People who have been dead for hours the revived

You mean you consider the publisher's choice of title for Alexander's book to be representative of "the general opinion"? I think you've picked another sample size of one.

I'm hopeful God doesn't mind us arguing about Her/His/Its/Their qualities and existence:

"Your time has come - So tell us truthfully before you go, what sort of paradise do you expect to discover when you have passed through the veil?"

"In Paradise, the words worship and argument mean the same thing - The Almighty is not a tyrant. In the House of God all voices are free to speak as they choose, and that is the form of their devotion."
-Enchantress of Florence


Though if it's us on this forum arguing forever maybe not so good...
 
As to the topic at hand; who ends up having an NDE seems so random that I don't know that anything can be concluded from how long a given person was out for the count.

Aren't there various traditions that suggest the soul lingers near the body for a few days?

My initial first brush reaction to the little NDE research I've examined is we can't glean much more from NDEs than something interesting and potentially immaterial is going on, though I understand some people have examined the commonalities and compared them with the accounts of mediums and OBE/astral travelers?
 
Aren't there various traditions that suggest the soul lingers near the body for a few days?

My initial first brush reaction to the little NDE research I've examined is we can't glean much more from NDEs than something interesting and potentially immaterial is going on, though I understand some people have examined the commonalities and compared them with the accounts of mediums and OBE/astral travelers?
I can't speak to such traditions; my point was that there's no discernible pattern as to who gets an NDE and who doesn't. That someone was on the slab for hours and woke up with no memories of an experience says nothing about the phenomenon.

I absolutely agree with the bolded. And there is plenty of analysis of NDEs and their common elements. I think such analysis tends to make so much out of the broad similarities that it overlooks major differences in the details, be they cultural or person-to-person (example: one notable NDEr claims she was told that there was no reincarnation, others say they know reincarnation happens for a fact). JC posted this link in this thread, which (I think) draws its info from NDEs and mediumship accounts. But comparing those two phenomena invites more questions (ex. if mediums can channel specific individuals, who seem to have their memories and personalities intact, that would argue against some NDE claims).
 
I don't know if it lends evidence towards mind=brain. I think it lends evidence to the fact that she didn't have an NDE.
 
I absolutely agree with the bolded. And there is plenty of analysis of NDEs and their common elements. I think such analysis tends to make so much out of the broad similarities that it overlooks major differences in the details, be they cultural or person-to-person (example: one notable NDEr claims she was told that there was no reincarnation, others say they know reincarnation happens for a fact).

Unfortunately we rarely get to know about the background of the experient. But where we do, I certainly notice that the take-away message recalled by the experient shows an intriguing relationship with the difference between the experients beliefs and experience at the time, and the average beliefs and experience of their cultural group. I find that if I minus one from the other, I often end up with something that looks a lot like the experients take-away message.

I might call it a 'motivation', either 'attractive' and/or 'repelling' that often ends up affecting the experients future beliefs and behaviour towards alignment with the take-away message, and thus perhaps more aligned towards their cultural group average.

I might even go further, and suggest that the experients changed behavior and beliefs in the future, could be one-and-the-same as their near death experience. I mean that more generally, if we didn't have emotions and feelings we wouldn't do anything, they are our 'motivating' force. To me, 'emotions' and 'feelings' definitely have some interesting temporal qualities. So it doesn't seem too strange to me, to consider that experients might be 'motivated' in the present, towards their behaviour in the future.
 
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well then what happened to her consciousness while she was lying there dead? It just decided to stick around for a bit?

Do not you see? She could have an experience and not being able to remember it, or have no experience because her brain was still functioning even to suppress it.
 
This is purely conjecture I'm afraid.

But isn't pretty much any and all claims made about what happens after we die conjecture?

I think even a reasonable skeptic isn't going to take this as definitive proof. How could any and all NDEs with veridical info be displaced by a single case?

Keeping in mind agnosticism is IMO the best position until one has thoroughly reviewed the case work, which I haven't, it just seems unreasonable to me that this case would have anything definitive to say about the afterlife.
 
well then what happened to her consciousness while she was lying there dead? It just decided to stick around for a bit?

I understand that only a small percentage (around 10% ?) of revived patients report an NDE. So are we to dismiss those that do have them because the majority don't? I don't remember dreams most nights - does that mean I don't have them? What happens to my consciousness when I'm asleep?

I think we sometimes make the mistake of trying to explain such phenomena in terms of what we know from our experience in this reality: the elusive mechanism. I'd suggest that the same rules don't apply. That things like the nature of time, reincarnation, manifestation of thoughts into "external" experience, the question of subjective vs objective reality, etc., are not simple to comprehend. And who are the authorities we might turn to for help? Unless we have first-hand experience, all we can do is read the accounts and try to make sense of the big picture or, as with the skeptics, hand-wave it all away.

