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Seeking Proof in Near-Death Claims (18 Hospitals to study mystery of near-death experiences)
Wall Street Journal ^ | 10/26/2010

Posted on 10/26/2010 8:40:18 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

At 18 hospitals in the U.S. and U.K., researchers have suspended pictures, face up, from the ceilings in emergency-care areas. The reason: to test whether patients brought back to life after cardiac arrest can recall seeing the images during an out-of-body experience.

People who have these near-death experiences often describe leaving their bodies and watching themselves being resuscitated from above, but verifying such accounts is difficult. The images would be visible only to people who had done that.

"We've added these images as objective markers," says Sam Parnia, a critical-care physician and lead investigator of the study, which hopes to include 1,500 resuscitated patients. Dr. Parnia declined to say whether any have accurately described the images so far, but says he hopes to report preliminary results next year.

The study, coordinated by Southampton University's School of Medicine in England, is one of the latest and largest scientific efforts to understand the mystery of near-death experiences.

At least 15 million American adults say they have had a near-death experience, according to a 1997 survey—and the number is thought to be rising with increasingly sophisticated resuscitation techniques.

In addition to floating above their bodies, people often describe moving down a dark tunnel toward a bright light, feeling intense peace and joy, reviewing life events and seeing long-deceased relatives—only to be told that it's not time yet and land abruptly back in an ailing body.

The once-taboo topic is getting a lot of talk these days. In the new movie "Hereafter," directed by Clint Eastwood, a French journalist is haunted by what she experienced while nearly drowning in a tsunami.

Yet the fundamental debate rages on: Are these glimpses of an afterlife, are they hallucinations or are they the random firings of an oxygen-starved brain?

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Religion; Science; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: afterlife; faithandphilosophy; lifeafterlife; nde; ndes; neardeath; neardeathexperience; raymondmoody
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1 posted on 10/26/2010 8:40:23 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

With Obamacare I am sure they will have a lot more of these to study.

Wonder if they will get a bonus if they ‘help’ them to an actual death?


2 posted on 10/26/2010 8:48:46 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Dead or Alive?

An analysis of 613 near-death experiences gathered by the Near Death Research Foundation found:

* About 75% included an out-of-body experience
* 76% reported intense positive emotions
* 34% described passing through a tunnel
* 65% described encountering a bright light
* 22% had a life review
* 57% encountered deceased relatives or other beings

Note: Patients could report more than one sensation.


3 posted on 10/26/2010 8:52:42 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

I know one who swears he had it during a brain surgery. Floated above the operating table and watched himself being butchered, he says.

It’s unrelated (I think), but dude also believes in the Conspiratorial Theiry of History of the World, you know, the Masons, the Bilderburgers, and such.


4 posted on 10/26/2010 8:56:44 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Actually, probably a lot less. Why revive someone... after all, letting them go is the “green” thing to do.


5 posted on 10/26/2010 9:02:36 PM PDT by BCR #226 (07/02 SOT www.extremefirepower.com...The BS stops when the hammer drops.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Perhaps a lot less as they will let you die.


6 posted on 10/26/2010 9:10:32 PM PDT by Lumper20
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To: Secret Agent Man

Perhaps a lot less as they will let you die.


7 posted on 10/26/2010 9:10:34 PM PDT by Lumper20
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To: BCR #226

“Actually, probably a lot less. Why revive someone... after all, letting them go is the “green” thing to do.”

Funny how much of the “green” agenda is a fade to black, isn’t it?


8 posted on 10/26/2010 9:16:41 PM PDT by Psalm 144
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To: SeekAndFind
The body is a Thermos.

Is someone surprised that when you open it up, its delicious contents are released?


Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

9 posted on 10/26/2010 9:16:56 PM PDT by The Comedian (Don't run. You'll just die tired.)
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To: Revolting cat!

RE: Floated above the operating table and watched himself being butchered, he says.


I am actually more impressed by a very accurate out-of-the-body experience of a man who was able to describe in great detail WHAT HAPPENED AT HOME (e.g., what his kids were doing at that time) after he “died” in the hospital.

That would be difficult to explain using purely material/physiological explanations.


10 posted on 10/26/2010 9:17:28 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

This sounds very interesting. I went into cardiac arrest last year and didn’t see or hear a thing for 6 days (my wife says I responded to her voice or her rubbing my hand).

I don’t recall anything from trying to leave my office (Tuesday) until I woke up the following Monday, after having cardiac arrest, an Arctic Sun coma where my body temperature was lowered for two days to prevent my brain from frying; another medically induced coma to help me stablize the whole body; pneumonia (comes with the territory), and brain seizures.

Woke up, looking at the ceiling, and said to myself, “Oh shit, what happened”. Then I saw TV and watched it (Fox Cable, of course), saw my work supervisor laughing and clapping, and them felt my wife holding my hand. I looked at her and thought,”Darn, she looks like she’s had a bad time” (she did).

Then I began to speak a little thru my breathing mask, and after another stent and defibrilator, I walked out of the hospital on my own, 16 days later. Says something about the wonderful state of American medicine. Obama, leave it alone.

I wish I had had an out-of-body experience. It would have been cool, but I’m just an average guy.

