This week's Newsweek proclaims that "Heaven Is Real"--a neurologist concludes it after a near-death experience. But how much do we know about those experiences?
Posted 10.10.2012 at 1:35 pm
59 Comments
"Heaven Is Real"
Newsweek
Newsweek slid head-first into controversy for its cover story this week. In "Heaven Is Real: A Doctor's Experience With the Afterlife," neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander writes about falling into a coma, then having an experience that convinces him Heaven exists. He describes being in "a place of clouds" and seeing "shimmering beings"; a woman traveling with him offers him a message of hope and love. It's one of the more public examples of a documented near-death experience, but it's not anywhere close to the first: a Gallup poll approximated that 3 percent of Americans have reported one.
Some of the most common elements of a near-death experience include a feeling of peace or euphoria; a strange, nebulous feeling that they were "floating around the room" or having an out-of-body experience; seeing a tunnel with light at the end; or seeing family members or otherworldly phenomenon. But it's also very difficult to measure or observe scientifically, despite being such a common and varied phenomenon, so it's very hard to account for everything that happens during one.
There's no consensus about what causes near-death experiences (or NDEs, as they're sometimes known). Partially, that's because it's a vague, catch-all term. How "near" to death are we talking here? Near death for how long? Even the word "death" itself is kind of hard to pin down, especially when we're bringing more people back from it than ever before. (The closest we've gotten to a reasonable definition is probably "no detectable vital signs that show the person to be living at all, physiologically or mentally," but that's been defined and redefined many times in the past.)
The NDE was first defined by psychologist and medical doctor Raymond Moody in 1975 as a feeling of epiphany in a person who would have died without medical attention. That's still a little vague, since people can actually have near-death experiences without being in any real danger of dying--it's been shown that simply the fear of it is enough. Later, Bruce Grayson's NDE scale tried to gauge the effect: It asks a series of questions about what the person felt and experienced during the event to determine the overall effect. That's one of the biggest hurdles to overcome when trying to scientifically examine NDEs--we're pretty much restricted to interviews of those who have experienced them.
Dr. Sam Parnia, a scientist and physician at Stony Brook University School of Medicine who's studied NDEs, and author of the forthcoming Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewiring the Boundaries Between Life and Death, says he prefers to study a completely different phenomenon: instead of near-death experiences, actual-death experiences.
Parnia looks at patients who have gone through cardiac arrest--symptomatically and objectively, there is no "measurable evidence" that can be used to show the person is alive--and are later resuscitated. Parnia's team, in an ongoing experiment, set up special shelving in rooms in which people are resuscitated, holding randomly generated pictures on the ceiling at an angle that require an out of body experience--the person would have to be separate from the corporeal body to see the images. After patients are resuscitated, Parnia's team surveys them on what they saw. We don't have conclusions yet, but it's a good example of the kind of awkward ways that we have to test such a nebulous, difficult-to-measure event.
But at this point, Parnia's not completely satisfied with any of the most-noted explanations for NDEs. We only have a few parts of the story--the symptoms, almost, rather than the actual cause. True, he says, almost every individual element of an NDE can be explained with chemical or physical reactions we understand, but those single explanations don't tell us why the phenomenon happens in the first place. Take euphoria, for example: "All sorts of things could lead to the feeling of happiness," he says, but it's difficult to pin down with certainty what the chemical process is that's causing it. There's probably, he says, some fundamental trigger we haven't yet discovered that's the root cause of an NDE.
Dr. Kevin Nelson, a researcher who's studied near-death experiences extensively, and authored The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain, mostly agrees with Parnia, but seems less concerned about finding a root cause of NDEs--he's pretty comfortable with all those individual explanations for the individual experiences that make up the category of NDE. He does say that some of these multitude of factors can be said to matter more than others, even if we don't know all of the contributors that cause the total phenomenon. So what are those factors?
LOSS OF BLOOD FLOW
"One of the most common causes of near-death experiences is fainting," Nelson says. This makes it a good example of when near-death experiences can happen when the person experiencing the NDE is in fact nowhere near death. Researchers have shown that a loss of oxygen flow to the eye will cause tunnel vision. Oxygen deprivation--and even just a sense of fear--can cause the oxygen to stop flowing, and both of those are symptomatic of dying. In Nelson's research, simply fainting was enough to cause several of the effects related to near-death experiences, like a feeling of being out of your own body, or a sense of euphoria.
