Near-death experiences are real and we have the proof, say scientists

reply to post by Explosions in The Sky


LOL Gary Habermas was my philosophy professor at Liberty University. I wish the video was closed captioned so I cannot comment on it.

reply to post by Deaf Alien


can you bring some more info on the guy? I saw the video and please write a little more if you can.

Originally posted by TheBandit795
IF near death experiences are not real, then veridical NDE's would be impossible. Either that or the researchers are lying. I think any debunkers would have found out that last one already by now though.

That's a false dichotomy.

The claims could be explained a number of ways.

Thus, veridical can only be explained by floating minds or people lying. Perhaps not. Perhaps the dude who had his falsies removed in the Van Lommel study (the best one I know) did actually perceive and encode this event in some way. Perhaps it was the voice of the nurse that he recalled whilst he experienced his false teeth being removed. After the event, he recognises this implicitly and knows she has his gnashers.

We know that people who are unconscious and anaesthetised can recall events happening in the room. We know that even though a person might be cold, no heartbeat, no apparent brain activity, they need not be dead, just unconscious. If they have some subcortical brain activity, they could encode and recall memories, they could have emotions. Indeed, the subcortex is full of the core emotion and memory areas.

Much of what we experience is constructed post-hoc, we rationalise experiences, much experience is implicit and below the level of consciousness. Memories are not like some photograph or diary entry, they are reconstructed on each recollection.

Just because the experience is encoded and recalled doesn't mean it correlates with any potential period of brain death, given that measures of such activity are unreliable. Could be during the brain shutting down, or the brain firing up.

But minds must float!

[edit on 9-11-2008 by melatonin]

reply to post by melatonin



Uh huh. And if you read about or met several thousand folk who'd also spoken with the beast-like entity, what would that mean ?


As a poster said to you in an above post, our system of justice is founded upon witness statements.

How do those witnesses 'prove' what they saw and experienced ? Certainly there's no requirement for the accused to repeat his crime time and again in order it might be 'proven' he actually did drive whilst drunk and kill an entire family in the process.

No. The witness provides a statement to the authorities regarding what he saw. Later, in court, the witness again relates what he saw before judge and jury.

The defence attempts to 'shake' the witness, but only a certain amount of shaking is permissable.

The jury studies the witness. Listens to his voice. Watches his face as he gives evidence.

The accused might be sentenced to 25 years in jail, based upon statements made by the witness.

Do we dismantle the legal system because witnesses can state what they believed they saw, yet cannot 'prove' it ?

In real life, we may know a person extremely well. May have worked or lived with them for years.

If that person tells us they saw a dog chase a cat up a tree, we believe them.

If they tell us they watched a spectacular sunset the day before, we believe them

In short, we regard them as solid, reliable, responsible, truthful. We've never had cause to doubt their honesty. We'd trust them with our life savings.

So what do we do when that person confides to us that during the time between having their heart attack and waking in the hospital hours later, they experienced what they believe to be a near-death experience ?

They tell us what they experienced and saw and felt.

This is the same person we've lived or worked with for years and in whom we've always had the utmost trust.

Do we change our opinion of them based on their claim to have had a NDE ?

Do we choose to believe everything they've told us before the NDE and also after the NDE ... but decide that in the case of the NDE, the person we've always trusted should not be believed ?

Ok. Let's put it another way.

We have an orange tree in our backyard. It's been there for fifteen years. And every year, without fail, that tree has provided us with tasty oranges.

So what about next year ? Do we decide that next year, our orange tree might start throwing up apples ?

Or do we believe our orange tree will remain consistent ?

So why would those we know not also be consistent ?

Those claiming to have experienced NDEs may not be known to you, but they're known to others.

And in the same way, it might be you who next year experiences an NDE.

Would you expect your family and close friends to believe you ? Would it be logical or fair for them to tell you they're drawing the line as far as your claimed-NDE is concerned, because they just don't believe in NDEs ... therefore, you must be mistaken, deluded or lying.

Thousands have reported similar experiences (NDEs). Did they all suddenly become 'deluded' because they had heart attacks and accidents which led to their being clinically dead for a period of time ?

If several thousand people witnessed an incident and provided very similar testimony, could they all be 'wrong', just because what they claimed to have witnessed currently lies outside what mainstream science accepts or has a definitive answer for ?

