First hint of 'life after death' in biggest ever scientific study

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Krazysh0t
All of these things depend on the subjective experience of the individual that's going through these trials. So if you do a trial with 20 people and 7 of them get dizzy, this can eventually lead to a side effect listed for the drug if it's FDA approved.

For the third time, a medical doctor determining someone's illness is NOT the same as a research scientist researching into unknown fields. For one, the medical doctor doesn't utilize the scientific method to diagnose. A medical doctor has a different procedure to follow. Illnesses are already known and well documented by the scientific community. So all a doctor has to do is verify the symptoms to make the diagnosis. This is VERY different than a scientist seeing a phenomenon that he doesn't understand and devising an experiment to figure out what it is. So just DROP the entire point about how a medical doctor determines how someone is sick. It is irrelevant to our conversation and a waste of space.

This is just asinine.

What are you even debating if you distrust subjective experience in Medical research?

Sorry, I only deal in measurable, objective evidence. That is the best kind of evidence. Subjective evidence can't be measured, so until you produce it, I won't sign off on your theory. It's called having scientific standards.

You're a Conspiracy Theorist not anyone trying to research the truth. On one hand you say that NDE's should be able to see penguins on a shelf, but then in the next breathe you say you distrust these people giving their experience.

WHICH IS IT??

Why can't it be both? Being able to so something has nothing to do with me trusting what they say. They don't contradict each other.

Why do you distrust what they're saying when you already admitted that you believe what they're saying is true??

I don't believe what they are saying is true. When it comes to NDE's, I believe that at some point during the near death point, the body experiences something that isn't very well understood by science. I have a few thoughts on what that may be and what may be happening, but the evidence to say one way or the other is lacking on all sides. My position is that I don't know at this time and would like to see further research that can produce more credible evidence. YOU on the other hand, are fine with accepting any evidence that validates your preconceived beliefs. That is called a confirmation bias. It's been on display since before I started talking to you.

You said the brain could explain these experiences and that it could be like a dream or an illusion. So you do trust these subjective experiences and you're just debating the cause or you don't trust these subjective experiences and you don't know what you're debating?

I believe that the person experienced something, but I don't trust their account of things because it is unreliable.

Are you debating the origin of these experiences or whether these experiences occur?

That's because you are purposely confusing my point.

This again stems from your illogical positions. You don't trust subjective testimony in these cases, but you construct a test that's not based on the actual experiences.

I didn't construct the test, the surgeon constructed it. I just pointed out the flaws in his findings and that further research still needs to be conducted before we can say what is happening.

You keep saying these silly things. Why should they see a penguin on a shelf from their point of view? HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT THERE POINT OF VIEW IS IF YOU DON'T TRUST EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY??

It's called making a concession. It is a standard part of logical thought to concede that something may be true so that you can analyze what the reaction should be given that the premise is true. That doesn't necessarily mean that I actually believe that the premise is true. Maybe go study up on logical debate. It isn't as confusing as you are making it out to be.

The reason you're not doing this is because you can't. You're not talking about NDE's. You're building up a strawman argument that has nothing to do with the actual experience. There's no reason, based on NDE's, why they should be focused on a penguin on a shelf.

You say that because you are apologizing for these people's failures. A REAL scientist would see the discrepancy and pursue why the discrepancy exists. A pseudo-scientist just ignores the discrepancy or creates a rationalization ("they were focusing on the operating table and their family") to explain it away without any further testing.

In one breathe you don't trust these subjective experiences but in the next breathe you try to give an explanation as to why these subjective experiences are occurring. WHICH IS IT?????

After all these posts, I honestly believe now that you aren't really interested in the answer to this question. You are making zero attempt to understand me and I'm just talking in circles. I think this will be my last response to you. You should go back and restudy the scientific method as well as what is and isn't acceptable scientific evidence. Until you do that your approach to NDE research will forever be referred to as pseudo-science.

You don't know how to be objective and your emotional attachment to your predetermined conclusion is blinding you to outside perspectives to the point that you ridicule and disrespect the person you are debating with. As I'm not here to win the argument, I'll just let my points stand as they are for any people on the sidelines to read and understand what I'm saying. You just don't care what my points are.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

You said:

For the third time, a medical doctor determining someone's illness is NOT the same as a research scientist researching into unknown fields. For one, the medical doctor doesn't utilize the scientific method to diagnose. A medical doctor has a different procedure to follow. Illnesses are already known and well documented by the scientific community. So all a doctor has to do is verify the symptoms to make the diagnosis. This is VERY different than a scientist seeing a phenomenon that he doesn't understand and devising an experiment to figure out what it is. So just DROP the entire point about how a medical doctor determines how someone is sick. It is irrelevant to our conversation and a waste of space.

