Cardiologist Pim van Lommel presents strong scientific evidence for the reality of NDE's

reply to post by TheBandit795

Science is only recently started to study this (consciousness studies), after ignoring it for hundreds of years.

True, science is just now getting around to studying the functions of the brain that causes self-awareness. I have noticed that the majority of people have an immense issue with the definition of consciousness. Everyone seems to be equating consciousness as a part of memory and capacity to reason (intelligence). Consciousness is no more than another way to say a species is self-aware. All species exhibit this basic function to varying degrees with some (like us) being more self aware than others.

The big difference here is our developed abilities to reason abstractly and communicate abstractly. We're more developed in those two functions than the rest of the planets species. This is the problem people are having with, they think that is what consciousness is. If need be, I will be more than happy to write up a quick thread on this issue with all sorts of references and studies on the matter.

It does, that's why there are the consciousness studies in which the researchers try to answer these questions.

Without bringing up 'parascientific/fringe science' studies into this, most research I know of is trying to learn what functions of the brain control self-awareness, memory, and learning. They are studying three different subsets of what most people erroneously consider as a whole. I believe this just stems from lack of any real defined definition for the term and lack of being taught about this in grade schools.

That's up to interpretation, IMO they are dead. No heartbeat, no brain activity. Dead. Yet with veridical NDE's, at the time that they were dead, they were able to see and observe events in the direct area or in nearby places that they could never have seen or heard due to them being dead, and/or due to them being physically remote from the area or people that they observed.

That is open for debate as our technology just might not be sufficient enough to detect extremely low activity. People can go into a meditative state using biofeedback techniques and appear just as dead to equipment as anyone else in a morgue would. They are able to bring their heartbeats and brainwaves to a near stand still to achieve this and then bounce back to 'life'. This says a huge amount about the body itself and our inability to properly measure its activities.

I digress though, without any repeatable controlled studies in this area from non biased sources, then I simply cannot accept the cases cited. People will lie to push their view point across. There is also the problem that they are still alive when brought into the hospital, so without studies to show the brain is not just interpreting what little sensory information it picks up, we can't give a conclusive answer on the matter. I think your being to quick to jump the gun on the issue because you want it to be true.

If NDE's are caused by the brain, they should be repeatable, and happen with a much higher percentage of patients with cardiac arrests, than just 18%.

I do remember reading a few studies on being able to reproduce NDEs in perfectly healthy humans through a couple of means. I'll try and find them. There however is no logic in NDEs only needing to occur in cardiac arrests; What is the percentage of NDEs occurring from non-cardiac related deaths? Only a small percentage of people right now experience NDEs compared to a larger population. If this was not some genetic quirk that causes their brains to protect itself during a traumatic shock like death, then what else would be causing only a small percentage to experience them? Why would only this small percentage be allowed fleeting glimpses of some supposed afterlife while the rest of humanity never does?

I also forgot to mention the cultural and religious differences between many reported NDEs. Bringing logic into play here again, there is no reason to accept only veridical NDE reports as valid NDE phenomenon and compounded onto that there is no reason to accept NDEs as a valid natural occurrence when large and varied peoples across the globe report widely different aspects of NDEs.

Originally posted by sirnex
reply to post by TheBandit795

 

Science is only recently started to study this (consciousness studies), after ignoring it for hundreds of years.

True, science is just now getting around to studying the functions of the brain that causes self-awareness.

Science is now even researching if this assumption is true or not, and as this study on NDE shows, it is most probably not true.

That is open for debate as our technology just might not be sufficient enough to detect extremely low activity. People can go into a meditative state using biofeedback techniques and appear just as dead to equipment as anyone else in a morgue would. They are able to bring their heartbeats and brainwaves to a near stand still to achieve this and then bounce back to 'life'. This says a huge amount about the body itself and our inability to properly measure its activities.

People like that still have blood flowing through their brain, and their heart is still beating. That's the main difference. Check out this thread on the state one of these patients was in. www.abovetopsecret.com...

I digress though, without any repeatable controlled studies in this area from non biased sources, then I simply cannot accept the cases cited. People will lie to push their view point across. There is also the problem that they are still alive when brought into the hospital, so without studies to show the brain is not just interpreting what little sensory information it picks up, we can't give a conclusive answer on the matter. I think your being to quick to jump the gun on the issue because you want it to be true.

I don't think so, if they (v Lommel for example) were lying, or some part of their research wasn't true, they would've been exposed and debunked already. Untill now, nothing like that has happened.

I do remember reading a few studies on being able to reproduce NDEs in perfectly healthy humans through a couple of means. I'll try and find them.

Yep, then they are plain old OOBE's. There are enough ways to learn how to do them. I have done it 8 times.

There however is no logic in NDEs only needing to occur in cardiac arrests What is the percentage of NDEs occurring from non-cardiac related deaths?

That's because they don't only occur in cardiac arrests, but for the sake of the research v Lommel did, and his job (cardiologist) he studied the occurance of NDE's in cardiac arrests.

Only a small percentage of people right now experience NDEs compared to a larger population. If this was not some genetic quirk that causes their brains to protect itself during a traumatic shock like death, then what else would be causing only a small percentage to experience them? Why would only this small percentage be allowed fleeting glimpses of some supposed afterlife while the rest of humanity never does?

That we don't know, that's why it must be studied. We don't know everything yet.

reply to post by TheBandit795

Science is now even researching if this assumption is true or not, and as this study on NDE shows, it is most probably not true.

I would say it is to early to jump the gun on that case. Do you have any studies on NDEs that are not linked to NDE type websites? I find it hard to accept the validity of these type of claims when the research done is biased and uncontrolled. That isn't scientific in any manner of the term.

