Posted on 09/17/2011 3:16:55 PM PDT by NYer
DURHAM, N.C.—Grandma was just resuscitated. She wakes up and tells you a bizarre story of coming out of her body and going to heaven. Has she developed psychosis? Was her brain damaged from the lack of oxygen?
After over 30 years of research, scientists have concluded that this is not the case. Instead, they think that this phenomenon is something today’s science is yet to understand, and that it is an opportunity for the advancement of science.
The phenomenon was coined near-death experiences (NDEs) in the 1975 book “Life After Life” by Raymond Moody, M.D. and Ph.D. in philosophy and psychology. NDEs generally include cognitive, affective, paranormal, and transcendental experiences.
Examples of NDEs include experiencing a change in one’s perception and way of thinking, feeling peace or calmness, gaining extrasensory perception (ESP), going through a review of one’s life and seeing the effects of one’s actions on others, a feeling of leaving the body, seeing deceased people and other beings such as angels, and feeling as if one has entered another dimension.Greyson believes that NDEs are an indication that the mind is independent of the brain because impaired brain functions would be expected during the clinical situation that the NDErs underwent, but his research found no corresponding impairment of mental functions in NDErs.
“In most cases, people’s mental functioning is better in the NDE than [it] is during our normal waking life,” Greyson said during an interview with The Epoch Times.
“Their thinking is faster, is clearer, is more logical, they have more control over their chain of thought, their senses are more acute, their memories are more vivid.
“If you ask somebody about their near-death experience that happened 15 years ago, they tell it as if it happened yesterday. If you ask them [about] other experiences from their life at the same time, they are very fuzzy memories, if they have any at all.
“[…] When you think that these experiences, which are characterized by enhanced thought processes [that] takes place when the brain is not functioning well or sometimes not functioning at all since it is in cardiac arrest or deep anesthesia—times when brain science would tell us that you shouldn’t be able to think or perceive or form memories—it becomes quite clear that we can’t explain this thing on the basis of brain physiology.”
Another phenomenon related to NDEs is shared death experiences, in which a person close to a dying person experiences something with the same characteristics as NDEs.
Moody first heard about shared death experiences in 1972 from a medical professor of his. The professor’s mother had a cardiac attack, and when she was trying to resuscitate her mother, she felt herself leaving her body and saw her body resuscitating her mother. As her mother died, she saw her mother in spirit form, and the spirit met some beings, some of whom she could recognize as people whom her mother had known. Then, her mother and the other people were sucked into a tunnel.
After over 30 years of research, Moody estimates that shared death experiences are as common as NDEs. As he studied more of these cases over the years, he found that the features of shared death experiences are similar to those of NDEs.
One of the most common features of shared death experiences is that the shared death experiencer sees the spirit of the dying person, which appears as a transparent replica of the person, or an oval or sphere of light leaving from the head or chest of the dying person’s physical body, Moody told The Epoch Times in an interview.
Sometimes, the bystander would also experience the life review of the dying person. A woman in Georgia was documented as having talked with her husband’s spirit as she saw his life review when he was dying, and she also saw a being that identified herself as the miscarried daughter she and her husband had lost.
Moody thinks that shared death experiences act as strong evidence for the view that the mind exists independently of the brain, because the people experiencing them are in no way having impaired brain functions at the time.
“All of the features that I identify as the initial near-death experiences that I studied years ago are also present in people who have these experiences at the bedside, who incidentally are not ill or injured,” Moody said during his presentation at the conference.
“There’s nothing wrong with the oxygen flow to their brains, and yet they have identically the same experiences that I hear from people who did come close to death.”
“And omnipresent does not include nowhere.”
Who said anything about nowhere? Seems to be a comprehension problem here.
God is present in Hell (to repeat, see Rev 14).
Jesus describes hell as outer darkness, utterly separated from God.
Jesus describes hell as outer darkness, utterly separated from God.
Here’s the thing. If God is in hell then I cannot be separated from Him. He may be hands off but if He is there then I am with Him even in my desparation. That is not hell. It is life.
We’re NOT a body with a soul... we’re a soul that has a body...
Very nice. It was there for a reason and all of you received it. :^)
***In conclusion, these reports are interesting but are not evidence of an after life. Sorry!***
Maybe each person reacts differently. When I had open heart surgery I went to sleep and woke up with tubes in my mouth and nose. Nothing in between.
My mom, on the other hand, when she suffered massive burns began to die. She told us years later she was slowly pulled up into a tunnel, and at the end she saw the silhouette of Jesus. He did not beckon her and merely said he had three babies. The she began to recede from what she saw and woke up in the hospital room. The staff had given her up for dead but she revived. She lived a very religious life afterward.
She never told this to any of us till we were well into our forties.
I want to add this. Just before my mother died she was talking to my sister. Mom said there were two men dressed in black there, one a the foot of the bed and one setting in a chair there. Sis said there was no one there, but it sure put the scare in her.
I knew a woman who had this experience - this observation is correct.
On the other hand, there are too many incidents by folks not especially religious, who faced death and felt peace and a presence. This includes a lot of folks who lived through the "miracle on the Hudson" and others who faced death, but didn't have the hypoxia and drugs on board of those who died and were revived, so aren't included in the NDE experience.
I agree there is a strong cultural bias about this, and that there are a lot of reasons sceptics will not see in this a proof of life after death.
But some folks' lives change from the experience, and like falling in love, it is not easy to put into a logical box.
one more note: The movie Tombstone had Wyatt's brother not seeing anything when he died, but if you saw the whole thing, they had Doc Holliday seeing a light as he died in the hospital. I wouldn't rely on fiction to prove such things
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an interesting article titled "AFTERLIFE." The article has a discussion on NDE's and gives additional websites where on can find further articles on the subject.
Once again I think a more naturalistic approach to NDE's will provide more information on their nature than will a "metaphysical" approach.
As far as I'm concerned there is too much variability in the subject matter of the reports upon which to base a theory that they represent a reality of an afterlife.
Perhaps you weren't clinically dead; but only in suspended animation. By no means should you conclude that you are damned unless you have neglected biblical learning in this life and are living in a state of fear and condemnation of the Holy Spirit. If so, get busy and start learning the Word, because we all die permanently at some point, and no one knows when.
Wonderful links. Thanks!
I remember that moment and it was astonishing! GB had wanted a military fly-over but it was denied by the Park Service. Those geese were, in a way, even better!
When I first started reading your story of your dad and his miraculous fly-over, I immediately thought of the Beck thing before I arrived at your link. It was also truly miraculous.
I agree! The geese flyover made a much more poignant opening.
Geese would normally scatter like mad at the sight of people standing or clapping loudly - sounds like gunfire.
Not those geese. They maintained their formation - they had a message to deliver!
Including that they were imperfect-- a few were struggling to keep up. As an example to us, much more "natural."
People who utterly reject God and refuse to open their hearts to Him cannot experience His presence. If they change, they will experience His presence. Doesn’t mean He was not actually present when their hearts were closed to him.
If I close my physical eyes, I am in darkness, even if the sun is up. If a person closes his heart to God’s existence, he is away from God, although God never went away.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.