This isn't what you said. You made the claim that subjective experiences were not used in science and they are especially in areas of Medical research and Doctor's diagnosing an illness.

You're just flat out wrong and you have to take into account subjective experiences, especially when there's a biological function that triggers these experiences. These experiences just don't occur out of the blue. This is why there has been research in these areas for years.

You said:

That's because you are purposely confusing my point.

The problem is, you don't know what your point is. It has been all over the place.

You said:

I don't believe what they are saying is true. When it comes to NDE's, I believe that at some point during the near death point, the body experiences something that isn't very well understood by science. I have a few thoughts on what that may be and what may be happening, but the evidence to say one way or the other is lacking on all sides. My position is that I don't know at this time and would like to see further research that can produce more credible evidence. YOU on the other hand, are fine with accepting any evidence that validates your preconceived beliefs. That is called a confirmation bias. It's been on display since before I started talking to you.

Another statement of yours that makes no sense. You said that the evidence to say one way or the other is lacking on all sides. This is your subjective opinion of the evidence. I on the other hand have looked at the evidence that has been accumulated over the years and I have reached a different conclusion.

So what you're saying is that you can reach a conclusion that the evidence is lacking on all sides but someone else can't reach a different conclusion than you and see strong evidence in support of these experiences not being simply a phenomena of the brain.

You said:

YOU on the other hand, are fine with accepting any evidence that validates your preconceived beliefs.

This clearly shows how dishonest and shameful people can be when it comes to their belief systems. I'm fine with you reaching a different conclusion than I have but that's the problem. Most materialist and pseudoskeptics think if you look at the evidence and reach a different conclusion then it's woo or you have a confirmation bias.

No, I just reached a different conclusion about the evidence and by your own admission you don't know. Why does this mean I can't reach a different conclusion based on the evidence???

You said:

You say that because you are apologizing for these people's failures. A REAL scientist would see the discrepancy and pursue why the discrepancy exists. A pseudo-scientist just ignores the discrepancy or creates a rationalization ("they were focusing on the operating table and their family") to explain it away without any further testing.

What failures??? What discrepancy???

You have to first show why seeing a penguin on a shelf is relevant to NDE's before there can be a discrepancy. That's called a strawman.

You can't say something so idiotic like NDE's need to see penguins on a shelf without showing evidence from actual NDE accounts that show why they should see this penguin as there looking at their body and loved ones in other rooms.

If NDE accounts said as I'm looking at my body, I notice every small thing in the room and look here's a list of every small thing in the room then it makes sense. This isn't the case though and based on actual experiences, there's no reason why a person having a NDE should see random penguins on a shelf. You can always revise experiments and come up with things they should see based on actual experiences.

You keep talking about your points but you have none.

You claim you don't know, so what are your points? Because you don't know everyone else who looks at the evidence has to reach the same conclusion? That's just asinine?

You claim NDE's should see penguins on a shelf but you don't provide any evidence from actual NDE's that say why they should see random penguins on a shelf?

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
I don't believe what they are saying is true. When it comes to NDE's, I believe that at some point during the near death point, the body experiences something that isn't very well understood by science. I have a few thoughts on what that may be and what may be happening, but the evidence to say one way or the other is lacking on all sides. My position is that I don't know at this time and would like to see further research that can produce more credible evidence. YOU on the other hand, are fine with accepting any evidence that validates your preconceived beliefs. That is called a confirmation bias...

This is basically my position.

NDEs and out-of-body experiences are certainly a real phenomenon, but I don't know what they are. Are they actually a person's consciousness somehow separating from their body, and experiencing the world (or the room they are in) from outside the body? I have no idea, but at the same time I don't think there is any good evidence to suggest that this IS actually happening.

From what I've read about NDEs and out-of-body experiences, it seems to me that it could also just be all occurring inside the brain. It's entirely possible that there is still some kind of undetectable brain activity going on in patients who are exhibiting no signs that our technology and our understanding of the brain could detect.

We know that our brains sometimes can manufacture memory information at a later time after an event and inject those new "manufactured memories" into the old memories of that event, making it seem as if the new information is part of the old memory. Brains have been known to try hard to fill in missing pieces of information through many means, such as taking cues from the surrounding environment and making assumptions based on experience.

That could be what is happening here with these out of body experiences. The brain doing its best to fill in missing pieces of information.

