Have you ever had a near death experience?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

Have you ever spoken with anyone who has?

What is your opinion of them?

I hope we can discuss this without flames; I would assume there are strong opinions on both sides of the issue. (i.e. they don't exist; they are proof of an afterlife.) We've been doing pretty well of being quite civil in the past few days!

[bbinacan]

1. No but

have you? Just curious since you started the topic.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

3. No, I haven't

but I am reading a website of the International Association for Near Death Studies.

http://iands.org/research/fenwick.php

and it has gotten me interested.

[bbinacan]

18. Thanks for the

link. I'll be sure to check it out.

[bbinacan]

29. You may find this interesting.

I was the first to reply to your post and said that I knew of no one that had a NDE. Well, I called my mother to see what time I was to be at my grandmother's birthday party tomorrow. She turns 90 on May 31. I mentioned your post and mom said that grandma, whose health is failing, keeps seeing relatives that passed years ago walking around in the yard. Freaked me out.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

30. oh. my. goodness!

Quite a coincidence!

[bbinacan]

33. When I see Grandma

tomorrow, and if the situation is right, I'll try to get more details.

[SPKrazy]

2. I've Spoken With A Couple Of People Who Say They Have

I've certainly read about them in several books about NDE's

I believe that while they may be somewhat of an hallucination, the fact that there is a part of the brain that exists to generate these hallucinations is very fascinating.

I also think that it may be MORE than just hallucination, that in fact the hallucinatory part is that which connects to the spiritual part so that it can be experienced in a way that we as humans can understand without being frightened.

The reason I think this is that I'm not a believer in the idea of streets of gold, or the idea that we will be in any shape or form that we are in now.

However, the transition from terrestrial life, to totally spiritual life is most likely quite a change. Much like the birth from the mother's womb.

So, having a way to transition that brings a person into another realm with familiar things seems a good enough explanation to me.

Peace

[SmokingJacket]

4. My grandmother felt herself go through a dark tunnel and into the

light at the end. This was after an aneurysm. There was more, actually quite vivid, detail but I don't remember it. Unfortunately, after the second aneurysm, she didn't come back! :(

[uppityperson]

5. my mother did, very painful, disorienting, painful

was not waking up after anesthesia during a biopsy. She said she was spinning spinning spinning, said it was very nauseating, very painful, spinning spinning spinning, said she had a choice whether to come back to the voices she heard or go on. Not sure why she felt she had a choice, but was definite about that. She decided to come back and woke up. She didn't come out of the anesthesia like she should have, they thought she was dying and talked and talked and talked to her until she woke up. She said the next time she was going to chose differently since it had been so painful, she didn't want to do it again.

She died about 2 months later, chose differently.

Edited to add she said she was disappointed, was hoping for a peaceful drifting to the light, but didn't find that at all.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. I think it is different for each person

I'm sorry your mother had such a disorienting transition. When my stepfather had a heart attack and was legally "dead" for about five minutes, he said he saw and felt nothing. I found that he stubbornly clung to life even after his body and brain were a physical wreck because the experience had him convinced that death was it. I was glad to see him at his funeral, and feel his relief. I hope your mother, too, has found peace.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. Not quite

But I have helped a person who had died pass over. They didn't realize they were dead, and were quite surprised and pleased when I told them.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

8. The TV shows Ghost Whisperer

and The Medium...where they converse with dead people who have not passed over, do you know if these are based upon any claims by individuals? I mean I know John Edwards, but his work is very cryptic.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

13. From what I've heard

from mystical friends, it is not too unusual to have people who have died who don't realize it. One fellow who was in Viet Nam as a medic spent a night in a truck filled with bodies, and he said that many of the poor souls were confused, not realizing they had died; he tried to help as many as he could. The person I helped cross over was a close relative; I knew she was going to die months before she had a fall which led to complications that killed her. I have seen a few who have crossed over since then, but haven't helped anyone else up to this time.

[FloridaPat]

19. I met someone who could see ghosts. She was in Germany at

the concentration camps and saw some still there. She helped them over. Or tried to. It was ages since I met her.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

27. Yes

I know of folks who did this service during WWII. It can be interesting being able to sense unseen beings, because they fill the gamut from being very happy to downright mean and spooky.

