As they say, "I love the smell of faithless facts in the morning." :)

The original thread filled up like an ex-Mo carnival dunk tank for General Authorities, so let's continue.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,989377
_____


In a previous post, RfM contributor “Jesus Smith” referenced an intriguing and informative science article on the brain activity of dying rats--one which underscored the neuro-biological realities (not spiritual mythologies) of so-called “near-death experiences” (NDEs).

(“NDE in Rats? Think Again, If You're Not Brain Dead,” posted by “Jesus Smith,” on “Recovery from Mormonism” discussion board, 13 August 2013, at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,988289,988289#msg-988289)


The article, headlined “Near-Death Experiences Are 'Electrical Surge in Dying Brain,'” reports that based on the results of experiments published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sicience,” the brain at the edge of death is, according to the study’s lead author Dr. Jimo Borigin (University of Michigan), "much more active during the dying process than even the waking state."

The article reports that the near-death process of the brain involves a myriad of neurological sensations, as described by those experiencing the NDE, These range "[f]rom bright white lights to out-of-body sensations and feelings of life flashing before their eyes . . . .”

Borigin notes that tests performed on dying rats detected the presence of upper-frequency, electrically-pulsing gamma rays which “were found at even higher levels just after the cardiac arrest than when animals were awake and well”--and which Borigin believes could feasibly “happen in the human brain, and that an elevated level of brain activity and consciousness could give rise to near-death visions.”

The article reports the enthusiastic response of other scientists to the research findings:

“Commenting on the research, Dr. Jason Braithwaite, of the University of Birmingham, said the phenomenon appeared to be the brain's ‘last hurrah.’

"’This is a very neat demonstration of an idea that's been around for a long time: that under certain unfamiliar and confusing circumstances--like near-death--the brain becomes over-stimulated and hyper-excited,’ he said.

"’Like “fire raging through the brain,” activity can surge through brain areas involved in conscious experience, furnishing all resultant perceptions with realer-than-real feelings and emotions.’

“But he added: ‘One limitation is that we do not know when, in time, the near-death experience really occurs. Perhaps it was before patients had anaesthesia, or at some safe point during an operation long before cardiac arrest.

"’However, for those instances where experiences may occur around the time of cardiac arrest --or beyond it --these new findings provide further meat to the bones of the idea that the brain drives these fascinating and striking experiences.’”

(“Near-Death Experiences Are 'Electrical Surge in Dying Brain,'” by Rebecca Morelle, science reporter, “BBC World Service” 12 August 2013, at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23672150)
_____


These findings underscore what mainstream science has known for some time about both the planetary reality and the in-brain neuro-chemistry of “near-death experiences.”

As Matthew Alper, author of “The ‘God’ Part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God,” writes:

“. . . [[T]he near-death experience has been reported by a cross-section of nearly every population and must therefore constitute an inherent part of the human condition. As with all other cross-cultural behaviors, this would suggest that the near-death experience . . . most likely represents the consequence of a genetically-inherited trait, a biologically-based response to specific stimuli. Though near-death experiences are conventionally interpreted from a spiritual perspective—the consequence of a brief encounter with the afterworld—I assert that, like all other spiritually-conceived experiences, these, too, are STRICTLY NEURO-PHSYIOLOGICAL IN NATURE” (emphasis added).

Alper proceeds to make the case for the NDE as a purely biological, neurological and chemical phenomenon occurring within the brain itself that is NOT connected to, or stemming from, any so-called “out-of-body” or “spiritual” experience. He breaks these organic causes into various categories.
_____


--NDEs and the Depletion of Oxygen/Blood Flow to the Brain

Alper explains that oxygen and blood supplies are nearly always critical factors in the production of NDEs:

“For starts, near-death experiences almost always occur as a result of decreased blood flow to the brain and/or a lack of oxygen, usually from shock induced either fro severe infection (septic shock), from myocardial ischemia (cardiogenic shock), cardiac arrest or the effects of anesthesia. Apparently, the NDS is integrally linked to one’s physical chemistry.”
_____


--Accounts of Intense Bright Lights During NDEs Are Interpreted by Believers as Proof of an Immortal Soul and Afterlife, but Science Has a Sounder Explanation

Alper recounts how Plato, in his “Republic,” tells “the story of Er, the son of Armenius, who allegedly dies and then comes back to tell the story of his existence during his temporary ascension to heaven and consequent return to the living. During Er’s experience with death, he describes a vison he had of a ‘bright and pur column of light, extending right through the whole of heaven.’ Such descriptions of visions of a bright and often dazzling or blind light leading to heave constitutes one of the key symptoms of the NDE and therefore leads many to believe that what Plato was narrating was just that. It is through Er/s tale that Plato goes on to advance the notion of an immortal soul, as well as an afterlife in his work. As a matter of fact, the NDE might very well represent one of the primary means through which humans validate a belief in some form of an afterlife. . . .

“ . . . [A] common symptom of the NDE, similar to the one narrated [above]by Plato, is described as a sensation of being led down a dark tunnel and then drawn toward a blinding white light, one that is often interpreted as holding religious significance, such as being representative of heaven’s gates. (Such descriptions as these—of experiencing a ‘piercing’ or ‘blinding’ white light—have been attributed to activity within the brain’s optic nerve which has a tendency to erratically flare when deprived of its normal oxygen supply). It is during this same part of the experience that a person will often express a feeling of being engulfed, not just by ‘the light,’ but also by God’s presence.”
_____


--Endorphins Explain the NDE Ecstasy

Alper offers scientific explanations for NDE good vibrations:

“Though there is no international standard through which to formally define a NDE, studies show vast similarities in description of this phenomenon, ones that cross all cultural boundaries (Fenwick, 1997; Feng and Lin, 1976, Parischa and Stevenson, 1986) . . . [I]n the majority of recorded accounts, the first thing most recall of their experience is a feeling of intense fear and pain that is suddenly replaced by a sense of clam, peace and equanimity (similar to those sensations attributed to more generic spiritual experiences). To offer support of a neuro-physical model to explain this phenomenon, D. B Carr suggested (1981, 1989) that the aforementioned sensations, in so far as they are experienced during a NDE, might come as a result of a flood release of endogenous opiods (endorphins).”
_____


--The NDE Cousin (the Out-of-Body Experience") Is Way More In-the-Brain than Out-of-the-Body

Alper addresses the relationship between OBEs and NDEs:

“[In order of frequency after the ‘sense of calmness or euphoria’ produced in a NDE], the next most often-related symptom to occur during an NDE is that of an OBE, or ‘out-of-body’ experience. Here, the person describes a sensation of rising or floating outside of one’s physical body and, in some cases, even being able to look down at one’s self from above. One hospital, in order to validate claims of ‘out –of-‘body’ experiences, placed an LED marquee above its patients’ beds which displayed a secret message that could only be read if one were looking down from above. To date, not one person who has claimed to have had a NDE or ‘out-of-body’ experience from within this hospital has expressed having seen the message.

