Reddit Thread - "Redditors who have been clinically dead and then revived/resuscitated?"

[George]

[Serious] Redditors who have been clinically dead and then revived/resuscitated: What did dying feel like? Did you see anything whilst passed on?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/332k1c/serious_redditors_who_have_been_clinically_dead/

[George]

Example: permalink

[–]SEGAspergers 441 points 17 days ago 

I don't want to get into details about the leading up to because it was extremely traumatic, but I'll describe the experience from the point when I "died".

Have you ever been watching a tv show or movie and got so caught up into the story that you forgot that you were sitting there, watching it? And then a commercial comes on and you're snapped back to reality like "Oh yeah I was watching a show!". That's what dying felt like to me, at least initially, that my entire life was a silly show I was focused on and forgot that it was simply a distraction from what was REALLY happening. 

It was the most frightening thing that has ever happened to me because it felt FAMILIAR. I was not religious, I was agnostic at best, but a better description of my beliefs would be "never fucking thought about it". Huge paradigm shift, I had something similar to PTSD from it afterwards, I didn't speak to anyone for probably a week trying to figure out what it was that I experienced and trying to make sense of it, and how I should view life now that I saw these things. 

Here's the just of my experience:

I fell out of the 3rd dimension into...another dimension? It's hard to explain. I could still see the visage of my last images, and the people around me looking at me scared, freaking out. I could see everything from all angles and time. I saw an infinite amount of other views of the same experience with small differences, people looked a little bit different, objects looked a bit weirder. These were all arranged together like a moving fractal. Time was solid, I could look into my past and see random events that happened to me when I was a kid. Obscure stuff that I recognized, but never thought about again. My life experiences as I chose them, formed an object, to me it looked like a loaf of bread, but it wasn't actually a loaf of bread. It's hard to explain. There was a communication to me in my head when I wondered why my life looked like a loaf of bread that all realities are existing at the same time and that random objects in one, like a carton of milk in the grocery store, could be pieces of entities, or even experiences in another time or dimension. An experience that happens to you in the third dimension, could actually be a manifestation of a being in a higher dimension. 

There were entities. In between the fractals of images of realities there were rainbow bands where realities kind of meshed, I focused on those and inbetween them were black areas where no realities existed, inbetween areas I guess. In these were entities that became of aware of me when I focused on their space. They seemed interested that I was there, I guess, more surprised in a completely uncaring way, like "Oh hey whats he doing here, that's kind of weird, whatever." I started to freak out and all the realities around me started to become altered by my fear. REALLY scary shit started appearing like evil demon faces that started biting me. The entities sort of nonchalantly told me that I will manifest whatever I'm feeling. 

Eventually I decided that I wanted to go back into my reality. I tried to find the one that I fell out of when I died, but I wasn't exactly sure which one it was. I chose the one that I recognised a close friend of mine in and was looking at me sad. I went in and that's when I woke up. No transition. Just like I got close to the 2d image of my last viewpoint before dying and it wrapped around me and I was there alive again seeing the "inside the head" view that I last saw before dying. It took me about 5 mins to even understand if I was actually alive again, or if what I just experienced was the transition to the afterlife. 

Sorry if this made no sense, I can answer questions if you have any. I know it sounds fucking bonkers but maybe it was just chemicals in my head that created all the visuals. I'm not sure. I still think about it everyday and I no longer have a fear of death because of it.

[George]

Worth plodding through for other ones. Another random one below to encourage exploration. 

While reading them, think: is that is being experience the "true reality" or is it instead another sequence of experiences, a coherent narrative spontaneously arising with being "decoupled" from your present one. Is it "behind the dream" or is it... just more dream?

_______

[–]viezenaar 6 points 8 days ago 

The part where you described "falling" into that familiar place is exactly what I experienced when I accidentally inhaled a shitload of laughing gas and passed out for a few minutes. I know my situation probably doesn't even nearly compare to yours but I have the feeling I know exactly what you mean.