Now my friend, a retired NYPD officer, was being beaten to death by a bunch of drug dealers he was trying to arrest, and he saw the lights, angels and his whole family. He resisted going to the light, regained his physical composure, and beat the hell out of the drug-dealers. Lesson learned: Never fuck with a NY Irish cop.

Astral projection, if proven during a near-death or actual death experience, would open up a whole new world of study. I’m looking forward to it, but not as a volunteer anymore. Being clinically dead once is enough.

Happy viewing, folks, and I hope you all live to tell about it.


11 posted on 10/26/2010 9:25:43 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: Revolting cat!
No conspiracy buff here. I "died" when I was eight from an asthma attack at home. My uncle was a doctor-radiologist of all things-but he revived me. I floated above and could see myself and hear my grandmother's anguished wailings that haunt me to this day-"My God. He's white as a ghost DO SOMETHING". I remember it crystal clear.

Maybe it was the loss of oxygen, maybe not...but I know what I went through.

12 posted on 10/26/2010 9:28:00 PM PDT by MattinNJ (Palin. I cannot spare this woman. She fights!)
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To: SeekAndFind

I’ve had quite a few out-of-body experiences, though I’ve never been close to death. Mine all happened during times of plain old relaxation.

On one memorable occasion, I slipped out of the body while staring at the ceiling in the middle of the day. I wasn’t asleep, or even drowsy. I found myself about two inches from the ceiling. I turned my attention to the window, and then found myself outside the house about two stories off the ground.

My perceptions at this time seemed to be ultra sharp. I’d never seen so clearly, or heard things in such fine detail. It’s difficult to describe, if you’ve never experienced it.

Unfortunately, I looked through the window and saw my body lying on the bed, and instantly snapped back into my head.

The greatest effect this experience had on me, was the realization that I’m not a flesh and bone body, but a spiritual being, entirely separate from the physical universe.


13 posted on 10/26/2010 9:29:34 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Windflier

I’ve had sometime similar to yours...I’m sure I wouldn’t have died - I was 18 and in perfect health - just suffering anxiety that night for some reason. I went and laid on the living room couch and suddenly felt as though I rose out of myself and had the sensation that I could travel ....sort of flying...definitely felt that I had left myself on the couch...but quickly thought of my parents and sisters and didn’t want to go anywhere. I figured I had to get back to myself and decided moving would work. I jumped up and it was over.

Never happened again.


14 posted on 10/26/2010 9:46:59 PM PDT by Aria ( "Remember, attitudes are contagious, so make sure yours are worth catching." Sarah Palin 9-18-2010)
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To: SeekAndFind

Flatliners


15 posted on 10/26/2010 9:48:14 PM PDT by NonValueAdded ("It's amazing, A man who has such large ears could be so tone deaf" Rush Limbaugh 9/8/10)
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To: SeekAndFind

Well, I would suggest they paste electrodes on Chrissy Matthews, Kieth Olberman and that Maddow dude. Come Nov 3, they will be having a NDE on live TV.


16 posted on 10/26/2010 9:52:58 PM PDT by Islander7 (If you want to anger conservatives, lie to them. If you want to anger liberals, tell them the truth.)
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To: Islander7

Matthews, Olbermann and Maddow have been brain dead for years, only they don’t know it or refuse to acknowledge it.

Otherwise, how do you think they got their jobs as MSNBC?


17 posted on 10/26/2010 10:00:54 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: SeekAndFind

I know 3 people who have had near death experiences. My dad did during cardiac surgery. He told me he was floating above the table and watched the whole surgery. He wouldn’t talk about it.

The next one I learned of was a very dear friend who was in a coma for several weeks after a diabetic episode. He said he walked around as a “being of light” while he was out of his body.

The third one was from a little girl. There was a fire in her home and as a 2 year old she couldn’t get out. She was dead from smoke inhalation when they brought her out of the house, but the firefighters wouldn’t give up and brought her back. Little kids that age don’t have a lot of words to use yet, but over the next several years she told her parents how Jesus met her and sat with her and gave her cheerios (her favorite thing in the world at the time). Then he told her she needed to go back to her parents.


18 posted on 10/26/2010 10:11:43 PM PDT by Grammy
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To: SeekAndFind

My mother had a surgery (very bad one) and she said she came out of her body and floated above watching the procedure.


19 posted on 10/26/2010 10:12:38 PM PDT by Vicki (Washington State where anyone can vote .... illegals, non-residents, dead people, dogs, felons)
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To: Revolting cat!

I believe strongly in an afterlife, in encountering Christ after our physical death, and in the likelihood that some people have had out-of-body experiences. But I’ll bet some of the events that took place were not supernatural experiences but were due to inadequate anesthesia.

When I had surgery several years ago I didn’t have an out-of-body experience, but I clearly heard the surgeon and assistant surgeon joshing during my procedure. Later, when I repeated their conversation, my surgeon was very embarrassed. It’s clear that one can be paralyzed and anesthetized but still hear. That could explain a few of these reports (though certainly not all!)


20 posted on 10/26/2010 10:19:55 PM PDT by ottbmare (off-the-track Thoroughbred mare)
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