Near death experience seems no more than brain's trick to me

For their reports no NDErs felt was talking to an automaton / hologram of their deceased loved ones, but they remember talking to their deceased loved ones. The fact that NDErs not remember the exact details does not mean it did not happen. In fact it is expected that NDErs can not remember all the details of their experiences, because the brain is so overwhelmed by information alleged in NDEs.
To you said: "because the brain is so overwhelmed by information alleged in NDEs"

Last Sunday evening I participated a colleague's marriage banquet, today is Tuesday, two days after I can remember most details regarding that banquet, as well as most words said by anyone presented and in the vicinity of me. If I wrote down all the meticulous details I can remember, it would be longer than this whole thread. To say my participating that banquet is definitely real but I don't remember who I talked to and the major details of each conversation, is simply unrealistic to me.
 
Anyway, if I had an nde, and in that nde I met all of you posted here, but instead of typing to the screen we face to face, and discuss these things with you, we could see each other's facial expressions and lip motions when we talk, and after I woke up I could remember at least the core meaning expressed by each of you and the major stance of each of you, my friend, then I would probably jump out to say: "I still can't 100% guarantee ndes are real, but if it was not real, then the real world I am within now as I am awake also should be doubted about its reality."
Most nde accounts don't contain interactions as detailful as in this thread, this is where I feel they seem not as real as reality, not to mention beyond reality.
 
Last Sunday evening I participated a colleague's marriage banquet, today is Tuesday, two days after I can remember most details regarding that banquet, as well as most words said by anyone presented and in the vicinity of me. If I wrote down all the meticulous details I can remember, it would be longer than this whole thread. To say my participating that banquet is definitely real but I don't remember who I talked to and the major details of each conversation, is simply unrealistic to me.

So say the NDErs, your memories of that banquet would a pittance in comparison.

Most nde accounts don't contain interactions as detailful as in this thread, this is where I feel they seem not as real as reality, not to mention beyond reality.

Well, I think this is quite detailed:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research19.html
 
Well, I don't think that dreams *as an experience* are necessarily "less real" than the waking state. Less lucid (usually) certainly, but this is why I drew a distinction between lucidity and supposed "reality-ness," a distinction I think is being blurred. It's likely that the life experience of a snail is "less lucid" than human consciousness (not that we can prove that) but I don't think this means it is less real than human consciousness.
 
There are actually criteria, the reason why I am more likely to be real to you, is that what I might reply to you is unpredictable, and full of interactive details, while nde reports don't contain such unpredictable, interactive details.

An NDE's simple occurance and remembrance is an unpredictable event. Not every experience is reported to be the same, and everyone who has one seems surprised that they did.

A lot of seemingly illusory experiences have interactivity and uncertainty to them. Yet we still deem those to be illusory experiences. So we cannot say that the measuring stick for illusory/veridical is simply how predictable that experience might be.

The reason why this world is real, is that it is interactively unpredictable

Many people do not realize they are in a dream while they have it, and very unpredictable (to them) events unfold. Once they wake up they may realize that certain events actually should have made no sense. Are you saying that we measure objective lucidity by the amount of uncertainty someone has at a given moment?
 
Hi, all here, I'm very glad to express my meaning here, and to see both agree and disagree opinions, your replies are boon to me, I like Skeptiko very very much, to be honest a lot of discussions here are too complex, brain-twisting, professional or contain too many sophisticated specialized words and habit phrases and elusive grammar structures and usages, which I couldn't find meaning in the English-Chinese dictionaries, thus although many people had expressed their meanings very very earnestly and lucidly and completely, sometimes due to my insufficient English language training I can barely understand, but it's a wonderful place to learn.

I think my meaning hadn't been sufficiently clearly expressed in my first post, due to my dilapidated English. I will try as follows, consider a video game aims at building an immersive virtual reality as resemblance to our real world as it can.
Its first attempt would be to draw some 2-dimensional images, and add description texts next to it, this kind of video games had been done in the 1980s.
Its second attempt would move to 3d technology, early 3d games are not quite refined, with jagged lines and coarse textures, a lot of refining technologies being added with the computing science's development, occlusion, anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, particle effect, physics havoc, real person martial expert animation tracking, real person facial-expression tracking, I have little knowledge regarding cg technologies so what I said might be errata, what I want to express, is that contemporary cg technology has already been able to draw a 3d object which makes our real person unable to tell whether it is a real object in real world or it is a cg created within lcd, so does a virtual person, and both 3d objects and 3d living things can do very very real animations in contemporary video games or cg movies.
Its third attempt, I think maybe in the future with holographic technology's breaking, all the cg images can go out of screens which are flat planes, instead, images can be projected in the air, and if various problems such as transparent, light leaking, aura, etcetera could be solved, could it cheat people to deem those images are real things flowing around him or her? I think projecting an enveloping of lights in the air and making the images composed by that lights look like real things, is not easy to realize in the near future, but consider its possibility.