Until someone can show me that consciousness (or what we call consciousness) is something that is separate from our brains, I'm going to go with the more logical idea (meaning one that requires fewer assumptions on my part) that what we call consciousness is just a part of our brains, and cannot exist separate from our brains.



...And for me to believe that consciousness is "its own thing" that exists independently of our brains, I need to understand where this alleged separate consciousness came from in the first place. Why would we humans have a separate consciousness? When did we achieve the ability to have this consciousness? Our species (homo sapiens) has been around for a very short time (about 250,000 years). Were these separate independent consciousnesses floating around prior to that? Did my consciosness already exist prior to being born, or did my brain create it. If I created it, How and why? Did prior species from which we evolved also have consciousness that could exist outside their bodies? Did Homo heidelbergensis and Homo rhodesiensis (evolutionary ancestors of humans/homo sapiens) possess consciousness?

If "yes -- other early human ancestors also had independent consciousnesses", then where did those consciousnesses originally come from?

If "yes", then how far back in evolution did humans have the ability to have this independent consciousness that doesn't require a brain to exist? What was the first human ancestor to have a consciousness that could exist independent of the body? Prior to that, was there no such thing as independent consciousness?

If "No -- only homo sapiens/humans have this independent consciousness", then what mechanism inside OUR bodies specifically allows us to be the first creatures on Earth to have this? Where do these consciousnesses go when separated from the body? If this phenomenon started 250,000 years ago with our human species, then was that place (the place our consciousnesses now go) empty of consciousnesses before humans came along?

These are the sorts of questions someone would need to answer for me before I believe that consciousness is an independent entity of our brains. Considering that our brains are the center of our thoughts and at the controls what we do and what we think, it seems the base belief should be that what we call consciousness is just simply our brain doing what our brain does.

It that is the base belief, then the idea that consciousness is an independent entity is something that would require hard evidence. The feeling that consciousness is independent from our brains is perhaps just an emergent phenomenon created by the complexity of our brains.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Thank you. This was my point the whole time. To someone who is actually being objective, my points are quite clear. And you do raise some further questions to ponder.

double post

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People


The point is, these things are just your subjective opinion. You said:

NDEs and out-of-body experiences are certainly a real phenomenon, but I don't know what they are. Are they actually a person's consciousness somehow separating from their body, and experiencing the world (or the room they are in) from outside the body? I have no idea, but at the same time I don't think there is any good evidence to suggest that this IS actually happening.

From what I've read about NDEs and out-of-body experiences, it seems to me that it could also just be all occurring inside the brain. It's entirely possible that there is still some kind of undetectable brain activity going on in patients who are exhibiting no signs that our technology and our understanding of the brain could detect.

This is just an opinion. Someone else could look at the mountains of evidence in this area and reach a totally different conclusion.

The problem occurs because most people who take your position can't accept the fact the others have looked at the evidence and reached a different conclusion. So anyone that has reached a different conclusion is met with things like woo or confirmation bias. No, I just reached a different conclusion based on the evidence and the fact that can't be accepted is telling.

I'm fine if you have reached a conclusion that YOU DON'T KNOW. But if you don't know, that doesn't mean others can't reach a very different conclusion based on evidence.

You said:

Until someone can show me that consciousness (or what we call consciousness) is something that is separate from our brains, I'm going to go with the more logical idea (meaning one that requires fewer assumptions on my part) that what we call consciousness is just a part of our brains, and cannot exist separate from our brains.

I can say the same thing. Until someone shows me how consciousness emerged from the material brain or where EEG Rhythms originate or how the brain knows which memories you wish to recall, I'm not going to accept the idea that everything can be reduced to the material brain.

Saying it's the most logical idea is your opinion. The way I see it it's an illogical idea without any support.

Next, consciousness can be a more fundamental property of reality. There have been advances in the emerging field of Quantum Biology and the Quantum Mind and there's no reason why nature couldn't have selected these quantum features to give our species a huge advantage. From there, consciousness separate from the material brain is very easy to explain and makes more sense than most of the convoluted nonsense coming from materialist.

You asked, when did we have the chance to evolve this consciousness. This just didn't appear in humans, this is something that would have been selected to give our species an advantage. Here's a recent article:

A UNSW Australia-led team of researchers has discovered how algae that survive in very low levels of light are able to switch on and off a weird quantum phenomenon that occurs during photosynthesis.

