Top neurosurgeon 'spent six days in heaven' during a coma

reply to post by Phess


Or...

he suffered from some brain damage as a result of the infection and coma.

reply to post by CaptainBeno


[color=gold]

I think he is an intelligent individual with all the proper credentials present to alert many disbelievers of the higher realm. The LORD loves so tries to alert many in various ways that its real in order to get as many of you back home instead of leaving many within the grasp of darkness. So I appreciate the neurosurgeons claims and respects him for taking the extra step for others to alert them of his find. Wishes him the best with his health and recovery.

NAMASTE
LOVE LIGHT ETERNIA*******

Originally posted by moniesisfun
Perhaps he has bias. The fact that he's a neurosurgeon, means he must believe in the reliability of the equipment he uses to demonstrate that various parts of the brain are entirely inactive when performing certain procedures.

I would posit that his bias has blinded him to the possibility that the equipment which is used to determine this inactivity isn't actually sensitive enough to make such a distinction for every individual. Everyone has different brain activity for the same stimuli under normal conditions. The same could be assumed for being in a coma. Perhaps some are still active, when it would appear inactive, as it would be the same registering from the equipments reading.

edit on 8-10-2012 by moniesisfun because: (no reason given)

I agree.

But I need to read the article and understand it.

If he's saying "My brain was shut off and I could NOT have remembered anything if I was truly bound to my brain and there were no separate self existing outside the body."...

reply to post by nixie_nox


I'm sure he would have considered that being a neurosurgeon and a professer at Havard...

Originally posted by luciddream
Oh boy, i can't believe i missed the Bacterial Meningitis... now the whole thing make sense lol.

Alters mental status (confusion).

Yes, it can cause delirium while you are awake, but that is separate from grandeur visions while your mental functions have ceased.

There are many, many cases of near death experiences where the person who has lost consciousness is able to able to hear and see everything around them (even hear or see things that are far away) while they are supposed to be dead.

Originally posted by Merinda
The experience was in his mind. A neurosurgeon should know better. If all activity ceased and he came back, then he did not experience heaven. The last thing he remembered before going out came back to him.

I agree.

I think it would have to do with his measure of time being faulty.

Far as I know, the brain uses temporal ques to aid in storing memory. So if something is wrong with the temporal measurements (like in a dream state or accident) then it can be skewed.

This would be located in the medial temporal lobes.

Originally posted by moniesisfun

Originally posted by dominicus
I wonder what the main underlying motivation is, in a skeptic hoping in all their might for the,soul and after life to not be true.

Reason.

My direct experiences have given me plenty of reason to conclude that there is a soul and afterlife. I hate organized religion as much as the next guy, however i cannot deny the experiences and remembrances i've had of pre-existing prior to having a body, and it makes existing here on earth ALOT BETTER then when I was once an atheist.

Regardless, let's say for the sake of conversation that spiritual reality is true. If that is the case, then ultimately its inevitable that it will eventually be quantified by science, and I really do look forward to that day as I believe it will destroy not only materialist and separatist thinking, but also destroy the dogmatic and fundamentalist divisions

reply to post by Agit8dChop


But he DIDN'T believe in heaven.

In this article he describes himself as a "faithful Christian" (www.thedailybeast.com...) - I almost stopped reading at that point tbh.

And then I found out he has a book for sale - the double whammy.

Sometimes people see what they want to see and sometimes people lie to make money. Far more likely than him being in heaven for 6 days - if you believe that I've got a bridge to sell you.

Originally posted by jonnywhite

Originally posted by Merinda
The experience was in his mind. A neurosurgeon should know better. If all activity ceased and he came back, then he did not experience heaven. The last thing he remembered before going out came back to him.

I agree.

I think it would have to do with his measure of time being faulty.

Far as I know, the brain uses spacial and temporal ques to store memory. So if something is wrong with the temporal measurements (like in a dream state) then it can be skewed.

edit on 9-10-2012 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)

If you say "all activity ceased and he came back, then he did not experience heaven", you're not even considering the main thing the guy is trying to say.. which is "all physical activity ceased, and a spiritual consciousness took over".

Also, time is measurable while dreaming. See lucid dreaming.

reply to post by EnzoD

Well this is all very subjective.

People will take from it what they want to most of the time.

It's rare that someone challenges their own irrational impulses (like to believe in an afterlife). Millions of years of evolution have caused most humans to strongly favor a faith or a belief in God. Similarly, millions of years of evolution have given us instincts, everything from sexual desire to prejudice. These instincts are not always right, but they've proven to work in the past, if the past is a guide.