The most difficult attempt, the fourth attempt, is to make the images, whether in a lcd or in the air, to have artificial intelligence. CG movies got less problems regarding this unless the maker intended to make an interactive movie, no matter how real a cg movie could be, it has fixed story-line, while it is important to design ai in video games, speaking to contemporary video games, programmed ai is programmed, it can't effectively mimic real creatures' behaviors, could anyone here predict what I would say in this post before I posted?

Actually, on an ultimate strict basis, no one can prove anything real, for example, I can't guarantee this forum is not constructed by my brain, which sneakily hides great ability to forge such an unexisted but super real reality to cheat me which I never know, the same thing to all of you visiting this forum. But there comes difficulty. To forge a 2d image and make it looks like real is easy especially by using Photoshop, to forge a vivid 3d object is more difficult and to make it holographic is even more difficult, and to make a fake person who could unpredictably interact with you is almost impossible.

So come back to nde, I think most reported nde accounts stay in the same level of detailfulness as the first, second, third attempt of video game creation mentioned above, but too less the fourth attempt which can only be revealed by INTERACTIONS, only interactions can give someone sufficient details to make it looks like real to him or her, if without interaction, we can't guarantee what we saw are not photos processed by Photoshop, are not 3d objects created by 3d modelers or 3d animators, and maybe brain could forge holographic images when near-death. Without sufficient communications and interactions with the one appeared in the nde, how do anyone know that was a real person rather than a holographic image, even if that holographic image can move, can talk several sentences which has also realized in a contemporary video game? I believe anyone reading this post of mine almost has no doubt that I am a real person rather than a person-in-the-dream, because we communicate, but communication is not enough, because what I said maybe recorded previously, so I might be a posting-machine or posting-program, but I'm not only communicating with you but also saying something as a response to what you said, namely INTERACTIONS, if this can't be seen as real, nothing can be seen as real.

Consider most nde accounts, they reported they saw someone during nde, but if asked what they talked, no one remember as detailful as what I said above, therefore, no sufficient interaction details. Most nde accounts resemble dreams in two aspects:
First, they had insufficient interaction details with what they saw during nde, and the interaction details is very important to erase the possibility that nde are holographic images forged by some of human brain's hidden abilities. When we dream, we often see someone but whenever we attempt to contact with him or her, he either runs away or ignores or the dream just ends, person-in-a-dream never agrees to have profound and detailful interactions with us. Sometimes it is us subconsciously know he or she won't be interested to interact so we simply forget to sponsor an interaction.
Second, they seemed to had lost their personalities during nde, that is very similar to when we are in a dream, different people should have different, and, very diverse kinds of personalities, for example, a person who is penny-pinching would concern about someone still owes him or her one dollar all day, whenever he or she meets that guy in real world he or she would most likely to ask the money, but when in dream, he or she would probably just "saw" that person but didn't show his or her personality of penny-pinching to interact with that ower, and as this dreaming person awake, he or she might shout out loudly: "I had met that guy just now but how could I forget to ask my money back!" then after a while he or she might then grumble: "Oh, my bad that's only a dream." This shows that we act very very differently when we are awake with when we are dreaming. NDErs seem have no diverse personalities and concerns during nde, as well as lack of interaction details with the one they claim to had seen.

I must apologize I surely didn't mean any disbelief to the veridical of nders' accounts, the accounts are too many, shouldn't all of them have been deceived by their brains, and some of them are renowned professors, for example, Eben Alexander, they know better about what is reality and what is illusion than me, but how should I address my question about the ndes' generally lack of interaction details, after all, what I mean have some hold I think.


Hi, as far as I know there is no such talking which is very interactively detailful.

Some talented 3d modelers and 3d animators would be able to create vivid 3d image of someone and let me deem I meet him or her, but I won't believe he or she is real unless I interactively talk to him or her, meet can be easily forged, that's only a vision, interactive talkings are very difficult to be forged thus have heavier weight to lead towards the proof of the genuineness. Most nde accounts contain little interactive details.

Hi, Alex, thanks for the links, I like your voice very much, and I love Skeptiko, to be honest it's a bit difficult for someone whose mother tongue is not English read through so intricate English sentences, I coarsely browsed your links, I think it's far from sufficient to address those conclusions, the reason I wrote above in this post, and I would read your links more carefully to see whether there is refute to my thinking mentioned above.
 