CHEMICALS RELEASED
A surge of steroids, epinephrine, and adrenaline are released in the body during situations where it's near death, Parnia points out. It could explain the feeling of euphoria, and some of the stranger, hallucinatory effects. It's been suggested that Ketamine, which is released when animals are under attack, could produce similar effects. One of the first theories on near-death experiences, in fact, was that the psychedelic Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, was released in the brain as soon as it realized it was dying, but that's somewhat speculative: The only way to really test something like that, Nelson says, is to give someone the drug and compare its effects to near-death experiences. Chemicals could very well be be a factor; it's just not an easily proven one, compared to, say, fainting and blood loss.
IT'S A FORM OF REM SLEEP
REM sleep is the type of sleep most closely associated with dreams. Nelson has proposed that, close to death, we enter a type of REM sleep. Put simply, he says, the brain is still functioning enough to realize that it's in danger, despite being asleep. That creates a sort of sleep-state that's spiked with a fight-or-flight response: a form of lucid dreaming, where we're still aware of the situation but are not completely conscious. The sensation of floating around yourself--an out-of-body experience--is consistent with lucid dreamers.
MEMORY IS TRIGGERED
This is only one symptom of near-death experiences, but it's a common one: People report experiencing memories of loved ones or other moments from their past. Research has shown, Nelson says, that our sense of memory kicks in during threatening situations, like being near death. In the more lizard-y parts of our brains, Nelson says, long-term memory and fight or flight are connected, which might be part of the reason people say they remember near-death events so vividly. That phenomenon of near-death experiences might be related, causing the my-life-flashed-before-my-eyes effect or other memories cropping up.
In short: There's not exactly a consensus on what causes them, but the most common effects associated with near-death experiences have been reproduced in some way, and solutions have been offered to their most fundamental causes. But whatever the cause, people coming out of them can feel profoundly changed, even if they don't wind up on the cover of Newsweek.
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My bologna has a first name...
Here I thought it was from almost dying...
Something to consider: If our perception of time is a reflection of our brains ability to compute, then could you not assume that your last few seconds of life would literally be an eternity. And if your brain, being aware of its demise, is secreting chemicals to make you feel euphoric and nostalgic, wouldn't that eternity be like heaven.
Theres a scientific explanation for this, not a spiritual one. As usual.
As I existence begins to fade and our focus become narrower, we begin to see a micro second, microscopic worm hole with our inner being of which we may be allowed to enter and escape into another reality. While those prefer to call it heaven, it really just another multi dimension plane of the higher GOD\Aliens live and help develop our human species on Earth. If our inner being is in line with the God\Alien conscious, he may save our inner existence from evaporation into the real world chaos and actually be saved on that other dimension. It's all really quit scientific really and even works very nicely with our physical world\science and evolution too. ;)
Check out this parody of the good doctor's experience
www.huffingtonpost.com/danweiss/heaven-is-real-and-its-a-schlep_b_1949918.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
Dreams just dreams don't you know?
I love it how atheists accuse religious people of being unrealistic and intolerant, but end up making fun of religious people and insult them at every opportunity.
Nonsense, if you don't have a brain how can you experience anything? unless you still have it and it's still working even if you appear dead.
My opinion is diferent, I think that if at first we individuals don't exist, then we come into being (existence, life), then we die (non-existence) I see a pattern here, a cycle, which gives hope that somewhere else, aeons later we may come into existence again, we are just a pattern that the Universe by chance may form again, against the odds and because of them.
@Mukuro Holmes Actually those atheists are a minority. You just never hear from the more accepting majority because they're too busy being, well, accepting.
How can you be a faithful Christian in name only??
He sure didn't have much to say about his apparently long time in heaven. I guess that will be in the book.
I've always thought that during a NDE, our brains would use whatever resources are available to become conscious again. That might include stimulants but also rapidly combing through memories in the hopes of finding a solution.
I have had not one, but two near death experiences, and I am not a religious person. I am an atheist. With that said. I didn't go to heaven, at least not in the sense that it was a cloud filled world full of angelic beings. What I saw was another plain of existence beyond our worldly one. The beings, or people, were human in form, to some extent, mostly energy from what I can tell. I also, know that when I tried to enter this other plain of existence they refused to let me in saying it wasn't my time yet. They did it on both occasions. The second time they(these beings of energy) were more forceful in their approach and said I was not ready to be with them and that I must stay until I am ready. Remember this wasn't a one time deal. I have died twice and both times I experienced the same thing.