“During this part of the [NDE] experience, those undergoing an OBE have expressed a sense that their limbs are ‘moving within their mind,’ though they are actually immobile. This is similar to the type of hallucinations, or ‘confabulations,’ suffered by those who sustain right parietal lesions--yet another indication that such experiences can be traced to one’s neuro-physical activity as opposed to originating from one’s alleged spirit or soul.”
_____


--“Spiritual” Commonalities between NDEs, Epileptic Seizures and Psychedelic Drug Use

Alper explains the shared effects among the three:

“Similar to accounts of those who have had either a temporal lob seizure or experimented with entheogenic [psychedelic] drugs, those who have undergone a NDE will almost invariably interpret the experience as being spiritual in nature:

“’Hallucinogen ingestion and temporolimbic epilepsy produce a near-identical experience as described by persons having a near-death experience. These brain disturbances produce de-personalization, de-realization, ecstasy, a sense of timelessness and spacelessness, and other experiences that foster religious-numinous interpretation.’ (‘Journal of Neuropsychiatry: Clinical Neuroscience,' 1997, Summer 9[3], pp. 498-510)

“Consequently, it is no surprise that a significant number of those who undergo a NDE claim that it strengthens their faith in God, a soul and an afterlife. Regardless of how these experiences are interpreted, we must ask ourselves: ‘Is this type of experience transcendental in nature or, like all other types of spiritual experiences, are we dealing with a serious of strictly neuro-physical events?’”
_____


--NDEs are Facilitated by the Brain’s Chemical-Transmitting Receptors

Alper describes how brain-based chemicals create the NDE experience:

“One key to answering [the above] question comes through the research of a Dr. Karl Jansen who has found that ‘[n]ear-death experiences can be induced by using the dissociative drug ketamine’ (K.I.R. Jansen, M.D., ‘Using Ketamine to Induce the Near-Death Experience,’ p. 64).

"Dr. Jansen’s report goes on to state that ‘[i]t is now clear that NDEs are due to the blockade of brain receptors (drug-binding sites) for the neurotransmitter glutamate. These binding sites are called the N-methly-D-asparate (NMDA) receptors. Conditions which precipitate NDEs (low oxygen, low blood flow, low blood sugar, temporal lobe epilepsy, etc.) have been shown to release a flood of glutamate, over-activating NMDA receptors. Conditions which trigger a glutamate flood may also trigger a flood of ketamine-like brain chemicals, leading to an altered state of consciousness,’ (ibid., p. 73)

“It was also found than an intravenous injection of 50-100mg of ketamine reproduces all of the features commonly associated with the near-death experience. (Sputz, 1989; Jansen, 1995, 1996). Even Timothy Leary, the notorious psychedelic drug advocate of the 1960s, described his experiences with ketamine as an ‘experiment in voluntary death’ (Leary, 1983).

“Similar to the manner in which entheogenic drugs trigger the symptoms of a ‘spiritual’ experience, the drug ketamine can be used to synthetically trigger the symptoms of a near-death experience. “
_____


--Neuro-Chemistry, Not Spirituality, is the Source of NDEs

Alper lays out the scientific foundations of NDEs:

“What [the above] suggests is that, as with any other type of spiritual experience, near-death experiences are rooted in our neuro-chemistry. Apparently, the NDE represents the consequence of a physiological mechanism that enables our species to cope with the overwhelming pain and anxiety associated with the experience of death and dying.

“Once again, though such evidence can never prove there is not spiritual reality, it is certainly indicative that this might very well be the case. “

(Matthew Alper, “The God Part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God” [New York, New York: Rogue Press, 2000], Chapter 8, “Near-Death Experiences,” pp. 140-43, and “Endnotes,” #79-81, p. 177)

**********


For those who might still want to believe in the alleged "spiritual/religious/godly/immortal" reality of NDEs, you're in a sense right:

It's all in your head. Enjoy the ride.

:)



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2013 05:25PM by steve benson.

Snooooze........

Like a moth to a flame. :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2013 09:56AM by steve benson.

Or like a dog sniffing his poop Steve. It can go both ways.

Hope it does work.

We can try it both ways for you in your training sessions--with or without the newspaper. :)



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2013 06:45PM by steve benson.

During my days as a TBM, and having heard experiences of OBE's by two different trusted TBM family members (a cousin and a grandparent (who experienced it before his mormon conversion), while I at the time believed and trusted their experiences were real, often wondered about one thing that never added up in my mind.

Why are people able to recall the OBE after their body wakes up?

The reason for my question is, it seems apparent, that as a spirit floating around the room, the person experiencing the OBE seems to remain fully self aware with all memories in tact. But those experiences that are experienced while outside of the body, presumably with their spiritual senses, information that is not collected within the physical brain, are somehow downloaded back into the brain once the spirit and body reunite.

This tells me that memories are all backed up and copied within the spiritual brain as well, a distinct entity entirely separate and separable from the physical brain. And memories that are exclusively recorded in the spiritual brain during an OBE, seem to be able to seamlessly sync up and download back to the physical brain.

OK, so that's fine and dandy, one could argue there's a bio-spiritual app for that. My computer hard drive is setup as a RAID 1, where two hard disks are mirrored. This gives the added benefits of fast reading speeds, but also provides redundancy, useful if one of the disks crashes. All info is backed up and still readily accessible as if nothing ever happened.

My point is, if memories can sync up so seamlessly between the physical and spiritual brain, why then does amnesia sometimes occur when there is physical trauma or other ailments to the physical brain? If a person experiencing an OBE can still access his/her memories, and create new memories in the process, which are then downloaded back into the brain, presumably upon reuniting the spirit and body, why then can't a person suffering from amnesia or dementia, simply go to the backup spirit copy of memories, which would presumably be indestructible and impervious to physical injury?

No credible scientific research points, with any compelling evidence, to the existence of such an entity.

