What is your take on this sort of NDE's?

Hourglassmemory

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What is your take on the sort of Near Death Experiences where people say they moved out of their bodies and were able to go to other places and what they later declared was then confirmed by other people, such as family? Where people 'come back' and are able to say what the doctors said and where the machines were.

What's your take on this sort of events?
 
Unprovable.

By this, I mean that I have yet to see the results of a controlled experiment wherein someone was killed and then rescuscitated to report their experiences.

Any volunteers?
 
To ask for a controlled experiment in this matter is asking for the impossible. If you intend on requiring controlled near death experiments you will never have your requirements met. It's like asking for physical evidence of God, or a controlled experiment with god so you can prove he is god.

I think the only way for this kind of phenomena to be examined is by comparing the statements made by the person who had the NDE and checking it against reality.

For example, there was a case where a woman had a NDE. I do not have the specifics with me, but I will recount what I read off of memory. She claimed that she went out of her body and saw another family that she knew. She claimed that she was being reborn as their child, but before she could go into the womans womb she was brought back to life by the doctors. She told the doctors and nurses around her this immediately after being brought back to life. The scientist who took these statements from her and the doctors checked on the woman of the family she mentioned seeing. It turned out that while the initial woman was having her NDE the other woman had gone into labor, and had a stillborn child.

Now this does not prove anything by itself. It is entirely possible that it was just a coincidence. However if there were hundreds or even thousands of cases like this where a person was able to show that while having a NDE they gained knowledge about something they shouldn't have knowledge about, this would provide what I would consider strong evidence that there is something going on there that we don't currently understand.
 
Hourglassmemory said:
What is your take on the sort of Near Death Experiences where people say they moved out of their bodies and were able to go to other places and what they later declared was then confirmed by other people, such as family? Where people 'come back' and are able to say what the doctors said and where the machines were.

What's your take on this sort of events?
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Cite?
 
The_Animus said:
To ask for a controlled experiment in this matter is asking for the impossible.
Click to expand...

Actually, there have been experiments. Something is placed on the top of a cupboard in an operating theatre where no-one can see it. If people claim to have an out of body experience and see the whole room they should be able to read it. So far not a single person has passed this kind of test.

Reports of OBEs are always very similar. Things which are known or expected, such as the position of furniture or the presence of a particular person and a specific time, are often very accurate, while things that are unexpected or change are usually completely wrong. If OBEs were real, why would they have no more information than a memory or dream?
 
The Animus,

To ask for a controlled experiment in this matter is asking for the impossible.
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That's just too bad. Just because the nature of the claim is such that the normal standards of evidence cannot be met for it, does not mean that we should lower the standards of evidence with respect to that claim.

Standards of evidence are dictated by what is necessary to show that the claim is likely to be true, not by what is practical (or even possible) to test.

If you intend on requiring controlled near death experiments you will never have your requirements met. It's like asking for physical evidence of God, or a controlled experiment with god so you can prove he is god.
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I agree. The very nature of the claim that a god exists is such that it could never be justified by any sort of reliable evidence. All that means is that it is a claim that we could never have a rational reason for believing. The flaw here lies with the nature of the claim, not with the standards of evidence.

For example, there was a case where a woman had a NDE. I do not have the specifics with me, but I will recount what I read off of memory. She claimed that she went out of her body and saw another family that she knew. She claimed that she was being reborn as their child, but before she could go into the womans womb she was brought back to life by the doctors. She told the doctors and nurses around her this immediately after being brought back to life. The scientist who took these statements from her and the doctors checked on the woman of the family she mentioned seeing. It turned out that while the initial woman was having her NDE the other woman had gone into labor, and had a stillborn child.
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Great. Now, in light of all we know about how the world works, which of the following possible explanations for this is more likely?

1) That while this woman was dead, her mind left her body, and somehow manifested non-corporal mechanisms for sensing the world around it. That this mind sought out an unborn child of a family that she just happened to know, so that it could take residence in it, and then returned to her old body when the doctors brought her back.

2) That she imagined the whole thing, and that the reason she saw that family in her dream was because she knew they were about to have a baby, and it is just a coincidence that the baby was stillborn?

It seems to me that number (2) is a far more reasonable explanation. Especially when you consider that if the baby had not been stillborn, it would still seem like just as much of a "hit".

Now this does not prove anything by itself. It is entirely possible that it was just a coincidence. However if there were hundreds or even thousands of cases like this where a person was able to show that while having a NDE they gained knowledge about something they shouldn't have knowledge about, this would provide what I would consider strong evidence that there is something going on there that we don't currently understand.
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I don't follow your reasoning here. The example you gave is not an example of a person gaining knowledge about something they shouldn't know about, so your question about there being hundreds more like it does not even make any sense. You haven't even presented one such case yet, much less hundreds or thousands.