I do know this. I was afraid of dying before I experienced my first NDE. Now I am not. I have no fear of death. I do not know why I was not allowed to move on in my other NDE's - but I wasn't. So here I am still. I guess I have to figure out why I was not allowed to move on, maybe I still have something I must do yet. I just do not know.
Weird huh?
This happened to my grandfather due to a car accident. He never forgot about the experience.
@Makuro: Most atheists really don't mind and feel that people are entitled to their own belief system. It's just that a small minority of them are particularly vocal about it.
@AirshipGirl: just out of curiosity, what triggered yours?
I find it strange that everyone doesn't experience an NDE when near death,just a select few.Maybe find out what the experiencers have in common,and you will get a handle on what causes it.It also has to be remembered that ALL these people are eventually resuscitated,so they are not truly dead.
"It also has to be remembered that ALL these people are eventually resuscitated,so they are not truly dead."
It also has to be remembered that we're discussing NEAR death experiences -- not resurrection. There's a difference. If you have to, look it up.
"It's been suggested that Ketamine, which is released when animals are under attack, could produce similar effects."
This is a fallacy. Ketamine is a synthetic dissociative, not a neurotransmitter.
From the article in reference:
"...such as the anesthetic ketamine, which can also trigger out-of-body experiences and hallucinations. Ketamine affects the brain's opioid system, which can naturally become active even without drugs when animals are under attack..."
Other than that, this article is pretty awesome. I am just terrible with details ;].
An objective, and well organized article by popular science. And it explains possible causes of "NDE's".
BUT.
if you actually read the article - written by the neurosurgeon who had the near death experience, about when he was in a coma for seven days - you will discover something important, that pop-sci fails to mention.
"Within hours, my entire cortex—the part of the brain that controls thought and emotion and that in essence makes us human—had shut down" (first link in the popsci article above).
that one quote makes all of popsci's arguments fail. you can't have dreams, you can't have "vivid" experiences (that were NOT memories in the doctor's case), or have an altered state of mind from chemicals, if the "you" part of your brain is off.
Sure you can, marcopolo. Have you not heard of a concept called ego death? Where in the "you" in the brain dies. All connections with the self are cut, but the mind continues on. You are still a point of awareness--but there is a disconnect, you are not the traditional "you. This is also part of the reason why these experiences are so bizarre, because most of what is recalled later does not have a distinct anchoring point. Just because the "you" part of the brain is off, does not mean there are any other faculties lacking.
There is a valid "scientific" explanation for near death experiences. Our consciousness continues after physical death. So far scientific research has pretty much ruled out every other possible explanation like oxygen deprivation, loss of blood flow, chemical triggers. All these things simulate one or more characteristics of NDEs but none of them encompasses all of them.
Dr. Parnia makes a laudable attempt to identify the so far unexplained phenomenon of seeing your body from outside itself and witness people and objects you should not be able to from where your body lies. Unfortunately what was left out of this article is that this phenomenon has been credibly documented numerous times. Just because Parnia and others apparently don't accept the documented evidence of these out-of-body experiences does in no way diminish their reality.
In reflection and times past, I have often wondered to myself the mystery of why I am alive. I should of died countless times. Today is a bright beautiful bright new day! Happy sigh....
You are right, laurenra7,
they forgot the vital part, that you have a consciousness of what happens around you. But not only directly around you but also everywhere else you can think of. Some people knowing they would die "visited" (or better said: focused their consciousness on)important people before they prepared for a final good bye. And this is in contradiction to everything that science has "opened up" for so far.
Of course you could explain things to a certain extent with chemicals...but when it comes to these phenomenons science either has to say: Yes, our body is capable of doing more than we thought or no, this is not science anymore but a belief/dream/state of consciousness that has proven itself over and over again(and may not even have failed a single time).
And since science can not proove yet that the world we are living in is not a dream I am still believing in this world(state of consciusness) and already knowing in the bigger scale of consciusness.
If only science took Plato's cave more seriously...it looks so funny sometimes if you are looking at it from behind the scenes.