The function in the algae of this quantum effect, known as coherence, remains a mystery, but it is thought it could help them harvest energy from the sun much more efficiently. Working out its role in a living organism could lead to technological advances, such as better organic solar cells and quantum-based electronic devices.

The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

phys.org...

So, consciousness on a quantum level would have had many years to evolve and again, it makes more sense than convoluted nonsense coming from materialist.

originally posted by: surrealistNow scientists are gathering evidence of consciousness several minutes after clinical death including a documented out-of-body experience showing conscious thought aligning with actual events.

He was only mostly dead...

a reply to: surrealist

Well, if it's on the internet it must be true.

a reply to: surrealist

The brain was still active... connect the dots... NEXT!

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: OneManArmy

Here's the thing with that. Subjectivity isn't measurable. So it becomes hard to create a baseline and control group that you can experiment on to determine how things work. That's why science doesn't deal in subjectivity, or tries to stay as far away from it as possible. If these things are only subjective, then science may never be able to answer the question if they exist or not. Though that still doesn't give you the authority to say that they do exist. Just because the evidence can't be produced, doesn't mean you can go ahead and make the assumption. There are too many unknowns and subjectivity doesn't do anything to answer them.

Lol, that pretty much sums up psychiatry in a nutshell.
Which is totally subjective.

I agree with you about accepting that it might be wrong, because we usually are wrong about most things.

originally posted by: tavi45
a reply to: Tangerine

He was unconscious though. Did you miss that part?

People respond to sounds when in comas...that's even more unconscious than regular unconscious, yet they are reportedly stimulated by music, sounds of loved ones talking to them, and things like that.

How?

A part of our brains are permanently 'switched on' to receive sounds and process them (for danger presumably) even if it is only on a subconscious level.

This is what is going on here in this case too...the guy was unconscious, but could still hear and process the 'beeps' and whistles of the machinery around him.

Not evidence of a soul, more like evidence of an area of the Human brain which remains conscious even when we're out for the count.

A great breakdown and debunking of the study can be found here:

theness.com...

Conclusion

The much anticipated AWARE study, designed to be the first large rigorous study of NDEs with objective outcomes that could potentially differentiate between the two major hypotheses, is essentially a bust. The study, for the main outcome measure for which it was designed, did not return as much data as was hoped, but the data it did return was entirely negative. This is a negative study.

Parnia, in my opinion, is desperately trying to rescue the study by falling back on simply reporting subjective accounts of what people remember long after the event. This type of information is nothing new, and cannot objectively resolve the debate. The results are also completely unimpressive, perfectly consistent with what we would expect given what is already well documented about human memory.

The only relevant part of the study is Parnia’s admission that the results may be due entirely to confabulation. Spinning of this study in the popular press as evidence of life after death is not justified.

originally posted by: GetHyped
A great breakdown and debunking of the study can be found here:

theness.com...

This part extracted from your link is what I was saying above about "manufactured memories"

Parnia, in my opinion, is desperately trying to rescue the study by falling back on simply reporting subjective accounts of what people remember long after the event. This type of information is nothing new, and cannot objectively resolve the debate. The results are also completely unimpressive, perfectly consistent with what we would expect given what is already well documented about human memory.

Memory is not like a Video recorder. Memory does not record events exactly how they happen. False memories can be injected into your real memories, thus becoming (as far as you think) just like a real memory. One memory researcher (Elizabeth Loftus) has likened memory more to a "Wikipedia" page rather than a video recording. In a Wikipedia page, outsiders can go in and add, delete, and otherwise change things. The same is true for memory; memory is not rigid and absolute, but instead it is malleable and editable.

For example, the person in this first video did not only manufacture a memory of something that never happened to him, but his memory was embellished with very specific details (albeit false details) of the false event.

He says he was approached by a a man in a flannel shirt. Since this event of being lost in the shopping mall never occurred, obviously the man in the flannel shirt never approached him while he was lost in the shopping mall. However, it is possible that a man in a flannel shirt approaching him was part of some other childhood memory. Add that memory to the planted memory of being lost in a mall, and voila!, the memory of being lost in a mall now becomes amazingly specific.

here are two similar false memory experiments:




Granted, in these experiments, the false memory is being implanted by the researcher. However, there are triggers all around us in our everyday world that could also plant false memories...

...Such as a book you may have read that has events similar to events in your own life -- but then you falsely superimpose the details from the book onto your own memories -- details that were never part of the event as it happened in your life, but only part of the book you once read.