Neuro-chemical realities within the brain, however, help explain "out-of-body"-like sensations--sensations that, nonetheless and in fact, remain in-brain occurences.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2013 04:59PM by steve benson.

I agree, but I think that the "experiences" by so many different people that have the appearance of being actual physical events of the people detaching from their bodies with their wits about them begs the question of whether or not something is actually happening in line with what they believe they experienced. And as far as I can tell, they don't, since the experiences seem to always fall short of being scientifically verifiable. However, they can be explained by events taking place within the brain, albeit perhaps not comprehensive explanations, some of which venture into speculation territory. It's no secret though and not sure why so difficult to believe for so many, that the brain can generate ANY sensation or vision that a human is capable of feeling or seeing with the usual 5 senses, including heightened states of awareness, emotion or feeling. When a person goes into cardiac arrest, brain death doesn't necessarily occur immediately, so it's reasonable to assume that a person would and should continue to experience consciousness and sensations for a brief period of time after the heart stops.

Bottom line, if a person hasn't experienced brain death, and they recount an OBE or NDE, call it speculative or unexplainable, but there's no reason to believe that the person just wasn't experiencing something inside the brain.

I might be neglecting some unexplained instances where people gained real knowledge of actual events taking place that they couldn't have otherwise known. I don't know of any such occurrences nor have I experienced them myself, so for me, I have to chalk those up to the alien abduction category until I learn otherwise from an unbiased scientific source.

My god Steve...chip off the old block aren't you...are we feeling sleepy...(joke by the way).

What I want to know is if the experience of NDE is culturally linked. So, if, as you detonate your suicide belt, and in the second or so as your head detaches itself but still has oxygen do they really think you're in the company of virgins? Difficult to question those boys and girls I suppose? What about if you believe in Valhalla? If you NDE are you fighting, fxxking and drinking before the surgeon brings you back?

I don't know? Any brain boxes out there can answer?

Almost you persuade me.

Except that there have been verified incidents of NDEs occuring while the partipants were brain-dead or had no brain waves at all (Pam Reynolds is probably the most famous of these). While Steve cites a great deal of persuasive evidence in the post above, it all requires at least some level of brain activity, meaning the individuals involved were not clinically dead for periods of time. The existence of "returnees," if you will, that had experiences AFTER their brains flatlined, seems to suggest that something else may be going on.

And, if all the experiences are caused by firestorms within the dying brain, how are we to interpret the people who come back from clinical death (no brain waves, no sensory input) and give accurate reports of conversations, sights, sounds, and other events that occurred while they were "gone?"

icedtea Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Almost you persuade me.
>
> Except that there have been verified incidents of
> NDEs occuring while the partipants were brain-dead
> or had no brain waves at all (Pam Reynolds is
> probably the most famous of these). While Steve
> cites a great deal of persuasive evidence in the
> post above, it all requires at least some level of
> brain activity, meaning the individuals involved
> were not clinically dead for periods of time. The
> existence of "returnees," if you will, that had
> experiences AFTER their brains flatlined, seems to
> suggest that something else may be going on.
>
> And, if all the experiences are caused by
> firestorms within the dying brain, how are we to
> interpret the people who come back from clinical
> death (no brain waves, no sensory input) and give
> accurate reports of conversations, sights, sounds,
> and other events that occurred while they were
> "gone?"

The old god of gaps argument hey? We can't explain it by science so that must be god?

Yeehaa wrote:
<The old god of gaps argument hey? We can't explain it by science so that must be god?>

Not remotely. I never metioned God or any other religious deity in my response.

I only asked how the evidence presented addresses phenomena that occur in during a state of clinical death with verified absence of brain activity (brain flatlining).

. . . and discredited in this thread with regard to the Pam Reynolds case, as well as with regard to other purported "flatliner" scenarios.

In other words, your inaccurate claims have been overtaken by contravening evidence and the thread hasn't even been closed yet.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,989490,990048#msg-990048

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,989490,990058#msg-990058



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2013 07:00PM by steve benson.

Steve wrote:
<For a discussion of misdiagnosed 'flat-lined' cases, among other situations involving the rational and scientific explanations of NDEs, RfM poster "icedtea" should read the professional responses and observations of anesthesiologist, Dr. G.M. Woerlee, at; http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,976496,976496#msg-976496.>;

So, icedtea (sans beer in hand, since there are no pubs where I live), did exactly that.

What I found was that Woerlee discusses NDEs that occur during cardiac arrest. When his interviewer raised the issue of brain flatlining, he metioned a specific window of time:

Tsakiris: "We still have two big problems in that time sequence, right? We have the problem after the 15 seconds when the brain does go flat. You said we don’t have these people hooked up to an EEG so we don’t know, but we can be pretty confident when they’re having a cardiac arrest that within 20 seconds their brain is flat, whether we have them hooked up to an EEG or not..."

Woerlee never answers this question directly. His rather colorful response instead discusses OBEs during cardiac arrest. At the end, he admits there really ISN'T a good scientific explanation for those pesky OBEs that happen while the brain is offline:

"1) The first is the people who die, particularly those who have a heart attack because it’s easier to study because we know the physiology--they’re not supposed to have the kind of experiences that Dr. Long found. One point that you just mentioned was pain. In particular, these people complain about pain from the defibrillator, pain from people pounding on their chest, and yet Dr. Long’s survey finds that there isn’t this pain. That appears hardly at all in the surveys.

"2) The other thing I would interject while we’re talking about heart massage and that; I don’t know this, but one of my listeners contacted me and his sister is an emergency care nurse and said that the most common procedure when someone is in hospital and has cardiac arrest is the defibrillator. Pounding on the chest is secondary. The first thing you do is go over and zap them with the paddles. A lot of times, the heart massage is the last resort many minutes later.

"All that leads back to what you’re alluding to, and we really have to break it down. There’s three parts to this process, particularly when we look at cardiac arrest. There’s that 10 to 15 seconds between when the heart stops and the brain stops. Our best medical knowledge says that the brain is under a lot of stress and it shouldn’t be lucid and coherent during that time.

"The second part we have is when the brain is flat-lined or dead or we can assume nothing is happening. There hasn’t been any attempt to resuscitate this person, and during that time we definitely don’t have any explanation for why they were having a conscious experience."

Later in the interview, the questions get more specific:


Tsakiris: "So, what’s your explanation, then? I hear what you’re saying. So your explanation for the out-of-body experience, collecting this data, is…?"