After 8 near death experiences i can tell you that heaven and hell are a sham. It is the individuals psychological bias that determines the "experience" one has. If you want real answers , look to buddhism, its not actually a religion. The principles of buddhism are very scientific. They studied the death state, saying there are 4 states in, and 4 states to rebirth. (that being said, like any "science" there can be innacuracies because of errors or bias)
Basicallly they correspond with reductions in brain activity , circulation , breath, metabolic activity ,and heat dissipation from the body. What they were certain of, with no error, was that the consciousness transcends the physical form, moving into an energetic state where thought appears real. Thus the "appearance" of heaven or hell, depending on how the persons consciousness was ordered. (2 ounces dissapears at the moment of death)
What is certain is the cause and effect laws of matter, the buddhists like to call it karma, but its basically the way our consciousness affected every other consciousness, and its effects reflected back to us. So a person who had a generally benevolent life would perceive pleasant things, while a malicious one would perceive demons etc. (depending on his belief system, the beings would be a reflection of his beliefs)
The person would also be pushed and pulled towards their next life, which is inevitable. (regardless of religion, or belief in atheism, or new agers that say this is their last life) Peoples cause and effects keep them trapped in samsara, pretty much for eternity. There are other planets then this one. Some better some worse. But you would likely be muslim if you were muslim in this life, and so on. Homosexuals are people changing from predominantly one gender lives to the opposite.
As for angels and demons, i hate to break it to ya, but there is inorganic life, far longer lived then matter beings, and not all of it is benevolent. (although the vast majority of it is.)
So in summary, theres life, lots of it across the EM spectrum, this isnt your first or last time alive , and your actions will be returned in full to you. Try and avoid gravity today, tell me how it works out.
To quote wintersleep "go back to sleep, you yellow-bellied freaks, afraid of god and modern science"
I don't know how much stock I'd put into NDEs, but from my understanding there are many that are rather hellish and no where near euphoric. I would think that should be an important part to consider.
@dkella
Seems like you have a pick and choose definition of religion.....you should solidify it into something precise.
If you don't believe in Heaven or Hell/life after death, then I hope you aren't afraid of death, because if you don't believe in any of those things, once you die, you die. At least with the belief of an afterlife, you have something to look forward to which makes death easier.
I would much rather be a believer and be wrong than be a non-believer and be wrong. If Im wrong then there really is nothning after death. I really dont know fully what to expect after death but I do know how wonderful it will be. How can anyone see just how complex the human body is and really believed it just happened on its own over the years. Doctors are just now scratching the surface of what makes up our DNA.What a sad life it would be thinking this is all we have to look forward to. Part of enjoying this life is preparing for the next.
@Volt My NDE's were brought about by anaphylaxis. I was stung by fire ants. I was rushed to the hospital. On the way there I died...flat lined. I was dead for 5 minutes as the tried to resuscitate me. Then the same thing happened again a couple of years later. Fire ants stung me. Again I died. Maybe that is why I moved away from SE US and to the NW. No fire ants!
Like I said I am an atheist. I do not believe in God, but I know what I saw. Take that for what it is.
I don't know if there is life after death. I doubt it very much. I don't see how anybody can truly say they know one way or the other without settling on some faith in some belief system pro or anti gods and religions and afterlife etc.
Faith is a powerful thing. Atheists are among the most faithful, having made up their minds just as strongly as any religious person.
I guess my faith is either lacking altogether (can't be an atheist or a religious person) or it is a faith in not giving a rat's fuzzy fanny one way or the other.
I've also experienced a near death experience in the hospital, and it is a sense of euphoria. It's a feeling that you're going somewhere good. I suspect it's the body's natural response to death. After all, in nature, when a predator hunts and kills prey, it looks like a very bad experience for the prey. I'm sure that all prey animals have evolved a way of turning that horrible experience into something less terrible, and perhaps even "heavenly". It doesn't necessarily mean that your "soul" is going anywhere except to oblivion.
Cookiees453,
10/11/12 at 11:45 am
If you don't believe in Heaven or Hell/life after death, then I hope you aren't afraid of death, because if you don't believe in any of those things, once you die, you die. At least with the belief of an afterlife, you have something to look forward to which makes death easier.
-----------------
Cookies, you have that backwards. It is human nature to be afraid of the unknown. Everybody dies. Death is a part of life. I find comfort in that fact. I am not afraid of death. I am not afraid of what comes after death because, like death, it is beyond my control and I don't worry about what I can not control.
jbee, you are spot on.
elchan, that would depend upon whether the animals possess self-consciousness.
airshipgirl, life is what it is - as you say.
"It also has to be remembered that ALL these people are eventually resuscitated,so they are not truly dead."
It also has to be remembered that we're discussing NEAR death experiences -- not resurrection. There's a difference. If you have to, look it up.