And children. Do we suspect that children who report NDEs in fact read or heard about them before their Near Death Experiences and all decided -- even though they might only have been two or five years of age -- to tell a big tall tale to the doctors and to their parents about a fictitious NDE, just for the hell of it ?

Yet at the same time, I'm guessing that when you ask a total stranger for the time, or for directions ... you'll accept what they tell you as true ?

reply to post by czacza


Gary Habermas is a Christian Apologist. He is a very good debater. He has been debating extensively on the resurrection of Christ.
Here's his site: www.garyhabermas.com...
And wiki: en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by ImaginaryReality1984
The most obvious question i think that has come up is this.

What about all the people who don't have near death experiences? When i read some research a few years ago it was mentioned that only 4 in 10 people have the near death experience. So does this completely disprove the near death idea?

theres some pretty compelling cases about reincarnation but not everyone remembers that either, it just means some people simply dont remember, maybe there not supposed to.

reply to post by melatonin


You don't think they would've taken all that you have said into consideration before putting it up in journals for peer review? And verdical near death experiences are not only about what they have heard in the same room that their body were in at the time. Some NDE'rs reported conversations or objects in a different location than that they were in at the time, which were later verified by the medical crew.

Originally posted by Dock6
Uh huh. And if you read about or met several thousand folk who'd also spoken with the beast-like entity, what would that mean ?

That the war on drugs was lost?

As a poster said to you in an above post, our system of justice is founded upon witness statements.

And we know that such statements are notoriously unreliable.

Do we change our opinion of them based on their claim to have had a NDE ?

Do we choose to believe everything they've told us before the NDE and also after the NDE ... but decide that in the case of the NDE, the person we've always trusted should not be believed ?

I don't see why we're going down this route. I've already said that I accept that people experience NDEs.

I'm more interested in someone undertaking a controlled experiment that can show whether minds float about and that this floating mind has the ability for emotions, cognition, and memory - all processes well-known to be physical and brain-based.

Anecdote doesn't cut it. Someone having such experiences during a neural crisis doesn't really show what you want it to. Someone claiming that because some old dude actually had some way of knowing who had his false gnashers taken during unconsciousness doesn't really show what you want it to.

Originally posted by TheBandit795
You don't think they would've taken all that you have said into consideration before putting it up in journals for peer review? And verdical near death experiences are not only about what they have heard in the same room that their body were in at the time. Some NDE'rs reported conversations or objects in a different location than that they were in at the time, which were later verified by the medical crew.

I know. It was a pretty naff paper. Peer-review is a necessary but not sufficient quality control.

Very few are actually under controlled conditions.

As I noted, memories are not some sort of word file or jpg.

[edit on 9-11-2008 by melatonin]

Dreams usually happen in a flash, how do they know their "experiences" didn't happen as they were in the waking stage? I'm not saying it isn't possible, just hard to prove.

I HAD A NDE ......... This past June I had a near death experience. Some of you may have read about it as my daughter posted it. All I can tell you from my point of view.........everything I experienced really happened to me. Some of it I remember but my daughter who was there remembers more then I do. It was a beautiful and loving time for me. And if not for my grandchildren I would have not chosen to have come back.

Peace,
Grandma

There is a heck of a lot of controversy around this subject for one main reason - fear. If it were ever to be proven true, there would be a ridiculous amount of implications with something like this. Atheists would undoubtedly call for more experiments, hoping it was wrong. Religion would be stronger than ever. People would have to consider if what they do in this life effects what happens to you in the next, etc.

I'm not sure this would be a good scientific discovery with the way things are now. And really, eternal life isn't that appealing.

Originally posted by GeeGee
And really, eternal life isn't that appealing.

Trouble is that if it exists, there's not much you can do to escape it.

Well, of course eternal life isn't that appealing if you keep remembering past lives. It will get really boring. However, if at death, or shortly afterward, you forget everything you ever done or learned, then new life will seem like a first life, all new and fresh.

Miracle Max: See, there's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Now, mostly dead: he's slightly alive. All dead, well, with all dead, there's usually only one thing that you can do.
Inigo: What's that?
Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.
—The Princess Bride

Could NDE be tied to REM intrusion? Might explain why only certain people have them.

www.livescience.com...

