http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2783030/Research-near-death-experiences-reveals-awareness-continue-brain-shut-down.html

I heard about this on a BBC broadcast yesterday morning. This is the link I could find to a newly released study on what happens in near death experiences. The article is short and it is easier to say "read it!" instead of summarizing a summary here.

What do you think?

Here is a link to the published study

http://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572%2814%2900739-4/fulltext

The glaring question: Why is not continued consciousness experienced in every case of clinical death and resuscitation?

Until that question is answered and proved, these cases appear as hallucinations or confabulations.

crossbow

A medium I have been reading recently states that the reason why everyone doesn't have these experiences is precisely because they are not for everyone. The memories brought back have a purpose in that person's life -- and, perhaps, those nearby, or those who hear of it.

Once an understanding of the reality of an afterlife takes hold, it is then sometimes difficult to believe the extent of the purposefulness of our experiences, and how they are tweaked during our lives here, and how well we are understood by those looking out for us from the other side. This is something that causes me to continually test it, because I don't want to be "making it up" that I, too, experience this guidance.

Because I seldom do formal types of meditation anymore I look/feel around my daily life for this evidence. It's subtle, but it's there, and I know that more formal meditation is not actually necessary, although it is an important training ground for the mind and the emotions.

Of course, I have gone off on a tangent now. But, the point is, everyone doesn't have these nde's because they don't need to have them.

Perhaps you're right, seagull. Although "everyone not having these nde's because they don't need to have them" is an idea or perhaps a belief, but is not a reason that would satisfy the scientific establishment, and cannot be presented to the public as a proof. The study and subject matter is interesting though.

I expect one day that demonstrable proof will come, not from vague statistical studies, but rather from technology such as a means of inducing a definite out-of-body state and by imaging equipment. 

That is an interesting prospect, but where does such technology lead? I wonder how such information can be misused if not shared by choice.

In another view, it would be one step closer to a world more like the spirit world if people's inner worlds could be shared with one another in a way more akin to telepathy.

However, I have my doubts about how one might replicate an nde with machinery here in the physical world. The sensory states that appear to be occurring for folks entering the afterlife are said by experiencers to be different from anything they have encountered while going about their daily lives.

Is it true mind-reading that we are moving towards with our technology? Or would our data be merely one more kind of illusion that confuses us further?

seagull wrote on Nov 6^th, 2014 at 7:47am:

That is an interesting prospect, but where does such technology lead? I wonder how such information can be misused if not shared by choice. In another view, it would be one step closer to a world more like the spirit world if people's inner worlds could be shared with one another in a way more akin to telepathy. However, I have my doubts about how one might replicate an nde with machinery here in the physical world. The sensory states that appear to be occurring for folks entering the afterlife are said by experiencers to be different from anything they have encountered while going about their daily lives. Is it true mind-reading that we are moving towards with our technology? Or would our data be merely one more kind of illusion that confuses us further?

People do not want others to see what is really in their minds. People have layers of thought; their surface thoughts, their under-thoughts, their stored thoughts, their emotional desires, and the content of their heart. And in nearly everyone these layers are an unpleasant sight. And everyone's ugliness would be visible if we were telepathic. And we know our own ugliness exists, even if we are only partly conscious of it, like we know some things would hurt, even before they do. And so their exists an innate reflex that guards against telepathy and mind-reading.   

People are not as conscious of their body's functions as the body is - it runs itself by autonomic process without them being conscious of it. So too, the mind; people fancy they are in control of their own thoughts and think they know their own minds, but few pay attention to what they really think, or even notice how their mind operates. And denial is not just a thing of the conscious mind, but of the under-thoughts and of the heart as well. But the autonomic mind functions regardless of one's consciousness of it. It knows what's best.   

People mostly fancy they are better than they are; they believe their own false motives and intensions; they fancy their weakness are virtues; they concoct their own spectrum of what is right and wrong, and good and bad, and place themselves somewhere upon that spectrum that is acceptable to them. People justify almost everything they do; they are obsessed with seeing themselves as good and in the right. Most people cannot face themselves as they are, they hold a false perception, they can barely glance towards the truth of themselves.

They do not differentiate between who they are, who they like to think they are, and who they know they aught to be. And who can blame them? Such truth would be a painful thing, and would set them up as prey for all their fellow predators. Other people's guilt and shame is what most people in the western world feed on, as weakness is what most in the non-western world feed on.

Truth, strength of freewill and individual responsibility and reliance, understanding of one's fellow man, love and forgiveness, may not protect our bodies but protect our self from the predatory behaviour of our fellows. But few people understand these things, but many more would than do, for there are so many who try to dissuade those who would understand them from trying to. These are those who claim and preach that there is no truth, just individual perception and emotion; no organ of conscience, just a social/familial construct; no freewill, just environmental influence and disadvantage, Maslow's hierarchy (of excuses) and family of origin programming; no good or bad or right or wrong just individual and social values; no out-going true power of love and forgiveness, just the worship of feelings and emotions, and surface self interest and so-called loving and forgiving yourself. These fakes infest our institutions, love pride of place positions within the social sciences, portray themselves as caring people, tell others how to speak and think, mislead as many as they can down their dead end path, and stifle other people's genuine spiritual growth, just like their own.           

