Are OBE's merely coma hallucinations?

Is what is going on when OBEs process "imagery" or "knowings" similar to what is going on in borderland sleep states, coma, or dreams, where nearby real events are processed into imagery and knowing? Almost certainly.

Are they "merely" that? Well, this hangs on the question of whether OBE or NDE knowing at a distance can be formally demonstrated as fact.
 
Are they "merely" that? Well, this hangs on the question of whether OBE or NDE knowing at a distance can be formally demonstrated as fact.

True. I was honestly disappointed to find out that these so called "veridical OBE's" where experiencer's witnessed accurate events occurring in places such as waiting rooms, hospital lobby's, or other remote locations are pretty much non-existent.

So far it does seem like people in near death situations experience a comatose state and take in information that is being processed incorrectly. This might contribute to an OBE being generated that contains accurate elements. Of course OBE's of remote locations would invalidate this hypothesis, but like I said such cases don't even exist.
 
I've been disappointed over time with the difficulty of tracing these things to fact, Some famous anecdotes (shoe on ledge, for example) disperse to vapor in a rumor fog when you try to hunt them down. A body of people are prepared to trust, to believe, to maintain that it is "more likely" that people arent lying, aren't mistaken, etc. That's too shaky a ground for me. If these things really happen, they should be provable in a universe that doesn't run on conspiracy.
 
True. I was honestly disappointed to find out that these so called "veridical OBE's" where experiencer's witnessed accurate events occurring in places such as waiting rooms, hospital lobby's, or other remote locations are pretty much non-existent.
I don't agree that they are non-existent. What probably is true is that there are few cases that are thoroughly documented in the manner of a scientific report. But that just seems to be the nature of the NDE, there's nothing that can be done to stop a patient having their OOBE at the roadside or while travelling in an ambulance, or being moved along a hospital corridor.

I don't see any simple answer to this issue, other than to continue research, such as is being done in various medical facilities at present, until sufficient data accumulates. That the process could take decades is certainly disappointing to some, but I think we just have to think in terms of longer timescales, plan not just for our own individual wants, but for others in the future who may benefit from research which to us may seem barely begun.
 
I've been disappointed over time with the difficulty of tracing these things to fact, Some famous anecdotes (shoe on ledge, for example) disperse to vapor in a rumor fog when you try to hunt them down. A body of people are prepared to trust, to believe, to maintain that it is "more likely" that people arent lying, aren't mistaken, etc. That's too shaky a ground for me. If these things really happen, they should be provable in a universe that doesn't run on conspiracy.

I never understood why people were so taken back by that shoe on the ledge story. "Maria" has never even been demonstrated to be a real person! That to me would be the most basic of basic starting points for trying to asses the evidential power of such a story.

However even though I do agree that lying is a real possibility, I don't play the whole "what is more likely" game. I just try to asses how many facts can be gathered before determining whether or not a story can be trusted.
 
I don't agree that they are non-existent. What probably is true is that there are few cases that are thoroughly documented in the manner of a scientific report. But that just seems to be the nature of the NDE, there's nothing that can be done to stop a patient having their OOBE at the roadside or while travelling in an ambulance, or being moved along a hospital corridor.

I don't see any simple answer to this issue, other than to continue research, such as is being done in various medical facilities at present, until sufficient data accumulates. That the process could take decades is certainly disappointing to some, but I think we just have to think in terms of longer timescales, plan not just for our own individual wants, but for others in the future who may benefit from research which to us may seem barely begun.

I'm not trying to be stubborn, but I have found time and time again that when I ask for people to link me to some of these OBE's of remote events I have been met with silence, or something very feeble such as the Maria's shoe case.

For example someone pointed me to Viola Horton. Her story is pretty powerful and would make a very strong case for the veridical nature of OBE's, but Raymond Moody provided no corroboration that she wasn't just telling a tall tale. No medical records, no interviews with the parties involved, nothing. Just her telling her story.

Then someone pointed me towards Janice Holden's speech involving "Tricia" who witnesses her stepfather getting a candy bar out of a vending machine, even though he was a health freak, and her mom and dad in the waiting room. Yet Janice Holden never corroborated this story. All we have is Tricia telling her story. If you don't believe me go ahead and email Janice Holden and find out for yourself: jan.holden[at]unt.edu
 
Of course OBE's of remote locations would invalidate this hypothesis, but like I said such cases don't even exist.

I had a unique OBE of a remote location, but it wasn't due to a NDE as far as I'm aware.

NDE OBE's on the other hand appear to be localized, with frequency increasing the closer you get to the experient's body. In my view, a deal of effort has been wasted on attempting to prove that something actually leaves the body using hidden target studies on high (the 'disembodied eyes' theory as I call it), rather than concentrating their efforts to investigate whether or not experients really are recalling information that they should not have been aware of.
 