Woerlee: "What you have are these people who observe, they see with light and they hear with sound. Otherwise it wouldn’t be verifiable.

"So in other words, what you actually have is these people who have undergone out-of-body experiences, their separated consciousness is actually somehow interacting with light and sound, whereas before, it did not at all."

So, Woerlee posits the existence of a "separated consciousness" as a possible explanation for OBEs.

Then, during the very next question, he flips to the exact opposite conclusion: "They are hearing with their ears and that means they can hear the sound. And they see with their eyes in some cases because their eyes are open so they can see people around them."

So, Woerlee first says there's a "separated consciousness" that is perceiving light and sound, but then backtracks and says the cardiac patients are using their eyes and ears instead. He doesn't mention whether/how the eyes and ears are operational when the brain is not and the patient is in a state of clinical death. In fact, he NEVER states that the cardiac patients of whom he speaks were clinically dead or recorded as having no brain activity, so it's only logical to assume they might, in fact, have not only brain activity but limited use of their senses -- in which case he's NOT talking about brain flatliners AT ALL.

He doesn't answer the question.


Some additional, interesting observations by Dr. John Greenfield and Dr. Penny Sartori, regarding OBEs and brain activity, can be found here:

http://www.skeptiko.com/eeg-expert-on-near-death-experience/

There's thinking and evidence on both sides of the argument here.

Also, will y'all stop it with the "god gap" and "miracles" responses? I never mentioned either of those arguments!

All I'm saying is that the issue of experiences during clinical death and brain flatlining isn't being adequately addressed, perhaps because we don't yet have technology to do so.

That was the point with regard to some like Pam Reynolds (whose case you brought up in a misrepresentative sort of way).

Please recall that your original assertion was as follows:

"Except that there have been verified incidents of NDEs occuring while the partipants were brain-dead or had no brain waves at all (Pam Reynolds is probably the most famous of these). While Steve cites a great deal of persuasive evidence in the post above, it all requires at least some level of brain activity, meaning the individuals involved were not clinically dead for periods of time. The existence of 'returnees,' if you will, that had experiences AFTER their brains flatlined, seems to suggest that something else may be going on."

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,989490,990008#msg-990008


I provided you a link to the Reynolds case demonstrating that it was not one involving clinical/brain death, thereby rendering your argument on that score essentially null and void.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,989490,990048#msg-990048


Moreover, here's what you did not quote from Woerlee (my link to his interview comments came in the form of two parts):

Woerlee: ". . . [M]ost people fall down in the street or they suddenly have a heart attack in a ward or another place in the hospital. An electroencephalograph is never attached for the very simple reason that it’s very difficult to do that at the same time as someone is receiving heart massage.

"In fact, the presumption that all these people were flat-lined at the time is only a presumption. And in fact, no one actually of these people in the research of Dr. Pin van Lommel or Sam Parnia and other people ever had an electroencephalograph machine attached to their heads.

"So, the presumption of flat-lining is purely an assumption because they remember electroencephalographic activity ceases after 4 to 30 seconds. In that case, they’re flat-lined. They forget the action of the cardiac massage, which is to pump blood around the body."

Tsakiris: "A couple of points there: I think it’s good that you remind us, which we often forget when we’re talking about death, death, near-death, that we’re talking about the folks who come back to life. I think that’s a valid point."

"But I still have a couple of pretty big problems with your argument.

"1) The first is the people who die, particularly those who have a heart attack because it’s easier to study because we know the physiology--they’re not supposed to have the kind of experiences that Dr. Long found. One point that you just mentioned was pain. In particular, these people complain about pain from the defibrillator, pain from people pounding on their chest, and yet Dr. Long’s survey finds that there isn’t this pain. That appears hardly at all in the surveys.

"2) The other thing I would interject while we’re talking about heart massage and that; I don’t know this, but one of my listeners contacted me and his sister is an emergency care nurse and said that the most common procedure when someone is in hospital and has cardiac arrest is the defibrillator. Pounding on the chest is secondary. The first thing you do is go over and zap them with the paddles. A lot of times, the heart massage is the last resort many minutes later.

"All that leads back to what you’re alluding to, and we really have to break it down. There’s three parts to this process, particularly when we look at cardiac arrest. There’s that 10 to 15 seconds between when the heart stops and the brain stops. Our best medical knowledge says that the brain is under a lot of stress and it shouldn’t be lucid and coherent during that time.

"The second part we have is when the brain is flat-lined or dead or we can assume nothing is happening. There hasn’t been any attempt to resuscitate this person, and during that time we definitely don’t have any explanation for why they were having a conscious experience.

"The third part you are alluding to, and you mentioned quite rightly that now we’re getting blood flow back to the brain so there is a chance for some conscious experience, but again, I’m going to rely on you here, but doesn’t our best medical knowledge tell us that during that process of resuscitation, the brain coming back online after it’s been dead, we wouldn’t expect it to be lucid and coherent. Isn’t just the opposite the normal expectation of how that brain is working during that time?"

Woerlee: "They’re all interesting problems and in fact, they can be answered. To begin with, a person who has a cardiac arrest has a short period of consciousness when they can hear people rushing to the bed if they’re in a coronary care unit. As you quite correctly said, in a coronary care unit the first thing they do is defibrillate people. Out on the street or elsewhere in the hospital they don’t have this luxury, so they first do cardiac massage. That is what most people undergo.

"Then, we come to the point of cardiac massage as I explained does restore a flow of blood to the brain. But does this restore any electrical activity to the brain? That’s an interesting question. In fact, there are several studies which do show and also case reports which do show that this is the case.

"What you actually have during a cardiac arrest is blood flow to the brain stops. This means within seconds the brain becomes oxygen-starved. No one denies this. This is certain because the brain has no reserve store of oxygen. The brain becomes oxygen-starved and then when you have cardiac massage, a flow of blood is restored, sometimes sufficient to sustain consciousness.

"One study which was done on a patient who actually had an EEG or electroencephalograph – I’ll use the longer term because the Americans use ECG instead of electroencephalograph, while in Europe we use EEG so it’s a bit confusing for many people. Anyway, they had an electroencephalograph but that’s to the head of this person. He had a cardiac arrest. The electroencephalographic activity fell away as expected. Heart massage was applied, or cardiac massage, whatever you like to call it, and within 20 seconds after cardiac massage was instituted, electrical brain activity was restored.