My point was NDE is just that,NEAR death,and using it to prove what happens after permanent death is irrelevant.
google about hindu and aboriginal NDE's. Hindu NDE's typically have the hindu god of the dead sending them back after determining the death was a bureaucratic/paperwork mixup. Papa new guinea aboriginal NDE's tend to show an afterlife filled with what they want in life - western goods. Cargo cultish
so either there are many afterlives or this is all made up by the brain unconsciously as a function of what beliefs we had in life
I believe that what is experienced during a very stressful/NDE event is the product of a stressed/failing brain. That cultural/personal expectation plays a role in what we experience as well. It’s a series of biochemical events in the dying/stressed brain, overlaid by cultural/religious beliefs. What we remember is a narrative that makes cohesive sense, once the stressful/NDE event is over. We can see something similar happening, with the third man factor, where people in very stressful survival situations. Perceive the presence of another person. Who helps and guides them through their ordeal. If it could be shown that people came back with information that they could not have gotten in any other way, then you would have something that would change everything.
A couple of years ago I underwent a "routine" operation. It was botched and I lost a lot of blood, during the second operation I was told I suffered a heart attack and "died". I woke up confused and disorientated in the ICU ward, I remember seeing a bright light. After I woke up I thought it was a floodlight like dentists use, but on looking around I could not see any source where the light could have come from. Apparently before the corrective operation I was hallucinating whether I should buy a BMW or a Mercedes, I was not in the market then to buy a car. Maybe I saw the headlights?
George S upon entering an intersection, a car in the middle lane facing me turned into my lane. There were other cars at this intersection, I was moving about 30 mph, I braced for impact, I experienced complete silence,next thing I was past the intersection driving as if nothing happened. I looked in the rear view mirror,everything appeared normal. I had three more similar experiences in the past. I am seventy five and I have no reason to lie, there are many NDE situations like mine. GS
As a baby\child, I must have died 100s of times with an immature immune system. In those early years, I also had bad dreams of falling off a cliff and yes waking up to hitting the ground. I had this same dream over and over. Just so you know, if you hit the ground, you do not die.
Throughout my life time, I can count perhaps less than 30 other things of near life and death incidents.
I always considered it all so strange to be so close, live and the quantity of times this has happen to me.
I never saw anything heavenly or white light-ish.
I do feel blessed to be alive and I think my life must have some purpose. Beyond that, it is all a mystery.
George S There is a pocket book by John Lerma, M.D. "Into The LIGHT" Real life stories about Angelic visits, Visions of the afterlife, and other pre-death experiences. You have to read this book, there is no way to describe the presence you will experience reading this book. I would like to invite all atheists to read this book, and comment on their experience on this website. GS
The pineal gland is a gland in the brain that is responsible for near death experiences. During extreme stress, like dying, the pineal gland releases DMT. A very simple chemical that has a very hallucinatory effect on perception. DMT can be used as a psychedelic. It can be smoked or used in a drink called ayahuasca. There is no such thing as god heaven or hell. These things are just fantasies created by the human mind.
-
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours"
- Stephen Roberts
What of the views:
Conveyed (UFO's not only are in, they're required)
lesson in math/history/morality such that those
3 are one and the same.
A full Earth, full written conveyed lesson would
have proceeded thusly:
Upon closer scrutiny, the East and West at a
particular point contained utterly identical
moralities, but with the West having had
thrown in an equivalent experience to the
one involving Gray's Sports Almanac in
Back to the Future.
Thus, admonished to not judge, it judged
just the same.
To judge is to control. To control is to
limit and enslave.
That defines much obnoxious in the world
near and far. That defines entrenched
monopolies and their pepper spraying
cooks.
How?
The same witchhunt that condemns religion
proves it.
Demonize. Make afraid of being wrongly
ferreted out as a demon.
Float a false ideology.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_james_py_060422_warped_interpretatio.htm
Demonize whomever does not conform to that.
There happen to be brilliant people--including
quite many physicians--who can describe
people who've had these NDE's who can
describe what was occuring, with detail, in operating
theatres, during their own surgeries, while
anesthetized.
On my site I describe stuff as to Nostradamus
pertains seeing personalities through
"real time."
Quantum mechanics suggests when we look for
key connections, then like connecting waves
of possibilities they are found.
The story of Gilgamesh itself, then, our world's
first piece of literature, becomes in this sense
a possible message in the bottle from day
one confirming morality's connection with
our very existence.
holygenes
weebly
com
Being near death causes NDE.
Know what DOESN'T cause NDE?
It definitely isn't caused by "going to heaven".
No one can prove that a spirit realm (or any other realm) even exists. So anything that might exist within that realm is also unproven.
Its like saying I'm actually a magic unicorn, and when I go to sleep I visit dreamland for real.
