Merged Near Death Experience Study

dogjones

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dogjones
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7621608.stm

Snip

the researchers have set up special shelving in resuscitation areas. The shelves hold pictures - but they're visible only from the ceiling.

Dr Sam Parnia, who is heading the study, said: "If you can demonstrate that consciousness continues after the brain switches off, it allows for the possibility that the consciousness is a separate entity.

"It is unlikely that we will find many cases where this happens, but we have to be open-minded.

"And if no one sees the pictures, it shows these experiences are illusions or false memories.

"This is a mystery that we can now subject to scientific study."
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Memory is a function of the brain. If a person's brain shuts off, how could they possibly remember anything?

I have read cases in the past (and experienced first hand) where people have certain areas of their brain damaged and can't remember anything (short term/long term). They would look at a picture, look away and then not be able to describe that they even looked at a picture at all, let alone what the picture was.

I guess that's why I never believed in spirits floating around viewing things in near death and then the person shares the experience after they wake up. What does a blind person "see"? Where is the memory stored for retrieval?

Just my thoughts.

-Maus
 
If only for entertainment purposes, here's the Daily Mail's version of the story with predictably pro-oob comments.

Looks like Dr Parnia has been barking up this tree for some time. I can't help but recall the Ghostbusters quote about Dr Venkman's theories...
 
Our friend Penny Sartori PhD is back in the news with this one.

We had a thread about her on the forum the last time the BBC decided to uncritically spout this information, but I can't find it I'm afraid.

I'd really like to know more about her research for this PhD (from University of Wales Lampeter)- What was the proposal, what was the methodology, the statistical estimates and powering, what the ethics committee actually approved, what others knew at the time about her study etc.

Seems like she just decided to investigate things for herself in a rather ad hoc, amateurish way, ended up putting it all into a thesis.
 
Is there a confusion between "near death" and "warm and dead" (as in you're not dead until you're warm and dead).

I'm really annoyed by people using "near death" experiences to prove anything except that medical science has gotten to the point where we can revive people who, 20 years ago, would have slipped over into "all the way" dead and that our medical instrumentation has gotten so much better in measuring the tiny indicators of "life" in someone who merely appears dead to the naked eye alone.

And "near death" is also not the same a "brain dead." Lots of these "crossing over" types continuously use these phrases as if they were interchangeable. They are not.
 
Deetee said:
Our friend Penny Sartori PhD is back in the news with this one.

We had a thread about her on the forum the last time the BBC decided to uncritically spout this information, but I can't find it I'm afraid.

I'd really like to know more about her research for this PhD (from University of Wales Lampeter)- What was the proposal, what was the methodology, the statistical estimates and powering, what the ethics committee actually approved, what others knew at the time about her study etc.

Seems like she just decided to investigate things for herself in a rather ad hoc, amateurish way, ended up putting it all into a thesis.
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Not this one from 2004?

There don't seem to be any others from this year mentioning her by name.
 
It's not what one would call scientific methodolgy in the least, but when I was 9 my mother was in a severe motorcycle accident. During her recovery she "died" three times. Not once during her experience did she see a light, tunnel, etc. All she remembered was darkness.
 
Big Les said:
Not this one from 2004?

There don't seem to be any others from this year mentioning her by name.
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It definitely was this year that I'm talking about, cos I remember discussing the BBC article. I guess it must have been on another forum, maybe Badscience. Thanks for checking, Les.
 
Anybody remember Michael Portillo on Horizon's ''How To Kill A Human Being''?
These NDE's are just lack of oxygen to the brain. If anyone wants to experience an NDE I recommend going to a local judo club where you can have the arteries in your neck occluded and witness first hand the tunnel with a bright light at the end. All the time this is happening you feel 100% awake and alert. Portillo experienced something similar in the low pressure chamber when he was given tasks to complete.

Quote from Penny Sartori. "How could it be possible for people to report clear, lucid experiences with great clarity of thought during a time when their hearts had stopped beating and blood is not being effectively pumped to the brain?"

Because they are effing wrong. This is forgivable in their situation, they are not getting enough blood to the brain. What is not forgivable is that Penny Sartori was seen fit to be awarded a PhD. She then uses her qualification to feed her friends and colleagues BS.
 