And so conscious telepathy has too many disadvantages in the world today. Individuals survive and gain their comfort by ignorance of themselves and of each other. Self interest and keeping it secret is what drives individuals and the world. Money is the means and incentive of human work, and the word's provisions, requirements and needs flow upon an economic system that depends upon discretion and secrecy. The stockmarket would collapse, all goods and services would cease to flow if all individuals were telepathic inside traders; all movement would be countered, paralysis would result. There would be no movement that naturally comes from advantage, only stalemate; no forward turning of the wheel. We need money, ignorance, discretion, secrecy, or we could not even play a game of tennis, let alone keep the world working.

But way into the future, maybe there will be a different system. One that we cannot fathom yet. Or maybe it will be the same system but on such a larger scale that the competing divisions we now see become like one interest, and greater divisions become apparent and with which we deal with.      

The current invasion of privacy through technology is preparing us for one day knowing about each other. It is an unpleasant step in the right direction. Eventually all will be known by anyone about everyone and the innate internal guard will no longer have its purpose and will relax.   

We already leave our bodies when we dismantle during sleep; but our consciousness usually only possesses degrees of observance and remembrance, with no freewill or intellect. And we already induce out-of-body states with general anaesthetic, but that state is usually unconscious. The type of consciousness externalised depends on which centre the consciousness externalises through, for each centre accommodates certain attributes of consciousness. It is not a great technological advancement to induce a full conscious out-of-body condition, with full observance and recall, and with freewill and intellect intact. We only have to know which centre to utilise, and then manipulate the central nervous system accordingly. And the ability to objectively image and record the event is probably not much further either.

Even so, technologically induced imaged and recorded out-of-body verification - no matter how convincing - is not enough on its own to prove such a matter to the race, and is small in weight compared to first hand experience. There is growing interest in pursuing first hand out-of-body experience, and down the track many will acquire the first hand out-of-body verification they seek, and by shear weight of numbers these people will spread a realisation of the possibility. 

Of course there are always those who would have invested interests in keeping technological developments contained, and in preventing widespread personal verifications, and they may utilise various suppressive measures, but such efforts are like trying to hold back the tide. A better approach would be to let things develop and ride the wave.             

1796 wrote on Nov 2^nd, 2014 at 8:38pm:

The glaring question: Why is not continued consciousness experienced in every case of clinical death and resuscitation? Until that question is answered and proved, these cases appear as hallucinations or confabulations. crossbow

The researcher that conducted this study, Dr. Parnia, feels that everyone has these experiences, but due to brain inflammation and the effects of anethesia on the brain's ability to process memory, most people don't remember them or only remember disjointed bits and pieces. I'll have to look around for where he said this, but he compared it to the idea that the brain is more like RAM than a hard drive when it comes to memory and these experiences.

I was going to write up my thoughts on the study when it first came out, but I never got around to it. Overall, I was happy that Parnia was able to get the case of Mr. A, and I feel that the study provides plenty to learn from. In the future, I feel that researchers should opt for a more body-centric target identification system, kind of like the one another researcher, Penny Sartori, set up. Sartori had the great idea of asking her OBE patients to describe their resuscitation and then compared these descriptions to a control that didn't have an experience. She found that those who experienced an OBE were significantly more accurate in their descriptions than the control group.

Yvvak wrote on Nov 12^th, 2014 at 7:30pm:

...The researcher that conducted this study, Dr. Parnia, feels that everyone has these experiences, but due to brain inflammation and the effects of anethesia on the brain's ability to process memory, most people don't remember them or only remember disjointed bits and pieces. ...

Yes, there seems to be some brain inflammation going around, especially amongst certain groups. Feminists come to mind.

By the way, the Chinese have been using acupuncture for anaesthesia since the sixties and probably earlier. It seems quite a simple procedure; teach the patient a particular breathing exercise, then put the right needles in the right acupuncture points, apply the right voltage to boost the effect, then commence surgery. A theatre nurse should be able to be trained to do that in a day. I doubt the western anaesthetists unions or associations as they prefer to be called would be happy about it though.   

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21570137

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-dWMpuYnwQ

Haphazardly shutting down the overall central nervous system is unlikely to produce a full conscious out-of-body condition with freewill and intellect intact, because different centres accommodate different attributes of consciousness, and if consciousness is to depart with all its faculties intact then it must depart via the centre which accommodates those faculties.

Now this acupuncture and voltage business, or something similar to it, if precisely and accurately applied, may be used to shut down any quarter of the central nervous system, and further more, may be used to progressively shut it down in a particular direction, lets say from tail to top, and in effect to contain and focus consciousness into one particular location - the location in the brain that most directly corresponds with the required centre of extraction and is also the location that serves as the last staging point of consciousness-to-brain contact before consciousness can full consciously leave the body. Return to body would be mostly automatic upon turning off the apparatus due to natural attraction.

Provided the required parts of the brain are healthy, then provide a little training of the patient/operative on how to cooperate with the process and manage himself when out-of-body, and hey-presto we're in business. It seems so easy, its a wonder it hasn't already been done.

Perhaps the comment on feminists is an example of some people thinking they are better than others. However, that tendency seems to be a way of imagining ourselves to be different from others by refusing to or being unable to see the inner core of others -- which is no different from ourselves. If you go deep enough, no difference. Just bright light.

Between the best and the worst of humanity are those who are better and worse than everyone else, and in every way possible.

As for me, I suppose I am better than some and worse than others.



My comment about feminists is about them being hot headed and unable to laugh at themselves.

Seagull, do you have any jokes about feminists that make you laugh?

Will edit my comment after going through the link. @TM Thanks!