An Interesting Encounter With A Young Lady.

[_Ray A]

There's too much here for me to reply to in detail while I'm in the midst of work, but I'll hopefully get to most of it from Wednesday on.

Thanks for your contribution, gramps. It's worthy of being included in serious NDE studies.

[_Inconceivable]

Ray,

Thanks for the initial post and the 2 experiences.

I'm happy for the young woman you spoke with. From what you related, she was kind and sincere - and at peace.

Her nightmares left as she began to sleep with the Bible. I'd suggest that she was reading the nice parts like Jesus' peaceable walk (as opposed to the story of Samuel hacking Agag to pieces etc.).

Storm on the other hand, that is a curious NDE. It raises many questions for me concerning this concept called the love of God. The first rhetorical question would be why were the evil nasty beings unsavable? How did the nasty beings get to Storm first? Why did God (or whoever) give him a hand up only after he called on Him and the evil ones had their way with him? I would hope eternity isn't all about the facade of good cop/bad cop.

I've raised this question before. How connected to us are our deceased "loved ones"? How much influence do they play in our impressions, inspiration, dreams and even NDE's? Worth a different thread and perhaps even a different discussion board.

[_Ray A]

Storm on the other hand, that is a curious NDE. It raises many questions for me concerning this concept called the love of God. The first rhetorical question would be why were the evil nasty beings unsavable? How did the nasty beings get to Storm first? Why did God (or whoever) give him a hand up only after he called on Him and the evil ones had their way with him? I would hope eternity isn't all about the facade of good cop/bad cop.

A quick post before I hit the road. This is a facet of NDEs that I think is perhaps the weakest point, Inc, the wide variety of interpretations. I don't think that discounts them per se, but it opens an avenue for more critical assessments.

I wonder, for example, why a Gay NDEer says that the "Being of Light" "completely accepted" him, yet this seems at odds with Storm's account of feeling "like road kill". Many NDErs give different accounts, and many don't feel confronted by the need to do radical turn arounds in their lives, though their lives do change in other ways. Certainly, most don't become ministers of religion.

Unfortunately, this field is filled with paradoxes and unexplained contradictions, though they also all seem to have strong commonalities in the way they are reported.

[_marg]

In fact, some of what I learned there came true later during my mission. That surprised me.

I'm still wondering what you learned that came true later.

I should state here that never, however, did I pass through a tunnel into a light. I always stay in the tunnel until the Ketamine has worn off.

Perhaps that's because you weren't oxygen deprived, which according to that article I linked to by Woerlee accounts for that experience of seeing bright lights.

The other day my husband was editing on the computer pictures he'd taken from one of our Blues dances, one of the edits it getting rid of "red eye". I had mentioned that one of the people we know, I thought was on drugs that night. So he showed me something. In all the pictures that this person was in, her whole eye was "red eye"..even when she was in a group photo and others had no red eye, her's did. He explained to me that when people are on drugs their pupils are often fully dilated. And when a picture is taken the red comes from the light going to the back of the eye where the blood vessels show up more clearly than people without fully dilated pupils. I'm not sure how fully dilated pupils for people on drugs would differ to fully dilated pupils for people oxygen deprived. Haven't thought that through.
[/quote]

[_gramps]

Hi Marg,

I'm just hopping in to bed here to wake up again in five hours.

I didn't forget, but am still wondering how to share it. It had to do with my girlfriend at the time.

But, thinking about this, I should preface by saying two things:

First, There was a vision. I did not interact with anything or anyone that I saw. I was in the air, but not so high. No one recognized me. I saw a line of people, one after the other, stretching as far back as one could see. The world was bare; there was no vegetation. It seemed like southern Utah without any of the green. Everyone's head was down. I then focused on where the people where heading. At the front, one by one, each person walked up to meet Satan (he was in black). He said 'thank you' and handed them a joint. They walked off, heads still hanging down. It really seemed like hell. Then, I realized that my girlfriend was the next one at the head of the line.

Second, I am quite aware that the vision has much more meaning to me than just the words and the environment. I am quite sure that I have given a certain meaning to the facts of the vision. Is that 'filling in' part, part of the vision? I have always believed so. I was filling it in as it was happening, rather than later, at least as far as I am conscious. Does that make sense? I'll stop there for now. I just don't know how personal I want to get right now on this board, actually.

