Near Death Events Explained

[Graybeard]

Out of Body Experiences and Near Death Experiences have supported some belief of Heaven despite their being common to all humanity regardless of any or no religious affiliation. I have copied the following as a reference point should any godbotherers come and quote their own or others' experience and claim it as proof of an afterlife.

Peace of Mind: Near-Death Experiences Now Found to Have Scientific Explanations
September 12, 2011
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=peace-of-mind-near-death

Near-death experiences are often thought of as mystical phenomena, but research is now revealing scientific explanations for virtually all of their common features. The details of what happens in near-death experiences are now known widely—a sense of being dead, a feeling that one's "soul" has left the body, a voyage toward a bright light, and a departure to another reality where love and bliss are all-encompassing.

Approximately 3 percent of the U.S. population says they have had a near-death experience, according to a Gallup poll. Near-death experiences are reported across cultures, with written records of them dating back to ancient Greece. Not all of these experiences actually coincide with brushes with death—one study of 58 patients who recounted near-death experiences found 30 were not actually in danger of dying, although most of them thought they were.

Recently, a host of studies has revealed potential underpinnings for all the elements of such experiences. "Many of the phenomena associated with near-death experiences can be biologically explained," says neuroscientist Dean Mobbs, at the University of Cambridge's Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. Mobbs and Caroline Watt at the University of Edinburgh detailed this research online August 17 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

For instance, the feeling of being dead is not limited to near-death experiences—patients with Cotard or "walking corpse" syndrome hold the delusional belief that they are deceased. This disorder has occurred following trauma, such as during advanced stages of typhoid and multiple sclerosis, and has been linked with brain regions such as the parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex—"the parietal cortex is typically involved in attentional processes, and the prefrontal cortex is involved in delusions observed in psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia," Mobbs explains. Although the mechanism behind the syndrome remains unknown, one possible explanation is that patients are trying to make sense of the strange experiences they are having.

Out-of-body experiences are also now known to be common during interrupted sleep patterns that immediately precede sleeping or waking. For instance, sleep paralysis, or the experience of feeling paralyzed while still aware of the outside world, is reported in up to 40 percent of all people and is linked with vivid dreamlike hallucinations that can result in the sensation of floating above one's body. A 2005 study found that out-of-body experiences can be artificially triggered by stimulating the right temporoparietal junction in the brain, suggesting that confusion regarding sensory information can radically alter how one experiences one's body.

A variety of explanations might also account for reports by those dying of meeting the deceased. Parkinson's disease patients, for example, have reported visions of ghosts, even monsters. The explanation? Parkinson's involves abnormal functioning of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that can evoke hallucinations. And when it comes to the common experience of reliving moments from one's life, one culprit might be the locus coeruleus, a midbrain region that releases noradrenaline, a stress hormone one would expect to be released in high levels during trauma. The locus coeruleus is highly connected with brain regions that mediate emotion and memory, such as the amygdala and hypothalamus.

In addition, research now shows that a number of medicinal and recreational drugs can mirror the euphoria often felt in near-death experiences, such as the anesthetic ketamine, which can also trigger out-of-body experiences and hallucinations. Ketamine affects the brain's opioid system, which can naturally become active even without drugs when animals are under attack, suggesting trauma might set off this aspect of near-death experiences, Mobbs explains.

Finally, one of the most famous aspects of near-death hallucinations is moving through a tunnel toward a bright light. Although the specific causes of this part of near-death experiences remain unclear, tunnel vision can occur when blood and oxygen flow is depleted to the eye, as can happen with the extreme fear and oxygen loss that are both common to dying.

Altogether, scientific evidence suggests that all features of the near-death experience have some basis in normal brain function gone awry. Moreover, the very knowledge of the lore regarding near-death episodes might play a crucial role in experiencing them—a self-fulfilling prophecy. Such findings "provide scientific evidence for something that has always been in the realm of paranormality," Mobbs says. "I personally believe that understanding the process of dying can help us come to terms with this inevitable part of life."

One potential obstacle to further research on near-death experiences will be analyzing them experimentally, says cognitive neuroscientist Olaf Blanke at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne in Switzerland, who has investigated out-of-body experiences. Still, "our work has shown that this can be done for out-of-body experiences, so why not for near-death-experience-associated sensations?