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People


You said:

"Until someone can show me that consciousness (or what we call consciousness) is something that is separate from our brains, I'm going to go with the more logical idea (meaning one that requires fewer assumptions on my part) that what we call consciousness is just a part of our brains, and cannot exist separate from our brains."

I can say the same thing. Until someone shows me how consciousness emerged from the material brain or where EEG Rhythms originate or how the brain knows which memories you wish to recall, I'm not going to accept the idea that everything can be reduced to the material brain.

Saying it's the most logical idea is your opinion. The way I see it it's an illogical idea without any support.

Sure, you can say that you will assume consciouness is independent of the brain until someone proves otherwise...

...However, on what are you basing that assumption?

In the case of my assumption (that what we call consciousness is just a part of regular (albeit complex) brain functions) is based on known facts about the brain -- those facts being that our brains control everything we do, everything we say, and everything we think.

If our brains are responsible for what we experience, then isn't it reasonable to assume that our brain is responsible for our experience of "consciousness".

If our brains control our experiences, then what makes you say that the experience of consciousness is "different". How is it different? Why is it different? YOU are the one saying that the experience of consciousness is a special circumstance, so I think I would need some additional hard evidence for me to assume it is a special thing, and not just another brain experience.

If our brains control everything we experience, isn't it reasonable to have a base assumption that the feeling of consciousness is also something emanating from our brains?



The bottom line is this:
Considering what we know about brains, it seems more logical to have the assumption that my brain is responsible for what I experience inside my own head, rather than assuming some force that can exist independent of my brain (an independent consciousness) is responsible for what I experience.

Can I change my assumptions to believe that an independent outside force is responsible for my experiences? Sure -- but I would need hard evidence before making that assumption.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

You said:

If our brains control everything we experience, isn't it reasonable to have a base assumption that the feeling of consciousness is also something emanating from our brains?

Of course it's reasonable to have this base assumption based on your beliefs not science. It's just as reasonable to have a base assumption that the material brain isn't responsible for consciousness, the source of EEG rhythms or things like recall of specific memories because there's no evidence that the brain can do these things and there's growing evidence that these features are connected to quantum biology.

So, you're making this base assumption on your belief because there isn't any evidence to support your base assumption.

I'm talking about actual evidence that actually explains why we see these features vs. most materialist that just say the brain must be responsible for these things without any evidence. That's called faith in your belief not science.

The problem here lies in the fact that materialist can't accept that others are making reasonable assumptions based on evidence. If you disagree with the materialist paradigm, then it's woo, confirmation bias, wishful thinking or pseudoscience.

a reply to: GetHyped

If you read the article, it's laughable. It's full of opinion and bias. It says:

Your brain is struggling to reconstruct memories of what happened through the fog of delirium, and will do what it can to construct a narrative of what occurred. We know from countless psychological experiments that our brains will happily fill in the gaps any way in can (this is called confabulation) – it will fuse memories, make up memories, incorporate details from outside sources, and morph over time to fit an evolving narrative of what happened.

This is what's referred to as a misdirect. This is his speculation as to what's occurring without any evidence that this explains all NDE cases or the cases in this study.

IT'S JUST HIS OPINION.

He claims the one participant that had a vivid recollection of what happened isn't important. Again, his opinion. He then compared it to cold reading but it's nothing like cold reading. The person doing a cold reading isn't laid out on a table having a Cardiac Arrest yet:

One man even recalled leaving his body entirely and watching his resuscitation from the corner of the room.

Despite being unconscious and ‘dead’ for three minutes, the 57-year-old social worker from Southampton, recounted the actions of the nursing staff in detail and described the sound of the machines.

“We know the brain can’t function when the heart has stopped beating,” said Dr Sam Parnia, a former research fellow at Southampton University, now at the State University of New York, who led the study.

“But in this case, conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes into the period when the heart wasn’t beating, even though the brain typically shuts down within 20-30 seconds after the heart has stopped.

“The man described everything that had happened in the room, but importantly, he heard two bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three minute intervals. So we could time how long the experienced lasted for.

Again, the bias of the article doesn't answer anything. He obviously misdirects because he can't answer the questions. Here's more relevant facts from the study.

Of 2060 cardiac arrest patients studied, 330 survived and of 140 surveyed, 39 per cent said they had experienced some kind of awareness while being resuscitated.

Although many could not recall specific details, some themes emerged. One in five said they had felt an unusual sense of peacefulness while nearly one third said time had slowed down or speeded up.

Some recalled seeing a bright light; a golden flash or the Sun shining. Others recounted feelings of fear or drowning or being dragged through deep water. 13 per cent said they had felt separated from their bodies and the same number said their sensed had been heightened.