The moment I passed out it felt like my life was paused at a random frame, like a videogame I had been playing for so long that I completely immersed into it. I remember physically turning away from the videogame screen and looking around me. It seemed like I was floating in space, and with a handfull of very blurry, blueish entities hovering next to me. (probably a common near-death experience phenomenom) They didn't have any faces or limbs or anything that could distinguish them as living beings, but for some reason I knew they were alive. I realised they were friendly and I was one of those entities, and they welcomed me back "home" from the "trip" that I took in the body that had just passed out back on earth. I remember how silly it seemed how I could have ever been convinced that I was just a human. The entities and I all seemed to know what had happened, cos they had been watching my human life on the screen earlier. I took too much laughing gas, temporarily pausing the reality of my earthly body and redirecting my mind back to this "space". I remembered that this was the place where I used to be before I was alive as a human, and that I would return here when I died. It felt extremely peaceful, a bit like coming home to your family after a trip around the world.

The moment that I realised this, I felt like I got pulled back to the screen. I knew my gas was leaving my body, and my body pulled my spirit back in. The few seconds in which this transition took place, in my head I kept repeating what I just experienced, so that I wouldn't forget it. It was by far the most profound experience I have ever had.

I don't know if I was close to clinical death due to lack of oxygen at the moment, or whether it was just the gas. It just felt so genuine. I study chemistry myself and I am not religious nor do I consider myself a spiritual person, but the moment I was up there in space, I knew that even if this wasn't death, it was still probably be very much like death. I don't fear death anymore either. The thought of just disappearing into an infinite sleep without dreams, with your body rotting away in the ground and humanity eventually forgetting you ever existed always seemed scary as fuck. But if it's anything like I experienced, we have nothing to fear. The shittiest part was actually landing back into my body. It felt like stepping into an undersized hazmat-suit. I felt my dry mouth, my skin tightly wrapped around a bag of squishy organs. It just felt so uncomfortable. Like as if you're cramped up in a very small, very slow, sluggy and noisy car with smudged windows and you just want to kick the door open to step out and smell the fresh air. Luckily this feeling quickly faded, and I felt extremely good for the next few days. My biggest fear, death, was no longer scary. When I die, my mind will probably float back to that weird space where you're relieved from all your earthly restrictions and where everything is good. 

I know this might all sound very spiritual and ambiguous, but I find myself to be a pretty rational person and this is literally what I experienced

[Peter Jones]

Fabulous stuff.

My deepest experiences occurred while meditating on death. That is, while trying to be dead. I no longer fear death, although the actual process of dying remains a worrying prospect, and senile dementia more so. 

It would be important to add that I was and am a poor practitioner. To travel the path to the end would be a mountain to climb but it would be a mistake to assume that years of practice are required to engender deep and life-changing experiences of reality. Sometimes I think that stressing the difficulty of the path is, while honest, also counterproductive. As the Buddha says, even a brief period of serious practice may set one ineluctably on the path to truth. 

Perhaps the most curious feature of these experiences for the sceptic is the evaporation of any fear of death. We can all have hallucinations and dreams and self-deceptions, but this absence of fear is not an intellectual construct but visceral. As the second example shows, We know we don't fear death even though we might concede the possibility that we imagined it all. Even if we imagined it all we have established the possibility of this state of consciousness.    

 

[RHC]

George its only Wednesday, can you please refrain from posting the crack cocaine at least until Fridays!!!  ;)

I love this stuff!  

My first reaction when reading them is that they sound like experiencing a broken interface between here and other parts of reality.  Punching a momentary hole in a whirlpool, disturbing its flow for a few moments. 

[George]

Their reality-tapes became loosened from their sprockets!  :-)

[RHC]

eggzaklee

[Roslyn Ross]

 I have read a lot of books on NDE's and the experiences detailed here fit with many of those. My instinct is that NDE's reveal aspects of our capacity for extended consciousness and mind function rather more than they do actual death. But perhaps that is because with NDE's one is still connected to the body even if it is just the 'cord' connection, the breaking of which means one cannot return to the body, and so the influences of the material world remain great.

It seems to me if there is a world beyond this one and a life which continues, and I do believe there is because it makes most sense, that death must be much simpler than it is often imagined. After all, children make the transition. I suspect it is also possible to be so highly trained in managing mind that one can literally, step out of the body when the time comes to leave it.

It has always seemed to me that if there is continuing life and a world beyond the material that this material world must therefore have relevance. Otherwise what is the point? I wonder if there is not a transition phase - bardo - where we experience the world we know here but in non-material form.