Then everyone wastes time proving the existence of dreamland, instead of considering me a nut-bag for thinking I'm a magic unicorn in the first place.
Which heaven? There are so many to choose from.
Ignorance is sin.
Knowledge is salvation.
I cannot prove there is an afterlife, but in the same view you non-believers cannot prove there is not one. So this question becomes unprovable until one of us dies. Therefore only idiots attack an unprovable question. I for one refuse to play that silly game!
Everything this guy saw can be explained with one simple chemical that is naturally excreted during this very situation...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine
Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978
"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC
Some like to say that NDE's can be explained by DMT, a hallucinogen that causes OBE's (out of body experiences). Well duh that is because it does cause real out of body experiences. Actual, real, out of body experiences. It's a lot more simpler than you materialists realize. If you don't believe me... well DMT is easy to make.
Nothing like first hand experience.
People are missing the point which is crucial and it is this.
Materialist hold to the unproven assumption that consciousness is generated by the brain. If this were remotely true then when people are declared brain dead that should be the end of any conscious experiences. The fact that people from different times and cultures have reported such experiences means something is going on that the materialist paradigm fails to explain. The Pam Reynolds case was given great prominence in the book Consciousness Beyond life by Dr Pim van Lommel. Pam had an induced Near Death Experience so that neurosurgeons could deal with an aneurysm thereby saving her life. Reynolds reported a typical NDE the doctors who carried out the operation all agreed she was by all clinical test physically brain dead. All her senses were cut off, yet she was able to accurately recount what she saw and heard by receiving information in a disembodied state.
I would say that scientists and philosophers have known for a long time that the brain does not generate consciousness it is a receiver and transmitter of it. Scientists today who hypothesise and build this new brain paradigm are guys like Rupert Sheldrake and Stanislav Grof to name but two there are many more.
Plus you might be surprised to learn of those people who are born without brains yet who are conscious. The seminal case in the medical literature and well documented is the Lorber case. This is not rare hence the following statement about another case:
"Hydrancephaly is very common - we see several case a year at our university hospital -but there's a tremendous difference between having a regional area of brain
maldevelopment, and having a condition called extreme hydrancephaly, where there is NO DEFINABLE residual brain tissue."
Dr Robert Leshner who is Professor of paediatric neurology at the Medical College Virginia US.
Some previous comments here by Robot and Cer1701 are very intriguing because there is a British researcher Anthony Peake who writes books on the subject of life after death and he has built a very interesting hypothesis which explains what happens at death and it has got a lot of scientists excited. You can check his website out but basically he shows that we are in a simulation we don't die we get reborn again and again which they call eternal recurrence and this is explains phenomena like Deja vu. His books are filled with fascinating cases and make for very interesting reading:
Neurotransmitters are a group of chemicals that bring about the transfer of information across the brain. These chemicals leap across the tiny gaps between brain cells and in doing so facilitate or inhibit chemical messages. The distances involved are so small that certain neurologists have argued that it is here that the strange world of quantum events breaks through into the world of classical physics. If this is the case then the process that makes us conscious beings is directly affected by the bizarre behaviour of these sub atomic particles.
The major neurotransmitter found in the temporal lobes is glutamate. It is this chemical that brings about the pre-seizure aura in which the perceptions of the Daemon are accessed by its Eidolon. For most non-epileptics this chemical behaves itself and does not bring about the transcendental awareness regularly experienced by those with TLE. However there are two events in everyone's life when the temporal lobe is flooded by glutamate - birth and death!
It has been argued that it is this glutamate flood that brings about the psychological state called Near Death Experience (NDE).
The NDE experience is very consistent in that it involves similar experiences reported by most of those experiencing the state. Regularly reported is that of a full past life review. Another common sensation is an encounter with an entity described as a 'being in white'. This being seems to be responsible for the past life review and seems to know all about the dying person. Others report that time slows down as death approaches, the slowing down increasing until time almost stops.
However these are 'near' death experiences, not the real thing. Could the real thing involve similar sensations with one major difference - the 'life review' is presented in a minute-by-minute re-living of the observer's life? Could it be that the glutamate flood slows time perception down to such an extent that the observer - in the final split second of their life - lives a whole lifetime again within a holographically generated facsimile of the original?
This is not a new idea, for centuries the concept termed The Eternal Return has fascinated philosophers and theologians. As nature is cyclical so is life itself. From Fredrick Nietzsche to Petyr Ouspensky and from Goethe to J B Priestley this is an idea that simply will not go away. In more recent times the idea has been interestingly updated by Harold Ramis in his film Groundhog Day.
