Lucid Dying: Patients Recall Near-Death Experiences During CPR (scitechdaily.com) 170
"Around 20% of people who survive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) after cardiac arrest may describe lucid experiences of death that occurred while they were seemingly unconscious and on the brink of death," reports SciTechDaily.
"This is according to new research led by investigators at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and elsewhere." Long-time Slashdot reader InfiniteZero shared their report: Included in the study were 567 men and women whose hearts stopped beating while hospitalized and who received CPR between May 2017 and March 2020 in the United States and the United Kingdom.... Survivors reported having unique lucid experiences, including a perception of separation from the body and observing events without pain or distress. They also reported a meaningful evaluation of life, including of their actions, intentions, and thoughts toward others. The researchers found these experiences of death to be different from hallucinations, dreams, delusions, illusions, or CPR-induced consciousness.
Tests for hidden brain activity were also included in the research. A key finding was the discovery of spikes of brain activity, including so-called gamma, delta, theta, alpha, and beta waves up to an hour into CPR. Some of these brain waves normally occur when people are conscious and performing higher mental functions, including thinking, memory retrieval, and conscious perception. "These recalled experiences and brain wave changes may be the first signs of the so-called near-death experience, and we have captured them for the first time in a large study," says Sam Parnia, MD, PhD, the lead study investigator and an intensive care physician, who is also an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Langone Health, as well as the organization's director of critical care and resuscitation research."Our results offer evidence that while on the brink of death and in a coma, people undergo a unique inner conscious experience, including awareness without distress...."
"These lucid experiences cannot be considered a trick of a disordered or dying brain, but rather a unique human experience that emerges on the brink of death," says Parnia. As the brain is shutting down, many of its natural braking systems are released. Known as disinhibition, this provides access to the depths of a person's consciousness, including stored memories, thoughts from early childhood to death, and other aspects of reality. While no one knows the evolutionary purpose of this phenomenon, it clearly reveals "intriguing questions about human consciousness, even at death," says Parnia.
"This is according to new research led by investigators at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and elsewhere." Long-time Slashdot reader InfiniteZero shared their report: Included in the study were 567 men and women whose hearts stopped beating while hospitalized and who received CPR between May 2017 and March 2020 in the United States and the United Kingdom.... Survivors reported having unique lucid experiences, including a perception of separation from the body and observing events without pain or distress. They also reported a meaningful evaluation of life, including of their actions, intentions, and thoughts toward others. The researchers found these experiences of death to be different from hallucinations, dreams, delusions, illusions, or CPR-induced consciousness.
Tests for hidden brain activity were also included in the research. A key finding was the discovery of spikes of brain activity, including so-called gamma, delta, theta, alpha, and beta waves up to an hour into CPR. Some of these brain waves normally occur when people are conscious and performing higher mental functions, including thinking, memory retrieval, and conscious perception. "These recalled experiences and brain wave changes may be the first signs of the so-called near-death experience, and we have captured them for the first time in a large study," says Sam Parnia, MD, PhD, the lead study investigator and an intensive care physician, who is also an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Langone Health, as well as the organization's director of critical care and resuscitation research."Our results offer evidence that while on the brink of death and in a coma, people undergo a unique inner conscious experience, including awareness without distress...."
"These lucid experiences cannot be considered a trick of a disordered or dying brain, but rather a unique human experience that emerges on the brink of death," says Parnia. As the brain is shutting down, many of its natural braking systems are released. Known as disinhibition, this provides access to the depths of a person's consciousness, including stored memories, thoughts from early childhood to death, and other aspects of reality. While no one knows the evolutionary purpose of this phenomenon, it clearly reveals "intriguing questions about human consciousness, even at death," says Parnia.
Brain activity (Score:2, Interesting)
If there is "hidden brain activity," then it's not death, is it? I assume a dead person doesn't have the benefit of a brain, at least not a physical one. As far as we know, from brain injured/alzheimers patients the brain stores one's memories, various triggers. When a person's brain is damaged or malfunctions they are unable to extract memories or even certain thoughts (as far as we know.) If there is an after death, there has to be some other process that allows one to process thoughts and ideas outside o
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Re:Brain activity (Score:5, Informative)
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The idea that a brain could spontaneously form and stay formed and have rational thought without being grown or having sensory context demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding what actual odds are or how the universe works
At the same time, any sort of life is rather surprising, all things considered.