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Fact is that many people witness the same kind of near death experiences, without knowing eachother: a bright white light and a feeling of unconditioned love. This feeling is a universal experience of these people. I cannot understand that a feeling of deep love just comes from not getting enough blood in the brain. People also have the experience that they see very sharp. Their Near Death Experience is more clear than while they are awake. Alexander Eben, an expert of the brain, witnessed consciousness during his NDE, while all his training says that there couldn't be any kind of awareness.
 
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Sam Parnia's study so far failed like many of this kind because no one seen the pictures. This is again a failure like it was before:

During the AHA meeting, Dr. Sam Parnia, head of intensive care at Stony Brook University Hospital in New York, reported early results of a 25-hospital study of how frequently cardiac arrest survivors see or hear things while their hearts are stopped. Of 152 survivors interviewed, 37 percent said they had recollections from the unconscious period. Only two recalled actually seeing events and one described any events that could be verified. None saw images mounted in the treatment room as part of the experiment.
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Taken from: http://www.newsnet5.com/news/science-tech/scientists-looking-closer-at-what-happens-when-body-dies

Also please if you believe Eben Alexander then you did not read his book. It is full of errors and it written with the help of IANDS. I have read the whole book and I am extremely skeptical of it and his claims and it stinks with a lot of problems.
 
An NDE cannot be explained by our current knowledge. The brain stops functioning, the cortex and the brainstem doesn't function at all. And these people have an enhanced consciousness. How can that be?
 
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Maartenn100 said:
An NDE cannot be explained by our current knowledge. The brain stops functioning, the cortex and the brainstem doesn't function at all. And these people have an enhanced consciousness. How can that be?
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NDE are actually explained within our current knowledge. it is just that believer reject the (rather simple) explanation out of incredulity. A bit like people rejecting evolution in favor of young earth creationism or similar.

The main explanation for NDE is actually that they do happen when people are brought back to consciousness. Furthermore they can be be induced in people artificially.

So afterlife belief =0 , science =1
 
Can you explain with your current knowledge about consciousness how it is possible that many people, independent from eachother, have exactly the same "hallucination"=

out-of body experience, they see their own body in a car f.e., a tunnel, a bright colorful light, feeling of unconditional love, feeling of great wisdom and understanding, no physical pain anymore, a flashforward of past live events and moral or ethical feelings, etc...

I don't think your current understanding of consciousness can explain the fact that these people, all over the world, with different back grounds had the same experience or 'hallucination'.

When people can tell about the same experience, independently from eachother, they talk about an objective reality. It's not subjective anymore.
 
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Maartenn100 said:
Can you explain with your current knowledge about consciousness how it is possible that many people, independent from eachother, have exactly the same "hallucination"=

out-of body experience, they see their own body in a car f.e., a tunnel, a bright colorful light, feeling of unconditional love, feeling of great wisdom and understanding, no physical pain anymore, a flashforward of past live events and moral or ethical feelings, etc...

I don't think your current understanding of consciousness can explain the fact that these people, all over the world, with different back grounds had the same experience or 'hallucination'.

When people can tell about the same experience, independently from eachother, they talk about an objective reality. It's not subjective anymore.
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Here's some reading; pay attention to the abstract.
http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/cl...ations/Athappily00005053-200603000-00011.pdfs
 
thank you for the link.
I read in one of the articles:

"The enhancement of mental
functioning at a time when
the brain is impaired is not
easily explained by
materialist models."
 
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Maartenn100 said:
Can you explain with your current knowledge about consciousness how it is possible that many people, independent from eachother, have exactly the same "hallucination"=

out-of body experience, they see their own body in a car f.e., a tunnel, a bright colorful light, feeling of unconditional love, feeling of great wisdom and understanding, no physical pain anymore, a flashforward of past live events and moral or ethical feelings, etc...

I don't think your current understanding of consciousness can explain the fact that these people, all over the world, with different back grounds had the same experience or 'hallucination'.

When people can tell about the same experience, independently from eachother, they talk about an objective reality. It's not subjective anymore.
Click to expand...

Because the symptoms of a dying brain are the same in all humans. As mentioned above, this can be artificially induced.
 
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