Actual paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661311001550

There is nothing paranormal about near-death experiences: how neuroscience can explain seeing bright lights, meeting the dead, or being convinced you are one of them

Dean Mobbs, Caroline Watt

Approximately 3% of Americans declare to have had a near-death experience [1]. These experiences classically involve the feeling that one's soul has left the body, approaches a bright light and goes to another reality, where love and bliss are all encompassing. Contrary to popular belief, research suggests that there is nothing paranormal about these experiences. Instead, near-death experiences are the manifestation of normal brain function gone awry, during a traumatic, and sometimes harmless, event.

Additional from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15494379

Dr Sam Parnia, director of resuscitation research at the State University of New York and author of What Happens When We Die said: "Every experience, whether near-death or otherwise such as depression, happiness and love is mediated by the brain.

"In fact many experiences share the same brain regions, and so it is not unusual to be able to reproduce them.

"Discovering those areas or reproducing them, doesn't imply the experience is not real. By the same token, we wouldn't say love, happiness and depression are not real.

NB Dr Parnia is saying that the experience is real; he does not say that what is experienced actually happens.

Earlier reports:

New light on near-death flashes 8 April 2010 - lack of oxygen/heightened CO2 levels - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8607660.stm (There was some doubt in this experiment as not all persons seemed to have the same low levels of O2 or heightened levels of CO2.)

Study into near-death experiences  18 September 2008 -  testing out of Body Experiences - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7621608.stm (This was interesting as experimenters placed pictures face up on high shelves; the idea was that if you did have an Out of Body Experience, and it was real, then you should be able to describe the pictures.)

'Near death' has biological basis 11 April 2006 - halfway between sleep and waking - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4898726.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4898726.stm

Out of Body Experience^Wiki

Near-death experience^Wiki

[One Above All]

BM

[richardc1985]

I had a near death experience and I had PLENTY of oxygen at the time.

[One Above All]

I had a near death experience and I had PLENTY of oxygen at the time.

Impossible. NDE's are all characterized by the fact that the body is shutting down. Last time I checked, the lungs and heart are part of the body.
Still, just in case I'm wrong, evidence?

[Graybeard]

which tends to support the suggestion: "abnormal functioning of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that can evoke hallucinations. And when it comes to the common experience of reliving moments from one's life, one culprit might be the locus coeruleus, a midbrain region that releases noradrenaline, a stress hormone one would expect to be released in high levels during trauma. The locus coeruleus is highly connected with brain regions that mediate emotion and memory, such as the amygdala and hypothalamus."

I suppose that another question would be, "Yes, there might have been a lot of oxygen about, but was your body processing and delivering it properly?"

[plethora]

I had a near death experience and I had PLENTY of oxygen at the time.

Welcome. We're going to need a little more detail than that.

What is your stance on what you claim to have experienced? Do you believe it was supernatural?

[screwtape]

Graybeard,
good stuff.  Because this is a topic that often comes up from theists, I think this would be a good resource for busting them.  By the mojo vested in me as moderator, I hereby make this thread "sticky". 

That sounds bad.  We should find an alternative word for it. 

[Graybeard]

My suggestion that it be called a "Gooey" did not meet with approval. "Sticky" is fine.

[One Above All]

Graybeard,
good stuff.  Because this is a topic that often comes up from theists, I think this would be a good resource for busting them.  By the mojo vested in me as moderator, I hereby make this thread "sticky". 

That sounds bad.  We should find an alternative word for it. 

On another website I used to go to we called them "Pinned topics".

[kaziglu bey]

Of course this could easily be explained as the devil trying to deceive people through science. Obviously that's not true, but there are actually those who would find that a valid explanation. It's really hard for me to take people seriously when they try to convince me of something that they experienced, I have not, and cannot in any sane fashion that I know of, put to the test. Hard to believe that people think atheists should take such experiences as evidence, when its not even something that can be objectively observed. Or, even observed by an outsider, regardless of their bias.

[inveni0]

The brain is nothing but a machine that does its best to recognize patterns.

[meconopsilo]

lyserigic acid amides are known to simulate near death experience. another near death experience is called overdosing. lol

[qwan_lee]

People who have NDE undergo PROFOUND changes in their belief systems! Suddenly, they convert to Christians. This CANNOT be compared to someone who undergoes a drug trip such as LSD or whatever.

A doctor shows the consistancies of NDE displayed in his studying over 1300 cases.