So many of the writings about the afterlife from religions and spiritual movements seem so far removed from this world that it is hard to see the point and purpose of this world, if that is where we go. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is an example which comes to mind.

I wonder if descriptions of the next world which come from NDE's and OBE's and meditative experiences are akin to someone from 3000BC arriving in our modern world and trying to explain what they saw and experienced to others.

No doubt in time we shall all know, but common sense suggests and instinct attests that any world beyond this one is likely to be even more real and very recognisable than most might imagine.

I have come to see life here as part of an experiment, one in which we choose freely to participate, and death, a going home.

On Wednesday, 6 May 2015 22:46:15 UTC+9:30, George wrote:

[Roslyn Ross]

me (Roslyn Ross change)

16:04 (7 minutes ago)

Other recipients:

I have read a lot of books on NDE's and the experiences detailed here fit with many of those. My instinct is that NDE's reveal aspects of our capacity for extended consciousness and mind function rather more than they do actual death. But perhaps

 I have read a lot of books on NDE's and the experiences detailed here fit with many of those. My instinct is that NDE's reveal aspects of our capacity for extended consciousness and mind function rather more than they do actual death. But perhaps that is because with NDE's one is still connected to the body even if it is just the 'cord' connection, the breaking of which means one cannot return to the body, and so the influences of the material world remain great.

It seems to me if there is a world beyond this one and a life which continues, and I do believe there is because it makes most sense, that death must be much simpler than it is often imagined. After all, children make the transition. I suspect it is also possible to be so highly trained in managing mind that one can literally, step out of the body when the time comes to leave it.

It has always seemed to me that if there is continuing life and a world beyond the material that this material world must therefore have relevance. Otherwise what is the point? I wonder if there is not a transition phase - bardo - where we experience the world we know here but in non-material form.

So many of the writings about the afterlife from religions and spiritual movements seem so far removed from this world that it is hard to see the point and purpose of this world, if that is where we go. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is an example which comes to mind.

I wonder if descriptions of the next world which come from NDE's and OBE's and meditative experiences are akin to someone from 3000BC arriving in our modern world and trying to explain what they saw and experienced to others.

No doubt in time we shall all know, but common sense suggests and instinct attests that any world beyond this one is likely to be even more real and very recognisable than most might imagine.

I have come to see life here as part of an experiment, one in which we choose freely to participate, and death, a going home.

On Wednesday, 6 May 2015 22:46:15 UTC+9:30, George wrote:

[George]

I have come to see life here as part of an experiment, one in which we choose freely to participate, and death, a going home.

I like this. 

I suppose I now see life as an experience, and after that... more experiences. Because we have no memory of what we were doing "before", we tend to treat this life as particularly special and that it must have some very important meaning and purpose. But if it's part of something ongoing, it perhaps isn't that deep. We got on an epic waterslide and at the point of push-off we memory-wiped. We then spend half the ride wondering the meaning of every twist and turn.

The NDE reports are interesting, because you can't tell if people experienced other places or just had more dream. If we really are just consciousness, then content isn't inherently meaningful other than that it is an experience of yourself?

Here's a diagram I've drawn which completely explains the meaning of life.  ;-)

[George]

Spoiler for the plot of 'Life': Everyone dies at the end. But it turns out not to be a problem.

 

Narada, Vishnu and Maya

In Devi Bhagwata Purana, it is mentioned that once Narada asked Vishnu about the secret nature of Maya (Illusion). 

“What is Maya?” asked Narada. 

“The world is my Maya. He who accepts this, realizes me,” said Vishnu. 

“Before I explain, will you fetch me some water?” requested the Lord pointing to a river. 

Narada did as he was told. But on his way back, he saw a beautiful woman. Smitten by her beauty, he begged the woman to marry him. She agreed. 

Narada built a house for his wife on the banks of the river. She bore him many children. Loved by his wife, adored by his sons and daughters, Narada forgot all about his mission to fetch water for Vishnu. 

In time, Narada’s children had children of their own. Surrounded by his grandchildren, Narada felt happy and secure. Nothing could go wrong. 

Suddenly, dark clouds enveloped the sky. There was thunder, lightning, and rain. The river overflowed, broke its banks and washed away Narada’s house, drowning everyone he loved, everything he possessed. Narada himself was swept away by the river. 