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At the same time, any sort of life is rather surprising, all things considered.
Indeed many many things are surprising about reality and without actual measurement or experiment to push the boundaries of understanding even the best intuitive guesses often turn up slightly to surprisingly wrong. I’m old enough to remember being taught the universe would collapse back in on itself, expand to a point and stop in the infinite future, or expand forever but at an ever decreasing rate: but one of these outcomes was guaranteed. Turns out the assumptions were wrong and there is ample ev
Re: Brain activity (Score:3)
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You sure about that? From what I understand, that calculations arent nailed down completely and some very plausible ones suggest Boltzmann Brains might be far more common than regular ones. It doesnt pass the silly test, but stillâ¦.
I’ve had people argue exactly this and yet in the same breath tell me they believe in the anthropological principle. It’s mind blowing.
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I mean, that's assuming the universe has a way to even track which life an "entity" or "soul" experienced/managed. Personally, I have my doubts such a thing is possible, mainly because I feel like we only exist at a given moment anyways.
ok, but I don't see why that's related to having a soul.
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Just for the record, the notion of "soul" was a construct of the ancient Greeks. It doesn't occur in the Torah. The New Testament was written by people who were educated in and knew Greek. Prior to that, the Greeks has conquered the Levant and left their cultural heritage imprinted on its peoples long before the Christians and Muslims picked up the strains of Greek philosophy and wove them into their own religions.
BTW: there is no "Holy Land", no "Holy Books", no "Holy Men", they are all human constructs an
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Psalm 49:15
The concept of a soul is had in many cultures around the world.
Re:Brain activity (Score:5, Funny)
If there is "hidden brain activity," then it's not death, is it?
That's why they call it "near" death experiences.
If they want to impress, let them interview someone who has been dead for 20 years about their experiences.
Re:Brain activity (Score:5, Funny)
Well, we do have a couple people who have been braindead for a couple years. Then again, we already made them celebrities, so I'd say that most of them have already been interviewed, and it wasn't very informative.
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And that's even before we talk about Pennsylvanians who voted for literal brain damage because partisanship.
They had a choice between someone with temporary impairment due to stroke, like others before him [newsweek.com], or a genocide denying foreign agent who doesn't even live in PA. They made the right choice.
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As Fetterman himself said, "In January I'll be well, but Oz will still be a fraud."
Optimistic view of stroke rehab (Score:2)
Mehmet Oz may indeed be a fraud, or the perception that he is fraudulent was substantial motivation for voters to reject him, even among Republicans. But for John Fetterman to claim a substantial improvement in his brain function own in under 3 months, what does it make him?
Optimistic?
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> But for John Fetterman to claim a substantial improvement in his brain function own in under 3 months, what does it make him?
Brain damaged? Ask anyone who's recovered from significant brain injury - it's a slow process. But brain function can be deceptive and people can easily (and commonly) fool themselves.
I only have sympathy for him, but his opponents will get to use him as an icon for the next six years. I feel like putting someone in that situation who isn't entirely competent to decide that is
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Many people have rather miraculous recoveries. I was told I wasn't going to be walking after my wreck, even with all the metal they implanted into my skeleton.
I rip mountains apart with small, small hand tools for mineral fun and profit, now days.
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If there is "hidden brain activity," then it's not death, is it?
In addition, the OOB experience is not limited to people who are so called dead. Many years ago, after a long exceptionally stressful night with no sleep, I had the people I was with drop me off at my workplace. I sat down in my office, fell asleep and had an OOB experience. I was floating above my body in the chair, and looking around the office and outside the window. Even thought it was dark, I could see everything inside and outside very clearly but not brightly. Kind of like the world was lit by a 10 w
Cannot be considered a trick of a disordered... (Score:3)
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Re:Cannot be considered a trick of a disordered... (Score:5, Interesting)
Who knows what the evolutionary purpose of this would be, except maybe to give you one last chance to assess your situation and decide whether you will put forth a last ditch effort to keep living...
There doesn't have to be an evolutionary purpose. Maybe its just an unexpected failure mode and as the pathways start going dark your brain is trying to find alternate routes to send signals and whatever inputs are coming in are getting mixed up. Or it could just be something about how the brain is interpreting what little input it is receiving during oxygen starvation and how it is able to store those experiences as memories.