"Similarly, other studies have been done with bi-spectral analysis, an apparatus that’s a method and sort of integrated electroencephalograph used to monitor awareness during anesthesia. Some people have had this apparatus attached to their head during anesthesia and during the pre-period they developed a cardiac arrest. During cardiac massage, bispectral activity reappeared. In other words, electroencephalo-graphic activity reappeared. So in fact, cardiac massage can restore electroencephalographic activity if applied efficiently.

"It will not occur in all people because not everyone is expert at applying cardiac massage and not everyone has a chest which makes cardiac massage easy. Not everyone has enough broken ribs to make cardiac massage very effective."

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,976496,976496#msg-976496



Edited 10 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2013 08:24PM by steve benson.

Except that, being that it is a "near" death experience, they necessarily came back, and necessarily resumed brain activity. There's no reason to think that the cognitive experience happened at any particular point in time prior to their relating it.

Xq Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Except that, being that it is a "near" death
> experience, they necessarily came back, and
> necessarily resumed brain activity. There's no
> reason to think that the cognitive experience
> happened at any particular point in time prior to
> their relating it.


Apart from the fact that according to your post they were brain dead? We're they near, or dead?

Can you explain exactly how that makes one iota of difference to my point that brain activity resumes, and therefore the experience can still be attributable to brain activity?

This is another fruitless effort to breathe life into the corpse of pseudo-named Pam Reynolds' alleged "NDE"/"OBE." Unfortunately, it isn't any more aromatic now than it has been in the put-to-bed past.

First of all, there's no unassailable proof that Reynolds was actually dead:

". . . [I]n 2006 scientists demonstrated brain activity in someone in a vegetative state, which is not identical to a flat EEG but which indicates that some machines might detect brain activity while others do not.

"Thus, those researchers who claim that their patients have memories of experiences they had when they were dead (as Dr. Michael Saborn does of musician Pam Reynolds) may be mistaken. Just because their machines don't register anything cannot be taken as proof positive that a person is dead, nor can it be taken as proof positive that the patient isn't aware, on some level, of what is going on around her. Unconscious patients may hear what surgeons and nurses are saying, even if the hospital machines aren't registering any brain activity."


Moreover, Saborn doesn't exactly come off as professional:

"Furthermore, NDE stories are now known to a large audience. Thus, when new stories are told about going into the light, etc., one has to be concerned that these stories may have been contaminated. They may reflect what one has heard and what one expects. Such experiences are still subjectively real and may have profound effects on a person, but they should not be taken as strong evidence of separation of body and spirit, much less of life after death.

"(In any case, making extraordinary claims that can't be disproved won't hurt Dr. Saborn's book or Reynolds's record sales, a fact that has not escaped the attention of the webmaster of the near-death.com page promoting the sale of Saborn's book and Reynolds's CDs. Granted, the page is not on par with the unseemliness of Kübler-Ross's turbaned man standing in for the spirits of dead husbands, but the page doesn't do anything to encourage belief in the professionalism or reliability of Saborn's reports)."

("From Abracadabra to Zombies: Near-Death Experience (NDE)," at: http://www.skepdic.com/nde.html)
_____


Let's examine the following scientifically-grounded and -referenced examination of the bogus Reynolds "NDE"/"OBE" authored by Keith Augustine:

"As Michael Sabom recounts in 'Light and Death,' in August 1991 a then 35-year-old woman he called 'Pam Reynolds' (a pseudonym) underwent an innovative procedure to remove a brain aneurysm. The procedure—inducing hypothermic cardiac arrest or 'standstill'—involved lowering Pam's body temperature to 60°F, stopping her heart and breathing, and draining the blood from her brain to cool it and then reintroduce it. When her body temperature had reached 60°F and she had no electrical activity in her brain, her aneurysm was removed. About 2 hours after awaking from general anesthesia, Pam was moved into the recovery room still intubated (Sabom, 'Light' 46-47). At some point after that, the tube was removed from her trachea and she was able to speak. She reported a classic NDE with a vivid OBE, moving through a 'tunnel vortex' toward a 'pinpoint of light' that continually grew larger, hearing her deceased grandmother's voice, encountering figures in a bright light, encountering deceased relatives who gave her "something sparkly" to eat, and being 'returned' to her body by her deceased uncle (Sabom, 'Light' 42-46).

"The case was quickly celebrated because of the lack of synaptic activity within the procedure and Pam's report of an apparently veridical OBE at some point during the operation. But it has been sensationalized at the expense of the facts, facts which have been continually misrepresented by some parapsychologists and near-death researchers.[14] Although hailed by some as 'the most compelling case to date of veridical perception during an NDE' (Corcoran, Holden, and James), and 'the single best instance we now have in the literature on NDEs to confound the skeptics' (Ring, 'Religious Wars' 218), it is in fact best understood in terms of normal perception operating during an entirely nonthreatening physiological state.

"Two mischaracterizations of this case are particularly noteworthy, as their errors of fact greatly exaggerate the force of this NDE as evidence for survival after death.[15] First, in their write-up of the first prospective study of NDEs, van Lommel and colleagues write:

"Sabom mentions a young American woman who had complications during brain surgery for a cerebral aneurysm. The EEG [electroencephalogram] of her cortex and brainstem had become totally flat. After the operation, which was eventually successful, this patient proved to have had a very deep NDE, including an out-of-body experience, with subsequently verified observations during the period of the flat EEG . . . (van Lommel et al. 2044).

Second, in his 'Immortal Remains—an assessment of the evidence for survival of bodily death'—Stephen Braude erroneously describes the case as follows:

"'Sabom reports the case of a woman who, for about an hour, had all the blood drained from her head and her body temperature lowered to 60 degrees. During that time her heartbeat and breathing stopped, and she had both a flat EEG and absence of auditory evoked potentials from her brainstem.... Apparently during this period she had a detailed veridical near-death OBE . . . (Braude 274).'

"But anyone who gives Sabom's chapters on the case more than a cursory look will see two glaring errors in the descriptions above. First, it is quite clear that Pam did not have her NDE during any period of flat EEG.[16] Indeed, she was as far as a patient undergoing her operation could possibly be from clinical death when her OBE began.[17] Second, she had no cerebral cortical activity for no longer than roughly half an hour. Both of these facts are nicely illustrated in Figure 1 below.