“Help, help. Somebody please help me,” he cried. Vishnu immediately stretched out his hand and pulled Narada out of the water. 

Back in Vaikuntha, Vishnu asked, “Where is my water?” 

“How can you be so remorseless? How can you ask me for water when I have lost my entire family?” 

Vishnu smiled. “Calm down, Narada. Tell me, where did your family come from? From Me. I am the only reality, the only entity in the cosmos that is eternal and unchanging. Everything else is an illusion – a mirage, constantly slipping out of one’s grasp.” 

“You, my greatest devotee, knew that. Yet, enchanted by the pleasures of worldly life, you forgot all about me. You deluded yourself into believing that your world and your life were all that mattered and nothing else was of any consequence. As per your perspective, the material world was infallible, invulnerable, perfect. That is Maya.” 

Thus Vishnu dispelled Narada’s illusion, bringing him back to the realm of reality and making him comprehend the power of Maya over man.

[RHC]

Roslyn my thoughts on NDEs are very similar to yours. The most they can tell us about any afterlife is about the initial transition, the experience of which clearly is heavily interpreted/filtered by just having been human.  I do wonder about how long after body death one "is still connected to the body" as you put it.  The reason being as resuscitation medicine advances people will be revived after being 'dead' for longer and longer periods of time. Lowering body temperature has a big impact on this. I think the record is close to 50 minutes, maybe longer. Its not inconceivable that some day you may be able to keep someone dead but revivable for indefinite periods of time.  I guess one can take a position that is similar to the materialist nde debunking one that if you are revived then by definition you were never dead and say that if you are revived the connection to your body and human perspective was never broken. 

[Charles Leiden]

I enjoy reading and talking about all these ideas.  Patrick Harpur is a good writer on many topics related to the soul, the other world, the daimon and mythology.  In his book  The Secret Tradition of the Soul  he mentioned this book.  Here is a draft copy that is available online about the experience of T.E. Lawrence.  http://www.ignaciodarnaude.com/revelacion_extraterrestre/Lawrence%20of%20Arabia,Post%20mortem%20journal,by%20Jane%20Sherwood.pdf    

[Roslyn Ross]

Because I believe this world is a great experiment, I would see any advances in medicine catered for by having people remain connected for longer periods.

Many ancient traditions have the soul not completely removed from the body for three days - hence the wake. Christianity, Judaism, and many primitive spiritual traditions hold or held this view.  Some might argue this was because in times past people could 'die' or appear dead and not be dead - bells on tombs etc., but I would see it as more part of something planned within the experiment.


There was a fascinating book I read many years ago where a son died in I think the First World War and came back and talked to his father about the experience. What struck me about the book was how sensible it all seemed. I will try and remember the name. It is forty years since I read it!! 

On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 8:18 PM, RHC <rhcc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Roslyn my thoughts on NDEs are very similar to yours. The most they can tell us about any afterlife is about the initial transition, the experience of which clearly is heavily interpreted/filtered by just having been human.  I do wonder about how long after body death one "is still connected to the body" as you put it.  The reason being as resuscitation medicine advances people will be revived after being 'dead' for longer and longer periods of time. Lowering body temperature has a big impact on this. I think the record is close to 50 minutes, maybe longer. Its not inconceivable that some day you may be able to keep someone dead but revivable for indefinite periods of time.  I guess one can take a position that is similar to the materialist nde debunking one that if you are revived then by definition you were never dead and say that if you are revived the connection to your body and human perspective was never broken. 

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[Roslyn Ross]

Yes he is. And the best NDE researcher to my mind is P.M.H. Atwater.

[Roslyn Ross]

Yes, it does not have to be deep, simply experienced. Many 'reports' from the 'next world' say a common reaction to finding one's self dead is to laugh because then you know it really is all fine and life was never meant to be taken too seriously.

[George]

I missed this in the comments before, but there's a site called Near Death Experience Research Foundation which also collects stories.

[Charles Leiden]

Maybe collective humanity is experiencing a NDE in this moment.  Who knows?   

On Sat, May 9, 2015 at 6:37 AM, George <account...@noseeyes.com> wrote:

I missed this in the comments before, but there's a site called Near Death Experience Research Foundation which also collects stories.