[none]

People who have NDE undergo PROFOUND changes in their belief systems! Suddenly, they convert to Christians. This CANNOT be compared to someone who undergoes a drug trip such as LSD or whatever.

A doctor shows the consistancies of NDE displayed in his studying over 1300 cases.

a comedian told a joke, does that not make him a painter?
so what if a doctor claims anything.
near death experiences are not death experiences.
ever heard of a totally dead person telling jokes, they just lay there.

[screwtape]

People who have NDE undergo PROFOUND changes in their belief systems!

So what?

Suddenly, they convert to Christians.

?  How do you know?  I'm sure some people do where the prevalent religion is xianity. But you seem to be making a statement of wishful thinking.

This CANNOT be compared to someone who undergoes a drug trip such as LSD or whatever.

?  why not?

A doctor shows the consistancies of NDE displayed in his studying over 1300 cases.

You'll have to summarize.  I do not watch vids on this forum.  It is mostly a waste of my time.

[Graybeard]

People who have NDE undergo PROFOUND changes in their belief systems! Suddenly, they convert to Christians.

I think you mean "Christianity"

Yes, even if they were Hindus before or Buddhists. This is why there are Christians in those places!!!111!!!

qwan - you are an idiot if you believe that.

This CANNOT be compared to someone who undergoes a drug trip such as LSD or whatever.

Yes it can... "This is comparable to the disruption of the mind that occurs when hallucinatory drugs are taken."

There! I have compared it.

A doctor shows the consistancies of NDE displayed in his studying over 1300 cases.

All it shows is that people often suffer from delusions as oxygen levels fall and other chemicals start to react within their brain.

qwan - if you wish to be taken seriously, you cannot go through life just making wild statements

[pied piper]

BM

So how many of your specks are required, of your whole being, to function correctly and in relative harmony with the other specks, in order to cause you to function?  I'm not saying this is an excuse for religion, in fact, I think religion more often causes conflict than harmony, but there is a difference between harmony, discord, and harmonic discord.  What makes those specks do the right or wrong thing?  Do you suppose they each have a conscience, as we do?  Do you think it is connected with ours?

[Graybeard]

So how many of your specks are required, of your whole being, to function correctly and in relative harmony with the other specks, in order to cause you to function?

The latest estimate is ~one hundred billion. The technical word for  "speck" is neuron^Wiki

What makes those specks do the right or wrong thing?

Because they are wired properly. It is the same reason your computer works instead of bursting into flames or just sitting there doing nothing.

Do you suppose they each have a conscience, as we do?

No, that is really very, very silly. Where would the "conscience" be? What part of a neuron. What happens if one neuron doesn't like another neuron... WAIT! Why am I writing this garbage? The whole idea is as ridiculous as thinking a fingernail could have a conscience.

Do you think it is connected with ours?

I had better be, hadn't it! What would happen if
(i) your spleen disagreed with you on a matter of the Death Penalty, or
(ii) if your kidney thought that going to Las Vegas was a good idea, whilst your left ear did not?
(iii) What happens if just a few cells of your big toe wanted to vote Republican, but the rest of the cells wanted to vote Democrat?

The sum total of neurons plus a few other bits is our brain - part of the brain, memory, creates a conscience. We all have a different one.

Why has this anything to do with Near Death Experiences?

[Cavlrrp1967]

Please give the " scientific" explaination of this!

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6758Yp-JXK4?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[none]

Please give the " scientific" explaination of this!

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6758Yp-JXK4?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

it is blowback from lsd trips, remote viewing, it isn't anything to be alarmed about....

[Cavlrrp1967]

Of course so many LSD trippers. No matter what you see or do or experience it's all simply delusional. How easy this makes it to explain things we do not understand.

Like the Japan Arline's senior pilot ( a guy who actually knows aircraft) who watched a UFO the size of a battleship follow his flight path for 55 minutes. Full radar confirmation and statements from other witnesses.  Testmony that the CIA confiscated the evidence telling those witnesses they were sworn to silence about their sighting of a UFO.

I know, it was a military test plane as big as a football field formerly hidden in a hanger at area 51. Right!

Tens of thousands of EVP tapes collected but those are fake for TV. Silly, since only a vary small percentage of these "Ghost Hunters" are on TV. Just delusional freaks trying to prove there is an afterlife.