I read somewhere that roughly 90% of people have at least one memory that they recall from a third person perspective. I also saw an experiment, not sure it was mythbusters or something, looking to get a better understanding about the way we feel certain events happen in slow motion. They gave people a watch-like device that would display different numbers for fractions of a second and then put them through some event. They get the slow-mo experience but can't recall any of the numbers on the device clearly. Turns out that nothing changes about our perception, its really just how the brain is storing those memories.
Re:Cannot be considered a trick of a disordered... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mythbusters is to science what astrology is to astrophysics.
The difference is Mythbusters did use some basic science principles to test the "myths", running repeated experiments where necessary and documenting the results. If one chose, those same tests could be run again and most likely get the same results. For example, firing a soccer ball behind a moving vehicle [youtube.com] to show cancellation of movement when both are traveling the same speed, or how different bullets behave when fired into water [youtube.com], or even while the gun is underwater to begin with [youtube.com]. Did I mention dropping two items in a vacuum [youtube.com] to test Galileo's idea that objects fall at the same rate? We already know this was done during one of the moon landings, but recreating it on Earth was another test.
In a broad sense what they did was scientific, just not up to the standards one would normally expect. Whereas, nothing about astrology can be tested.
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Whereas, nothing about astrology can be tested.
To be more precise, it has been tested and found wanting.
Re:Cannot be considered a trick of a disordered... (Score:4, Interesting)
All this really says is that the "mind" is most likely completely situated in the brain. ie, there's no brain/mind separation that philosophers and religious people like to inject into the conversation. This all follows from the fact that the brain is a complex, but physical, organ, and our memories, sensory inputs, and sense of self completely emerges from it and nothing else.
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Who knows what the evolutionary purpose of this would be
When someone says "evolutionary purpose" you know for sure that they do not understand either evolution or purpose.
dreams (Score:2)
DMT (Score:4, Informative)
Re:DMT (Score:4, Informative)
That's a myth, the brain dumps a *tiny* bit of DMT.
Fact is we don't have any good explanations that explain these phenomena.
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Re:DMT (Score:4, Informative)
Any amount? That's a pretty bold claim.
I found this [healthline.com], but it doesn't help your case. It does, however, point out where that whole DMT/NDE thing came from.
Evolved How? (Score:4)
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It may well be a quite useful system going haywire in a situation where the whole system is already failing. So that part failing doesn't really play an evolutionary role because the rest of you is already dying and unlikely to reproduce anymore, so whether or not that part fails in this rather spectacular way doesn't matter, but the reason why it's failing like this may well have beneficial effects while you're still alive.
the brain is like a radio. (Score:2, Interesting)
consider the brain as a radio transmitter/receiver that is our material bridge to the mind/soul that exists in the ether which pervades all space and fills our bodies.
There is actually quite a bit of scientific evidence for this, if one looks for it, rather than assuming conciousness occurs in the brain.
But in the 20th century, we've been thinking of the brain as essentially an isolated computer. When it is really much more like a radio, or a smart phone.
When one listens to a radio program one understands
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There is actually quite a bit of scientific evidence for this
citation required
Re:the brain is like a radio. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, we know memories are stored in the brain. What are you without your memories? With brain damage, a person can't assemble speech, thoughts, or even remember things. So the brain is more than just some sort of "radio," it directly affects actions. It can make you able to feel things. I mean, if you think the brain doesn't control anything .. why do people do stupid things when they are angry? The brain is in some hormonal/adrenalined rush .. you can't think outside certain thoughts and it affects your actions.
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> Well, we know memories are stored in the brain. What are you without your memories? With brain damage, a person can't assemble speech, thoughts, or even remember things.
Maybe, kinda, sorta. Look at the planaria RNA experiments for counter-factual evidence. Also, people can lose parts of their brain that /should/ cause memory loss, and they do, but then some of the memories restore over time, which they "shouldn't". The dendritic-pruning model doesn't seem to hold up in many cases. We barely understa
Re: the brain is like a radio. (Score:2)
I've never understood this perspective because how would drugs and mind-altering substances work? What about brain injuries that significantly change someone's personality? How does it account for how awful memory is and how it can't be trusted? Sure people have 3rd person perspective memories since they're summaries that are rebuilt on demand and differ over time. People can't even remember exactly what was said in an argument seconds ago. There's also studies showing how near-death experiences can be ind
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> What is your notion of what "the ether" is?