[George]

Particularly of interest, one of the stories' authors answers questions in the forum:

http://nderf.me/topic970.html

[Michael Huber]

Thats a interesting thought. Reality as we know it as a NDE of a complexity that we cant even imagine right now. But who's having that NDE then? And what is outside of that NDE? The "real" reality?

On Saturday, May 9, 2015 at 2:24:30 PM UTC+2, Charles Leiden wrote:

Maybe collective humanity is experiencing a NDE in this moment.  Who knows?   

On Sat, May 9, 2015 at 6:37 AM, George <account...@noseeyes.com> wrote:

I missed this in the comments before, but there's a site called Near Death Experience Research Foundation which also collects stories.

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[George]

Thats a interesting thought. Reality as we know it as a NDE of a complexity that we cant even imagine right now. But who's having that NDE then? And what is outside of that NDE? The "real" reality?

Well, it's the same you that you are now, I suppose. It only takes a moment's attention to realise that you are not "Michael Huber". That's just a thought you have from time to time. 

And outside of "this" NDE would be the same as what's outside of this room, perhaps? As in, there is no spatially-extended world beyond the walls you "see" in this present moment sensory experience. So I figure it's not a case of "outside" but rather what's within your attention right now.

I'm always a bit torn with these NDE stories. Certainly, they reveal to use that our everyday experience is: a) not all there is and, b) not what we think it is and, c) we are not what we assume ourselves to be. But dreams do this too, and we wouldn't say a dream is "outside" of waking reality normally. It's not certain that any of the content of an NDE is to be trusted as "the really real real" any more than the content of any other experience. The content-less parts, though, I'm more inclined to see as more fundamental (i.e. the understanding of what we are not.)

[George]

Extract from one of the NDE reports:

________________

A PART OF WHAT I UNDERSTOOD AND REMEMBER TODAY IS:

* We live in a "Plural Unity" or "Oneness." In other words, our reality is "Unity in Plurality and Plurality in Unity." -     

* That I was everything and everything was me, without essential differences other than in temporal appearances. 

* That there is no external god, but that god is in everything and everything in god just as life itself.

* That there is no god outside ourselves but is, rather, in everything and everything is a part of god, as is life itself.

* That god is everything and nothing at the same time.

* That everyone and everything or temporal phenomenon within this dimension is where it should be because it emanates from the blueprint of a shared dream (if we can call it that) that is repeated indefinitely until we understand what is essential or real.

* That everything is part of an essential game of life itself, and that to the degree that we live by true love--unconditional and universal--the closer we are to an understanding of what life truly is, which is true happiness and perfect wisdom.       

* That everything is experience and that this life and the next are essentially the same because everything is god.  Nothing is outside of god just as nothing is outside of life itself.

* Death is a metamorphosis of time.  One more illusion from our mental concepts.  Essentially, time does not exist, nor does space.  They are illusions of our creative mind that plays a game of self-deception in the creation of events. 

* That "I," includes "We," and are like a mirror where we perceive the reflection of our reality in its many facets and illusions. 

* That the "creator" is eternally creating and one of the creations is the practice of conscious love.  "One learns to paint by painting."  That's why this "temporal human illusory creation" exists as though it were a matrix within another matrix and this, within another...multi-dimensionally until we wake up.

* I experienced something that can't be transmitted with words but that can be expressed as "The Essence of Life is its Total Nothingness.  (Please understand "Nothingness" as something that has no intrinsic substance, but is rather constructed by a multitude of phenomena, which in turn are formed by other untold multitude of phenomena to the point of infinity). I understood that intangible, indescribable life is all that exists.  There is no death (it's only a description to show the polarities in the world of phenomena)

* Consciously living by love is the essence of life itself and is made manifest or materializes in this plane of existence as a cohesive force to recreate itself in multiple forms as a game in which nothingness recreates itself in temporary, illusory events.

* The known universe is a fraction of infinite reality that by love has become finite pieces in our temporal "hands."

* I learned thousands of other things without end and it is difficult to express in words because words are insufficient, they can't describe what I experienced in this other state of consciousness that was much clearer than this one.