"Fig. 1. Timeline of Pam Reynolds' general anesthesia. The colored areas represent changes in body temperature: Green indicates a life-sustaining temperature; yellow, the mechanical cooling or warming of blood; red, the constant temperature of her deepest hypothermia. Most times marking events or temperatures are derived from Michael Sabom's account of Pam Reynolds' procedure provided in Chapters 3 & 10 of 'Light & Death.'

"Despite accurately reporting the facts, Sabom himself has encouraged these misrepresentations.[18] Though he informs the reader that Pam's experience began well before standstill, he reveals this incidentally, so that a careful reading of the text is required to discern the point. For instance, just after describing Pam's recollections of an operating room conversation, he notes, almost as an afterthought, that '[hypothermic cardiac arrest would definitely be needed' . . . (Sabom, "Light" 42). He then goes on to assert that the very features of her experience which cannot be timed happened during standstill. At first, Sabom only implies this by describing the cooling of blood leading to standstill prior to describing the remainder of Pam's near-death experience (42-46). Then Sabom turns to a discussion of whether Pam was 'really' dead during a portion of her standstill state:

"But during 'standstill,' Pam's brain was found 'dead' by all three clinical tests—her electroencephalogram was silent, her brain-stem response was absent, and no blood flowed through her brain. Interestingly, while in this state, she encountered the 'deepest' near-death experience of all 'Atlanta Study' participants. . . .

"With this information, can we now scientifically assert that Pam was either dead or alive during her near-death experience? Unfortunately, no. Even if all medical tests certify her death, we would still have to wait to see if life was restored . . . (Sabom, 'Light' 49).

"Of course, the issue of whether Pam was 'really' dead within standstill is an extraordinarily misleading red herring in this context. And it is blatantly irresponsible for Sabom to explicitly state that her NDE occurred "while in this state." As Sabom's own account reveals, her standstill condition had absolutely nothing to do with the time when we know that her near-death OBE began: A full two hours and five minutes before the medical staff even began to cool her blood, during perfectly normal body temperature![19] (Again, see Figure 1.)

"Unlike the other elements of her NDE, we can precisely time when Pam's OBE began because she did accurately describe an operating room conversation. Namely, she accurately recalled comments made by her cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. Murray, about her 'veins and arteries being very small' (Pam's words) (Sabom, 'Light' 42). Two operative reports allow us to time this observation. First, in the head surgeon's report, Dr. Robert Spetzler noted that when he was cutting open Pam's skull, 'Dr. Murray performed bilateral femoral cut-downs for cannulation for cardiac bypass' (185). So at about the same time that Dr. Spetzler was opening Pam's skull, Dr. Murray began accessing Pam's blood vessels so that they could be hooked up to the bypass machine which would cool her blood and ultimately bring her to standstill. Second, Dr. Murray's operative report noted that 'the right common femoral artery was quite small' and thus could not be hooked up to the bypass machine. Consequently, Murray's report continues, 'bilateral groin cannulation would be necessary: This was discussed with Neurosurgery, as it would affect angio access postoperatively for arteriography' (185). And although Pam's mother was given a copy of the head surgeon's operative report (which she said Pam did not read), the report did not say anything about any of Pam's arteries being too small (Sabom, 'Shadow' 7).

"Many have argued that Pam's accurate recall of an operating room conversation is strong evidence that she really did leave her body during the procedure. But there is at least one peculiar fact about Pam's recollections—in addition to the timing of her experience—which makes a physiological explanation of her OBE much more likely.

"General anesthesia is the result of administering a trio of types of drugs: sedatives, to induce sleep or prevent memory formation; muscle relaxants, to ensure full-body paralysis; and painkillers. Inadequate sedation alone results in anesthesia awareness. Additionally, if insufficient concentrations of muscle relaxants are administered, a patient will be able to move; and if an inadequate amount of painkillers are administered, a patient will be able to feel pain (Woerlee, 'Anaesthesiologist' 16). During a typical surgical procedure, an anesthesiologist must regularly administer this trio of drugs throughout the operation. But just prior to standstill, anesthetic drugs are no longer administered, as deep hypothermia is sufficient to maintain unconsciousness. The effects of any remaining anesthetics wear off during the warming of blood following standstill (G. Woerlee, personal communication, November 8, 2005).

"About one or two in a thousand patients undergoing general anesthesia report some form of anesthesia awareness. That represents between 20,000 and 40,000 patients a year within the United States alone. A full 48% of these patients report auditory recollections postoperatively, while only 28% report feeling pain during the experience (JCAHO 10). Moreover, 'higher incidences of awareness have been reported for caesarean section (0.4%), cardiac surgery (1.5%), and surgical treatment for trauma (11-43%)' (Bünning and Blanke 343). Such instances must at least give us pause about attributing Pam's intraoperative recollections to some form of out-of-body paranormal perception. Moreover, for decades sedative anesthetics such as nitrous oxide have been known to trigger OBEs.

"Sometime after 7:15 AM that August morning, general anesthesia was administered to Pam Reynolds. Subsequently, her arms and legs were tied down to the operating table, her eyes were lubricated and taped shut, and she was instrumented in various other ways (Sabom, 'Light' 38). A standard EEG was used to record activity in her cerebral cortex, while small earphones continuously played clicks[20] into her ears to invoke auditory evoked potentials (AEPs), a measure of activity in the brain stem (39).

"Sabom considers whether conscious or semiconscious auditory perceptions were incorporated into Pam's OBE imagery during a period of anesthesia awareness, but dismisses the possibility all-too-hastily:

"'Could Pam have heard the intraoperative conversation and then used this to reconstruct an out-of-body experience? At the beginning of the procedure, molded ear speakers were placed in each ear as a test for auditory and brain-stem reflexes. These speakers occlude the ear canals and altogether eliminate the possibility of physical hearing' (Sabom, 'Light' 184).

"But is this last claim really true? Since Sabom merely asserts this (and has an obvious stake in it being true), we have little reason to take him at his word—especially on such a crucial point. What is the basis for his assertion? Does he have any objective evidence that the earphones used to measure AEPs completely cut off sounds from the external environment?

