Near Death Experience?

Freebird · Near Death Experience?

It seems that almost everyone that have had an Near Death Experience, claims to experience the same thing on near death they claim to see themselfs leaving their own body, all pain goes away, they then come to a tunnel with a light at the end and then they either are met by someone (already known to be dead a number of years) who tells them it's NOT THEIR TIME YET and to go back or they get sucked back to life at great speed.

There was once programme on TV about a women that had under gone
an operation and had clinicaly died on the operating table, she said that she'd felt herself floating up towards ceiling and could see her own body laying below her on the operating table . After being resuscitated by doctors she was able to exactly tell everyone who did what in the operation. Even though she'd been asleep from the antiseptic !
And then had heard the doctors pronounce her dead then resuscitate
her

What do you guys think about Near Death Experience?

italianguy · near-death experience (NDE)

A near-death experience (NDE) is the perception reported by a person who nearly died or who was clinically dead and revived. The experience is somewhat common, especially since the development of cardiac resuscitation techniques. According to a Gallup poll approximately eight million Americans claim to have had a near-death experience. The experience often includes an out-of-body experience.

The phenomenology of the NDE
The phenomenology of an NDE usually includes physiological, psychological and transcendental categories such as subjective impressions of being outside the physical body (an out-of-body experience), transcendence of ego and spatiotemporal boundaries, and other transcendental experiences.

Typically the experience follows a distinct progression as summarized in the following points:

1. The sudden awareness that one has had a "fatal" accident and not survived.
2. An out-of-body experience. A sensation of floating above one's body and seeing the surrounding area.
3. Pleasant feelings, calmness. A sense of overwhelming love and peace.
4. A sensation of moving upwards through a tunnel or narrow passageway.
5. Meeting deceased relatives or spiritual figures.
6. Encountering a being of light, or a light (possibly a religious figure, e.g., Jesus Christ / God the Father, Buddha).
7. Being given a life review.
8. A feeling of being returned to the body, often accompanied by a reluctance to return.

A 'core' near-death experience reflects peace, joy and harmony, followed by insight and mystical or religious experiences. The most intense NDEs involve an awareness of things occurring in a different place or time. Among the clinical circumstances that are thought to lead to an NDE we find such factors as: cardiac arrest, shock in postpartum loss of blood or in perioperative complications, septic or anaphylactic shock, electrocution, coma, intracerebral haemorrhage or cerebral infarction, attempted suicide, near-drowning or asphyxia, apnoea, serious depression.

As an afterlife experience
Many commentators see near death experiences as an afterlife experience. This often implies the view that the NDE can not be explained by physiological or psychological causes only, and that consciousness, in some instances, might function independently of brain activity. Some NDE-accounts include elements that, according to some theorists, are most simply explained by an out-of-body consciousness. For example, in one account, a woman accurately described a surgical instrument she had not seen previously, as well as a conversation that occurred while she was understood to be clinically dead. In another account, from a proactive Dutch NDE study, a nurse removed the dentures of an unconscious heart attack victim, and was asked by him after his recovery to return them.

Many people who experience an NDE tend to see it as a verification of the existence of an afterlife. Core NDE experiencers, in particular, tend to be convinced of the reality of the experience as an intimation of the afterlife. This includes those with agnostic/atheist inclinations before the experience. Many former atheists, such as the The Rev. Howard Storm have adopted a more spiritual view of life after their NDEs. Howard Storm's NDE might also be characterized as a distressing near-death experience. The distressing aspects of some NDE's are discussed more closely by Greyson & Bush.

In some instances there might be ambiguity between medical and spiritual facts. There exist reports about, what appear to be, connections between deceased persons and persons who have had an NDE. These visualizations happen over a long period after the NDE. Ken Mullens (1992;1995), who was clinically dead for more than 20 minutes, reported spiritual encounters in his life after his NDE. As he reported, deceased persons he communicated with were often unknown to him, but were connected to people he met at a later point. While many such reports are criticized and discredited by the scientific field they remain a mystery. Since they have no apparent medical or physical explanation they might be said to belong to the interpretative and phenomenological dimension of the NDE, as investigated by the field of Near-death studies.

The mathematician John Wren-Lewis (1985), after his NDE, found himself in a more or less permanent state of equanimity, of contact with the void and with no separate existence from the whole.

In support of an after-life interpretation one might point out that neurobiological models often fail to explain NDEs that result from close brushes with death where the brain does not actually suffer trauma, such as a near-miss automobile accident. Regardless of the origin of the phenomenon, the subjective experience of NDEs is well-documented by the field of Near-Death Studies.

As a naturalistic experience
Other commentators see near death experiences as a purely naturalistic phenomenon. According to this perspective the cause of the NDE might be understood as a result of neurobiological mechanisms, related to such factors as anomalous temporal-lobe functioning, epilepsy, compression of the optic nerve (as a cause of the tunnel sensation), chemical changes in the brain related to serotonin and endorphins, and general changes in brain functioning. The similarities amongst the experiences of the many documented cases of NDE may be understood to signify that the pathology of the brain during the dying and reviving process is more or less the same in all humans, as suggested by Russian specialist Dr. Vladimir Negovsky.