[RHC]

NDEs are on the whole pretty consistently idealist.  I discovered Bernardo after about six months of intensive reading on the subject, and found his ideas fit NDEs better than anything else I had read.   The only thing that one has to do a little interpretive dancing around with, is that many NDEs experience an entity they experience as God.  To me this seems like a minor point. 

[George]

NDEs are on the whole pretty consistently idealist.  I discovered Bernardo after about six months of intensive reading on the subject, and found his ideas fit NDEs better than anything else I had read.   The only thing that one has to do a little interpretive dancing around with, is that many NDEs experience an entity they experience as God.  To me this seems like a minor point. 

Yes. I think though that you have to expect that-which-cannot-be-described to probably get filtered through cultural or historical bias (personal and at large), in an attempt to translate it into language. It's interesting that a lot of reporters are pretty aware of this: "I can't explain it, it can't be put into words, it appeared to me like this, but it was... this".

etc.

[RHC]

I agree.  Thats there is so much overlap of major elements (obe, feeling unconditional love, tunnel, light etc..) at all is what is so compelling about them.  One would expect dying brain hallucinations to be chaotic, highly individualized, panic laced etc.. and yet they are not.  

[Roslyn Ross]

Having read a lot of books on NDE's I would not say this is representative. P.M.H. Atwater is to my mind top of the range as researchers and she also leans to the view that much of the experience is to do with brain function as opposed to literally being dead.

More common in the experience is an absolute clarity of mind and the understanding, on return, that even with physical death or no brain function, we continue to function as who we are with even greater clarity.

[Roslyn Ross]

The human mind, or perhaps just mind is made to make sense and find meaning. Mind at work within a material body or not will no doubt do the same or similar things. I would not say many experience God but many, perhaps most experience the presence of a guide or spiritual presence/s.

My sense is that NDE's allow our material minds to access experiences beyond the material, or purely material, just like OBE's and deep spiritual and meditative experiences. The 'world' which is experienced is no doubt an expanded version of this world and one which offers greater access to the non-material or real world from which we 'came' and in which all is sourced.

[Roslyn Ross]

I have just read another book on NDE's written by Peter Fenwick, neuropsychologist, and his wife, Elizabeth, The Truth In the Light. It has recently been republished. He takes a position of seeking to assess NDE's from a scientific, i.e. material perspective and admits failure wherever it occurs, which is often. What is exceptional, as you point out, about them is the clarity of mind and thought which, if emanating from a material brain which is non-functional, dysfunctional or 'dying' should not be possible. What is clear is that NDE's cannot be explained from a purely material perspective, at least not from where science medicine now stands.

The closest I have come to 'altered states' was in three serious car accidents and one near-miss, where 'time stopped' and while in a material sense I knew later it had taken mere seconds, the fact is, it felt like many minutes as I calmly considered my options, made choices, in the case of the 'near miss' and was able to function 'beyond time.'

One could argue that in the three serious car accidents it was a function of mind/brain which kicks in to comfort in the way that people seem to not remember traumatic accidents.

But in the case of the near miss, it was very clear that time had stopped as I watched a large plank of timber fly off the back of the truck in front of me on a freeway and with small children in the back, considered where it would be best for it to hit the car since hit it would. I knew I could not avoid it hitting, nor swerve away but I reasoned I could calculate where it could hit and do the least damage. Clearly not in front of me or on the right pillar; nor in the centre of the car where it could break through to hit my children in the back seat. The optimal point of contact was the left pillar, not the glass. I steered carefully in this direction and that is what happened. 

I had such calm, slow, clarity of mind I simply do not believe it was something my mind invented. Ditto for one of the serious accidents, where I saw a car on the left and sensed it would suddenly pull out. It did, and again, time stopped and I knew the safest place to make contact was in the centre of my car, the strongest part. I manoeuvred the car so that would happen. It did. I would not have been injured if my seat belt had not failed to work. And yes, all sorts of lessons in the fractured sternum!

[George]

One of my favourite stories at the Glitch_in_the_Matrix forum on reddit, below. 

This sort of thing tend to push me towards the interpretation that any content to an NDE is "more dream content". This includes tunnels, meeting friendly angels, other resting places, choices about going back or not. You don't necessarily get what you expect, but you always get something, and it's perhaps an interpretation of "oneness" plus various patterns they've accumulated.

Basically, you have a dream about dying, just as right now you are having a dream about living?