Health
Near-Death Experience: Find Out if You're a Candidate
By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 11 April 2006 ET
Experiences you have in the here and now could hint at whether you'll see a light at the end of the tunnel when you're close to the hereafter.
A new study finds that people who have had near-death experiences are generally more likely to have difficulty separating sleep from wakefulness.
Researchers surveyed 55 people who'd had a near-death experience (NDE) and 55 who had not. The experience was defined as a life-threatening episode such as a car accident or heart attack when the person experienced a variety of feelings, including:
· a sense of unusual peace
· alertness
· being outside their bodies
· seeing intense light
For 60 percent of those who had been through an NDE, the rapid-eye movement (REM) state of sleep intrudes into their regular consciousness while awake, the study found. Both before and after their traumatic event, these people had experiences that include waking up and not being able to move, sudden muscle weakness in their legs, and hearing sounds that no one else hears upon waking or falling asleep.
Only 24 percent of people who had not had an NDE report this REM intrusion.
Inside your mind
The human arousal system is activated from the brain stem, a primordial control system that manages other vital functions like heartbeat and breathing. We all have a switch there that regulates between REM sleep and being awake, explained study leader Kevin Nelson, a neurologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. In people who have had an NDE, the switch is more likely to blend those two states.
"These findings suggest that REM-state intrusion contributes to near-death experiences," Nelson said. "People who have near-death experiences may have an arousal system that predisposes them to REM intrusion."
The results are detailed in the April 11 issue of the journal Neurology.
Near-death experiences are seen by some as evidence for the paranormal, as a link to the world beyond. Not everyone who recovers from being near death or declared clinically dead describes the same eerie sensations, however. Nelson says that about 10 percent of cardiac arrest patients who survive had an NDE during the event.
In a Dutch study of 344 cardiac patients who had been resuscitated after clinical death, 62 of them, or 18 percent, reported an NDE.
What's going on
During REM sleep, many body functions are known to change. Muscles lose their tone, for example.
In a crisis, if the REM-state intrudes on an otherwise awake person, the lack of muscle tone "could reinforce a person's sense of being dead and convey the impression of death to other people," Nelson said. "REM-state intrusion during danger and brain impairment from lack of blood flow or oxygen could contribute to the experience of near death."
The intrusion might also explain the vivid scenes described by some NDE survivors, such as seeing their own bodies from above during surgery.
"One of the basic features of REM state is activation of the visual system," Nelson said. "REM-state intrusion could promote the prominent visual phenomena of near-death experience."
NDEs appear not to be dreams, however.
"Most dreaming occurs in REM sleep and despite the possible contribution to NDE by REM-intrusion, NDE and dreams fundamentally differ," Nelson explains. "Near-death experiences are recalled with an intense sense of realness that contrasts sharply to dreams. Furthermore, NDEs lack the bizarre characteristics of dreams."
The new study does not answer the question of whether near-death experiences have a biological rather than paranormal basis, Nelson told LiveScience, but he plans further research in an effort to settle that issue.
For now, there are hints that biology and the paranormal might converge. Our emotions are controlled by the brain's limbic system, which is strongly active during REM sleep.
"REM-state intrusion provides a mechanism for robust activation of the limbic system, which is expected to underlie many of the paranormal, transcendental and emotional aspects of NDE," Nelson said.

More on the subject
www.time.com...

Originally posted by Good Wolf
reply to post by Interestinggg

 

Well lets differentiate all the situations. Out-of-body experiences are different to Near-death experiences (light & tunnel).

Some of these phenomena are easy to explain, most of it comes down to the dyeing throws of the brain and various other organs. The light at the end of the tunnel is explained as the eyes shutting down, where the inner-most light sensitive cells remain receptive long after the outer-most giving the impression of light in a dark tunnel. Then the is the shutting down of particular brain parts specifically. In controlled conditions when have the ability to shut down parts of the brain in the lab. In fact NDEs are completely re-creatable in the lab, down to every aspect.

Out of body experiences are more complicated and unexplainable yet don't appear mystical in any way. Being able to see/hear things that should be unable to be seen or heard by patients in the OR can simply be unconscious deduction that is preserved in memory.

The other thing to keep in mind is that we are only beginning to scratch the surface when it come tos understanding the mind and what it can do.

Out of body and near death are one in the same. There have been plenty of 'light at the end of the tunnel' events in out of body experiences, and people describe reaching this light and feeling as though they've obtained knowledge, enlightenment of some sort, personal evolution, contacting their higher self, etc.. The same things people describe in near death experiences.