Not OP but modern terms are "quantum foam", "zero-point field", "vacuum energy", "dark energy", etc. "Ether" is forbidden now by grade schools because they like to mock people to feel superior (ask Marconi about it).
Steinmetz had some decent ideas that he used to fix Tesla's generators, notably at Niagra. Not every model that is useful is correct, but when they accurately predict outcomes we should pay attention.
Wolfram has some ideas about Ether being a set
Super interesting but impossible to explain (Score:5, Interesting)
People want to go out of their way to dismiss this stuff, but we don't have any good explanations.
I'm an atheist, purely a physicalist, I want to be skeptical and dismissive of this stuff, but the more I look into it just doesn't make sense.
The theories people want to put forward to dismiss it tend to be all wrong. A dying brain starving of oxygen shouldn't be able to generate these rich experiences, many of which are consistent between time and cultures. They also don't explain people describing things they had no prior knowledge of. DMT isn't an answer and the brain dumps a tiny amount, not enough for these trips.
Part of the problem is we can't really do controlled tests for this, certainly can't reproduce the conditions due to ethics.
An interesting hypothesis is a philosophical position called 'analytical idealism' which is pretty complex, but also impossible to falsify or verify in any way.
My best guess is there are deeper layers below the sub-atomic level that have something to do with consciousness, so there is still observable falsifiable stuff happening that would explain it, but we don't have the tech or knowledge to explain it yet.
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A dying brain starving of oxygen shouldn't be able to generate these rich experiences
How do you know it shouldn't be able to do that? Also, how do you know that these "rich experiences" were formed during oxygen deprivation, and not just before/just after? Our brains are very good at "connecting the dots", even if there are no clear dots. Different parts of the brain will be in different metabolic states. Some parts may still be supplied with oxygen well enough to keep going, but they are getting erratic signals from other parts that are oxygen deprived. They try to interpret the erratic
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How do you know it shouldn't be able to do that?
Based on our best and most up to date understand of brains, it shouldn't be possible. But as I also say, I don't think we have the tech or understanding to be able to explain what is happening.
Also, how do you know that these "rich experiences" were formed during oxygen deprivation, and not just before/just after?
Because pretty much all of these cases are cases of people describing detail in other rooms that they were never exposed to while their brains are observed to be dying.
This is what I'm talking about. People want to go out of their way to dismiss this stuff to satisfy their own biases. It's funny how many people in thi
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Some variant of this is fequently used as if it's a logical argument.
I've been interested in this topic for well over 50 years now and I've yet to find any papers being more than "he said/she said" reporting.
Perhaps you could be a little more helpful and post links to substantial papers.
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Pointing out that there are papers is not being used as an argument, it's merely pointing out that there is research in this area.
We don't have that many observed cases to study since we can't reproduce the situations due to ethical constraints, so things are limited. But still, we have enough, and they all tend to be consistent and not easily explained.
If you've been pursuing this for 50 years you're probably aware of the papers and have already dismissed them.
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A dying brain starving of oxygen shouldn't be able to generate these rich experiences
That's just begging the question.
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That's just begging the question.
It isn't, but why do you think so?
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That's what begging the question is. You assume something is impossible and proceed from that without any evidential justification.
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Maybe you don't understand what is meant by "begging the question"? You seem to think that making any assumption is "begging the question". That is not how that works. Not at all.
When you "beg the question" you assume the conclusion in some premise. That is not what is happening here.
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A dying brain starving of oxygen shouldn't be able to generate these rich experiences
Maybe my explanation is wrong, but it doesn't matter. This statement is EXACTLY begging the question.
What else is that statement doing but assuming that an oxygen-starved brain can't do that?
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This statement is EXACTLY begging the question.
No, it's not. Very obviously not.
Again, to beg the question you need two things: 1) a conclusion and 2) a premise that depends on the truth of that conclusion. Put another way, the truth of a premise is contingent upon the truth of the conclusion.
Given the statement in question, ask yourself: What argument is being made? What is the conclusion? What is the premise that depends on the truth of that conclusion?
