I've always been fascinated by "Near Death Experiences"; mostly for the fact that many of them share the same "themes":



The "tunnel w/ light at the end"



Kindred spirits helping them along



Having to be "sent back"





I always thought it was pretty cool that folks from all over the world, and from different cultures had similar experiences at the time of, and during death.



Here's a website w/ lots of Near Death Experiences:



http://www.near-death.com/



Pretty interesting stuff.





Please, no Religion Bashing in this thread (save it for the obvious troll threads)

I'm not religious and have no need to defend my personal beliefs.
Speed

I thought this was another Glock thread.

first post wins



 

I had one a year ago this coming Tuesday. Heart stopped twice in the back of an ambulance after the onset of a viral infection triggered a rapid series of vasovagal episodes.

At the time I got sick I was in kind of a funk. I had just lost my job, it felt like the country was going to shit and the woman I love was several hours away at med school and I felt we were growing apart; not depressed, just plain bored with life as it was. I can't tell you how intensely I wanted to live during that day. No bright lights or existentialism, just the certainty that I was not going to die this way.

tag for later reading

I have had one episode back in 1994 that I believe to be a near death experience and I believe it to be just that, but nothing like what others have describe that I've read and research since then, I still remember it vividly.

In a nutshell:

Laid down to nap during one afternoon, room was dark, I am not sure when I fell asleep or if I did, but this all took place in 10 minutes, I know because I checked the clock just as I laid down and checked it again after this:

I remember being outside facing what looked like an early Morning Sunrise or near Sunset, the Sun being warm and quite orange, there was a heavy fog or mist which also took up the Sunlight in an orange glow surrounding me, I felt warm and tranquil, also felt quite happy too. I heard Childrens voices and giggles, like they were out and about playing, I even saw their shadows in the orange glow towards the sun. I stood there and listened for awhile trying to figure out to what they were saying because it was not English.
I started to walk towards them and then it happened, something or someone grab my shoulder and said something in another tongue and that's when I opened my eyes and started gasping for air, and along came the nasty headache. I have never to this day experienced something so vivid and real unconscious or near it, I know it was not a dream, I don't know what the hell it was.

Fuggin' Creepy

Never had one, but I'm pretty sure eventually we ALL will.

My grandmother claims she had one when she gave birth to my mother in 1950. She says she was "clinically dead" for short time, according to the doctor.

She said she was traveling down a tunnel at extreme speed, and she heard a voice which she described as "evil" which said repeatedly, "Eternity, eternity ... no beginning and no end". She said she "knew" — without knowing how she knew — that she was going to "hell".

When she was brought back, she was scared out of her wits. She wasn't familiar with religion at the time. She wasn't raised in church, and had never been to church before. She immediately found a church to go to. She eventually became a pastor of her own church and did that for over 40 years until she was afflicted with Alzheimer's disease about 10 years ago. I found out about an hour ago that she is currently on her death bed. I guess she will soon find out what's on the other side.

Wow.



Sorry to hear that man.
Speed



 

I had one in 1989. I was in the burn unit, and had been intubated for several days. The doctor wanted the tube out to see how I would do on my own. I apparently did fine for a few hours, just long enough for the fluid to build up in my lungs. I drowned, basically, and coded. Of course, I was whacked out on morphine and not really involved in anything that was going on. I recall an overwhelming sense of peace and calm, with no sensation of pain or anxiety whatsoever. When I was revived, I recall being a little irked - like when someone wakes you up from a deep sleep.

I was revived by a nurse named Angela.

Every time I see a female behind the wheel.

Bump.





Happy Labor Day!
Speed

One time I sneezed and farted at the same time.

The reason it's so similar all over the world is that everybody's brain suffers the same effect similarly.

I believe that a NDE is not a religious experience as well.





Idk about them being like normal dreams though...a lot of folks are DEAD, dead...no brainwave activity

Experiencers describe them as being "more real than real"...some type of hyper-reality; completely different than lucid dreams or physical reality.



But, who's to say? I'm just reading stories, lol.



I've never had an experience like that.
Speed



 

I was run over by a hit and run driver when I was 14.  I was a pedestrian, he was in a 4x4 doing at least 55 when he drove through the parking lot and hit me (he was drunk).  Bent me sideways over the hood, threw me 50-odd feet through the air.  Fortunately the asphalt and my hard head broke my fall. Broken arm, leg, back, fractured skull, shattered teeth, broken ribs, crushed liver and spleen, and a partridge in a pear tree.  Also massive head trauma and death.  I was not breathing, no heart beat, with no pupil response for between 4 and 8 minutes, depending on who you ask.  I was a meat pretzel, with my left leg rotated and wrapped up around my torso like a rag doll, arms twisted every which way. A guy was nearby and gave aid.  He had been a medic in Viet Nam and told me later in the hospital he'd never seen anyone live through something like that.