If this is the case then we may all be existing in a first time life that is 'real', or else we are an observer within our own personal version of The Matrix re-living our life as Phil Conners re-lived his Groundhog Day!
Anthony Peake
P.S. Check out Peake's website!
AirshipGirl, i think God is giving you chances to seek Him and find Jesus! God is so Loving, He will give you more than enough chances. I pray you find the courage and peace inside to accept the one who created you and know that He loves you more than anything!
It's funny how everyone is always asking for evidence of God and Heaven etc... But when the evidence is given to you by God through a vision of Heaven, then you push it aside, and try explain it all away using science! Man is too arrogant and too"Smart" for his own good!
@ Robot... Same with you! You have been spared by God. You should be giving thanks to Him for sparing you instead of pulling His name through the mud!
You seem to believe in things that are even harder to believe that The Bible, so why not just accept the truth of The bible and accept Christ Jesus as your Savior and be saved. Heaven is gonna be so awesome. Death without Christ is just complete death. No eternity. You will just be nonexistent, but by accepting God's plan of Salvation for you, you receive the gift of eternal life in an amazing world which no mind can ever comprehend. Nothing that man has ever though up ever can compare to the awesomeness of Heaven!
@ jbee
Jesus and The Bible tells us there is an afterlife!
God, the creator of everything has told us there is life after death. The Bible is a lot more accurate then many understand!I can trust the Bible on History, Science and i will also trust it on all the other things it tells me about! Some people out there can believe in every other WACK thing, but they cannot believe in a Creator God, coming down as a man to take on His beloved Creations punishment... God is a Just God. Sin must be punished. and God is so loving that He took our punishment on Himself. Incredible!
@Chilli: I'm a religious person and believe in God and Jesus, but if anything I've learned through his teachings that people are entitled to believe what they want to believe and that we have no right to impose our beliefs on others. If Airshipgrl wants to be an atheist, that is her choice and I respect her for that, and the fact that she had a vision of a benevolent afterlife indicates to me that she is doing something right with her life. I've heard stories of people who have rather violent and disturbing NDE's, and think It's really a reflection of the choices we make.
I can't understand how anyone can dismiss the Good Doctor's experience as anything other than extraordinary and unexplainable by conventional scientific means - when Dr. Alexander, an admitted skeptic of such NDE stories, finds himself in the midst of an NDE.
It would be fascinating to compare what no doubt exists - an academic description of some aspect of neuroscience that Dr. Alexander wrote with his vivid description of what he saw, heard, and felt that obviously didn't fit into the rigid scientific paradigm he'd...pardon the pun...religiously followed for all his career. His enthusiasm and the sincerity in the belief of the reality of his experience is palpable in his Time narrative.
I can draw parallels from other tales of the Wierd - including UFOs, ghosts, and other anomolies. Those fields are equally awash with those who previously thought testimonials of such experiences equaled nothing more than sheer ignorance, misidentifications, or too many beers - that is, until they too, like Dr. Alexander found themselves in the midst of something they simply could not explain in the field they previously poo-pooed.
Does this mean that such things CAN'T be explained through conventional means? Of course not. I find myself wondering if perhaps part of the explanation of NDE could be that what people experience doesn't take place when they think it does when the brain isn't functioning - but occurs either immediately before or after such a temporary death. In other words, how does one know exactly when an NDE experience occurs? Although, I can't imagine Dr. Alexander not already ruling such a possibility out. This explanation doesn't apply however, to those individuals - whom probably number in the thousands now - that have seen things that they couldn't possibly have seen while in arrest unless they not only had an NDE but an OBE (Out of Body Experience) as well.
The Universe IS stranger than we can imagine...
I would like to re-iterate that our belief system determines the outcome of our death experience. Recovery of past life information can greatly benefit the individual in this life. Past life information is also encoded in the genes, yes identical twins have identical chemical signatures, but something as ephemeral as soul would have to be more on the magnetic side of things then the physical.
@bagpipes, i wish i could solidify it into something more precise, but that would make it a religion. Many religions have fragments of truth remaining in their teachings , with the majority being lost or misinterpreted to suit the power structures.
One thing that the religions miss is the concept of eternity. Scientists miss that as well, saying it all began with a bang. (it always does) but its not the only bang going on, matter being emitted and absorbed ad infinitum.
I read a new agers quote once, kinda went like god gives exactly what we ask for, people who say god hates them , get what they wanted, and atheists get what they asked for too.