"Some talented 3d modelers and 3d animators would be able to create vivid 3d image of someone and let me deem I meet him or her, but I won't believe he or she is real unless I interactively talk to him or her, meet can be easily forged, that's only a vision, interactive talkings are very difficult to be forged thus have heavier weight to lead towards the proof of the genuineness. Most nde accounts contain little interactive details.
"

what are you saying? that something is creating these images to fool you? and you again miss the point, you havent explained away the overwhelming if not absolute percentages of meetings with dead realtives, there is no model to account for such meetings, and too suggest that most ndes are not full of detailed conversations means you havent read enough ndes.

what do you mean "little interactive detials?"
 
Well, I don't think that dreams *as an experience* are necessarily "less real" than the waking state. Less lucid (usually) certainly, but this is why I drew a distinction between lucidity and supposed "reality-ness," a distinction I think is being blurred. It's likely that the life experience of a snail is "less lucid" than human consciousness (not that we can prove that) but I don't think this means it is less real than human consciousness.
Hi, Kai, I agree with you, except the part in your sentences and phrases which are difficult for me to understand and haven't been completely understood by me.:)
I have coarsely read your post here:
http://www.skeptiko.com/forum/threads/ndes-and-obes-dreams-are-the-key.147/
But since there are still sentences and phrases I haven't understood, I will need to reread it more carefully.
Now to add my thinking onto your analogy of nde and dreams, the following is the excerpt of one of my previous posts, the key meaning is:
1. both nde and dream contain less interactive details than our real physical world.
2. we act very very differently when in dream than when in reality, it seems we lose some of our personalities and curiosities in dreams, when dreams are ongoing, we seem to be dragged by dreams without asking reasonable questions, the same applys to nde.

Consider most nde accounts, they reported they saw someone during nde, but if asked what they talked, no one remember as detailful as what I said above, therefore, no sufficient interaction details. Most nde accounts resemble dreams in two aspects:
First, they had insufficient interaction details with what they saw during nde, and the interaction details is very important to erase the possibility that nde are holographic images forged by some of human brain's hidden abilities. When we dream, we often see someone but whenever we attempt to contact with him or her, he either runs away or ignores or the dream just ends, person-in-a-dream never agrees to have profound and detailful interactions with us. Sometimes it is us subconsciously know he or she won't be interested to interact so we simply forget to sponsor an interaction.
Second, they seemed to had lost their personalities during nde, that is very similar to when we are in a dream, different people should have different, and, very diverse kinds of personalities, for example, a person who is penny-pinching would concern about someone still owes him or her one dollar all day, whenever he or she meets that guy in real world he or she would most likely to ask the money, but when in dream, he or she would probably just "saw" that person but didn't show his or her personality of penny-pinching to interact with that ower, and as this dreaming person awake, he or she might shout out loudly: "I had met that guy just now but how could I forget to ask my money back!" then after a while he or she might then grumble: "Oh, my bad that's only a dream." This shows that we act very very differently when we are awake with when we are dreaming. NDErs seem have no diverse personalities and concerns during nde, as well as lack of interaction details with the one they claim to had seen.

I must apologize I surely didn't mean any disbelief to the veridical of nders' accounts, the accounts are too many, shouldn't all of them have been deceived by their brains, and some of them are renowned professors, for example, Eben Alexander, they know better about what is reality and what is illusion than me, but how should I address my question about the ndes' generally lack of interaction details, after all, what I mean have some hold I think.
 
Sometimes maybe we overthink things.

Ya think so? ;)

1. both nde and dream contain less interactive details than our real physical world.
2. we act very very differently when in dream than when in reality, it seems we lose some of our personalities and curiosities in dreams, when dreams are ongoing, we seem to be dragged by dreams without asking reasonable questions, the same applys to nde.
Both those statements indicate you are not at all well-read in NDE accounts. The second statement is even crazier than the first (crazier in what it intends to describe is happening in many NDE accounts). This is one reason why I usually stay out of discussions like these.
 
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Well, I don't think that dreams *as an experience* are necessarily "less real" than the waking state. Less lucid (usually) certainly, but this is why I drew a distinction between lucidity and supposed "reality-ness," a distinction I think is being blurred. It's likely that the life experience of a snail is "less lucid" than human consciousness (not that we can prove that) but I don't think this means it is less real than human consciousness.

The dreams are real in the sense that they exist, but the dreams are not real in the sense that its content has not happened objectively, that is, what happens in a dream is just a construct of the subject and no interaction with a reality independent of the subject (normally).