I did have an unusual experience.  I don't refer to it as a near death experience.  There was nothing "near" about it.





I won't really go into the details here.  As it's GD.   And it's a serious subject to me and it won't be taken seriously here.





But if you were to read the book "Life After Life" by Dr. Raymond Moody, I believe you will find stories similar to mine.  I had the "light" experience.





Some people believe, some don't.  I don't care.  You'll all find out one day, one way or the other.



<edited to correct title of the book>

My grandfather had one while in the hospital.  He stated everything went dark and he remembers crying "Father help me I am scared" he said light and comfort were then found. He later told my Mom should he die do not resuscitate, that with the experience everything would be ok. He died a year later.

Great stories thanks for sharing the website.

This backs up other articles I've read on the issue.



Near-Death Experiences Linked to Oxygen Deprivation































 

July 14, 2006 backed over by a 20 ton 12H CAT Grader while on a construction site. Watched the thing drive over my chest. Blacked out and was spoken to by "the voice". Hear most people see their life flash back in front of their eyes. I saw mine flash forward. Fucking weired. A few things were told to me including it was not my time. A few things have come true. Fucking creepy and comforting at the same time. Any ways, airlifted, ICU on vent for 7 days released from hospital in 12. Medical miracle. Dont like to get into too many details about the near death thing, people either think I am full of shit or they are freaked out by not being able to understand it.
Thats me with the crowd of people standing over me. Apparently there was a news team photographer that lived near by.

Didnt have a near death experiance, but I did have a "enlightening" dream one night in my youth when I was a punk assed kid. I was raised Catholic and in my teen years, lets just say I strayed from what I was taught. One night I had a dream were I was informed just how much I was fucking up. I wont get into the details, but I fully beleive somebody was sent down from the big man to tell me to quit being a fuck up. A very sobering experiance to say the least

I was told by my mother that her dad, my granddad had one when he was between 5 and 7 years old, she can't remember his exact age, but he was young and this and stories like these make me want to know how they can be explained away by oxygen deprivation.

My granddads parents had a child a year or so before my granddad was born but he died at about 4month old there were no photo's of him and he was pretty much never mentioned, his name was Ivan.

One day, my granddad was running around with a stick in his mouth when he fell and the stick did damage, he lost consciousness and was rush to hospital, once he had recovered and was back home he was playing on the floor and then looked up at his mother and told her that he met Ivan.

This  news almost knocked her off her chair, she had never told him about his dead brother Ivan, there was no way at all that he would have known about any Ivan, anyway, he said he was sitting on a mans lap, this man was dressed in white and he (My granddad) was not scared of anything at all, then a younger man called Ivan came to him and explained that he was his brother and told him about their parents and that he had gotten sick in his stomach and died and came to live in this place before my granddad was born, then, Ivan and the man whose lap my granddad was on asked him if he wanted to stay with them or if he wanted to go back and he says he wanted to go back and see his mother.

Now, my granddad was never religious, his parents weren't either so he never really was pre programmed on what to expect, he never said what this place was called, so he never claimed it to be heaven and when he died of cancer last year he died not believing in God at all, he has never been religious and has not come from a religious background.

So, how does the mind losing oxygen explain the fact that a 5 or 7 year old can be clinically dead for a few minutes and after recovery explains that he met his older brother in the form of a young man, and this man's name was Ivan and he explained that he died when he was a baby from being sick in the stomach (Ivan died at 4months old due to bowel complications, they burst and killed him) My granddad was never told about his younger brother and therefore never told how he died, but he told his mother that he met Ivan and Ivan told him these things and other stuff my granddad should not have known at his age.

These NDE stories are great. Just reaffirms what I believe.

The difference between God and a Doctor?  God knows he's not a Doctor.

I used to work at a hospice when I was a teenager. I would often find patients having conversations with those on the other side.

nope I have a few near death's and there was no light, no nothing.

Age 5, I ran out the garage door to say goodbye to my dad.  Rug went backward, I went forward and my head hit the concrete garage floor so hard the people inside could hear it through 2 closed doors.

Off and on for the next about eight hours I could see myself in the third person.  I stared at myself from over my dad's shoulder when he picked me up.  I could see myself from across the room as I laid on the couch.  Weird part is I KNEW I was seeing seeing myself in the third person.  Commented on it to my parents.  They were advised by the ask-a-nurse telephone number to wake me up every 2 hours to make sure I hadn't died.

Yes because the devil put these studies out there to lead us away from the truth.



