Merged Near Death Experience Study

[George 152]

Before the death experience every-one has the near death experience.

 

[turingtest]

Thinking about that I'm reminded of the famous anecdote about Martin Luther. It's said that he once saw the devil in his study, and threw an inkwell at him. When asked later how he could prove it had been the devil, he pointed to the inkstain on the wall.

According to William Manchester in A World Lit Only By Fire, it wasn't ink that was getting thrown around. I don't think I can even use the German word for what he actually said without violating the MA; but maybe this quote from one of his colleagues, Philipp Melanchthon, can give you the idea:

Having been worsted...the Demon departed indignant and murmuring to himself after having emitted a crepitation of no small size, which left a foul stench in the chamber for several days afterwards.

 

[bruto]

Before the death experience every-one has the near death experience.

I am not convinced that this is true. If sudden death occurs without warning, what experience is had? Of course we can never know anyway, and one could argue forever about what we can count as experience if it can never be communicated or remembered, but what can we even assume?

 

[Dr B]

I am not convinced that this is true. If sudden death occurs without warning, what experience is had? Of course we can never know anyway, and one could argue forever about what we can count as experience if it can never be communicated or remembered, but what can we even assume?

Bruto is correct here. An analysis of the contexts of NDEs is revealing. They only really occur where death is slower and associated with an intermediate degree of cardiac insufficiency (and thus slower reduction in blood gases, and slower initiation of disinhibition) before full arrest and loss of consciousness.

If the heart just stops, or something happens which is more immediate - patients, on the whole, do not report NDEs on their recovery. Point is, the loss of consciousness is too rapid to support sensory hallucination, or the memory of them.

Contexts like near-drowning, high altitude climbing / accidents at high altitude, non-fatal car crashes, etc are 'good' for NDEs.

 

[Dr B]

Thinking about that I'm reminded of the famous anecdote about Martin Luther. It's said that he once saw the devil in his study, and threw an inkwell at him. When asked later how he could prove it had been the devil, he pointed to the inkstain on the wall.

That's ace! Yes, its the old 'a book fell from my shelf and thus ghosts are real and my house is haunted' chestnut....reasoning backward.

It is thought to be the second deficit in a two-deficit model of delusion. The first being anomalous sensory experience.

 

[turingtest]

Well, here's one NDE story that turned out to be complete malarkey (sorry, that was too easy to resist).

 

[tsig]

Before the death experience every-one has the near death experience.

I doubt if the people at ground zero of a nuclear blast have time to experience anything.

 

[bruto]

I doubt if the people at ground zero of a nuclear blast have time to experience anything.

But if you're a mystical mushbrain you can say what you will and nobody can contradict it. The angelic choirs intone as you drift to the land of unicorns and dusky virgins looking back with your third eye. Prove me wrong.