I would clean it up a little and say that the laws of physics that govern our local reality enable us to create whatever we choose, as we choose it.
I think the real question isn't whether or not there is god, its whether we created ourselves,or did god? and did god create us or did we create god? Nothing like eternity to ponder that one.
Chilli,
I do believe in God and Jesus. I am not wrapped in human language or human invented religions. Though, I do pay attention to all religions, cultures and history of the world, not just the Jewish or Christian faith. I happen to believe God loves and speaks to all men and woman. We are all individuals with freedom of thought, which explain why so many vision of God exist.
God cannot truly be thought about in man’s mind. God makes note of this to Moses, by referring to himself as the "I-am". We can only understand that God exist. That God is, how big he is or the amount of his power is beyond human thought.
God bless you sir, love yourself, love others and forgive as much as you possibly can! Take care! ;)
I also ackknowledge science very much. God did give me a mind to see the world around me and the ability to try and understand it. I believe what science brings to man, is the beautiful picture of what God has made. It is wonderous!!! WoWzers!
Some "Near Death Experiences" maybe what is also called "Out of Body Experiences", in which individuals feel that they have died, but can then see themselves from "above". A Neurobiology article stated this:
OBEs are brief sensations that occur when a person feels as if his mind separates from his body. During OBEs, people sense that they are floating above their own bodies. No one knows what causes OBEs, but some people believe that OBEs are religious or spiritual events. Interestingly, many people who have come close to death report that they have had an OBE
In 2003, researchers from the University Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne (Switzerland) found that OBEs can be produced by direct electrical stimulation of a specific part of the brain. Dr. Olaf Blanke (of the Department of Neurology) and his colleagues worked with a 43-year-old female patient who suffered from right temporal lobe epilepsy. In order to identify the location where the seizures occurred, the researchers implanted electrodes on the brain under the patient's dura. While the patient was awake, the researchers could pass electrical current through the electrodes to identify the function of the brain area under each electrode.
Electrical stimulation of the angular gyrus on the right side of the patient's brain produced unusual sensations. Weak stimulation caused the patient to feel as if she was "sinking into the bed" or "falling from a height." Stronger electrical stimulation caused the patient to have an OBE.
For example, the patient said, "I see myself lying in bed, from above, but I only see my legs and lower trunk." Stimulation of the angular gyrus at other times caused the woman to have feelings of "lightness" and of "floating" two meters above the bed.
The angular gyrus is located near the vestibular (balance) area of the cerebral cortex. It is likely that electrical stimulation of the angular gyrus interrupts the ability of the brain to make sense of information related to balance and touch. This interruption may result in OBEs. Blood flow changes within the angular gyrus may alter brain activity during "near death experiences." This may result in OBEs reported by people who survive such events.
How complex and well-made the human mind is by our Creator, Jehovah God. It was designed to provide us with the full use of all our senses forever on a paradise earth (Ps 37:29; Luke 23:43), with never a worry about "near death experiences", for death will be completely eradicated from the earth, being thrown into the symbolic "lake of fire".(Rev 20:14)
There are a lot of very vague comments here. The thing that is not vague is the reality of the people who had the NDEs. I've just read a book called The Trial of Poppy Moon that combines a very moving legal thriller with NDE and science. Check it out, I really recommend it. www.amazon.co.uk/The-Trial-Poppy-Moon-ebook/dp/B009RLJ72K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350765419&sr=8-1
"After all, in nature, when a predator hunts and kills prey, it looks like a very bad experience for the prey. I'm sure that all prey animals have evolved a way of turning that horrible experience into something less terrible, and perhaps even 'heavenly'."
This has the makings of an excellent theory, but it has always foundered on one feature of evolution: Nothing that doesn't increase the ability or likelihood of being able to successfully procreate seems to evolve. And once you're in the jaws of a saber-toothed tiger, it's game over, right? Is it possible that evolution produced a neurochemical reaction to being eaten that eases one's exit such that if the tiger's meal is interrupted and escape occurs, one is not too traumatized by the NDE to not be able to have sex that night? Phrased that way, of course it sounds goofy, but I cannot disprove it, as goofily unlikely as it seems.
I totally agree with the comments of jrogerssr. I would much rather be a believer and be wrong than be a non-believer and be wrong.
Also, to my knowledge, no one has been dead for years and then been brought back to life and asked about their experience. Maybe this whole NDE is actually the human body's method of "shutting down" in order to transition into heaven. Maybe it's all part of God's plan and design because our human minds cannot comprehend what awaits us. That's my belief anyway.