Dr Parnia believes many more people may have experiences when they are close to death but drugs or sedatives used in the process of rescuitation may stop them remembering.

Again 330 survived and 140 surveyed. A whopping 39% of the 140 said they experienced some kind of awareness while being resuscitated. Very significant findings. These people are experience awareness while going through a traumatic event and they're sedated.

The question is, why is any brain activity occurring when it shouldn't be occurring? Why are people having awareness when they shouldn't be aware? The answers can be found in Quantum Biology for instanst the recent discovery of vibrations in microtubules as a source for EEG rhythms.

The weakness of the study is the fact that these people having these experiences are supposed to look for random pictures on a shelf. This makes no sense and doesn't connect with actual NDE cases.

Why would a person having an NDE see a random picture on a shelf? Why would this hold any significance to them when they're dying? This has no connection to NDE's. You don't see NDE's where they see and list every random thing in a room. Parnia even recognized this:

While pre-placement of visual targets in resuscitation areas aimed at testing VA was feasible from a practical viewpoint (there were no reported adverse incidents), the observation that 78% of CA events took place in areas without shelves illustrates the challenge in objectively testing the claims of VA in CA using our proposed methodology.

It's surprising that you never hear the materialist or skeptics mention this. But why would they, it destroys there asinine point about Penguins and Pictures.

First, the Surgeons that are aware don't have time to look for rooms with shelves because they're going through a traumatic experience while trying to work on a patient having an NDE. So, if Surgeons don't have time to be aware of a room with shelves, why should a person dying be aware of a random picture on a shelf when actual NDE experiences tell you there's no reason for them to be looking for random pictures on shelves.

So at the end of the day, around 30 patients were in rooms with shelves and it doesn't tell us how many of these 30 actually had some experience.

Sadly, the materialist and skeptics will not tell you this because it simply destroys any talk about random pictures on shelves.

a reply to: neoholographic

The guy is a neurologist. He knows a thing or two about the mind. You, on the other hand, have the Dunning-Kruger coursing through your veins. That you dismiss valid criticism because it debunks your beliefs is typical of your ignorant crank behavior.

originally posted by: GetHyped
a reply to: neoholographic

The guy is a neurologist. He knows a thing or two about the mind. You, on the other hand, have the Dunning-Kruger coursing through your veins. That you dismiss valid criticism because it debunks your beliefs is typical of your ignorant crank behavior.

Let me translate your post,

Fudge, why did you have to make so much sense when slamming the opinion I linked to which was supposed to debunk everything but was really just an opinion.

It debunks nothing and it's just one opinion.

originally posted by: surrealist
Well if you believe in science and the finding s of scientific studies then this should be of interest and consideration....

... or you check some serious scientific sources about it, like
www.scientificamerican.com...


There have been actually numerous studies in the past years, which cover a broad range of phenomenons; I recall having read even a neurologic study about sources of religious imagination (i.e. when someone is convinced to have seen some holy person or some light being talking to him). It is, like one poster pointed out, quite amazing what the mind or better: the brain work, can make us think, believe and do (I remember there was some research stating that medical healing is about 2/3 self-healing and 1/3 medicaments, surgery and actual doctors work, think also about "miracle healings" and such, think about people who walk for miles with a broken leg, or suddenly speak allegedly unknown languages, and so on...).

As for life after death, it is a matter of believing or not,one thinks he will live forever in paradise (just think how large it must be...) and others are convinced that there is neither life after death nor life before birth. Whatever one believes - the mind is engaged in it and sometimes will be compelled to play ball, and, for this person, a dream could, temporarily, become perceived reality.

a reply to: neoholographic

You're clearly heavily invested in this idea of consciousness existing outside the brain to the point that you can't even acknowledge the blatant failures of the study. let's break it down one last time for you:

1) The paper's null-hypothesis failed to be falsified. Straight out the water the study was a FAIL.
2) That means that the very method used to objectively validate whether the experiences were actual OBEs turned out to validate the hypothesis that the experiences were in fact manufactured in the brain. Of course, you hand wave away the author's VERY OWN NULL HYPOTHESIS as just some minor inconvenience.
3) Out of 140 people who experienced an NDE, only ONE actually had any recollection that correlated with reality. These people were interviewed LONG AFTER the event. One vague, subjective hit out of 140 under very unscientific conditions means jack #.

See? I can capitalize words as well.

You would have to be incredibly stupid or emotionally invested to the point of delusion to think that this study is anything other than bad science.