One example: Will brought up reincarnation. There are indeed accounts from mediums, etc., insisting that reincarnation doesn't happen. But there seems to be evidence from Stevenson, etc., which suggests that it does. My understanding is that there is no serial reincarnation, that lives are actually lived simultaneously in a timeless reality (again, a concept so very difficult to even attempt to grasp). So perhaps we have a gestalt soul: one which creates incarnated personalities to live out an earthly life and which retain "forever" some individuality, some sense of personal validity, while remaining part of the gestalt. So, a child incarnated in this reality might retain some memories of another part of his/her gestalt soul before those memories fade into adulthood. That life might even be a direct extension of the experience of the other personality, a little like Dr. Who regenerating. Dr. Who is the gestalt, each regeneration is an identifiable and somewhat different personality (not suggesting this is a direct analogy, by the way).
 
What is your opinion then?

As to the topic at hand; who ends up having an NDE seems so random that I don't know that anything can be concluded from how long a given person was out for the count.
I honestly haven't studied NDEs in depth. So I don't really have a strong opinion on them. I'm intrigued that there are many similar accounts. I've been reading books on Tibetan dream yoga lately and they have their own ideas on what happens immediately following death. I would be interested to read what they have to say and compare that also to the NDE. Tibetans also have strong ties to reincarnation, of course.
 
I honestly haven't studied NDEs in depth. So I don't really have a strong opinion on them. I'm intrigued that there are many similar accounts. I've been reading books on Tibetan dream yoga lately and they have their own ideas on what happens immediately following death. I would be interested to read what they have to say and compare that also to the NDE. Tibetans also have strong ties to reincarnation, of course.

I have that book too! Need to actually read it though.
 
The whole exercise is cherry picking. The general opinion is that NDErs are seeing "heaven," but that ignores the unpleasant experiences. And so forth.

~~ Paul
Or maybe it's the "astral plane" they are experiencing as some clairvoyants and esotericists claim. This includes the whole spectrum of emotional content from heavenly to hellish.

Cheers,
Bill
 
Parnia is now suggesting that everyone probably has the experience but the majority somehow forget it due to the effects of drugs used etc. That makes sense to me because we are all the same basically. After a good number of sherberts (drinks) I can't remember lots of things that I did or experienced whilst under the influence.

As to the Japanese woman, did Parnia meet her to ask her ? Don't think so.... but what about Joe Tiralosi ? He was dead for nearly an hour and he remembered an encounter from that period (or as the sceptics will have JUST BEFORE or JUST AFTER :-) . Better still, Ward Krenz under the ice for an hour or so, dead as a doornail the doctor described him as being a cadaver ( which I will provide in another link if anyone doesn't believe me)

http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/sf-mans-brush-with-death/?id=0,65853
 
Parnia is now suggesting that everyone probably has the experience but the majority somehow forget it due to the effects of drugs used etc. That makes sense to me because we are all the same basically. After a good number of sherberts (drinks) I can't remember lots of things that I did or experienced whilst under the influence.

As to the Japanese woman, did Parnia meet her to ask her ? Don't think so.... but what about Joe Tiralosi ? He was dead for nearly an hour and he remembered an encounter from that period (or as the sceptics will have JUST BEFORE or JUST AFTER :) . Better still, Ward Krenz under the ice for an hour or so, dead as a doornail the doctor described him as being a cadaver ( which I will provide in another link if anyone doesn't believe me)

http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/sf-mans-brush-with-death/?id=0,65853

Again, the argument could still be raised that this was occurring when the brain was coming back online.
 
Again, the argument could still be raised that this was occurring when the brain was coming back online.

When people have a cardiac arrest they don't have time to confabulate a nice little NDE story to comfort themselves, they just keel over and die in a matter of a second or two. I've seen people drop dead, Linda would like me to.

When patients are awakening after finally coming to (if they are resuscitated), they are confused. It's ridiculous to believe that they then "confabulate" an NDE.

If you think that people confabulate NDE's (just after their crisis) that convinces them.....confabulate one now for yourself, your brain is working, you have all the details and ingredients of what's needed.....shut your eyes and off you go up the tunnel....or if you like Kev Nelson's fab ideas, keep your eyes half open so that you can see what's going on in the next room with your family etc (in order to pick up the veridical information)

I've tried it, it doesn't work, or rather it works only in the wishful imagination of those who don't like survival
 
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