If you're implying that out of body experiences can be explained by unconscious deduction, you would be wrong according to scientific documentation and observation.

reply to post by spacemanjupiter


I'm not saying that OBEs and NDEs are closed cases to science, because at the end of the day, the human brain is not really understood yet.

BUT most of all this stuff to do with OBEs and NDEs are explainable.

Originally posted by Good Wolf

Originally posted by GeeGee
And really, eternal life isn't that appealing.

Trouble is that if it exists, there's not much you can do to escape it.

And that's where fear plays in. Also, I think another reason it is so controversial is if the immaterial soul was proven to exist, it would only support the existence of a God or higher being. And many are opposed to the idea of a supreme being because of what religion(s) has portrayed God as.

reply to post by GeeGee


You know, personally, if that were to happen, the soul was proven to exist, then perhaps we all should toss aside all religion and start from scratch. Because if that were the case then the soul and spirituality would have some baring in science, so with that we could make a new science based religion.

If there is truth out there then the scientific methodology will serve us well.


However, back to the subject at hand, science already has something to say about NDEs, and that is that it seems to be a inconsequential phenomena caused by the brain turning off. It's still early days though.

reply to post by melatonin

Even though science, the most effective method of studying nature, would be showing that consciousness appears to not exist after death, the anecdotes would win the day, heh.

Sorry Mel, you slipped up here. Science can't prove a negative, and the 'appearance of a negative' would not exactly form a firm basis for a conclusion either.

You wouldn't even accept evidence that shows you could be wrong

It's too late to talk in those terms as the only 'evidence' that I could be wrong with respect to NDEs would be an absence of evidence of continuance of life. This is because a number of the reports come from people who have been clinically dead for a very considerable time, when even the most hardened skeptics cannot argue brain function was a factor.

Moreover, in belittling the the evidence provided by many thousands of first-hand testimonies and eye-witness accounts, calling it 'anecdotes', you leave a strong impression you are in denial with respect to the vast body of data already in existence. You have already been left behind - it is the very fact that so much evidence has accumulated that has effectively forced researchers to address the possibility of a phenomenon that is generally anathema to the atheist/humanist agenda.

Originally posted by pause4thought
No Sir. The problem is 'science' often lacks the humility to admit there are some spheres in which it cannot operate effectively.

So, in a thread focused on a new scientific study on NDEs, we fall into a criticism of the very method that could confirm the hypothesis of consciousness surviving death.

Not at all. This reply is downright dishonest. Either that or you misread my very straightforward argument entirely.

The line you took from my post related specifically and unambiguously to the study of historical facts, whether via the criminal justice system or within the study of historical events itself. I was saying that evidence of life after death in the life of Christ cannot be subjected to the scientific method as it is not a repeatable event: it is a historical event, as are the events studied in courts of law.

It is, however, interesting that rather than admitting the validity of the argument you resorted to a fallacious claim that I rejected scientific study of NDEs.

...all you have shown is that you are closed-minded, after asking others to be open-minded

Wrong again. I was once closed-minded and would have ridiculed those who believe there is conscious existence after physical death. However I took several years to examine the evidence in the case of Christ, and the prophetic writings that preceded him, and became utterly convinced. Not only have I not come across evidence since that time that would make me doubt what I now believe, I have come across numerous cases where people who set out to disprove life after death in his case became firm believers.

Conviction on the basis of evidence is not closed-mindedness. It is fair-mindedness.

With respect to NDEs and scientific investigations of the phenomenon I agree with many in this thread that

a) this is a truly fascinating subject

and

b) if evidence tips the balance towards the reality of life after death it will have profound consequences for all of us - not least with respect to ATS discussions changing from 'what if' to 'what exactly'

At the end of the day all of us have presuppositions. The problem for atheists is that theirs are based on a logical fallacy: that it is possible to be sure about a negative. Not surprisingly they are few and far between.

Agnostics are more fair-minded, being prepared to accept there is much that lies beyond their knowledge and experience.

As a believer I'm just someone who's been convinced by the available evidence. Others have looked at the evidence and remained unconvinced.

With respect to NDEs I say the fact that some scientists are prepared to entertain the possibility that their presuppositions were wrong all along shows they are open-minded.

But going on your record in this thread, if as a result of their research they say they are convinced, you'll turn round and say they're closed-minded.

And if they invite others to open their minds (Heaven forbid) - you'll give your standard reply:

Uh-huh.