If you don't retain the memory of your accident or event, then you don't get an NDE-type experience, you just get a completely different life - just as you do when you go to sleep and have non-lucid dream. In other words, when you enter a situation where you "are withdrawn from the senses", your current content ends - and what appears next is, hypnogogia-style, could be dependent on what fragments and patterns you retain.

In the Kirby Surprise book, Synchronicity, he describes well how synchronistic events mirror your own thoughts and beliefs. I'd say: because the world you observe is your mind. If you act as though you are getting messages from God, the environment will be one in which you receive messages. But they will be from you, in alignment with the larger pattern of you. Is this what NDE's are like? Creation by implication to fill the gap of "Here Be Dragons"?

_______________

A Parallel Life / Awoken By A Lamp

throw away account cause this is really personal.

My last semester at a certain college I was assulted by a football player for walking where he was trying to drive (note he was 325lbs I was 120lbs), while unconscious on the ground I lived a different life.

I met a wonderful young lady, she made my heart skip and my face red, I pursued her for months and dispatched a few jerk boyfriends before I finally won her over, after two years we got married and almost immediately she bore me a daughter.

I had a great job and my wife didn't have to work outside of the house, when my daughter was two she [my wife] bore me a son. My son was the joy of my life, I would walk into his room every morning before I left for work and doted on him and my daughter.

One day while sitting on the couch I noticed that the perspective of the lamp was odd, like inverted. It was still in 3D but... just.. wrong. (It was a square lamp base, red with gold trim on 4 legs and a white square shade). I was transfixed, I couldn't look away from it. I stayed up all night staring at it, the next morning I didn't go to work, something was just not right about that lamp.

I stopped eating, I left the couch only to use the bathroom at first, soon I stopped that too as I wasn't eating or drinking. I stared at the fucking lamp for 3 days before my wife got really worried, she had someone come and try to talk to me, by this time my cognizance was breaking up and my wife was freaking out. She took the kids to her mother's house just before I had my epiphany.... the lamp is not real.... the house is not real, my wife, my kids... none of that is real... the last 10 years of my life are not fucking real!

The lamp started to grow wider and deeper, it was still inverted dimensions, it took up my entire perspective and all I could see was red, I heard voices, screams, all kinds of weird noises and I became aware of pain.... a fucking shit ton of pain... the first words I said were "I'm missing teeth" and opened my eyes. I was laying on my back on the sidewalk surrounded by people that I didn't know, lots were freaking out, I was completely confused.

At some point a cop scooped me up, dragged/walked me across the sidewalk and grass and threw me face down in the back of a cop car, I was still confused.

I was taken to the hospital by the cop (seems he didn't want to wait for the ambulance to arrive) and give CT scans and shit..

I went through about 3 years of horrid depression, I was grieving the loss of my wife and children and dealing with the knowledge that they never existed, I was scared that I was going insane as I would cry myself to sleep hoping I would see her in my dreams. I never have, but sometimes I see my son, usually just a glimpse out of my peripheral vision, he is perpetually 5 years old and I can never hear what he says.

EDIT (24 hours after post): never though anyone would read this, I changed a line so that it no longer seems that my 2 year old daughter bore a child.

I have never seen Inception or the Star Trek episode so many have mentioned (but I will eventually)

I will not do an AMA

I've had many PM's describing similar experiences and 3 posters stating such experiences are impossible, I'd say more research needs to be done on brain functions. Pre-med students, don't assume you know everything.

A few have asked if they can write a book/screen play/stage play/rage comic etcetera, please consider this tale open source and have fun with it

-- /u/temptotosssoon

[George]

The human mind, or perhaps just mind is made to make sense and find meaning. Mind at work within a material body or not will no doubt do the same or similar things. I would not say many experience God but many, perhaps most experience the presence of a guide or spiritual presence/s.

Perhaps they are just experiencing the "third man factor"!

Basically, experiencing themselves.

My sense is that NDE's allow our material minds to access experiences beyond the material, or purely material, just like OBE's and deep spiritual and meditative experiences. The 'world' which is experienced is no doubt an expanded version of this world and one which offers greater access to the non-material or real world from which we 'came' and in which all is sourced.

