Differing explanations of NDE's

"Perhaps some of you have good ideas as to what research on NDE's should be tried? "

The research currently underway (Parnia's Aware 2) will probably produce some evidential OBE's, whether or not the disembodied (my belief) will actually look at the tablet and see the picture is anyone's guess. If they do see the pictures and if there's enough "sightings" the influential neutrals will possibly be converted. The transcendental model may be brought into the mainstream and given the same credence as the neurobiological and psychological models. (It has been in some circles)

The frustrating thing (for me anyway ) is that the "disembodied floating entity" is the only one which actually explains the data but obviously leaves us without a mechanism which is why researchers such as Steven Laureys and his associates won't even consider it. How Laureys squares this with the vast number of reported OBE's during cardiac arrest (with veridical perception) is anyone's guess. They have to twist the data or ignore it such as in the Pam Reynolds case, upon which incorrect assumptions have been forced just because they don't like the implications.

I've followed the research from the beginning (I'm not notable BTW) without wanting anything to be true or not, just sticking to the facts and what I've seen is a determination by mainstream science to ignore the evidence and try and discredit anyone who does otherwise. By now, most people should be able to take a bit of comfort from knowing that life continues but a great many have been denied it while facing death, for no good reason.

There seems to be a ghost in the machine, why should that be so scary ? Neurologists don't have to abandon everything, just make some modifications perhaps.
 
I'd rather Parnia didn't use a tablet. It is obviously a convenient thing to use, but clearly a person seeing from the ceiling in an OBE is not going to be using normal vision - focusing light on to the various receptors on the retina - and the tablet may not work so well in that condition. Certainly, a CRT relies on the persistence of vision (which is tied to our physiology) to give an image at all. I am not sure about tablets - I don't think they do, but there may still be issues.

David
 
(yeah, ya think)

From a overview perspective, reports of second sight (each report being a data point) have been coming from "sensitives" and from average people for all recorded time. These reports present the transfer of information, specifically useful and meaningful information, being communicated directly and without physical representation. J. Ziewe is one source of these of these many millions of data points. My opinion is - that it is not the quality of any one data point - but the shear mass and persistence of continually occurring events of second sight - that is relevant to science.
Right - it is insane to ignore a mass of information on the grounds that each individual bit might be suspect, and then focus on a model of reality in which consciousness itself seems inexplicable!
The primary functional flaw of early biology was the belief in a magical essence of life-meaning, circulating as/with the organism's blood. This meaning was the heritage and being from the "blood" of ancestors. Oxygen and nutrients are important, but the magic information is now understood as being globally present in living things. The magic information of life is the DNA-RNA- Protein communication system. Why are we still making this medieval times context-bias mistake??

My feeling (I was a chemist many decades ago) is that the fundamental model of life has to be wrong. I mean even a single cell has a vast number of reactions going on. That is practically inconceivable to a chemist - I mean practically every reaction has bi-products, and if you run a number of them simultaneously, you will just get a brown sludge. I know enzymes explain a bit of this mystery, but I still think the functioning of even a single cell is inconceivable without some sort of push in the right direction from some entity that has a global overview of what needs to be achieved.

David
 
I'd rather Parnia didn't use a tablet. It is obviously a convenient thing to use, but clearly a person seeing from the ceiling in an OBE is not going to be using normal vision - focusing light on to the various receptors on the retina - and the tablet may not work so well in that condition. Certainly, a CRT relies on the persistence of vision (which is tied to our physiology) to give an image at all. I am not sure about tablets - I don't think they do, but there may still be issues.

David

"....but clearly a person seeing from the ceiling in an OBE is not going to be using normal vision - focusing light on to the various receptors on the retina - "

Good point but people undergoing OBE's (during cardiac arrest) claim to see things "just as they do normally." or with an "enhanced vision" Think of the post it notes (Lloyd Rudy) or the drill in Spetzler's hand which Pam Reynolds also described as "gold coloured" .. a fact conveniently not mentioned by sceptics. As regards "how people actually "see" the world, I'm not convinced that we've got the full story when we say that light enters the eye as an upside down projection and the brain turns it round, so on and so forth.
I was puzzled by the reports of the two trapped miners (Shepton 1963) . They "saw" things even though there was no light at all (380 feet at the bottom of a filled in mineshaft. That's off topic though.
 
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Good point but people undergoing OBE's (during cardiac arrest) claim to see things "just as they do normally." or with an "enhanced vision"
Yes, but they are looking at people - not pixels on a screen!
Think of the post it notes (Lloyd Rudy) or the drill in Spetzler's hand which Pam Reynolds also described as "gold coloured" .. a fact conveniently not mentioned by sceptics. As regards "how people actually "see" the world, I'm not convinced that we've got the full story when we say that light enters the eye as an upside down projection and the brain turns it round, so on and so forth.
I was puzzled by the reports of the two trapped miners (Shepton 1963) . They "saw" things even though there was no light at all (380 feet at the bottom of a filled in mineshaft. That's off topic though.
That is an interesting report - do you have a link? My tentative theory, is that our senses are somehow a crude approximation to non-physical senses - so the real things don't use photons and lenses to focus the light, etc.