Dr. Stupid
 
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Hourglassmemory said:
What is your take on the sort of Near Death Experiences where people say they moved out of their bodies and were able to go to other places and what they later declared was then confirmed by other people, such as family? Where people 'come back' and are able to say what the doctors said and where the machines were.

What's your take on this sort of events?
Click to expand...

I think that they are just having some sort of dream.

As for things being confirmed by other people: I doubt that there confirmations were not less than rigourous since the people doing the confirmations are often overwhelmed by the good news that their loved one did not actually die after all.
 
If someone reported a NDE after verified brain death, rather than temporary heart stoppage, I'd be much more impressed. And what is so remarkable about NDEs in which the patient "looked down" and saw him or herself on the operating table? When I dream or remember things I almost always see myself from the outside.
 
Gravy said:
Far, far more likely that it's a lie.
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If memory serves this claim was investigated by either Dr. Ian Stevenson, or one of his colleges. This doesn't mean it can't be a lie, but I don't believe it to be because he interviewed the doctors and nurses that were with the woman at the time. So they would all have to be in on it.

Cuddles said:
Actually, there have been experiments. Something is placed on the top of a cupboard in an operating theatre where no-one can see it. If people claim to have an out of body experience and see the whole room they should be able to read it. So far not a single person has passed this kind of test.

Reports of OBEs are always very similar. Things which are known or expected, such as the position of furniture or the presence of a particular person and a specific time, are often very accurate, while things that are unexpected or change are usually completely wrong. If OBEs were real, why would they have no more information than a memory or dream?
Click to expand...

I would agree that most OBE experiences are nothing of importance, nor are they any indication of any sort of paranormal experience. Further you cannot necessarily set up an experiment such as that. If the claim is paranormal in nature and there is no current scientific evidence or understanding of it then how can you be sure that the paranormal event will conform to how you believe it should work? Perhaps in true NDE's the person has no control over where they go when they seperate from their body? If this was the case then there is no guarantee that the person would ever see or be able to read the item placed on the shelf.

Stimpson J. Cat said:
Great. Now, in light of all we know about how the world works, which of the following possible explanations for this is more likely?

1) That while this woman was dead, her mind left her body, and somehow manifested non-corporal mechanisms for sensing the world around it. That this mind sought out an unborn child of a family that she just happened to know, so that it could take residence in it, and then returned to her old body when the doctors brought her back.

2) That she imagined the whole thing, and that the reason she saw that family in her dream was because she knew they were about to have a baby, and it is just a coincidence that the baby was stillborn?

It seems to me that number (2) is a far more reasonable explanation. Especially when you consider that if the baby had not been stillborn, it would still seem like just as much of a "hit".
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I agree completely. Number 2 is a far more reasonable explanation. I don't think that any conclusion should be based upon just that example.

Stimpson J. Cat said:
I don't follow your reasoning here. The example you gave is not an example of a person gaining knowledge about something they shouldn't know about, so your question about there being hundreds more like it does not even make any sense. You haven't even presented one such case yet, much less hundreds or thousands.
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She did have knowledge about something she shouldn't. I said this was going from memory and as such I did not include every little detail about this particular incident. I'm not trying to prove anything. This isn't my own thread, and I'm not making any claim.

If memory serves, the woman did not know the other family's wife was in labor before she got in the accident and had her NDE. The woman said she felt like she was being reincarnated as that woman's baby, but was brought back before she was able to. So she had two potential pieces of knowledge that she shouldn't. One being that the woman was in labor, and two that the child was stillborn.

Again, I am not saying this is my personal belief. I am simply recounting incidents I have read about. I am in favor of more research in the area of NDE and reincarnation experiences though.
 
I had an NDE triggered by a heroin overdose.

I did a shot of good junk, a little too good I suppose. I sank bank into a couch, and as I fell into the couch, I just kept falling, and falling, and the blackness closed in all around me until everything was black.

No white lights, no floating around the room, no floating feeling. No feeling whatsoever. Just unconsciousness and blackness.

I regained consciousness, but I was still incoherent and confused, and found myself struggling instictively. It was only then when I saw a white light: the blinding halogen lights they install above the emergency room table.

As I started to gain lucidity, I recognized the setting: it was a hospital, and I was surrounded by paramedics and doctors. One of the doctors said "You were dead, son!" and another added "It's a miracle." I consider it's possible that I was being lied to, just to "scare me straight." I have no idea if I was really dead or how they even define "dead".

Almost an hour elapsed since I overdosed but it only seemed like a minute.

As a heroin overdose causes oxygen deprivation there was plenty of chances for my brain to undergo hallucinations, like white lights, floating around, talking to God, meeting my dead relatives, and so forth. But no such luck. Just blackness.
 