"Since Sabom does not back up this claim in 'Light and Death,' I did a little research and discovered that his claim is indeed false. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, as a matter of procedure, a patient who is monitored by the very same equipment to detect acoustic neuromas (benign brain tumors) 'sits in a soundproof room and wears headphones' (NINDS). But a soundproof room would be unnecessary, of course, if the earphones used to measure AEPs 'occlude the ear canals and altogether eliminate the possibility of physical hearing.' It is theoretically possible that the earphones used in 1991 made physical hearing impossible, whereas the earphones used today do not. However, it highly unlikely, as it would be far cheaper for medical institutions to continue to invest in the imagined sound-eliminating earphones, rather than soundproofing entire rooms to eliminate external sounds. As Gerald Woerlee points out, 'earplugs do not totally exclude all external sounds, they only considerably reduce the intensity of external sounds," as demonstrated by "enormous numbers of people . . . listening to loud music played through earplugs, while at the same time able to hear and understand all that happens in their surroundings' (Woerlee, 'Pam').

"After being prepped for surgery, Pam's head was secured by a clamp. By 8:40 AM, her entire body was draped except for her head (the site of the main procedure) and her groin (where blood vessels would be hooked up to the bypass machine to cool her blood). In the five minutes or so to follow, Dr. Spetzler would open her scalp with a curved blade, fold back her scalp, then begin cutting into her skull with a Midas Rex bone saw (39-41). At this point, about an hour and a half after being anesthetized, Pam's OBE began (185). She reported being awakened by the sound of a natural D, then being 'pulled' out of the top of her head by the sound (41).

"'But,' Sabom asks, 'was Pam's visual recollection from her out-of-body experience accurate?' (186). That is indeed the question to ask regarding the veridicality of her report.

"Pam reported that during her OBE, she was able to view the operating room from above the head surgeon's shoulder, describing her out-of-body vision as 'brighter and more focused and clearer than normal vision' (41). In her report of the experience, she offered three verifiable visual observations. First, she said that 'the way they had my head shaved was very peculiar. I expected them to take all of the hair, but they did not.' Second, she reported that the bone saw 'looked like an electric toothbrush and it had a dent in it, a groove at the top where the saw appeared to go into the handle, but it didn't.' Finally, she noted that 'the saw had interchangeable blades . . . in what looked like a socket wrench case' (41). Subsequently, she only reported auditory observations—hearing the bone saw 'crank up' and 'being used on something'—but most notably the operating room conversation initiated by Dr. Murray.

"Given such vivid "perceptual capabilities" during her OBE, we would expect there to be no confusion about what Pam saw during the experience. So her visual observations provide an interesting test of the notion that her soul left her body while under general anesthesia during normal body temperature. Let us look at each of these in turn.

"First, there is the observation that only part of her head was shaved. Perhaps she could have guessed this at the time of her experience, but there is no need even for this in order to account for the reported observation. Surely Pam would have noticed this soon after awaking from general anesthesia—by seeing her reflection, feeling her hair, or being asked about it by visitors. And she certainly would have known about it, one way or the other, by the time she was released from the hospital. Indeed, if her hair had been shaved presurgery, or at any time prior to her general anesthesia, she would have known about it well before her OBE. And patients undergoing such a risky procedure are standardly given a consent briefing where even the cosmetic effects of surgery are outlined—if not explicitly in a doctor's explanation, then at least incidentally in any photographs, diagrams, or other sources illustrating what the procedure entails. So Pam may have learned (to her surprise) that her head would be only partially shaved in a consent briefing prior to her experience, but 'filed away' and consciously forgot about this information given so many other more pressing concerns on her mind at the time. That would be exactly the sort of mundane, subconscious fact we would expect a person to recall later during an altered state of consciousness.[21] And although we are not given the exact date of the operation, Sabom reports that the procedure took place in August 1991 (38). He later tells us that he interviewed Pam for the first time on November 11, 1994 (186). That leaves over three years between the date of Pam's NDE and Sabom's interview—plenty of time for memory distortions to have played a role in her report of the experience. So there is nothing remarkable about this particular observation.

"Second, there is her description of the bone saw. But the very observation that provides the greatest potential for supporting the notion that she actually left her body during her OBE actually tends to count against that hypothesis. As Sabom recounts,

"Pam's description of the bone saw having a 'groove at the top where the saw appeared to go into the handle' was a bit puzzling. . . . [T]he end of the bone saw has an overhanging edge that [viewed sideways] looks somewhat like a groove. However, it was not located 'where the saw appeared to go into the handle' but at the other end.

"Why had this apparent discrepancy arisen in Pam's description? Of course, the first explanation is that she did not 'see' the saw at all, but was describing it from her own best guess of what it would look and sound like (187).

"Precisely! Except that, of course, Pam didn't need to guess what the bone saw sounded like, since she probably heard it as anesthesia failed. An out-of-body discrepancy within Pam's NDE prima facie implies the operation of normal perception and imagination within an altered state of consciousness. Indeed, this explanation is so straightforward that Sabom considers it before all others. And it is telling that the one visual observation that Pam (almost) could not have known about other than by leaving her body was the very detail that was not accurate.

"Let us turn to the report of Pam's final visual observation during her OBE, her comment that the bone saw used "interchangeable blades" placed inside something 'like a socket wrench case.' This detail was also accurate; however, one need not invoke paranormal perceptual capabilities to explain it. As Woerlee notes:

"'[S]he knew no-one would use a large chain saw or industrial angle cutter to cut the bones of her skull open. . . . Pneumatic dental drills with the same shapes, and making similar sounds as the pneumatic saw used to cut her skull open, were in common use during the late 1970s and 1980s. Because she was born in 1956, a generation whose members almost invariably have many fillings, Pam Reynolds almost certainly had fillings or other dental work, and would have been very familiar with the dental drills. So the high frequency sound of the idling, air-driven motor of the pneumatic saw, together with the subsequent sensations of her skull being sawn open, would certainly have aroused imagery of apparatus similar to dental-drills in her mind when she finally recounted her remembered sensations. There is another aspect to her remembered sensations—Pam Reynolds may have seen, or heard of, these things before her operation. All these things indicate how she could give a reasonable description of the pneumatic saw after awakening and recovering the ability to speak' (Woerlee, 'Anaesthesiologist' 18).

"And, predictably enough, the dental drills in question also used interchangeable burs stored in their own socket-wrench-like cases.

"During anesthesia awareness, and as far from standstill as a person under general anesthesia can be, Pam could have heard her surroundings, but not seen them, since her eyes were taped shut. And the facts of her case strongly suggest that this is exactly what happened. Information that she could have obtained by hearing was highly accurate; at the same time, information that was unavailable to her through normal vision was the very information which was inaccurate. More precisely, her visual descriptions were only partially accurate: accurate on details she could have plausibly guessed or easily learned about subsequent to her experience, and inaccurate on details that it would be difficult to guess correctly.