David
 
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Yes, but they are looking at people - not pixels on a screen!

That is an interesting report - do you have a link? My tentative theory, is that our senses are somehow a crude approximation to non-physical senses - so the real things don't use photons and lenses to focus the light, etc.

David

I have a large collection of facts about the Sheppton mine disaster and the "experiences" of the two miners entombed for more than 10 days. Not sure it's appropriate to say much here. I'm not religious and many people are put off delving further into it by some aspects of what the miners saw, "both" saw at the same time. I'm merely interested in why they were able to both see the same apparitions and in addition when there was no light.

go to 21.35
 
Except that he was wrong. But you don't seem to be interested in that.
I don't think that IANDS page is particularly well-written. It starts with a mention that some NDEs were "slightly different" than the norm without elaboration; that aside from two patients, they "did not appear to attach any significance to them or didn’t understand them" without clarifying either side; then it goes on to talk about issues of under-reporting and the effects of drugs on NDE recall, without much connection to the opening paragraph.

Looking at the actual descriptions of the NDEs that Max posted earlier - when most of the patients died before interviews could be completed, it puts a rather heavy qualification on "only two NDEs were significant," and most of those who managed an initial interview before dying seemed to report vivid and impactful experiences.
 
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Yeah, I read that paper for the first time after seeing your link. I thought the suggestion that some of the differences observed might be similar to self-referential memory effects was interesting too.
It's a good paper that doesn't really appeal to either side, so it gets glossed over. It just demonstrates that post-NDE memories are pretty experientially powerful.
 
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I'll just say this as a qualifier to the above and if it's not acceptable content, just ignore it and I'll delete it.

The two miners were examined independently by psychiatrists after the rescue. The stories matched and no signs of psychosis were detected. There was zero light down there but both of them could see clearly. They were sitting facing each other in a "monkey" (miner slang for a hole in the shaft to take refuge from cave ins etc. The older miner was aware of the apparition(s) to his left hand side and saw the dead Pope and the strange shaped cross in profile. He didn't want to say anything because he knew who it was and was scared that his friend would panic if he knew a dead man was with them. The younger miner saw the apparitions full on and pointed at them " Who's that fella, Dave ?" (Throne was a 28 year old non practicing Lutherian who had never seen the Pope)

I don't want to write too much more about this, it's probably too much to take and possibly inappropriate, but further on the men actually interacted with yet more "apparitions" who told them they would be rescued. To me this is a clear hint about what reality is and the possibility of other (realities) and it sort of ties in with death bed visions and after death communication. And the fact that the men could see clearly in the pitch blackness (better than sunlight) defies explanation .
 
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I guess you miss her. Please could you say why ?

I'm never comfortable with established members getting banned for arbitrary reasons. I've supported proponents and non-proponents in that regard.

On one hand there is an effort to make the forum more active, on the other we have members banned for unpopular data interpretation during some (rare) vibrant discussion. How utterly pathetic.

To any of the babies who run off to the moderator in stead of engaging and arguing a point in this subforum: Grow the feck up.
 
I'm never comfortable with established members getting banned for arbitrary reasons. I've supported proponents and non-proponents in that regard.

On one hand there is an effort to make the forum more active, on the other we have members banned for unpopular data interpretation during some (rare) vibrant discussion. How utterly pathetic.

Malf said > To any of the babies who run off to the moderator in stead of engaging and arguing a point in this subforum: Grow the feck up.

Thanks for the reply.

I don't think there are any "babies" on here. You are one of Linda's biggest fans, maybe you can tell me why she feels the need to continually play silly games,
...telling downright lies about NDE research ?

More to the point, WHY ?? are you always here to defend her obnoxious behaviour ?? My guess is... you are related.
 
I followed the discussion with great interest. I rarely comment here so I hope very much that my comment is going to be seen as appropriate; the policy seems to be quite strict here. As to the controversity about Penny Sartori's study and the (mis)Interpretation of it: Why not ask her directly? I did so in the past concerning false perception in some of the OBEs the described and found her to be very approachable and ready to answer in detail. As to "experiences that are not NDE-like but show hallicunatory features but happen under the same conditions as NDEs do (cardiac arrest, e. g.): If I remember correctly the majority of conscious experiences collected in the " AWARE-study" represented that kind of experience (visions of animals, family-members, experience of great fear etc.) which makes me personally think it is a relevant finding that SOME people have NDEs under the same conditions where others experience seemingly meaningless and random hallucinations. That doesn't mean that the NDE is a hallucination, too, but it certainly is a fact that needs to be considered...
 