What else is that statement doing but assuming that an oxygen-starved brain can't do that?
Like I said, you're confusing making an assumption for begging the question. The two things ar
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many of which are consistent between time and cultures. They also don't explain people describing things they had no prior knowledge of. DMT isn't an answer and the brain dumps a tiny amount, not enough for these trips.
He's saying the above can't be explained by a dying brain etc etc.
Why? Because:
A dying brain starving of oxygen shouldn't be able to generate these rich experiences
So to paraphrase his entire point:
These phenomena cannot be explained by a dying brain, because a dying brain should not be able to do that.
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When you "beg the question" you assume the conclusion in some premise.
You mean like when saying "a brain starved of oxygen shouldn't be able to do that" without evidence? It's a stupid belief not based on anything whatsoever, which assumes that there's not enough oxygen to do anything at all.
When you say x can't be true because of y, without proving y matters, that is exactly begging the question.
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You mean like when saying "a brain starved of oxygen shouldn't be able to do that" without evidence?
What? No, I absolutely do not. Evidence has nothing to do with it.
It's a stupid belief not based on anything whatsoever
That's completely irrelevant.
When you say x can't be true because of y, without proving y matters, that is exactly begging the question
Nonsense! If you say X because Y, and Y depends on the truth of X, then you're begging the question.
This isn't complicated. [yourdictionary.com]
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I suspect you're talking to an empty wall here, but appreciate your attempting to correct the people that don't understand what begging the question means.
It's almost as bad as people that claim ad hominem in response to any insult in any context.
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Another user has already corrected you, but I will also.
It is absolutely not begging the question. I'm not assuming a premise that is yet to be determined and then using it in my argument. I'm reiterating a consensus view based on our best current understanding of biology, neurology and consciousness.
By your reasoning, if I point out that if I drop a weight it should fall to the floor, that would be begging the question - except it wouldn't be, any more than stating a dying brain reducing in activity should
Re:Super interesting but impossible to explain (Score:5, Interesting)
A dying brain starving of oxygen shouldn't be able to generate these rich experiences
When I was in high school, I had a TI-34 calculator, which didn't have batteries but was powered by a PV cell.
One of my pasttimes when I was bored was to fill the display with eights (8888888), push that to memory and then refill it. I would then cover the PV cell with my hand. The numbers started to fade. If I timed this *just* right, and removed my hand before the power completely went out (in which case the device would just reset), the result was that display (and memory) were full of stuff that weren't even numbers. Sometimes it was nothing sensible, sometimes I got words that might even make sense. Essentially some DRAM chips got starved while others didn't.
Brain is probably just going through the same thing when getting starved of oxygen, except it's of course has much larger architecture than a TI-34.
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A dying brain starving of oxygen shouldn't be able to generate these rich experiences
Have you actually tried it?
The brain goes kindof wild from oxygen starvation.
They also don't explain people describing things they had no prior knowledge of.
When did this happen and how was it researched?
An interesting hypothesis is a philosophical position called 'analytical idealism' which is pretty complex, but also impossible to falsify or verify in any way.
If it can't be falsified then it is interesting only in the sense that you can mentally masturbate to it.
My best guess is there are deeper layers below the sub-atomic level that have something to do with consciousness
My best guess is that you're replacing something you don't understand with a fantasy of something you can understand.
Why would you in the first place think that there is something 'sub-atomic' needed to explain these experiences?
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If you've been pursuing this for 50 years you're probably aware of the papers and have already dismissed them.
This is probably going to blow your mind, but physicalism can't be falsified either, it just gets the benefit of being assumed to be true.
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My best guess is that you're replacing something you don't understand with a fantasy of something you can understand.
Why would you in the first place think that there is something 'sub-atomic' needed to explain these experiences?
No need to be a condescending prick.
It's not about what I personally can or cannot understand, it's about what science has repeatedly failed to understand over consistent generated reports and experiences.
It seems that you're someone that will make any excuse to maintain your view without being honest enough to consider you, or we might be wrong.
Re:Super interesting but impossible to explain (Score:5, Interesting)
If your heart stops beating, your brain is starved. It seems to me entirely plausible that during this time, information written to the memory is inconsistent with normal brain activity.
The researchers were not asking people what they were experiencing as it was happening, as it was a medical emergency and the person could not talk.