Really?



 

"My descent into Death" by Anne Rice is about an Atheist Prof. Howard Storms NDE. Great book. Here is an interview.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2094001112814040004#

 

2 Nov '98   .......I had a VERY brief––-and casual––- "encounter" with Gabriel..........I was having a heart attack and "coded" in the ICU after being treated/monitored in the ER for several hours.I remember being suddenly nauseus and told my wife to grab a trash can because I was going to throw up...and then the alarms went off.A nurse rushed  in and started slapping me (just like the movies) She told me to "stay awake,don't you go anywhere..stay with us".....I remember a nurse rolling a big machine in the door and a 1/2 doxen other people coming in....I remember my wife being ushered out the door,crying. And then  I passed out
  I don't know what the sequence of events was after this...I was defibrilated 3 times  INSTANTLY  I recognized that I was being shocked...somewhere in this period of time....I saw a young man,dressed in  a white suit,wearing a white hat.I remember DISTINCTLY our brief encounter......this young man said "My name is Gabriel and you're going to be OK"...........  I simply replied "Thanks,Gabe"  .................I woke up some hours later and was transported to a larger hospital with better cardiac facilities.

       Believe whatever you want........ you weren't there,I was.

I was watching a program recently where a scientist was able to reproduce most of the NDE (and also those of "alien-abduction) by electrically stimulating the temporal lobe of the brain using a helmet with electrodes mounted in it.

Make of this what you will, but to me this implies that it is likely a biological event rather than a metaphysical one.

Ok, maybe I should clarify my position here:





I agree that a NDE is not a religious experience for the fact that religion is a man made construct. I don't see how religion would have an impact on these folk's experience except to maybe color their initial reactions?





Now, as far as drugs being able to reproduce NDEs and Out of Body experiences...


No conversation about this topic would be complete w/o bringing up Dr. Rick Strassman's clinical DMT research.





Brief overview:





DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine) is considered to be the most powerful hallucinogen in the world.





DMT is produced naturally in the human brain by the pineal gland (the gland thought to be the "seat of the soul" by many cultures).


No one is quite sure what DMT production is used for in the human brain, but it is released during the time of birth, death, and during many NDEs.





Dr. Strassman administered DMT in various dosages hundreds of times over the course of years in a clinical setting and recorded the NDE and OBE experiences of the test subjects.


It is proven that DMT in the proper dosages will induce a "classic" NDE experience with the subject "floating" outside of their body, able to explain things going on in separate rooms during the time of their OBE; meeting w/ other entities; the tunnel w/ light at the end, etc...





No death, no elevated C02 levels (that i recall reading about in his book anyways), no VR machines and no other chemicals.


Just a natural neurotransmitter administered into the bloodstream.
Now, is this just a byproduct of a drug reaction that merely mimics NDEs or does human interaction play a role in spiritual experiences?


Who can say? I don't see a point in arguing any of that, but it raises a good question if indeed these people's experiences are something real.
Just last week I was having a conversation w/ someone about physical interdependence on spiritual events.





He told me an old Chinese fable which i will try to paraphrase:





In ancient China there lived an old woman whose village resided in a valley. Every day she went to her local temple and prayed.


One night she had a dream where (insert local deity) appeared to her and told her that when she saw blood running from the eyes of the lion statues in her temple, that she should immediately run out of the temple and into the hills surrounding her village, as her town would be flooded.





She dismissed the dream, but every night, the same dream w/ the same deity occurred, telling her the same thing; to run when she saw the lion statues crying blood as the town would be flooded and everyone would die!





She continued going to them temple everyday and would weep and pray for her town to be saved. She told no one of the dream as she was sure no one would believe her.


While at the temple one day, some children watched her weeping at the alter. They asked her what was wrong and she told them that they wouldn't believe her if she told them.





The children persisted in asking her and began to harass her about until she finally told them of the dream; the lion statues weeping blood, the flood, etc...





So, the next day, the children decided to play a trick on the old lady. They got some pigs blood and painted it running down the eyes of the lion statues in the temple.


They hid in the temple and waited for the old lady to come and pray.





When the old lady arrived and saw the blood running from the eyes of the statues, she screamed and ran from the temple for the hills, yelling that the town would be flooded!


The children emerged from their hiding places and laughed and laughed at the prank they had pulled.





Then, when the old lady had made it to the top of the surrounding hills, she looked out and saw a wall of water come bearing down on her town. The town was flooded and is a lake to this day. No one survived except for the old lady.
Now the point of that story is to try to explain the paradox of human interaction w/ spiritual events.





The children weren't responsible for the flood anymore than the lady.