[Spinzonner]

7. What would a 'near life experience' be ?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

9. Almost being born??

[OffWithTheirHeads]

31. Maybe being

Born Again. Near life but not quite there.

[ngant17]

11. NDE/OOBE

http://geocities.com/ngant17/oobe2.htm

Try International Institute of Projectiology at iipc.org

[wain]

12. Well, I did flat line with cardiac arrest

I had the good fortune to be in an ambulance, so I was quickly zapped twice to restart my new life (11 years now and going strong).

No visions or out-of-life experiences. Just remember an elephant joined us in the ambulance and was sitting on my chest! LOL!

After bypass surgery I now run and pray regularly. I am one lucky fellow and enjoy having the chance to know my wonderful three year old grandson.

Not sure this is what you want, but it's a pretty big deal to me.

:)

[TallahasseeGrannie]

14. That is a HUGE deal

and a great story. My son is a medic and has only had a handful of successful "zappings." He always calls and tells me about one because he is so excited.

[Proud_Democratt]

15. To be honest....no.

I've never been that close to death.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

20. Either have I.

I did watch both my parents pass on, and was struck by how empty it seemed. Just the breath going out and nothing.

I also watched both my grandchildren be born in the same time period and THAT (as excited as it was) did not appear particularly mystical to me. But in both incidences I was experiencing a lot of anxiety and not tuned in very well.

[joneschick]

16. not exactly.....

I do remember being semi-conscious on a gurney waiting for emergency surgery and being able to hear the nurses wondering where the surgeon was because they were losing me fast. I had ruptured my appendix several days earlier and been mis-diagnosed. I had gangrene and peritonitis by the time I finally got to surgery.

[FloridaPat]

17. I had a conversation last weekend with a friend that went through

the experience in high school. She was enjoying the light and the peace and a man with a beard came up to her and told her she had to go back. She had a lot of unfinished business to do. She said she no longer feared death after that.

[kenny blankenship]

21. She should fear it. Evidently Death thinks she's a slacker.

First time is a warning. Second time gets you fired.

[NNadir]

23. ...

:rofl:

[NNadir]

22. I was in a coma for several days. They were considering transplanting

my organs, but the EEG indicated that I was not dead yet. (Yes, there is a brain dead joke here.)

I do not recall being visited by God. In fact, I remember nothing at all about the series of events by which I ended up near death.

The first thing I remember is coming out of the coma. A nurse was pressing on my chest in the ICU unit to keep me from disturbing the various tubes inserted in various places in my body. After telling me not to move, she told me my name, and then asked me if I knew who I was - and what had happened to me. (I knew who I was, but I didn't know what happened to me.)

The pain was intense for a while, but I recovered very quickly and nicely.

I would not be surprised to learn that momentary hypoxia induces hallucinations. Many hallucinations of course are intepreted in spirtual ways. That would be my hypothesis for what is occuring when people report being visited by Jesus (or similar beings) when their hearts stop, but I have no direct knowledge of what really goes on. One would hope that the moment of dying, to the extent one possesses any conciousness, is pleasant.

I recall reading somewhere that there are evolutionary reasons for states of "peace" at the moment of death, specifically that inaction sometimes induces disinterest in predators who do not always pursue the kill, thus incurring a survival advantage. I have no idea if this is testable or true, but personally I do not believe in a spirit world. The life we have is what we get, in my opinion, and so it is best to do the right things in this life, since all that will exist of you eventually is what people remember of you.

[Silent3]

24. Twice, in November...

...2000 and November 2004. I was sure I'd died and gone to hell. x( :-( ;(

[JanusAscending]

26. GREAT ONE !!!!

love it!!! DC

[Warpy]

25. Deep shock, it was lovely

everything just sort of fell away. There were no worries, no possessions, no fears, no concerns, just voices around me and I didn't particularly care what they were saying. Then the atropine went in and my heart rate came out of the 20s and the world came crashing back in. What a letdown.

I've never quite forgiven them.

[Hekate]

28. Not I; but my Mom, my Dad, and a friend all have

Perhaps my friend will post her own experience, if she's still tuning into DU and sees this -- I interviewed her for a paper on NDEs several years ago, and hers was indeed the classic experience.