Biblical condemnation of "necrodancing" (talking to the dead) which is antithetical to Christianity but was known from thousands of years ago. But of course the human experience, litterly millions upon millions of them of them are all simply nonscientific delusion.

Lots of know it all's on this site so... where is the 95% of the missing material in the known universe hiding.

If this is confusing to you the point is we (humans) know vary little.

Stop deluding yourself your knowledge is infantile your explanations rote nabobic spittle and your eyes blinded.

I do not know the truth in any scientific black and white way. I do know I have only knowledge, intuition and faith. That dear ones, is good enough for me. I hold no fear of being "wrong" and no illusions of being "right". Common sense and my lifetime of experience is all I have to go on. None of you has the truth locked down whatever your belief or disbelief.

Enjoy your lives and expand your horizons. I got interested in the EVP thing and set out to prove they were just some sort of radio anomaly or some sort of backround noise. I figured after about 40 or so hours of testing this would prove EVPs... at least for me, were junk. To my supprise after nine hours of trying to contact whatever EVP's come from I started getting intelligent responses. Responses that were quite clear with voices explaining they were dead.
This activity,  EVP's, are antithetical to my religious backround so I was quite conflicted by the experiment. I do not hold this as any proof of some human afterlife but I can say I have no reasonable explanation for the results or what causes these "voices".

Before you condemn me,  try for yourself.  See if your eyes are open or shut.

[none]

I was remote viewing, it was me you were talking to.

[screwtape]

"necrodancing"

the word is "necromancy".  Perhaps that was just a typo, but it was wrong. 

Necrodancing is what was done in the Thriller video.

The rest of what you said was just crazy.

[Ambassador Pony]

Cal, what you are describing is essentially what it is like to be ignorant, naive, and uneducated.

The side effect is, of course, you're the only one who is unable to see it that way. It makes it pretty sad for everyone else.

[Graybeard]

Please give the " scientific" explaination of this!

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6758Yp-JXK4?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Can you please explain what UFOs have to do with "Near Death Experiences"?

[Aerial]

On people becoming Christian after NDE.

I had an experience once, not NDE but pretty intense. At the time I was surrounded by new age influences and was looking into it. Even reading Celestine Prophecy (in fact the experience I had was similar as to in that book...becoming one with nature and seeing the "ether" lol if that is a word).
So I think if I had taken that experience on board...I would have become a full on new ager. Christian God would not have entered my mind.
Instead I realised it was probably an endorphin release from a very intense therapy session.

Meh...you become whatever influences you, if you convert. Does not really mean much.

[Graybeard]

THE DIAGNOSIS AND CONFIRMATION OF DEATH
It is possible that this site http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19968625 will not be up forever, so to help dismiss any claims of the type, "I read a story about this man who said he knew a woman who was dead for 6 days and visited heaven and came back." I copy it in its entirety and append a link to the UK official .pdf on "diagnosing death."

How easy is it to diagnose death?
By Anna-Marie Lever
Health reporter, BBC News

Newspapers this week have reported a story about a woman who 'returned from the dead'. Tasleem Rafiq collapsed at home and was taken to hospital in an ambulance where doctors tried to resuscitate her for about 45 minutes without success.

Her family were told she was dead - but 11 hours later she 'woke up' when her daughter asked her a question, according to interviews.

Now and again stories like this crop up. In April it was reported that a Chinese woman climbed out of her own coffin six days after she was declared dead following a fall.

In 1996, Daphne Banks, a farmer's wife from Cambridgeshire, was pronounced dead at her home by a doctor after an attempted suicide overdose on New Year's Eve - only to be found alive in a hospital mortuary when undertakers spotted that she was still breathing.

The Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, which treated Mrs Rafiq, said the clinical team was unable to detect a pulse because it was so faint - but she was breathing.

Dr David Mossop, lead consultant in the emergency department, said resuscitation protocol had been followed correctly and after 45 minutes, with blood tests showing a profound lack of oxygen, he expected a severe amount of brain damage. But there was none. "That is very unusual," he said. He added that he had seen a similar case once before in his career.

This raises the question of how difficult can it be to diagnose death? Medical experts are confident that misdiagnosis is exceptionally rare. [Edit GB: and it is these rare cases that give rise to the idea that people come back from the dead - just because a doctor says you are dead, does not mean that you are - doctors are human too and some will make mistakes]

Dr Kevin Fong, a consultant anaesthetist who has investigated bringing patients back from the dead for a BBC Horizon documentary said: "Cases of 'coming back to life' after death has been wrongly diagnosed - are vanishingly rare.

