Is There Life After Death (YES!)

reply to post by JayinAR
It'd be a hell of a story if they did get good evidence of out of body experiences. It'd indicate that consciousness can exist separate to our bodies. That alone would be controversial. If it indicated that consciousness existed *after death* life would become several degrees weirder straight away. Ideas of 'soul' would become serious scientific challenges...and great reading

reply to post by Kandinsky

TBH, it'd be fascinating if just one patient could describe a hidden object.

Just one would be interesting. The reality is - it's not uncommon:

I believe some people experience a NDE as you described. And its nothing more than the body releasing endorphines and all their neurons are firing off.

However there are reports that go beyond a mere explanation of a biological response to dying. There are too many ER docs who report patients hearing conversations and seeing things happen in other rooms after theyre clinically dead.

My buddy (an ER doc) told me its not even a big deal to hear a patient tell them they left their body for a brief time. He still laughs the first time his wife (a nurse) freaked out over an incident....

Theyre working on a patient that died briefly twice. While the doc was working on the patient, his wife the nurse was in the break room where on-call docs sleep and eat. She was warming up food in the microwave and got a can of Mr. Pibb soda out of the fridge.

Later the nurse is changing a dressing on the patient and asks if he'd like anything. He asked if he could have a Mr. Pibb. He noticed that there was one left in the fridge.

She still brings that up from time to time.

(source given below)

Here's more from the same poster:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Interesting, isn't it?

(Taken from Near-death experiences are real and we have the proof, say scientists )

And, just in case anyone is still not convinced there are many such reports, here is another to whet the appetite!

reply to post by pause4thought
Yeah I know. I've been reading about this stuff for years. I'm objective as possible. The accounts of clinical out of body experiences have been recorded for at least 40 years. All are anecdotal, I bet a lot are apocryphal. An old saying I like is...the plural of anecdote is not data. Doesn't make them untrue, but it makes them useless from a scientific pov.

If Dr Parmia's study yields any results, it will put the evidence on a surer footing. From there, greater controls would be applied to subsequent studies. The problems of such studies are many. The frequency of these claims is small. The location of OOBEs is wholly unpredictable. The recall of the patient is unreliable (major trauma, anaesthetic etc).

With all that said, if just one patient accurately describes one of the objects, it'll be very interesting.

reply to post by Kandinsky


I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but I'll throw it out again.
I have a hard time imagining how people can remember anything while in such a serious state of health.
When I died briefly in the OR, I was so out of it it is hard to even describe.

I tried to stay awake while the doctors cut into my chest, but apparently once the scalpel went in, I was flat out.

And I don't remember anything else until I was waking up in the ICU asking the nurse for a phone so I could call my wife.

Not saying that it doesn't happen. In fact, I like to think that it does. But I can't for the life of me figure out how.

reply to post by Kandinsky


I know where you're coming from. But I'm not sure the frequency of such claims is small, as you suggest. I remember reading that there are now tens of thousands of people in the US alone who've had a NDE (-though clearly this would cover both shorter & longer experiences from the classic 'up on the ceiling' to those that go way beyond!) I think this came out in the thread mentioned above.

I think the debate has largely moved on to issues relating to what is happening rather than whether it is occurring. Though the evidence comes from reports rather than experiments, and is therefore referred to as 'anecdotal', the sheer weight of evidence that has amassed suggests the preconceptions that underly a materialist view of the world are shakier than ever.

It's high time more scientists admitted the scientific method cannot answer every question. The scientific method is poorly suited to the study of metaphysics, for example. The human experience constitutes far more than what can be represented by quantifiable data.

reply to post by JayinAR

And I don't remember anything else until I was waking up in the ICU asking the nurse for a phone so I could call my wife. Not saying that it doesn't happen. In fact, I like to think that it does. But I can't for the life of me figure out how.

This is why people aren't seriously looking in to the possibility. Who'd fund it when these events happen a thousand times a day and only a few people per year claim anything unusual? We all know someone who's been 'off radar' for some reason. None of them ever have a tale of OOBE to tell.

Science works on probability and the probability is way below a percent. Also, there's no known theory that supports or explains a possibility of disembodied consciousness.

All the same, it's a brave move for the guy to try and catch the moment in a clinical way.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Agreed.
I'm anxious to read results.
But as you said, the probability of occurence is rather low.
The study will most likely take a while.

reply to post by Kandinsky


You know, though. Unless he tells the patients that he has hidden objects beforehand, he may never know if they had one or not.