Good night.

edited to add: this needs editing, however I don't have time. Good luck.

[_Ray A]

I'm just reading this article by G.M Woerlee ..Darkness, Tunnels and Light in Skeptical Inquirer. The author gives a scientific explanation for the common experience of seeing light, tunnels in near death experiences. I'll have to review your article in the Lancet and compare.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-05/near-death-experience.html

I'll be interested to hear your comments on this article.

I haven't read Woerlee's book, but I have read other articles he's written along the lines of the one above. Kevin Williams had some correspondence with Woerlee, Here.

I take some excerpts from Woerlee which I think are important:

The fact that I can explain these things with physiological explanations does not mean I consider NDEs as mere trivial byproducts of body function under certain conditions. Quite the contrary - I consider them to be amazing experiences giving profound insights into the deepest reaches of the mind of the individuals who undergo them, as well as giving insights into the effects of socio-cultural influences on the individual. Indeed, for many people they are a source of great strength and comfort.

This phenomenon of people who appear unconscious or even dead, yet are fully conscious, seems to be a difficult concept for many people. Yet it is the daily reality for anesthesiologists such as me. During general anaesthesia, powerful painkilling drugs are administered to eliminate pain, and curare-like muscle paralyzing drugs are also administered which means people cannot breathe, move, or speak. If the anesthesiologist does not administer drugs to keep such a person asleep, then a person rendered immobile, pain free and totally paralyzed will appear unconscious, even though they are fully awake and able to hear, see, and observe everything in their surroundings.

The same is also true of people undergoing resuscitation from cardiac arrest. About 20% of cardiac arrest patients undergo very efficient resuscitation, and are fully or partially conscious, even though they have no heartbeat, are paralyzed by residual effects of brain oxygen starvation, and appear rather dead. Yet they are able to hear, sense, and visualize what occurs in their vicinity.

These are situations undergone by NDE-ers, and these situations explain why seemingly dead or apparently unconscious people can actually undergo conscious experiences such as NDEs. And these are my thoughts on this citation of Dr. Fenwick.

Kind regards,
Gerry Woerlee

Note my bold. He doesn't claim to have "proof" of anything, just strong and long-considered opinions.

Woerlee believes that the brain is the generator of NDEs, as he writes to Kevin Williams:

I could continue - but I find physiological and physical explanations are possible for each NDE report. Even so, you do raise a fascinating problem, one that has puzzled and intrigued people for countless millennia - is the brain the generator of the radio signal or only the receiver?

I have devoted many chapters in my book "Mortal Minds" to an exhaustive step by step analysis of the evidence for either of these two viewpoints. The weight of the evidence for physiology was such that I could only conclude that the brain is the generator of the radio signal - there is no solid evidence to the contrary.

(My emphasis)

There is still no conclusive evidence for this important question - whether the brain is the generator, or the receiver (or perhaps both?). Betwixt the two, one can only have an opinion at this stage, as equally qualified professionals in this field believe opposite to Woerlee.

At the end of the page in the link I gave see:

A psychiatrist emailed to me this interesting critique of Woerlee's theory:

I only include this to note that there are no final conclusions at this stage, only theories. Woerlee is just as convinced that the brain is the generator, as Pim van Lommel is convinced that it is the receiver.

One thing we will have to learn to live with as the research continues is that no one has yet solved the mystery, and as I said before, opinions aren't the same as facts, whether they come from van Lommel or Woerlee.

[_marg]

I have never had a problem experimenting unless I violated one or both of those two simple (not really so simple) commandments.

As long as you get the dosage right, there will be no problem. Can you imagine a line of coke sitting there on a mirror?

No I've never imagined a line of coke. I've had 2 very negative experiences involving drugs that has put me off I think for life..even marihuana. They happened when I was about 14/15. The first is that a group of teens I knew sniffed glue. One time being the foolishly stupid teen that I was I tried it. That wasn't the traumatic part. Not long after, a few months I heard one of the main instigators in the group who encouraged drugs died from a drug related cause, he was probably about 16 years old. The second event, I was at a party and a friend was on LSD I believe, and was having a bad trip. From that time forward I've had no interest in anything other than alcohol. Every one I know smokes socially, I'm the odd ball. I do have a fear of mind altering drugs.

