near death experiences

[nailit]

I'm in two minds about exactly what the cause of these experiences are.
Without doubt people experience them when close to death (or actually dead, whatever your point of view) but do they tell us anything about what lies beyond
physical death?
Are they the result of anoxia/drugs/dying brain etc. Or is there more to it?
If they are just the results of a dying brain (or drugs or lack of oxygen) then why are there so many similarities in the accounts recorded (and they are in there thousands)
If they are genuine glimpses into something more, then why are they so mundane? (no glimpses into the future or exactly why we are here etc)
Also why do the majority of NDE'ers experience some kind of bliss...which is widely reported...while others experience hellish kinds of NDE's...which are less wildly reported?
Thanks...

[bibblebub]

If brains cease to function in much the same way then wouldn't that account for the similarities?

[nailit]

bibblebub...I dont think so. We all have basically the same brain structure, but we all think differently, so I cant imagine why when its dying that it would suddenly think uniformly.

[seadogg]

An interesting topic nailit.

Many years ago I found myself in a position in which survival on a mountain was doubtful. When I actually believed I wasn't going to make it I found a deep calm the like of which I have never experienced again. As it happened I was able to get out of it when morning came, frostbitten but alive. Looking back, I think my body got so cold that the mind began to shut down and I now believe that these experiences are largely due to physiological causes

[237SJ]

I think near death experiences are the results of an oxygen-starved dying brain. I wish that was not the case but I fear it is.

[bibblebub]

The differences in the way we all think is not relevant to the physical use of the brain for the various cerebral functions.

[nailit]

Bibble
//The differences in the way we all think is not relevant to the physical use of the brain//
How else do we use our brain?

[nailit]

or are our thought independent of our brain?

[AlBags]

I had one up a pole ladder once.

[ummmm]

My grandad says that when he recently went into a diabetic coma....that he was accepted into heaven.

His sugar levels were 33...!!

[AlBags]

not 666 then?

[askyourgran]

I remember that my grandad went into a coma he was in his 80's we all thought that was it, but two weeks later he gradually came round. He told my aunt who was visiting that he had been with his wife (my grandma) who had died 5 years previously, she told him it was time that he had to come back to us. He complained that he didn't want to leave her.

[ummmm]

No Al....lol...That number is reserved for me ;-)

[paddywak]

When I had my accident down the pit all I remembered was the pain until they shot me full of morphine, after that I didn't really remember much at all for a week till I came round in hospital.

[nailit]

paddy, this is what i find facsinating. Why do some people have these extraordaniry experiences and others dont.

[paddywak]

I don't know nailit, I can only go by my own experience which is that I was in a coma for the better part of a week and I just don't have any clear memories of it.

[birdie1971]

Near death experiences [NDE] and out of body experiences [OBE] are common. Some people believe that they see a 'tunnel' and they interpret that tunnel as a form of transition from the physical world into the world of the afterlife. Some people think that they are consciously removed from their physical form and float above their own bodies.

That's all very warm and cosy. And extremely unlikely.

A far more likely explanation is that the experience of travelling down a tunnel is attributable to biochemical and neurophysiological causes.

It is well documented that the hallucination of flying is triggered by atropine and other belladonna alkaloids. OBEs are easily induced by dissociative aesthetics such as ketamines. Others are:

Dimethyltryptamine [DMT] – Causes the perception that the world is growing or shrinking;
Methylenedioxyamphetamine [MDA] – Stimulates the feeling of age regression so that things we have long forgotten are brought back to memory;
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide [LSD] – triggers visual and auditory hallucinations and creates a feeling of 'oneness' with the cosmos.

The very fact that there are receptors in the brain for such artificially produced chemicals demonstrates that the brain, under certain circumstances (such as the stress of an accident or a trauma), can also produce startlingly similar chemicals which also produce any or all of the above experiences typically associated with an NDE.

As to why people experience the 'tunnel' - that's due to the visual cortex where the information from the retina is processed. Hallucinogenic drugs and a lack of oxygen to the brain (as often happens near death) can interfere with the normal rate of firing by nerve cells in this area. When this happens, “stripes” of neuronal activity move across the visual cortex which is interpreted by the bran as concentric rings or spirals. These are more often than not, perceived as a tunnel.

[Old_Geezer]

Whatever is experience I'm sure someone will strive to find a physical explanation for it. I think it is very much open to opinion at the moment. I recall hospitals were going to conduct an experiment to see if folk who believed they had floated above their body could accurately report on things placed above cabinets. I'm unsure what the result of that was.

[mibn2cweus]

//or are our thought independent of our brain?//

With regards to what some people seem to think, one might be given to take pause to wonder.

[beso]

I have experiences with Salvia Divinorum (Diviner's Sage) and Ayahuasca (a South American ethnobotanical mixture given to me by a Queschua shaman).

Sage gave an extraordinary sense of being pushed backwards into the chair and made me laugh completely uncontrollably for a few minutes. Chemicals have a huge effects on the brain function and perception. I have no doubt that oxygen starvation is equally capable of changing the function of the brain.

Ayahuascu was probably the most beautiful hallucinogenic experience of all time. Among other things it gave a strong sensation of being driven through space past beams of bright lights.

The sense of being connected to all knowledge was amazing. Incredibly the knowledge I gained in that experience made sense afterwards though it took me a few years to realise just how insightful it was.

The next day I was able to connect with my wife who was thousands of miles away. I projected a sensation of her being paralysed with love. When I got home two weeks later she told me of lying in bed experiencing a very peculiar sense of paralysis while she thought about me.

[NoMercy]

Read the works of Elizabeth Kubler Ross. She has spent most of her life researching this phenomenon.

Incidentally, I don't believe NDEs are the brain's "last fling".