The researchers were asking after the fact for the subject to recall what they experienced. By this time the brain had transferred short term memories into the long term memory attaching with it the interpretation of what happened.
If you are writing corrupted information to short term memory and then trying to make sense of it using your normal frame of reference, you are going to interpret this corrupt information into something that makes sense to you.
It is entirely conceivable that the parts of your memory where you see or hear the medical staff around you, are interpreted as being like watching a movie, as you don't remember being in the situation, as you were barely conscious. Your brain then when storing this event in long term memory best classifies it as something you observed, as it has no associated memory of those things happening to you.
We have no idea how memory is created or interpreted, but we do know that memory is subjective, we only remember some parts of our experience. There is clearly some interpretation going on, and that even changes over time due to suggestion or changes in your understanding.
At the end of the day, it is simply a question of which is more probable, that a malfunctioning brain is tricking you or that there is some invisible essence of you that without any physical presence is able to observe what is happening to you?
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You are not experiencing any of this, you are remembering it.
Nope/ Because people consistently report on things they had no previous expose to.
If you look into this more you will see a lot of it is not easily dismissed or explained.
At the end of the day, it is simply a question of which is more probable, that a malfunctioning brain is tricking you or that there is some invisible essence of you that without any physical presence is able to observe what is happening to you?
I think it's more probably there is a physical presence we simply can't detect yet, so appears to be invisible.
Disbelief is a Belief (Score:2)
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> I'm an atheist, purely a physicalist, I want to be skeptical and dismissive of this stuff, but the more I look into it just doesn't make sense.
Materialism is a belief system without any real evidence to support it.
A lack of better theories doesn't support a materialist belief that also lacks evidence.
Lots of data exists that supports an information basis, and perhaps a spiritual basis if that's defined loosely enough.
But the ardent materialist believers seem to automatically discard all that data becau
Uniquely human? Why the restriction? (Score:5, Insightful)
"These lucid experiences cannot be considered a trick of a disordered or dying brain, but rather a unique human experience that emerges on the brink of death,"
Who says animals don't experience the same effect, and don't do whatever thinking and evaluation of life their species is capable of and relevant to it when they die? I have a hard time believing this is unique to humans, because when you think about it, not that many things are unique to humans.
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What percent of the 20 were religious (Score:2)
if so, weren't their minds already prone to irrational thought experiences?
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If the internet has taught us anything, it's that atheists are no more rational than the religious.
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If the internet has taught us anything, it's that atheists are no more rational than the religious.
The internet taught me the exact opposite thing. When you have debates with religious people they always fall back on logical fallacies to support their beliefs. Nonreligious people only do it some of the time.
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I take it you haven't been to YouTube? :)
they always fall back on logical fallacies to
As we've seen from another reply, you aren't exactly an expert on the subject.
Also, you should really read the essay linked in my sig.
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As we've seen from another reply, you aren't exactly an expert on the subject.
You were asserting the brain couldn't do that because it was starved of oxygen, which begs the question, is the brain too starved of oxygen to do what it is doing. Evidence is obviously relevant because begging the question involves making assertions without it. If evidence to support the idea is provided, then you're not begging anything. You didn't do that.
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I said it before, I say it again, I'll start taking NDEs serious when a religious Christian meets Krishna in his NDE and the Hindu sees Jesus.
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Were these people who typically bought into this stuff to begin with?
if so, weren't their minds already prone to irrational thought experiences?
Who among us has never heard of a near-death experience, and going into the light? Who isn't pre-primed for this?
i dont believe in the afterlife (Score:3)
Re: i dont believe in the afterlife (Score:2)
Came here to say the same thing, and look at the last comment haha. Good one.
Everything we are made of was here before we were conceived and it's not going anywhere when we die. Every atom.
The ego is very deceptive, it's a survival mechanism. There is no self, no free will, no eternal reward or punishment. No coming back again to progress a little more.
We are not individuals, but fingers of the same glove. The is no action other than re-action. Nothing happens without something happening before or after.
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Why should self awareness be unique to living human brains and not present in trees, corpses, rocks and thunderstorms? The simplest initial hypothesis would be that everything in universe is self aware, just like other forces such as gravity that turn out to be universally present once discovered. If you believe that only humans/animals are self aware, you actually subscribe to notion of a soul that is apart from physical matter and only resides in some of it and not other.
