being a dick. The answers to these questions could provide a more likely alternate explanation for the case.
That’s why I would like to see the link to the shoe case. The questions that arise are: As the patient was wheeled into the hospital, was the shoe visible? Was the shoe visible from the patient’s window? Could the patient have seen the shoe after recovery and conflated it (intentionally or not) with the out-of-body experience? As I’ve said, if it was in no way possible for the patient to have known about the shoe but for the NDE, then that’s amazing and compelling.
Have these researchers documented cases where things were seen in NDEs that did not happen, aunts or shoes that were not where the experiencer said? What about nonsensical things uttered after an NDE that were just not interesting enough to document? If one records only the hits and neglects the misses - finding the truth is impossible.
On memory: You must admit that memory is a tricky thing. My brother and I both recall an episode on our cousin’s farm (details omitted). I remember it was I who did it; he swears it was him. Just this week, Mrs. Call complained that I didn’t do something she remembers telling me a week ago - I remember her telling me two days ago. If the only evidence that a NDE occurred at the exact time the brain was not functioning is merely stating so, that’s not compelling - it requires corroboration.
This is not intended to be an exercise in breaking each other’s balls. If something is the truth, it can withstand skeptical scrutiny. It would be very exciting indeed if corroborating evidence can be found amongst the reports of NDEs.
The shoe was not visible from the entrance to the hospital, it was on a window ledge several stories up. It could have only be seen from above. The reason these experiences make it out of the hospital and into the books is because they are showing something different than the normal belief systems.
I have read Carl Sagan’s books, but he is not a true scientist. I call these people non-scientist scientists, like I call religious people non-religious who speak one thing and act another. Carl Sagan was given the data on the best documented case for reincarnation. Over 150 people, some Americans, some scientists had witnessed this drama unfold. It concerned a very young boy in India who answered a knock on his door. Then called the person knocking by name and asked him for the money he had loaned him in a former life. The parents were stunned because the boy could have in no way known this man in his present life. So the whole village plus some scientists investigated the incident. It led them to a village far away where the young boy went directly to the house he had lived in during his past life and named all the people there. Later he went into the backyard and dug up some money he had buried there in his past life. The young boy had never visited the village in his present lifetime. I am just outlining the story here, there is a book on it, don’t remember the name of the book.
But anyway, after Carl Sagan had examined all the data, he replied, “well, I can’t dispute the data, but I still don’t believe it.” Unfortunately this is all to common today among scientists. They talk a lot about changing their beliefs when new evidence is presented but never do.
A real scientist would have at least wanted to know more.
Now you can go to the site below and buy a video tape called “The Search for Heaven.” It is a documentary and scientific examination of near death experiences. It covers the “shoe” NDE as well as the Pam Reynolds surgery.
And below is an NDE from my site, but told by the nurse attending the patient.
http://www.aleroy.com/FAQz05.htm
I will repeat, the only way is to read the NDEs and the research for yourself. There is far to much to cover on a message board. Or your could read my site, all the common skeptic concerns are answered in the FAQ section.
Thank you for being civil.
Here is a link I just found today, about a friend of mine, a woman who knows.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/books/story/13299748p-14141987c.html