The argument over near death experiences or NDE’s as they are commonly called, has been a very long and ongoing debate. Scientists are torn over what to believe, as are common citizens who have heard or read about this type of occurrence.

It is believed by certain groups that upon death the brain releases chemicals, which put the dying in a hallucinatory state. In this frame of mind, they believe they are being witness to extraordinary events – which some doctors believe to be nothing more than biochemical feedback of a badly malfunctioning and dying brain.

But not all cases of near death experiences can be wrapped up into such a neat package.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of well documented near death experiences that science cannot explain.

The Case of Michael Sabom, Cardiologist

In 1993 Dr. Michael Sabom undertook an extremely dangerous procedure, which attempted to remove an aneurysm from the base of a woman’s brain. The woman had her body temperature lowered to sixty degrees, her blood was drained from her body, and heartbeat and breathing stopped.

The woman had ear plugs inserted into both of her ears, which emitted loud clicking noises. This was done to guarantee the woman had no brain activity, as it could have been measured using computer equipment. She also had her eyes taped shut.

While her body was technically dead, the woman reported a rather interesting story upon retaining consciousness.

Her experience first began by realizing she was outside of her body. She could hear conversations the doctors were having, see the equipment they were using, and more importantly she could see her lifeless body lying on the cold metal table.

After a few moments the woman began to see a light, almost like a tunnel vortex.

Within the light she could see dead family and friends – some of which she hadn’t even realized was dead at the time. There was a white light everywhere, almost like a mist. She was informed the mist was the breath of God. Later she was made to return to her body, where she baffled doctors by her acute recollection of events.

The doctors, including Dr. Sabom, confirmed that the conversations she heard took place, and that the instruments she saw them using were real – and were accurately described, even down to the noise they made.

So with no measurable brain activity, electric or otherwise, no sight, no hearing – how did this woman see them, hear them, and comprehend them?

The only explanation is her experience was as real as our life is.


The Case of Dr. Bruce Greyson, Cardiologist

Dr. Bruce Greyson was preforming a triple bypass on a fifty-five year old man by the name of, Al Sullivan.

During his surgery Al had a powerful near death experience, where he was visited by his late mother, and brother-in-law. They told him that his next door neighbor had a son that was stricken with lymphoma, and that he would be ok. Also Al witnessed his doctor flapping his arms like a chicken during the surgery – which the doctor later verified.


Maggie Callanan

An elderly Chinese woman who had an NDE in which she saw her deceased husband and her sister. She was puzzled since her sister wasn't dead, or so she thought. In actuality, her family had hid her sister's recent death from her for fear of upsetting her already fragile health.



These are only a few examples of near death experiences.


These experiences cannot be chalked up to misfiring neurons in the brain – nor a release of a certain chemical compound from the pineal gland. These events have proven spirituality through the vehicle of science, and those who wish to argue these facts are deluding their reason.

Science has proven spirituality – only the willingly ignorant will deny this.

I would think the brain would still need to be functioning - at least the professional doctors think so.

I am definitely a believer. No matter how much evidence is collected the majority of folks will still consider us delusional though. Every generation that passes distances us from the knowledge of our ancestors. We are too dumbed down to question the world around us like they used too. But hey, I believe in bigfoot too, so what do I know?

There was that really large study where they hung pictures on the ceiling and then asked people with NDE what they saw.

The results were supposed to be out this year but I haven't read anything about it yet.

It will be interesting what this studies shows.

It's hard to know whether there's something in it or not. On one hand, you have these experiences and accounts of thousands of people but then you get medical practitioners who claim the experiences can be induced by things like magnets and drugs. If you can create the same experience via a certain method, logic tells you it's in the mind and nothing more.

I absolutely believe people have NDE's, but I'm not 100% sure about whether they are evidence for an afterlife or not and they could simply be a construct of the brain but either way, people do experience something

My brother in law died earlier this year after a short battle with cancer. He was a complete atheist, didn't believe in God and thought when you're dead, you're dead. However, a few weeks before he died, he kept talking to my sister about these 'visions' he was having and how they were getting increasingly more powerful. I remember she told me one of them where he suddenly felt a massively powerful presence, a feeling of complete and total love and a mind expanding flood of knowledge of how he 'saw' why we are all here and what it all means. He said he knew that we are all connected, that everything made absolute sense and he lost all fear of death.

These experiences were not the result of painkilling drugs either, his cancer had spread to his back and a tumour was pressing on a nerve which rendered him paralysed but inadvertantly, killed any pain he may have had also, this resulted in them not having to use any drugs for pain. He was completely compos mentis.

The only other person I knew who had an experience was my Nan. She died of a heart attack when she was 76, it was a sudden thing and nobody had any idea it would have happened. A week earlier she was of her own good health and functioning well for a person of her age. Anyway, she visited my Mom and said something which my Mom never forgot.

My Nan said she thought she was asleep but it didn't quite feel like she was, she was fully aware and alert, not in a dream-like state. She said, she 'dreamt' that Sid ( who was her husband/my Grandad ) was in a beautiful field and sitting on a gate ( like a farm type gate ) Behind him, this field just went on and on but it was pure white in the distance, really bright but not difficult to look at. Sid looked at her and said, "I'm waiting for you kidda, I'll be right here".

A week or so after, she died.

I don't know what that means but it definitely makes you think.

I'd be interested to know if people who have been blind from birth see anything during an NDE?

Amazing

With this and the famous Scole experiment of the 90's just goes to show that its not the end when we die, its just another part of a journey, one we have prob made before and like the spirtits communicated to us in the Scole experiments, we go to another "dimension" and if indeed you belive that the end does come when you die, blackness and the end of conciousness , then whats the point ! whats the point of us being here, the universe wastes nothing folks.

Ste
"

Here's what sounds like few silly points but they are genuine questions actually.

When people have NDE's and they see other people that have died, why do they see them as they were on earth? Unless you can somehow thought-process your own form and how you appear, it wouldn't make sense that they resembled who they were when they were alive. Here's why:

1. In an infinity/afterlife, we must assume that one exists forever. But, here's where the logic fails. We only come into existence at birth, so something which has a beginning, must also have an end. ( the obvious is that one becomes 'extinct' at death.) If we existed before birth, why then do we resemble who we are now in an afterlife? Population growth rules out reincarnation for me.

2. What is the soul? Why isn't it something that can be seen/felt or found on or within the body? Is the reason it hasn't been found down to the fact that it simply doesn't exist?

3. Because an NDE can be induced in an experimental capacity, it kinda renders it suspect, at least for me. The exact same experiences have been induced by the administration of drugs like Ketamine and DMT. Magnets acting on the Pineal gland have also been shown to produce the experiences of NDE's. Could this mean that the NDE is merely the brain sending signals to a dying body in order to make the process of death less traumatic? Kinda like a shutting down mechanism, an inbuilt defence system to reduce anxiety when the inevitable actually comes?

I'm not a non-believer but I do question things. In my opinion, it's silly to just accept things as fact without first weighing up the for and against argument.

There is no evolutionary pressure for death to be anything, either as pleasurable as possible or whatever. So either the NDE is what it seems to be or just a coincidence (and a neat one at that).

As to the argument that drugs can induce NDE's, why would that be a problem? We experience with our bodies, who's no to say that those chemicals are the interface? Or that we inhabit many dimensions, spheres etc at the same time?

If the afterlife is pure thought than you can take on whatever form you want to or think is good for the incoming newly dead. Thus accounting for dead family members looking like they did in life. The dying person has forgotten about the afterlife and needs reference points for the time being.