[_gramps]

I have never had a problem experimenting unless I violated one or both of those two simple (not really so simple) commandments.

As long as you get the dosage right, there will be no problem. Can you imagine a line of coke sitting there on a mirror?

No I've never imagined a line of coke. I've had 2 very negative experiences involving drugs that has put me off I think for life..even marihuana. They happened when I was about 14/15. The first is that a group of teens I knew sniffed glue. One time being the foolishly stupid teen that I was I tried it. That wasn't the traumatic part. Not long after, a few months I heard one of the main instigators in the group who encouraged drugs died from a drug related cause, he was probably about 16 years old. The second event, I was at a party and a friend was on LSD I believe, and was having a bad trip. From that time forward I've had no interest in anything other than alcohol. Every one I know smokes socially, I'm the odd ball. I do have a fear of mind altering drugs.

I wasn't suggesting that you imagine doing the coke, at all. But, surely, you have seen it done in the movies (Johnny Depp, Al Pacino, for only a couple of examples), or on TV (Californication, for example)? That is all I was suggesting.

After halfway through my life, it is my experience that some people are experimenters and you aren't going to stop them, bad laws or no. Some people are not. I am thinking of people here like Shulgin, McKenna (he is dead now), Kary Mullis, for example. I am thankful that they have not been willing to be silenced, government pressure, notwithstanding. Their reports are classic literature in this field. And they are given very short shrift.

Yeah, sometimes they seem a bit wacky, but all three of those people were/are brilliant people. No dummies, there.

I will come back to this perhaps, later. I'm off to work.

[_marg]

Ray,

As I mentioned previously in a post I didn't think the Lancet paper you linked to by Pim van Lommel, had much substance to say regarding NDE's. I do not think it is a scientifically rigorous study offering much of anything other than to note a minority in their study claimed to have experienced similar NDE's.

They state at the beginning of the article
"We aimed to establish the cause of this experience and assess factors that affected frequency, depth and content." And yet I see nowhere where they offer hypothesis with respect to cause of NDE's, which is what they claim was their aim.

To quote our previous discussion in this thread:

According to the study you gave, only a small minority claimed NDE, the majority experienced no such thing. As I mentioned previously "final death" is the accepted presumption until overturned by evidence. And the evidence would have to be objective that the experiences claimed did in fact occur in an unconscious clincally brain dead state, that it wasn't due to wishful thinking, implanted memories, preconscious state remembered etc.

I've noted all your comments, and when I get back in about 30 mins. I'll reply to them with some of the explanations offered, and some of the intricacies you missed. But at any rate, our discussion seems to be on a better track now.

The authors noted that in their study only about 18% experienced NDE (studies vary), but this was their observation:

Our results show that medical factors cannot account for occurrence of NDE; although all patients had been clinically dead, most did not have NDE. Furthermore, seriousness of the crisis was not related to occurrence or depth of the experience. If purely physiological factors resulting from cerebral anoxia caused NDE, most of our patients should have had this experience. Patients' medication was also unrelated to frequency of NDE. Psychological factors are unlikely to be important as fear was not associated with NDE.

(My emphasis)

More later.

So my question to you Ray is if not physiological to account for all NDE's in their cardiac patients in the study, then what do you think they think or are suggesting could be the cause of NDE's? What alternatives are there besides physiological? And for a tougher question let's label the non-physiological cause "X". Then applying their reasoning for discounting physiology, "that all people should be affected"...also discounts the non-physiological cause "X" as well ..because only a small minority claimed NDE's who were clinically brain dead.

According to the study by P Van Lommel, whatever causes NDE's should be universal to all who experience them. I don't agree with that assumption. We know people react differently to different medications. Why and how people have experiences is not universal to all.

I think you are thinking they are suggesting that a paranormal explanation might account for NDE's but I don't think they are suggesting any such thing. I think they are suggesting that factors such as age, health, memory, sex etc play a role and I don't think they consider these factors to be "purely physiological". But unfortunately they aren't clear what they mean when they say "If purely physiological factors resulting from cerebral anoxia caused NDE, most of our patients should have had this experience." Which makes this in my opinion a less than rigorous scientific study and article.