And of course, he isn't going to tell them that they are about to die briefly.
Know what I mean? I mean, people could have these experiences and just never tell him about the objects.

Yeah thanks for posting about this new NDE study -- the results should be fascinating. I will mention that there are yoga masters who train to transcend death -- it's not just chemicals -- it means you accumulate electromagnetic energy for spirit travel. I took classes from the below qigong master and I went 8 days on just half a glass of water -- these qigong masters do long distance healing which is spirit travel. I've had this done on me and confirmed later on and I've even seen dead spirits. This qigong master works with the Mayo Clinic even! He went 49 days in full lotus yoga position in a cave in China taking no food, no water and no sleep the whole time -- Chunyi Lin:

www.youtube.com...

Hey drew, are you trying to sell something? No putting you down but it seems like every post you make you always talk about that chigong website.

Yeah this happened to me a couple times. Once I was in full lotus meditating and suddenly thought of my best friend from when I was about 8 years old -- about his mom. I wondered why since I never thought about them and out of nowhere this pops into my head. I try to put it off and she keeps coming into my thoughts -- as if I should be concerned. Then I visited my parents that weekend and my mom tells me, without me bringing it up at all, that she got a phone call and my old best friend's mom had died. Strange because she was actually more like my mom -- I was at their house all the time when I was a kid.

Another time I was going to work and I suddenly got this thought that someone had just died -- either my aunt or uncle -- and found out that my aunt had just died at the same time.

reply to post by Jools

No I live at my parents, unemployed, as they are in their mid-70s so I'm helping them out. But I got this permanent magnetic bliss in the middle of my brain -- so I just like to share the experience. You're not supposed to live without water for over 3 days but I figured out how to make water through alchemy -- read the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality" translated by Charles Luk. In other words there's a whole tradition of training how to transcend death and I did this training. And anyone can go take classes from someone who transcended death and every day does spirit travel -- in fact the top of your head gets soft and pulsates with electromagnetic energy.

reply to post by Maddogkull

dailygrail.com...

www.skeptiko.com...

A couple new links on this topic.

reply to post by drew hempel


Am I the only one that thinks Dr. Nelson in that last one seems to be only reinforcing his bias and resorting to rather childish attack tactics?

I lost both my parents within the last 6 years, losing my father first in 2003 and my mum in 2009.

My mum took the loss of my dad quite bad and never really got over it and when she was diagnosed with the same illness as him she never really got over it. The day that she passed was not a nice day as you can imagine. My mother was kept alive by ventilation machine after an operation and was told that could not breath for herself.

Once the machine was turned off, she breathed for herself for a few minutes and held on strong to both my sister and mine's hands. We told her gently to go to sleep, as we said that her hands let go of ours and reached for the ceiling with the biggest smile on her face possible her hands clenched the air as if holding someones hands.

Since her passing my 2 year daughter has been seeing things also. Pointing to the ceiling and saying " door, light " and then playing peek a boo towards the ceiling...excatly what she used to do with my mum.

So in my mind there is a life after death, maybe not a life as such, but some sort of presence of being for sure.

Here's the response to Dr. Nelson -- Dr. Jeffrey Long's new Skeptico interview:

www.skeptiko.com...

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows

Sorry if this has already been posted. I didn't seem to find it but this is pretty fascinating. I am adding part 1 of 9.
www.youtube.com...

I've replied to post on something like this before. I for one believe without a doubt that there is an afterlife and its more complex than you could ever imagine. Now I dont have proof just some religious documents and my faith to go on and if anyone would like me to share what I know and believe I would be happy to. Just know IT IS MY BELIEF and its gonna sound crazy at first but just read it with an open mind and make your own decision if you think its true or not.

I don't get it. Why does mentioning Jesus make it suddenly unbelievable?

Originally posted by JayinAR
I like to think of it as an eternity within yourself.
You create it as you go.
I think the movie The Lovely Bones is going to touch on this idea. Looks like a very good movie.

Anyhow, I see that even here we have no shortage of "skeptical" posters who post as if they are an authority on death itself.

Nice thread.

Actually, I'm fairly sure it's the ones who are making outrageous claims of a supernatural playground after death are the ones posting as authorities on death itself.