"In other words, OBE imagery derived from hearing and background knowledge, perhaps coupled with the reconstruction of memory, fully accounts for the most interesting details of Pam Reynolds' NDE report. After awakening from inadequate anesthesia by the sound of the bone saw revving up, her mind generated a plausible image of what the bone saw used during her operation looked like, rendered from her prior knowledge of similar-sounding dental drills. But her best guess about the appearance of the bone saw was inaccurate regarding the features of the bone saw that only true vision could discern: whether there was a true groove in the instrument, and where it was located.

"Moreover, the fact that Pam's NDE began during an entirely nonthreatening physiological condition—under general anesthesia at normal body temperature—implies that there was no particular physiological trigger for the experience (such as anoxia/hypoxia). Rather, it appears that her NDE was entirely expectation-driven. Before going into surgery, Pam was fully aware that she would be taken to the brink of death while in the standstill state. Awakening from general anesthesia by the sound of the bone saw appears to have induced a fear response, which in turn caused Pam to dissociate and have a classic NDE. Indeed, this makes sense of her otherwise odd report of being pulled out of the top of her head by the sound of the saw itself.

"At least five separate studies (Gabbard, Twemlow, and Jones; Stevenson, Cook, and McClean-Rice; Gabbard and Twemlow; Serdahely, "Variations"; Floyd) have documented cases where fear alone triggered an NDE. As Ian Stevenson, Emily Williams Cook (now Emily Williams Kelly), and Nicholas McClean-Rice conclude, 'an important precipitator of the "near-death experience' is the belief that one is dying—whether or not one is in fact close to death" (Stevenson, Cook, and McClean-Rice 45). They go on to label those (otherwise indistinguishable) NDEs precipitated by fear of death alone 'fear-death experiences' (FDEs). Physiologically, such NDEs might be mediated by a fight-or-flight response in the absence of an actual medical crisis. In a case reported by Glen Gabbard and Stuart Twemlow, an NDEr dislodged the pin of a dummy grenade he thought to be a live one, producing a classic NDE similar to the one Pam experienced:

"A marine sergeant was instructing a class of young recruits at boot camp. He stood in front of a classroom holding a hand grenade as he explained the mechanism of pulling the pin to detonate the weapon. After commenting on the considerable weight of the grenade, he thought it would be useful for each of the recruits to get a 'hands-on' feeling for its actual mass. As the grenade was passed from private to private, one 18-year-old recruit nervously dropped the grenade as it was handed him. Much to his horror, he watched the pin become dislodged as the grenade hit the ground. He knew he only had seconds to act, but he stood frozen, paralyzed with fear. The next thing he knew, he found himself traveling up through the top of his head toward the ceiling as the ground beneath him grew farther and farther away. He effortlessly passed through the ceiling and found himself entering a tunnel with the sound of wind whistling through it. As he approached the end of this lengthy tunnel, he encountered a light that shone with a special brilliance, the likes of which he had never seen before. A figure beckoned to him from the light, and he felt a profound sense of love emanating from the figure. His life flashed before his eyes in what seemed like a split-second. In midst of this transcendent experience, he suddenly realized that grenade had not exploded. He felt immediately 'sucked' back into his body (Gabbard and Twemlow 42).

"Gabbard and Twemlow conclude that 'thinking one is about to die is sufficient to trigger the classical NDE' (42). After comparing experiences that occurred in nonthreatening conditions with those where subjects were actually close to death, they also concluded that no particular elements were 'exclusive to near-death situations,' but 'several features of the experiences were significantly more likely to occur when the individual felt that death was close at hand' [emphasis mine] (42). That expectation alone can trigger NDEs in certain individuals, then, is well-documented.

"If Pam had truly been out of body and perceiving, both her auditory and visual sensations should've been accurate; but when it came to details that could not have been guessed or plausibly learned after the fact, only her auditory information was accurate. Moreover, it is significant that as her narrative continues beyond the three visual observations outlined above, the remainder of her reported out-of-body perceptions are exclusively auditory. Finally, it is interesting that Pam reports uncertainly about the identity of the voice she heard when her OBE began: 'I believe it was a female voice and that it was Dr. Murray, but I'm not sure' (Sabom, 'Light' 42).

"These facts strongly imply anesthesia awareness, and tend to count against the idea that Pam's soul left her body during the operation. If her soul had left her body, the fact that her account contains out-of-body discrepancies doesn't make much sense. But it makes perfect sense if she experienced anesthesia awareness, particularly when one looks at which sorts of information that she provided were accurate and which were not. Pam Reynolds did not report anything that she could not have learned about through normal perception, and this is exactly what we would expect if normal perception alone was operating during her OBE. It is little wonder that Fox concludes that 'the jury is still very much out over this case' (Fox 210)."

(Keith Augustine, "Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences," under "Pam Reynolds," originally published 2003, updated 2008, at: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html#pam; see also, http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/keith-bio.html)

*****


Next.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2013 06:34PM by steve benson.

For a discussion of misdiagnosed 'flat-lined' cases, among other situations involving the rational and scientific explanations of NDEs, RfM poster "icedtea" should read the professional responses and observations of anesthesiologist, Dr. G.M. Woerlee, at; http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,976496,976496#msg-976496

Also, it would be good to recall Goethe's observation:

"Mysteries are not necessarily miracles."
___


The physical, biological, chemical and neurological realities of NDEs have been empirically researched, understood and explained to the satisfaction of mainstream, modern-day science. If they hadn't been, everyone one in the field would be scrambling to win a Nobel prize by discovering, then boldly announcing in peer-reviewed journals world-wide, some astounding new evidence that points to the supernatural or some other phenomenal breakout regarding the operative factors behind NDE causation.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2013 06:17PM by steve benson.

Playing devil's advocate with NDE's continuing after brain death. Presumably the person would have some brain activity post cardiac arrest prior to falling into complete brain death, prior to being resuscitated. When the person awakes and recounts their NDE, why is it assumed that the NDE occurred after brain death when it could have occurred prior to brain death? In addition, to what extent was the brain death that it was still possible for the person to be resuscitated? I understood that the definition of brain death was that it was irreversible, so if the person does come back, they couldn't have gone into complete brain death. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but it seems to me that the dying brain stopped short of total brain death.

*sigh* Don't you EVER get tired of being RIGHT Steve? How about you take a DEEP breath, have a nice COLD beer, and just relax!!!!