A lot of them sound like defocussing from an individual moment - experiencing not being localised to a particular time and space, seeing the whole landscape without boundaries. In between the two states, there's imagery from all over the place (really) that gets formed into some sorrt of coherent narrative, just like nightly dreams (which, it has been hypothesised, is a similar "opening to all" experience).

[Roslyn Ross]

Sure, all options must be on the table. I think what strikes me reading about thousands of such cases are the constants: increased clarity of mind; beings of light; reluctance to return to the body; loss of fear of death. 

[George]

Sure, all options must be on the table. I think what strikes me reading about thousands of such cases are the constants: increased clarity of mind; beings of light; reluctance to return to the body; loss of fear of death. 

Yes. I think the content is besides the point. It's those realisations that count, however they are delivered. They definitively get the realisation that in some sense this daily experience isn't "what they thought". 

[RHC]

Good point.  That so many NDE dramatically change experiencers lives, and how they think about life after the experience, is arguably the most important and objectively "true"  aspect of the phenomena. There are few categories of experience that consistently cause a large percentage of experiencers to radically change their day to day lives. Not to mention when you have close to 100% of experiencers saying they no longer fear death thats profound, regardless of content.

[Charles Leiden]

just saw this article   http://www.sciencealert.com/there-are-seven-types-of-near-death-experiences-according-to-new-research

[Roslyn Ross]

I had a look at the Parnia article. I have read dozens of books on NDE's with sources going back centuries and I have to say his 'list' is not representative of any of that research.  He has Fear as top of his list and everything else I have seen has it as rare, very rare. Seeing animals and plants is even rarer and he has it second. Bright light yes, and then violence and persecution, again, extremely rare. I have never seen DejaVu in the research but reports of family are as common as bright light. Recalling events post cardiac is a large minority.

I do not think Parnia, clearly a committed materialist reductionist is one of the better sources of information. As I have said before, one of the most experienced and comprehensive is P.M.H. Atwater. Pim Van Lommel is also better than Parnia in my view:

http://www.pimvanlommel.nl/?home_eng

[George]

I had a look at the Parnia article. 

Yes. That categorisation is just... nonsense. 

[Charles Leiden]

I posted the article because it was sent to me from IONS (Institute of Noetic Sciences.)  I thought it odd that IONS would bring attention to this research.   Roslyn, I agree with you.  

On Sat, May 16, 2015 at 5:47 AM, George <account...@noseeyes.com> wrote:

I had a look at the Parnia article. 

Yes. That categorisation is just... nonsense. 

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[George]

I posted the article because it was sent to me from IONS (Institute of Noetic Sciences.)  I thought it odd that IONS would bring attention to this research.   Roslyn, I agree with you. 

To be clear: I found it interesting that the research is even being done! Just it was a shame it is being structured that way. 

[Sciborg2 Sciborg2]

Interesting to see how the NDE resembles in a video game in a few of these cases.

Peer-to-Peer hypothesis for the win. :-)

[George]

Interesting to see how the NDE resembles in a video game in a few of these cases.

Peer-to-Peer hypothesis for the win. :-)

Haha, yes. But I hear the final boss fight is unbeatable - everyone gets either thrown back to a previous checkpoint, or even has to start again as a new character!

[Sciborg2 Sciborg2]

i heard the trick is to realize the final boss is only a mirror.

or maybe go through the Eleusian Mysteries? As Warren Ellis once said, "magic is just the cheat codes for the universe".

[George]

 As Warren Ellis once said, "magic is just the cheat codes for the universe".

And true knowledge is the realisation that you've been using the cheat codes all along, 

just in a half-hearted and unambitious way?

[Roslyn Ross]

Perhaps IONS were just grateful that it was given some consideration although one would have thought they would know enough about it to assess it was rather skewed. 

On Saturday, 16 May 2015 22:09:16 UTC+9:30, Charles Leiden wrote:

I posted the article because it was sent to me from IONS (Institute of Noetic Sciences.)  I thought it odd that IONS would bring attention to this research.   Roslyn, I agree with you.  

On Sat, May 16, 2015 at 5:47 AM, George <account...@noseeyes.com> wrote:

I had a look at the Parnia article. 

Yes. That categorisation is just... nonsense. 

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[Roslyn Ross]

Magic is just a word for that which we do not truly understand.