The_Animus said:
If memory serves, the woman did not know the other family's wife was in labor before she got in the accident and had her NDE. The woman said she felt like she was being reincarnated as that woman's baby, but was brought back before she was able to. So she had two potential pieces of knowledge that she shouldn't. One being that the woman was in labor, and two that the child was stillborn.
Click to expand...

She did not say the child was stillborn.
 
The_Animus said:
...snip...


She did have knowledge about something she shouldn't. I said this was going from memory and as such I did not include every little detail about this particular incident. I'm not trying to prove anything. This isn't my own thread, and I'm not making any claim.

If memory serves, the woman did not know the other family's wife was in labor before she got in the accident and had her NDE. The woman said she felt like she was being reincarnated as that woman's baby, but was brought back before she was able to. So she had two potential pieces of knowledge that she shouldn't. One being that the woman was in labor, and two that the child was stillborn.

Again, I am not saying this is my personal belief. I am simply recounting incidents I have read about. I am in favor of more research in the area of NDE and reincarnation experiences though.
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A quick question - did she actually state all of this prior to being told about the stillborn labour?
 
Hourglassmemory said:
What is your take on the sort of Near Death Experiences where people say they moved out of their bodies and were able to go to other places and what they later declared was then confirmed by other people, such as family? Where people 'come back' and are able to say what the doctors said and where the machines were.

What's your take on this sort of events?
Click to expand...

My take is that they can tell us interesting things about the way our brains work. But that it is not necessary for there to be a mind that separates from the body in order to have these sensations or to generate these memories.

Linda
 
The_Animus said:
If memory serves, the woman did not know the other family's wife was in labor before she got in the accident and had her NDE. The woman said she felt like she was being reincarnated as that woman's baby, but was brought back before she was able to. So she had two potential pieces of knowledge that she shouldn't. One being that the woman was in labor, and two that the child was stillborn.

Again, I am not saying this is my personal belief. I am simply recounting incidents I have read about. I am in favor of more research in the area of NDE and reincarnation experiences though.
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If this woman knew the other family, she must have known the woman was near delivery time. It's also possible she had a history of difficult childbirth and the "womb watcher" knew this. We can't really know whether she lied about the whole incident or just reached some conclusions subconsciously.
 
The_Animus said:
I would agree that most OBE experiences are nothing of importance, nor are they any indication of any sort of paranormal experience. Further you cannot necessarily set up an experiment such as that. If the claim is paranormal in nature and there is no current scientific evidence or understanding of it then how can you be sure that the paranormal event will conform to how you believe it should work? Perhaps in true NDE's the person has no control over where they go when they seperate from their body? If this was the case then there is no guarantee that the person would ever see or be able to read the item placed on the shelf.
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It's the claim made by those who believe OBEs are paranormal. They claim that they see the room as though floating around outside their bodies, and this claim can, and has been, tested. It really doesn't matter if they can control what they see. If they can see the room while unconcious, why can they only see things they already know about, but not things that change? If you want to come up with a different claim, feel free, but the claims that are actually made are easily tested.

Edit: I'll relate an example which I've used before. My father is a surgeon. He was once sued by a person who claimed that she had had an OBE while undergoing surgery and that she had seen my father and another doctor (who had been the first doctor to see her) insulting her, laughing at her and putting things inside her body (as in foreign objects, rather than the things they were supposed to be putting in there). Aside from the fact that all the witnesses disagreed with her, it turned out that the other doctor she claimed was there was actually on holiday in India at the time. The entire thing was completely made up. Of course it's possible, probable even, that she didn't make this up on purpose, it was most likely a very vivid dream, and this is not especially uncommon. The point is, she made a paranormal claim about OBEs which was provably wrong. The same can be done for all other claims. If they see something they could not possibly have known, there may be something going on. If they don't see anything that they wouldn't have known anyway, there is no need to make up paranormal explanations. If they claim things which are provably false, there definitely is nothing paranormal happening.
 
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To me, one of the more interesting (if mundane) aspects of "this sort of NDE" is something it shares with most other examples of paranormal phenomena: the phenomenon grows in the telling. An anecdotal account of someone looking down on their body becomes a highly controlled situation where the doctors, who verified that there was no brain activity, could not explain how the patient listened in on a highly detailed conversation that was taking place 3 doors down, looked into her file and can report a 13-digit random number accurately, and popped down to the cafeteria where she sampled the soup du jour and found it too salty. Explain that, mister skeptic!
 
It's not so much that they grow in the telling (after all I may recount an incident in a cursory manner when I first mention it and it's only when asked about the incident that I will mention more details). It's how they seem to grow. E.g. the additional details always seem to either support a "supernatural" interpretation or refute a non-supernatural interpretation.
 
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