"Death is a process rather than a moment in time - it is a process, a transition, life ebbs away slowly. Identifying precisely when it has occurred can be difficult - especially in the heat of the moment. But the diagnosis itself is based upon strict criteria which have to be adhered to."

In the UK there is no legal definition of death but there are guidelines for the diagnosis and confirmation of death to help when things are unclear.

Sir Peter Simpson, chair of the working group at the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges who put together the code, said: "If the guidelines are followed - they don't allow for misdiagnosis of death. The cases I have heard about of people 'coming back to life' are from abroad, where the criteria are less robust. Diagnosis of death has three parts: ask 'Why have they died', then diagnose death, and then wait for five minutes before confirming death."

The checklist for diagnosing death includes checking for a heartbeat and breathing, and examining the eyes to check if the pupils are large and unreactive.

Spontaneous rebeating
Sir Peter said: "If there is any doubt in the five minute wait, these checks should be done again.

"There are cases where the heart stops and restarts, this is called autoresuscitation, to my knowledge the maximum period this has happened for is 90 seconds."

Autoresuscitation, also known as Lazarus Syndrome, is very rare and not well understood.

In 2001, a paper in the Emergency Medical Journal identified more than 25 cases reported in scientific literature.

It takes its name from the Biblical story of Lazarus being raised from the dead by Jesus and is the spontaneous return of circulation after failed attempts at resuscitation.

It is thought to be the reason why the pulse of Michael Wilkinson, a roofer from Preston, returned 30 minutes after he was given the Last Rites in 2009. He was transferred to intensive care at Royal Preston Hospital and survived for two days before being pronounced dead a second time.

There are also a few circumstances which can muddy the waters. Sir Peter says: "We shouldn't be diagnosing death at all during these types of situations and when we first ask the question 'Why has this person died?' these factors need to be considered."

Frozen death
These include a low body temperature, if a patient that has taken drugs, for example sedatives or muscle relaxants, or those that have a medical disorder that alter the chemicals in their blood, like people with diabetes in a hypoglycaemic coma.

Sir Peter says: "When death is misdiagnosed it is often because these prerequisites have been forgotten. In these circumstances you have to wait until the effects have been reversed or the body returns to normal before diagnosing death."

This is illustrated in Dr Fong's BBC Horizon documentary which tells the story of Anna Bagenholm, a Norwegian skier, who 'returned from the dead' after being warmed back up to normal body temperature.

Out skiing in 1999 she fell into an icy river and became trapped under the ice for 80 minutes - her heart stopped beating. The freezing water caused her core temperature to drop more than 20 degrees below normal.

Once she was airlifted to hospital, doctors worked for nine hours to save her life - she was connected to a machine that warmed up her blood outside her body before it was fed back into her veins. As her body temperature began to reach normal, her heart began to beat.

Diagnosing death also comes with an ethical dimension - the guidelines say confirming death needs to be done without unnecessary and distressing delay.

Dr Daniel Sokol, a barrister and medical ethicist at Imperial College London, said: "The implications of confirming a person dead are enormous, and hence doctors have an ethical obligation to ensure that they 'diagnose' death with due care and skill. Factors such as lack of knowledge, inexperience, lack of time, fatigue, pressure from colleagues, and other factors can affect an individual doctor's clinical assessment. In difficult cases, a suitably experienced doctor should confirm the death, and second opinions can also reduce the risk of error."

Death checklist

No spontaneous movement
No respiratory effort
No heart beat sound or palpable pulse
No reflexes
Pupils are fixed and dilated

See also http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/17_10_12_dofd.pdf A CODE OF PRACTICE FOR THE DIAGNOSIS AND CONFIRMATION OF DEATH approved by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges as [is] a statement of current practice in the diagnosis and confirmation of death. It does not (and could not) seek to provide guidance for every single clinical situation.

[Karl]

Death checklist

No spontaneous movement
No respiratory effort
No heart beat sound or palpable pulse
No reflexes
Pupils are fixed and dilated[/color]

Oh shit.

[Graybeard]

This is an interesting paper on "Death, unconsciousness and the brain"  from the University of Liège http://www.coma.ulg.ac.be/papers/vs/death_unconsciousness_NatureRevNeurosci05.pdf (500Kb download)