More research is needed (Score:2)
There was a Toronto hooker named Candy who could induce a similar experience, though she didn't usually bother with a defibrillator.
In a nutshell: (Score:2)
Oh, look, the mystics were right! ...
Just say already. It ain't that hard and nobody is going to give abrahamic revelation cults a hall pass just because you do.
btw., studies like this have been conducted for decades and centuries, it's just that contemporary academic mainstream has been too busy ignoring them or completely dismissing them as crackpot nonsense.
I recommend the books from Raymond Moody on the topic. Very interesting. You're more likely to find him in the new age section than in the science de
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There are no gods (Score:2)
There are also no afterlives.
Get over it.
"lucid experiences of death" (Score:3)
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> Otherwise known as hallucinations.
This is why nobody trusts the atheists - they always see absence of evidence as evidence of absence.
Makes me wonder (Score:2)
It seems there are strong similarities among NDE's, meditative states, and some drug-altered states. It would be good to get some of the people who have experienced these things together to compare notes. It would also be good for researchers in those fields to look for commonalities.
I also think there might be insights from all those areas into what's happening and what might happen in AI. Yeah yeah, I know - it doesn't really exist yet. That said, some of what I've been hearing lately - as anthropomorphic
Re: (Score:2)
> It would be good to get some of the people who have experienced these things together to compare notes.
They do regularly. Because of prejudice your're more likely to hear research reports on Youtube or inside USAP's than in an academic journal.
No tenured professor is willing to start over with new theories. He's on vacation upping his H-index and getting paid.
Apologies to the 5% who buck the rule.
Can you combine lucid dying with lucid dreaming (Score:2)
for the best climax ever?
Some hope for "life" after death maybe? (Score:2)
Hear me out - as this is about the _only_ comfort I can take from a firm belief that when you are dead you ain't coming back.
We can assume - and it's a fair assumption - that when we do actually die, many of us may have the same experience up to the point where the brain effectively "dies" too.
Being an atheist and having very little hope of there being anything after, I cling to an idea which has some merit.
That idea is that our perception of time is exactly that - a perception.
Have you ever needed to wait
Evolutionary advantage? Not necessary (Score:2)
There is no need for an evolutionary advantage if the process of death doesn't have an effect on survival of the genetic line.
It could simply be an effect of systems shutting down while the brain tries to sustain life. The brain may piece together sounds and sensations to try and make sense of a jumble of sensory perceptions going through distressed synapses.
From another perspective, perhaps people who have experienced these effects have been a source of inspiration for religions. The concept of reviewing o
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Female comedian energy
Re: (Score:2)
They also reported a meaningful evaluation of life, including of their actions, intentions, and thoughts toward others.
Can we get some CPR for Elon Musk, please.
Aw, c'mon moderators - that was funny, and not flamebait at all! My only quibble is with the choice of Musk - I think Bezos is even more in need of that meaningful evaluation.
What's up with Slashdot moderation lately? It seems the majority of mod points go to the people who've had the most successful humorectomies!
Re: (Score:2)
This article states that they were able to recall events taking place in the operating room while they were dying.
Before we can accept that as evidence, every other logical explanation has to be ruled out. The problem is that during an event that requires CPR, nobody is going to perform a closely controlled experiment.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
not observed or had sensory inputs?
while they were dying.
The key information there is they weren't dead, and they didn't die. So they had sensory inputs. Enough of the nervous system was still functioning.
Furthermore, what goes on inside operating rooms isn't random. It's a highly controlled environment, so predictable things happen inside it.
Re: It's not X but it is X (Score:5, Interesting)
Think of it like this, when asleep, all sensory input is routed to null0 but in these cases of ‘near death’ something shifts the input to be written in full to long term storage.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
You're talking about speculation from skeptics who haven't looked at what is being presented but want to comment.
NDE claims of veridical experiences are always self-reported and are never looked at for statistical validity.
Re: (Score:3)
Some of the claims reminds me of the plot of the 1990 file Flatliners with Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt, and Kevin Bacon. (There was a re-make in 2017 but I haven't seen it.)
Flatliners (1990) [wikipedia.org]
Flatliners (2017) [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
At least sports nonsense isn't common yet
That will probably change when BeauHd starts going to the horse track