My Mom had an out of body experience, rather than NDE, but apparently she was headed that way fast. She was having one of the miscarriages that punctuated her childbearing experiences, and was hemmorhaging badly. She began to view the operating room from a corner up by the ceiling: doctors, nurses, herself, blood all over the place. She was aware of her body's breathing, and aware of how easy it would be to just breathe out and not breathe in again. The idea seemed attractive; just breathe out and let her troubles be over. Then she thought of me and my younger brother (we were both under four at the time), and how incompetent and inattentive my father would be as a single parent (all too true, I'm afraid). And she breathed in.

Many years later my Dad had heart surgery to replace a valve damaged by a childhood bout of rheumatic fever. By that time my brother and I were out of the house, and the youngest two (born when I was six and nine) were in high school. His heart was much worse than the doctors had thought, and what was to have take four hours took twelve. At some point he entered the "white light/ tunnel" experience. On the other side was a flowery meadow; people that he knew who'd died were dancing in a circle. They were happy to see him, but he was told he had to go back, and he did. He told my mother all about it while he was in the hospital, but unlike most people he subsequently forgot the experience.

Hekate

[OffWithTheirHeads]

32. A couple of times in my life I thought is was over

Not to the point where you see shit but at a point where I thought I was going to die. Once, I fell off a cliff and just knew this was it. What I remember from this was a real feeling of peace. Just kind of, this is the end, I'm going to die and it's O.K. I always expected much fear in an event like that but what I had was an experience of acceptance and peace.

Obviously, I didn't die but I will never forget that experience.

When it actually does happen, If I see heaven and Jesus and Fallwell, and Robertson etc. Fuck that, I'm comming back!

[TallahasseeGrannie]

36. Jesus with Falwell?

Now THAT's a nightmare. But it will never happen.

[varkam]

34. It depends on how you define it.

If you mean the whole tunnel of light thing, then no. But I have had 4-5 experiences where I should have died. I suppose you probably mean the former.

But I do have an opinion (of course). I think that such experiences might be the result of "faulty" arousal systems that regulate REM sleep and wakefulness. I work in sleep, so this article caught my eye a while back. That's not the original article, but there is some indication of overlap between people who have these experiences and narcoleptics (e.g. cataplexy - sudden muscle weakness during times of strong emotion, sleep paralysis, hypnogogic - the transition from wake to sleep - hallucinations and excessive sleepiness). Narcolepsy also involves a malfunctioning of these arousal systems and certain neurotransmitters (such as hypocretin).

In short, here's what I think: these experiences that people sometimes have may be "dreams". Very vivid, realistic dreams.

[Popol Vuh]

35. Out of body

Our none physical bodies are capable of vibrating at a higher rate than our physical bodies can, and therefore we are able to have out of body experiences. When the physical body dies the energy cord connecting the physical and none physical body is severed, and at that point one of a few different things will happen to you (your none physical self that is). But whatever you experience after death, you need to realize that you will be in one of the many other dimensions that exist in the same space-time as the physical world, and these dimensions are able to be manipulated with thoughts -- some more than others.

You don't have to die or almost die to have out of body experiences. My girlfriend is a regular out of body projector and is currently working on pulling my none physical body out of my physical body while asleep. I myself have had a couple of out of body experiences in the dimensions vibrating most closely to our physical dimension. Seeing yourself lying on the bed while you are floating up on the ceiling and being able to walk though walls is quite an experience let me tell you.


If any of this interests you. I'd recommend reading: Seth Speaks by Jane Roberts and Robert Monro's second and third books. And for techniques, I'd recommend Astral Dynamics by Robert Bruce.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

37. Whoa

that's so interesting. Now, let me ask, does this involve any chemical enhancement? Or stone cold straight and sober?

[Popol Vuh]

42. Hi TallahasseeGrannie

No it doesn't involve any chemical enhancement whatsoever. Anybody can learn to have out of body experiences (some people learn easier than others), it just takes experimentation of the different techniques and practice. Below I'll post a few links where you can get some info.