People like that still have blood flowing through their brain, and their heart is still beating. That's the main difference. Check out this thread on the state one of these patients was in. www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'll take a look at it when I get home and address it then. Thank you for the link.

I don't think so, if they (v Lommel for example) were lying, or some part of their research wasn't true, they would've been exposed and debunked already. Untill now, nothing like that has happened

I'm sure there are some cases out there where fraudulent NDE claims were made. I'll look into it later.

Yep, then they are plain old OOBE's. There are enough ways to learn how to do them. I have done it 8 times.

I find the claim a bit dubious to be honest. Can you describe in great detail of atleast one OOBE and anyone that can verify this claim?

That's because they don't only occur in cardiac arrests, but for the sake of the research v Lommel did, and his job (cardiologist) he studied the occurance of NDE's in cardiac arrests.

Why just study cardiac arrest induced NDEs though?

reply to post by TheBandit795


The video is down, but I did decide to check it out regardless.

en.wikipedia.org...'_NDE#Critical

Let me know what you think.

I should clarify what I meant by anyone to verify your OOBE claim. Did anyone else see you and is willing to join this discussion to talk about that?



[edit on 19-8-2008 by sirnex]

Sirnex, sorry that I haven't been able to reply earlier. I have been extremely busy this past week on the job (even in the weekend). I will reply as soon as I get the chance. Thanks.

reply to post by TheBandit795


Good to hear from you, was starting to wonder what happened! Take your time, I'll hopefully still be here to catch your reply.

Originally posted by sirnex
reply to post by TheBandit795

 

I would say it is to early to jump the gun on that case. Do you have any studies on NDEs that are not linked to NDE type websites? I find it hard to accept the validity of these type of claims when the research done is biased and uncontrolled. That isn't scientific in any manner of the term.

The one of v Lommel's was published in the Lancet. YOu can also check the references part of this page: en.wikipedia.org...

People like that still have blood flowing through their brain, and their heart is still beating. That's the main difference. Check out this thread on the state one of these patients was in. www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'll take a look at it when I get home and address it then. Thank you for the link.

I find the claim a bit dubious to be honest. Can you describe in great detail of atleast one OOBE and anyone that can verify this claim?

I have done that previously, I'd have to look up those posts. The last OOBE I had was around 2005. But like I said. Everyone can learn it, even yourself. It just takes some commitment to do so. Once you experience it, you will know beyond a doubt that you can live without your physical body.

One of the best methods is to go to sleep early, wake up 3 hours earlier than normal, get out of the bed and do something different for at least 45 minutes. Then go to lie down again. It is much easier to induce lucid dreams and Out of body experiences like that. Especially when you use the timer method of saltcube.com

Why just study cardiac arrest induced NDEs though?

He's a cardioligist. It's very easy to record such cases because it obviously occurs often in his line of work.

Hi There,

I've returned to the thread because I see from a number of posts that many have a somewhat social-eye'd view of what constitutes a NDE. NDE is not a phenomenon, but a series of phenomena presenting to the 'experient' alone as one phenomenon. This distinction is an important issue, and was dealt with early on by the earlier NDE researchers whom derived an NDE scale, requiring at least 5 elements of up to 9 to classify one's experience as NDE. For instance, the 'oobe' experience of NDE is but one element, as is feelings of warmth and joy...etc.

The argument from '___' as causing NDE-like aspects has been demonstrably down-graded as a cause for NDE, per se. This down-grading by no other expert on '___' than Strassman himself. '___' occurs quite naturally in the brain, but nowhere near enough in the amounts required to cause NDE-like aspects. However, this does not necessarily exclude '___' as playing some role during the death sequence of the organism. More research is required.

As for defining consciousness, I personally perceive it as being a 'state' in which the organism is brought into through stimulation both externally and internally. Consciousness is not a object like the brain, but a quale perception of being in a certain excited state of sentience, again both internally and externally. Self-sentience (self-awareness) probably arises through heirarchical systems of looped-feedback mechanisms, reference systems with memory, and error-checks. The complexity of the systems lend themselves to description by analogy to modern technology such as computers, but they will in truth be far greater in complexity in their mode by which they invoke the organism into self-sentiency. That which we term 'mind' and oft' consider (somewhat erroneously) as being separately distinct from consciousness is nothing of the sort. We do not have a mind that is conscious, but a conscious that is perceived as mind. Mind is nothing more than the quale experience of being conscious. Mind, is in essence, a mental mirage. Once we accept this new view of mind, the ancient philosophical debate of the 'mind/body' problem becomes redundant and answered.

The question posed (and implied) by NDE is not that of life after death, because NDE pro-offers nothing of relevance to the life after death state. From it however, we are able to obtain something in the way of veridical post-mortem consciousness, and thus to seriouly ask...what part of the organism separates at its death that retains a cohesive conscious structure, with memory (and thus personality and character) still intact?

We should not discuss in terms of consciousness separating, because consciousness is not a object, but a state, analogous to the bar magnetic having a magnetic field. Analogously, consciousness is a field whose presence indicates a certain state that the organism is in at the time of oberservation...it is something other that separates, something cohesive and ephemeral which equally comes into a state of being conscious.

All this speculation is fine, as long as it leads to more focussed and deeper research, but we must never lose sight of the most important aspect of NDE, and that is that it is specific to the experient, and that no two NDE experiences are the same, because of its privacy and personal-ness to the experient. Whatever NDE is, whatever it indicates, it is ultimately a natural event. There is nothing supernatural or paranormal about it.

Best wishes