So I believe that NDEs are real in both senses because as others have said, there is enough detailed interactions during some NDEs to consider NDEs are experiences interacting with a reality independent of the subject.
 
The dreams are real in the sense that they exist, but the dreams are not real in the sense that its content has not happened objectively, that is, what happens in a dream is just a construct of the subject and no interaction with a reality independent of the subject (normally).

So I believe that NDEs are real in both senses because as others have said, there is enough detailed interactions during some NDEs to consider NDEs are experiences interacting with a reality independent of the subject.

I'm not so certain we can make this hard distinction between dreams and NDEs. It seems to me we can say at a minimum there are some dreams which have a connection to things that have happened or are happening or will happen in what we think of as the "objective" world. Andy has written about this type of dream as part of his research (as one example of what I'm talking about). My own preferred way of thinking about this is that dreams (at least some of them) and NDEs are evidence for an intermediate, or mediating, reality - not the sensory dependent external world, neither the purely subjective world of our thoughts, but an intermediate shared reality that we can also think of as being objective - with the difference that this objective world is inward rather than outward facing. It is certainly a much more subtle reality than our external mundane sense-bound world. I think NDEs may be instances when we are more fully participating in this more subtle realm, certainly more fully than when we are dreaming.
 
I'm not so certain we can make this hard distinction between dreams and NDEs. It seems to me we can say at a minimum there are some dreams which have a connection to things that have happened or are happening or will happen in what we think of as the "objective" world. Andy has written about this type of dream as part of his research (as one example of what I'm talking about). My own preferred way of thinking about this is that dreams (at least some of them) and NDEs are evidence for an intermediate, or mediating, reality - not the sensory dependent external world, neither the purely subjective world of our thoughts, but an intermediate shared reality that we can also think of as being objective - with the difference that this objective world is inward rather than outward facing. It is certainly a much more subtle reality than our external mundane sense-bound world. I think NDEs may be instances when we are more fully participating in this more subtle realm, certainly more fully than when we are dreaming.

Really I agree, that's why I wrote "normally" in parentheses, because sometimes dreams seem to incorporate elements of an external reality, either by ordinary means such as listening to sound in a dream that has an external cause, or by anomalous means, like having a premonitory dream. Yes, there seems to be a continuum between NDEs and dreams, but the ends are still different, because dreams are inclined more so purely subjective while NDEs leaning more a quasi-objective reality.
 
I'm not so certain we can make this hard distinction between dreams and NDEs.

If you have ever astral traveled which can be stunningly similar to the OBE portion of an NDE, you could.

...My own preferred way of thinking about this is that dreams (at least some of them) and NDEs are evidence for an intermediate, or mediating, reality - not the sensory dependent external world, neither the purely subjective world of our thoughts, but an intermediate shared reality that we can also think of as being objective - with the difference that this objective world is inward rather than outward facing.

Doesn't compute.

It is certainly a much more subtle reality than our external mundane sense-bound world. I think NDEs may be instances when we are more fully participating in this more subtle realm, certainly more fully than when we are dreaming.

I've never experienced a subtle OBE or astral travel.

I've dreamt...I know what a dream is as soon as I wake up.
I've OBEd...I know when an OBE is occurring.
I've ATed...I know when I am AT.

Once you have experienced all three, it's easy as pie to discern them.
 
I've dreamt...I know what a dream is as soon as I wake up.
I can't say that's the case for me. Oh sure, mostly I wake up and realise immediately that it was just a dream. But occasionally it's not like that at all.

An example, a few weeks ago I had a dream which included some content that was very real. In fact so real that I was stunned. As soon as I awoke I began telling everyone around me about the amazingly real experience I just had. And then I woke up and realised that was just a dream. Embedded inside a dream within a dream was this real experience, which I still today consider as being reality. Things are not simple.
 
Thanks Haruhi, but that didn't really answer the question: Do people who have an NDE actually use that term? Seems unlikely, unless they had prior knowledge of NDE jargon.

This sounds like a novel kind of circular argument! Anything that is reported regularly in NDE accounts, becomes "NDE jargon" and therefore becomes suspect! Heck - "hyper real" doesn't sound like jargon to me!

I also think it is easy to overestimate people's awareness of NDE's in general. I have mentioned the concept in passing to a few people (in the UK) and most had not heard of it. If any of those people actually had an NDE, they would not be carrying in any preconceptions.

David
 
The thing is, we want NDEs to be something different from dreams, and this gives us a kind of blind spot for the similarities.
 
The thing is, we want NDEs to be something different from dreams, and this gives us a kind of blind spot for the similarities.
I'm not sure that wanting something is how it works. No more than people wanting NDEs to occur at all.
 
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