Now while on the subject of drugs. It is my strong opinion that when a person ingests enough psychoactive drugs such as LSD, Magic Mushrooms or Peyote. etc, those drugs will effect the energy connection between your physical and none physical bodies and allow the vibrational rate of your none physical body to increase while you're still awake. This is the cause of hallucinations. The person under the influence of these type drugs is actually experiencing the ability to partially see at higher vibrational rates.

Also, this brings up the subject of ghosts and poltergeist. What these are......are people who have died and (as is usually the case with ghost), are not aware they are dead, and to them (no matter how many years ago they have died) they're not aware of time. As far as they are concerned only minutes or hours have passed by. Now the reason why we can sometimes see them is due to the fact that they are vibrating at a rate very, very close to our physical dimension. Its not too different than having two television stations broadcasting on frequencies very, very close to one another. Poltergeist are different than ghost in the sense that unlike ghosts, poltergeist will interact in our dimension.

These things should not scare anyone because these things are not solid to you and I, and at their dimension matter is able to be manipulated with focused thought. So its very easy to protect one's self while in the out of body if one should encounter something that frightens them. Besides, unless you're a master of out of body projection, the moment you are frightened by something you'll find yourself snapping right back into your physical body.


Anyway, here's a few links of info:


The Monroe Institute is world renowned for its scientific research in this field, and Robert Monroe has developed a very good method at bringing people to these different states with the use of certain audio sounds listened to through headphones. The "Hemi-Sync" audio series is famous among people around the world interested in this field.

http://www.hemi-sync.com/store/home.php?cat=8



Here's a free online e-book on the subject. Although its not one of the books I recommended in my previous post. Its good enough to give you better understanding and its free to read at the click of a mouse

http://www.robertpeterson.org/obebook.html




Here's a forum on the subject where you can get some info and post questions

http://www.astralsociety.com/as/Forum/

[TallahasseeGrannie]

43. Back in the Seventies

folks I knew were experimenting with...I forget exactly what they were called. They were tanks of warm water that would completely eliminate your sensations and you could leave your body. Sensory deprivation type of things. I think there was a horror movie about them once.

[Duer 157099]

44. Isolation tanks, John Lilly, and the movie was

Altered States

[Duer 157099]

45. This guy knows what he's talking about

or, another way of saying I agree with him! lol

Robert Monroe (especially), Robert Bruce, and I'd also recommend Albert Taylor (authors).

The people who like to say that the experiece can be attributed to hallucinations or some other brain/sensory function, don't know the many cases reported wherein the subject reports witnessing events that their body could not have been perceiving normally (for example, floating to the ceiling and watching events unfold below from a corner, with perspectives and views they would not otherwise have known about. Plus many other instances which have convinced me that it is certainly *real* (not my personal experience, however).

[cosmik debris]

38. Subjective experience

Near death experience is interpreted by the filters you start with. As an atheist my near death experiences had no religious component. I interpreted the events on the basis of things that I knew to be factual: People hallucinate; pain causes delusion. If you look for facts, you find facts. If you look for religion, you find religion. There is no universal near death experience, it is subjective.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

39. I hear it is very cultural

and the Japanese don't see a light, they see a boat with oars.

Perhaps the most fascinating NDE's I have read are those of chidren. There are some elements that are common to some.

Also, I am learning from my reading that only about 10-20 percent of folks who could have them, do. And some folks have them when they are not near death.

[cosmik debris]

40. I would speculate

That the common elements are cultural training.

It is really hard to find empirical evidence to verify a perception in an unconscious state.

That is why I apply Occam's Razor. We know that people hallucinate. We know that pain causes delusion. That is a much more likely explanation than a boat with oars or the light in the tunnel. If you look for more obtuse explanations, you will find them, but they will not be more probable than the ones we already know.

[Finder]

41. This topic fascinates me for a couple of reasons...

You mentioned being at the passing of others and I too have been present and find it fascinating how those who have passed before are forefront in the mind. Hospice is wonderful in that respect...allowing us to communicate and talk frankly at the end.

Also, although I have never had a NDE, when I am under anesthesia, I tend to spew religious mumbo jumbo. Even recently my surgeon commented.lol

My husband did have a NDE and describes it the same as millions of others..tunnel, light, etc.

[Strong Atheist]

46. No, and until I die, and something comes after, I am convinced

it is nonsense/ all brain chemistry stuff...

sorry, T-Grannie...