I followed the discussion with great interest. I rarely comment here so I hope very much that my comment is going to be seen as appropriate; the policy seems to be quite strict here. As to the controversity about Penny Sartori's study and the (mis)Interpretation of it: Why not ask her directly? I did so in the past concerning false perception in some of the OBEs the described and found her to be very approachable and ready to answer in detail. As to "experiences that are not NDE-like but show hallicunatory features but happen under the same conditions as NDEs do (cardiac arrest, e. g.): If I remember correctly the majority of conscious experiences collected in the " AWARE-study" represented that kind of experience (visions of animals, family-members, experience of great fear etc.) which makes me personally think it is a relevant finding that SOME people have NDEs under the same conditions where others experience seemingly meaningless and random hallucinations. That doesn't mean that the NDE is a hallucination, too, but it certainly is a fact that needs to be considered...

IrGie,

Thanks for your contribution - I hope you stick around.

I should perhaps explain that the drama you encountered above, was the (hopefully) last act in a long saga! We don't want to ban people for their views, but for the amount of aggression and deviousness with which they pursue their ideas!

I think in a way, I am not sure the concept of hallucination is necessarily useful here. I mean if you look up its definition - "an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present" some people would consider that it could be validly applied to NDE's themselves - at least after the OBE phase!

I do agree that it might be worth looking at other experiences associated with cardiac arrest, and since you have obviously explored this, I suggest you write about it. Absolutely nobody here is going to object to you doing this:)

David
 
I'm never comfortable with established members getting banned for arbitrary reasons. I've supported proponents and non-proponents in that regard.

On one hand there is an effort to make the forum more active, on the other we have members banned for unpopular data interpretation during some (rare) vibrant discussion. How utterly pathetic.

To any of the babies who run off to the moderator in stead of engaging and arguing a point in this subforum: Grow the feck up.
All reasons are ultimately arbitrary. Since 'feck' stands in place of a rude word, I suppose you yourself could be banned, but that isn't going to happen! Nobody is banned for their views, but the way they pursue them on the forum. I would say most people have been banned from this forum for spam, followed by proponents, followed by sceptics.

David
 
Thanks a lot for the encouragement, David Bailey! Regarding the "other" cardiac-arrest er experiences I was referring to this article, that sums up the results of the "AWARE"-study in some detail:http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150303-what-its-really-like-to-die
While a relevant percentage of cardiac arrest survivors did have conscious experiences, the majority of those experiences did not fullfill NDE-criteria. I think that this might be significant but I don't have an idea about what to make of that finding!
 
I'd also like to draw attention to a study on German NDEs, that has been carried out in Germany in the mid-late 1990s by Hubert Knoblauch. He found that many of the German NDEs don't show many aspects of the "Greyson-scale" with a high percentage of German NDEs being negative (30% in West Germany, 70% in the former GDR). There is an English PDF available and I see if I can post it. There is also a much longer version in German (unfortunately) that describes individual experiences in more detail. While I would not say they were "mundane" a few of them certainly show unusual features that challenge the idea of the "average" NDE.
 
... instead of engaging and arguing a point in this subforum: Grow the feck up.

I'd normally be supportive of that stance, but Penny's 5 year study is not readily available at a reasonable price, - it is hugely expensive to buy!

I only bought it for about £100 odd pounds, because it was otherwise impossible to argue with Linda, and I simply didn't trust her interpretations.

As far as I'm aware, I'm the only person (apart from Linda) on this forum who has a copy.

Depending on what suits Linda's stance, she's happy to insist on the validity of using a conclusion from Penny, when the raw study data doesn't support it. At other times she will oppose a statement from Penny, because the data doesn't support it.

She just picks and chooses from the study, what bits supports her arguments, and just argues the toss. This is not normally a problem, but it becomes so when access to the full study is very limited due to cost

Personally I don't tend to bother engaging with Linda. When backed into a corner, she often makes contradictory statements and/or arguments during the course of a thread. I suspect this is often what gets people's backs up. Somehow people are unconsciously aware of her cognitive dissonance (mixed and contradictory statements and positions), and get annoyed by them. If you comb a controversial thread, you can find these conflicting sentences. I think that's one possible reason why they sometimes become controversial... Here's two example sentences from different posts within this thread for instance....

"NDE" memories aren't extremely vivid and emotionally significant.

I didn't say that people don't have emotionally charged or vivid experiences, or that some people aren't transformed by those experiences.

IMO, Linda deals with her cognative dissonance in one of the more extreme ways - by simply denying it. This is also possibly why she's so good at spotting, and pointing out bias in others, whilst being unable to see such bias within herself.
 
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