But we're increasingly reason-based life-forms and so that's what I'm trying to do. This, I believe, predominantly originates in our gray matter or our new brain. The old brain is more instinctive.

Reason demands empirical evidence. A man telling you he experienced heaven is not evidence. He could be remembering a dream he had just before his brain shut off. Or maybe the bits and pieces of broken fragmented memory were restored by the brain to yield his heaven dream upon waking.

Maybe, maybe, maybe... On into forever. Faith yields no real answers. It's a trap.

So what that that he's selling a book. He's a neurosurgeon and doesn't need the $$$. There are plenty of scientists and atheist that have articles written about them and then have their new book being plugged at the end.

On top of this, he says he's a Christian, yet in his nde, he never meets any Jesus figure, or 12 disciples.

When I was once an atheist skeptic, I thought it was pretty cool that there could possibly be an afterlife and a soul. I really don't understand why people fight tooth and nail w all their hope and might for there not to be such things.

reply to post by dominicus

The people who're fighting tooth and nail are the ones that want to believe in an afterlife or a god. The people you're criticizing as doing this are the ones looking for empirical evidence.

This man has not brought forth empirical evidence. You might call it a piece of evidence, but that's all it's. People of faith will be reaffirmed. Some will be swayed. But nothing will really change.

What a perfect thread to share this video! It brought tears to my eyes and she explains her "new" perspective on life!

My apologies if this has already been posted, otherwise enjoy another mind blowing experience.

Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions -- motion, speech, self-awareness -- shut down one by one. An astonishing story.

TED Video
www.ted.com...

What he says seems to be a regular theme with what I've read about NDEs. Shimmering beings of light etc.
The point being here is classic logical fallacy, an appeal to authority - neurosurgeon convinced so therefore it's likely to be true. However, this doesn't mean it's not.
Belief is a powerful thing, if you see someone who is terminally ill from cancer get well using
natural methods you will probably believe it also.
Limbo

And the gap between science and spirituality becomes, even if just a hair, smaller :-)

Originally posted by Internet Explorer
So he's writing a book about it? So what other option would appease the naysayers? Putting it on a spiritual website or some obscure place where hardly anyone will read it, and most will think it's BS anyway cos they 'read it on the net'. Jeez.

Fairly good point. He might want a wider audience to read about his experience. Not only that, but anybody can create a website claiming to be a doctor or whatever, and nobody would ever know for a fact if this faceless person behind the computer screen was actually who they claimed to be. At least with a book the author's identity is verified and everything is legit and legal for the most part.

reply to post by jonnywhite

The people who're fighting tooth and nail are the ones that want to believe in an afterlife or a god. The people you're criticizing as doing this are the ones looking for empirical evidence.

The rules of empirical evidence are skewed though. Sure its the best thing we got atm, however we have yet to measure immaterial realities. Some results of certain experiments will always be non-repeatable by their very nature, what science calls anomalies, yet what we should be studying and considering that the nature of some things will be randomized non-repeatable. As well direct experience can be the only way somethings can ever be seen or known also be their very nature, yet science dismisses that certain things can only function in these ways.

Oh well, regardless im 100% sure that eventually, even if its 1000 years from now, they'll have no choice but to admit that spiritual reality is true.

'___' is a helluva drug.

I highly recommend reading "'___': The Spirit Molecule". In it Dr. Rick Strassman tests the drug on willing volunteers and records their experiences.

After his testing he theorizes that '___' may be responsible for alien abduction cases as well as "religious/heavenly" experiences. (As it is produced naturally by your body)

So does '___' open you up to other realms and allow you to visit these very real places? Or is it just a trip into your self...

From my own personal experiences with Ayahuasca I have "seen"/"visited" many heavenly-like places with strange creatures and landscapes. I have also gone to dark places and met with "demons" and monsters.

My thoughts after having these experiences is that these things do exist but not in the way we think. We label things "heaven" or "hell" or "demon" or "angel" but these are just labels we give to things we don't understand. We revert to what we know from pop. culture/past experiences.

It sounds like this guy had a nice dream while in his coma and maybe he found out a thing or two about himself while he was in there....but he should be more careful with his claims as there are a lot of scared/gullible people out there...

reply to post by dominicus


Hold on, Hold on.. are you mixing spirituality with belief in god? like its exclusive to religious?

Did you know you An Atheist can be spiritual? without believing in a deity? Most Atheist are spiritual.

edit: these anomalies does not make "god" true.