But while the lady was expecting a supernatural even to precede the flood of her town, however, the omen, while true, was just a prank.


Would the flood have happened w/o the lady telling the children of her dream?
So, would someone have to die of natural causes to have a NDE?


Would someone smoking DMT at a Grateful Dead concert still have a legitimate (to them) NDE?
No one can answer that w/ any certainty; that's why I am more prone to just read about the experiences, instead of trying to explain the unexplainable
Speed








 

Do you mean some kind of actual extrasensory perception?  They couldn't have otherwise known what was going on in the separate rooms?

Ya.



Read some of the stories on the link in first post.



This is a pretty common theme; the people who experience these things seem to float around in real time and can later recite conversations/events from other parts of a building than where they were laying at the time of thier death/NDE.





Pretty wild stuff!
Speed



 

Spoilsport!!!

Magical thinking pisses me off, sue me.



 

Know how I know you're high?



 

When I was a kid my grandmother would buy all of us cousins memberships to the local pool.





This was about 60'x120' long.





My sister and I would try to swim from one end to the other, in one breath, longways.





It would take awhile, but we usually could make it about 100' before we came up.





Several times when trying to make it across, my brain became so starved of oxygen, I had what I guess you'd call a "near death" experience.





You lose your senses:


-Your eyesight goes to literal points, with black all around them outsides (essentially a tunnel)


-You still "hear" things, but at the same time you don't notice what they are.


-You start to lose feeling in your whole body, not like a bad numb...just nothingness.





Your mind slows down.


-At first you think of nothing but swimming and wanting to come up for air.


-At some point the swimming becomes more of a mechanical than response than a conscious action.


-Everything is EXTREMELY PEACEFUL, the need to breathe doesn't seem important, infact, nothing seems important.


-I literally recall thinking "wow, if I died right now, I'd have no problem with it."





Usually at that point something about the thought of death made me say "f that I'm gonna breath" and come up about 15 feet from the end of the pool.





This was all from a voluntary self induced stress on my body.  I do not find it hard to believe at all that in a state of stress induced by physical harm, disease, cardiac arrest, etc. that feelings similar to this, though more intense, could occur.




 

Most of these actually can be explained away. See this article.. There is more in their citations.

Regardless, I think this bears further examination. At the very least, we can learn about how the brain works. If it turns out to substaniate veridical perception in NDEs, then that would obviously be a bit of a big deal. Even if it doesn't pan out there's things we can learn about perception here.

I would like to add something I have noticed and heard a little about. I do not understand it.

I have been an IT guy for my entire adult life and a good bit of time prior. In that time I have met a few people who constantly burn up computers, keyboards, watches, phones, whatever. It has become clear to me that some people who have had their heart stopped and have made it back can Really fuck up electronics. I have started to ask when I find a new person who regularly blows up a computer if they have ever had a near death experience in which their heart stopped. More often than not they have drowned at one time or some other catastrophic event that caused their heart to stop and need starting. Anybody care to explain?

As a side note, I Don't believe SHIT when it comes to stories. But I have witnessed a little to much of this for coincidence.

I was shocked, quite thoroughly, while working on an old CRT once. Ever since then cold dry weather has people staying away from me because I pick up a HUGE static charge and I can fake a ground sensing surge protector into thinking I'm a ground.



I'm sure there are plenty of physiological explanations for that.



What you won't see me doing is blaming it on Thor.



 

Because people who aren't careful with their lives are not careful with their computers?







 

One night while in a deep sleep I heard a voice,  I say heard, it was more of a mental type of hearing if that makes any sense? It was not male or female, and it said  " go check on the children ". I was so deep in sleep that I couldn't function, again the voice said " go check the children " still unable to function and trying to register what's going on the voice said again " go check the children ". I remember tossing and turning trying to wake up and again the voice said  but with a greater urgency " GO CHECK ON KOTY HE CAN'T BREATH " this time I shot out of bed and ran straight to my Sons room. What I found was my 8 year old son being strangled by a cord, the cord that gos to the game controller he had been playing with before bedtime. He had turned blue, after I cut the cord He started breathing normally. His bedroom is on the opposite side of the house and with my Wife sleeping with the TV on I could never have heard him call out for help even if He had been ablt to do so. It was Divine intervention and I WILL NEVER FORGET IT.

The share a similar theme, because that's what you imagine a near death experience would be like.  If I told you, imagine a near death experience, you would describe going towards a white light, etc.

Just like if I said, describe being abducted by aliens.  Your story would sound a lot like most alien abduction stories.

 This is going to end up like the dowsing thread, except there's even better documentation of the physical cause.

I guess I missed the dowsing thread.  Summary?