Among the studies that support a naturalistic interpretation we find the research of Blanke et.al, published in Nature Magazine, who found that electrical stimulation of the brain region known as the right angular gyrus repeatedly caused out-of-body experiences in the patient; though the patient did not report seeing her own face, for example. Researchers have largely been unsuccessful in running proactive experiments to establish out-of-body consciousness. There have been numerous experiments in which a random message was placed in a hospital in a manner that it would be invisible to patients or staff yet visible to a floating being, but so far, according to Blackmore, these experiments have only provided equivocal results and no clear signs of ESP.

A well-known scientific hypothesis that attempts to explain NDEs was originally suggested by Dr. Karl Jansen and deals with accounts of the side-effects of the drug Ketamine. Ketamine was used as an anesthetic on U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War; but its use was abandoned and never spread to civilian use because the soldiers complained about sensations of floating above their body and seeing bright lights. Further experiments by numerous researchers verified that intravenous injections of ketamine could reproduce all of the commonly cited features of an NDE; including a sense that the experience is "real" and that one is actually dead, separation from the body, visions of loved ones, and transcendent mystical experiences. Ketamine acts in part by blocking the NMDA receptor for the neurotransmitter glutamate. Glutamate is released in abundance when brain cells die, and if it weren't blocked, the glutamate overload would cause other brain cells to die as well. In the presence of excess glutamate, the brain releases its own NMDA receptor blocker to defend itself; and it is these blockers Dr. Jansen (amongst others) hypothesize as the cause of many NDEs.

Critics of Jansen's hypothesis point out that although some aspects of the experience may be similar, not all NDEs exactly fit the ketamine experience; and that while it might be possible to chemically simulate the experience, this does not refute the possibility that spontaneous NDEs have a spiritual component.

Indeed Dr. Jansen's own shifting perspective on the conclusions to be drawn from the ketamine-NDE analogy has been notable. He started out as an unequivocal debunker of the notion that NDE's are evidence of a spiritual (or at least transnormal) realm. But with time he has developed a more agnostic hypothesis: that ketamine may in fact be one particularly powerful trigger of authentic spiritual experiences - of which near-death may be another. In each case, according to Jansen's more recent pronouncements, all we can say is that the subject gets catapulted out of ordinary 'egoic' consciousness into an altered state - we cannot comfortably rule out the possibility that the 'worlds' disclosed in these 'trips' have ontological status. Latterly, therefore, Jansen's position appears closer to thinkers like Daniel Pinchbeck, who has written a book on hallucinogenic shamanism, and other names like Carl Jung, Ken Wilber and Stanislav Grof, than to thinkers like Susan Blackmore or Nicholas Humphrey, who represent a sceptical position.

Related to the findings of Jansen we find the work of Strassman who induced near death experiences (in addition to some different naturally-occurring altered states of being) in a clinical setting by injecting subjects with DMT, a powerful psychedelic tryptamine. Because DMT is a chemical that is produced endogenously in the human pineal gland it might be relevant to the study of NDE's and other mystical, religious, and transpersonal experiences. Related to the findings of Jansen we also find the theory of Shawn Thomas, director of Neurotransmitter.net, who has suggested that the neurotransmitter agmatine is the key substance involved in near-death experiences.

It is generally accepted that some people who reported NDEs were shown to have approached the clinical boundary between life and death. However, in support of a naturalistic interpretation of NDE's one might argue that it is not shown that the experiences themselves took place in any time other than just before the clinical death, or in the process of being revived. In altered states of consciousness such as this and during dream states or under the influence of drugs, the subjective perception of time is often dilated.

Spiritual and psychological after-effects
NDE subjects often report long-term after-effects, and changes in worldview, such as increased interest in spirituality, greater appreciation for life, increased interest in the meaning of life, increased empathic understanding, decrease in fear of death, higher self-esteem, greater compassion for others, heightened sense of purpose and self-understanding, desire to learn, greater ecological sensitivity and planetary concern, a feeling of being more intuitive or psychic. Greyson notes that Near-death experiences are associated with enhanced purpose in life, appreciation of life and with reduced fear of death, but also with adverse effects, such as posttraumatic stress symptoms. Some subjects also report internal feelings of bodily energy and/or altered states of consciousness similar to those associated with the yogic concept of kundalini.

Greyson developed The Near-Death Experience Scale in order to measure the after-effects of a near-death experience. Researchers have pointed out that the aftermath of the experience can be associated with both positive and healthy outcomes related to personality and appreciation for life, but also a spectrum of clinical problems in situations where the person has had difficulties with the experience. These difficulties are usually connected to the interpretation of the experience and the integration of it into everyday life. The near-death experience as a focus of clinical attention, and the inclusion of a new diagnostic category in the DSM-IV called "Religious or spiritual problem", is discussed more closely by Greyson and Lukoff, Lu & Turner.

Simpson notes that the number of people that have experienced an NDE might be higher than the number of cases that are actually reported. It is not unusual for near-death experiencers to feel profound insecurity related to how they are going to explain something that the surrounding culture perceives as a strange, paranormal incident.