What concerns me is that the idea of veridical OBEs/NDEs is surviving on folkloric currents. For one reason or another our resistance to story is lowered in these circumstances and it seems to allow questionable or unproven anecdotes get a toehold into being promoted to 'facts' without actually going through the intermediate stages when those facts were established. This is not good for anybody. It's not good if they ARE in fact true, because demonstration is so much better. And it's not good if they aren't true, because that will one day come to light. It's as if the door left ajar just a little to the propagation of folklore is just enough for these stories to take root and amplify into culture until it "seems" to people that they cannot possibly be mistaken or invented. But I am not sure as a race that we are wholly trustable on this issue. We want to believe too much. And that desire blinds us to our propensity for being lenient on folkloric sources of 'facts' without proper checking.

And without proper checking, there just is no guarantee that these things are true.
 
I had a unique OBE of a remote location, but it wasn't due to a NDE as far as I'm aware.

NDE OBE's on the other hand appear to be localized, with frequency increasing the closer you get to the experient's body. In my view, a deal of effort has been wasted on attempting to prove that something actually leaves the body using hidden target studies on high (the 'disembodied eyes' theory as I call it), rather than concentrating their efforts to investigate whether or not experients really are recalling information that they should not have been aware of.

I had a question about your OBE. I'm sure you've dealt with many skeptical questions in the past so you've probably heard this one before, but I'd like to know you thoughts on it.

Do you think that perhaps you had heard about some news report or something that indicated there had been break-ins reported in the area that your father's office was, and then dreamed that your fathers office was being broken in to?

I don't believe you're lying at all about your story.
 
¿Does anyone have heard of the one concerning a little girl and her OBE into his family house? I think haberman reported it, I surely heard him comenting it in a little talk with Keith Agustine.
 
I had a question about your OBE. I'm sure you've dealt with many skeptical questions in the past so you've probably heard this one before, but I'd like to know you thoughts on it.

Do you think that perhaps you had heard about some news report or something that indicated there had been break-ins reported in the area that your father's office was, and then dreamed that your fathers office was being broken in to?

Not really, the only thing I believe which might have had some effect is that there were very strong winds that night, and the backyard gate of our house was banging in the wind at the time of my experience. Hence, I might have picked that up, and incorporated it into the dream imagery. But it doesn't explain all the other stuff, although it might offer some explanation for why I got access to that information at that particular point in time.

For me, a clue is in Jay Giedd's brilliant study of adolescent brain development. Geidd decided to put work into doing a longitudinal study, and he found very important non-linear changes in grey matter, something that simply did not show up in all previous cross sectional studies.

It seems that adolescents go through waves of overproduction of brain structures (dendrites etc.), quickly followed by elimination of structures that get little to no use - a bit like a sculptor carving away at a new block of stone.

I'm speculating that during those bursts of overproduction, the mass of brand new structures provide the possibilities for a much larger range of structural patterns, and therefore increased possibilities of random interaction with other matching patterns (other people).

Think of a joint the dots picture, where there are only sufficient number of correctly spaced dots to show the shape of a say... a dog. Then think of a join the dots picture with so many dots covering the the page, that you can draw any number of different objects... this would be like the overproduction phase.

These bursts of overproduction I speculate might be responsible for a range of different phenomena experienced by both the adolescent, and sometimes by those around the adolescent.
 
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I want you to really think about what you're asking here. This is a pretty absurd excuse from such a staunch advocate of rationalism.
So you think my scenario is less likely than the boy visiting some supernatural realm and seeing the boyfriend? Are you sure you're not succumbing to the problem of comparing the probability of an unlikely natural scenario to a completely non-understood supernatural one?

Alternate scenario: The sleeping boy overheard a phone call taken by someone else and worked the information into his dream. (Note how the dream has spurious information, such as the motorcycle accident.)

As I said, if the boy was actually in the hospital when this occurred, then it is an interesting story.

~~Paul
 
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So you think my scenario is less likely than the boy visiting some supernatural realm and seeing the boyfriend? Are you sure you're not succumbing to the problem of comparing the probability of an unlikely natural scenario to a completely non-understood supernatural one?

Alternate scenario: The sleeping boy overheard a phone call taken by someone else and worked the information into his dream. (Note how the dream has spurious information, such as the motorcycle accident.)

As I said, if the boy was actually in the hospital when this occurred, then it is an interesting story.

~~Paul

I'm not talking about probabilities.

I'm talking about the inherent absurdity of your scenario that is plainly obvious to anyone not doing mental gymnastics.

Yet like I said, your mind is already made up. With that logic, no wonder.
 
I'm not talking about probabilities.

I'm talking about the inherent absurdity of your scenario that is plainly obvious to anyone not doing mental gymnastics.

Yet like I said, your mind is already made up. With that logic, no wonder.
In what ways are my two scenarios absurd?

~~Paul
 
In the mean time maybe you should play out your scenarios in your head so you can see for yourself.
Fair enough. We're assuming that the boy is in the hospital, although this is not stated in the story.

The boy is in his room, sleeping fitfully. His mother has gone out for a break. A friend is sitting with the boy. The phone rings and the friend answers it. She learns that the mother's old boyfriend died earlier that day. Then she has to leave and has no chance or forgets to tell the mother. The boy works the information into his dream and then relays it to his mother.

Checking to see if that covers all the facts in the story ... yup.

~~Paul
 
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