Midwest sticky
Resident Smartass & midget connoisseur
Yeah some people think they can fly while tripping too and look how that turns out.
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No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning
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I did find this:
Why Near-Death Experiences Are Not Hallucinations
Skeptics claim NDEs are only the product of the brain occurring during life threatening situations. They claim the brain produces an avoidance response to such situations in the form of endorphins flooding the brain thereby causing hallucinations. Skeptics also claim NDEs are a hallucinatory experience similar to hallucinations brought on when LSD is introduced into the body. They point to scientific studies showing how psychedelic drugs, meditation, and other triggers can be used to induce non-ordinary states of consciousness, such as a NDE, and claim this falsifies the Afterlife Hypothesis. But hallucinogenic drugs cause distortions of reality, alterations of body image, and disorientation as to time and place. However, NDEs do not involve such distortions. They have been described as perceptions of a hyper-reality superimposed over current reality. NDEs can be induced in many ways and the Triggers of the NDE section of this website lists them and provides examples. But all this proves is there exists a biological component to NDEs. Near-death researchers do not deny the existence of a biological component to NDEs. Near-death studies have discovered the existence of a metaphysical "umbilical cord" connecting the physical body with the subtle body during the out-of-body experience component of the NDE. This cord corresponds with a boundary or "point of no return" during NDEs which cannot be crossed without resulting in irreversible death. Evidence shows that when this cord is severed, this point of no return has been crossed and death results.
There is also an assumption among skeptics that a person's subjective experience - even consciousness itself - is not objectively real. They assume only physical things are real and anything else is not. These include the experiences of intuition, the taste of wine, or even seeing the color red. But there are serious problems in denying the existence of subjective reality. Here are some comments by experts in this field:
Psychologist John Gibbs states:
"NDE accounts from varied times and cultures were found to be more orderly, logical, defined and predictable than comparable accounts from drug or illness-induced hallucination. Impressive data from Tart, Moody and Carl Becker also argue for the objective elements of a NDE, including returning with knowledge later verified and third-party observations of odd death-bed phenomena (such as luminosity or apparitions)."
Neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick, describes the difference between the NDE and hallucinations:
"The difficulty with those theories is that when you create these wonderful states by taking drugs, you're conscious. In the NDE, you are unconscious. One of the things we know about brain function in unconsciousness, is that you cannot create images and if you do, you cannot remember them."
Fenwick describes the unconscious state of the NDE:
"The brain isn't functioning. It's not there. It's destroyed. It's abnormal. But, yet, it can produce these very clear experiences ... an unconscious state is when the brain ceases to function. For example, if you faint, you fall to the floor, you don't know what's happening and the brain isn't working. The memory systems are particularly sensitive to unconsciousness. So, you won't remember anything. But, yet, after one of these experiences (a NDE), you come out with clear, lucid memories ... This is a real puzzle for science. I have not yet seen any good scientific explanation which can explain that fact."
So it appears we may never know exactly what a NDE is or what produces them, until science can define exactly what consciousness is. We may have a long way to go to learn this.
Dr. Kenneth Ring, the leading figure in NDE studies has this to say:
"Drugs, anesthesia and medication did not seem to be a factor in inducing these impressions and exquisite feelings of a NDE. Indeed, drugs and anesthesia seemed to be more likely to cause a person to forget memories of a NDE."
Dr. Ring concluded NDEs are not hallucinations because hallucinations are rambling, unconnected, often unintelligible and vary widely, whereas NDEs tend to have similar elements of a clear, connected pattern.
Ketamine is a drug which several researchers feel creates effects which are similar to NDEs. However, they have not published controlled studies to substantiate their point of view. Scott Rogo describes similarities between NDEs and ketamine induced visions, but ultimately feels ketamine often causes bizarre, paranoid visions not seen in NDEs.
It is interesting to note that Karl Jansen, a leading ketamine researcher, not only believes NDEs and ketamine induced visions are the same, but is convinced that BOTH induced real visions of a real god. For this reason, he considers himself a very spiritual person as a result of his ketamine research.
Dr. Jeffrey Long states:
"One concern of NDE skeptics is the concept of a dual physical and spiritual life presence, with the spiritual presence surviving bodily death. The physical presence is easily discernable, while the spiritual presence is generally not easily discernable. It is very helpful to personally have a NDE or NDE-like experience to address such concerns. For virtually all NDErs, a NDE cures NDE disbelief. However, only approximately 4% of the United States adult population have a personal history of NDEs. Others find they are opened to the possibility of a dual physical/spiritual life presence through other spiritually transformative life events.
"These life experiences may include, but are not limited to, markedly serendipitous events, other personal paranormal experiences, and acceptance of other people's accounts of their spiritually transformative experiences. I personally believe that if such spiritually transformative experiences are sincerely sought, they are likely to be encountered. NDE research is somewhat unique due to the subjective nature of the experience. This subjectivity precludes certain conventional scientific methods of studying NDEs, such as replicating NDEs or studying physical changes associated with the experience.
"This inability to study NDEs via certain accepted methods of conventional scientific verification results in the need for some element of faith to accept the reality of NDEs. I think this necessary element of faith is a problem for many people in accepting the reality and significance of NDEs. Mitigating against this concern is the fact that NDEs are relatively common. Millions of people have had NDEs. NDEs are quite varied, but the consistency of the NDE elements (OBE experience, tunnel, light, meeting other beings, etc.) is striking. There is no plausible biological explanation of NDEs. There is no other human experience so dramatic, shared by so many people, and so relatively consistent in its elements. The preceding suggests faith in the validity of NDE accounts is the most reasonable conclusion from the evidence."
Dr. Stanislav Grof agrees:
"I had my training as a psychiatrist, a physician and then as a Freudian analyst. When I became interested in non-ordinary states and started serving powerful mystical experiences, also having some myself, my first idea was that it (consciousness) has to be hard-wired in the brain. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how something like that is possible.
"Today, I came to the conclusion that it is not coming from the brain. In that sense, it supports what Aldous Huxley believed after he had some powerful psychedelic experiences and was trying to link them to the brain. He came to the conclusion that maybe the brain acts as a kind of reducing valve that actually protects us from too much cosmic input. So, I don't see, for example, that experiences of archetypal realms, heavens, paradises, experiences of archetypal beings, such as deities, demons from different cultures, that people typically have in these states that they can be somehow explained as something that comes from the brain. I don't think you can locate the source of consciousness. I am quite sure it is not in the brain not inside of the skull. "It actually, according to my experience, would lie beyond time and space, so it is not localizable. You actually come to the source of consciousness when you dissolve any categories that imply separation: individuality, time, space and so on. You just experience it as a presence.
"People who have these experiences can either perceive that source or they can actually become the source, completely dissolved and experience that source. But such categories as time and space, localization coordinates, are not relevant for that experience. You actually have a sense that the concepts of time and space come from that place. They are generated by that place; but, the cosmic source itself, the cosmic consciousness cannot be located certainly not in the material world."
So the real questions are these: What is consciousness? Where is it located? Can it exist separately from the brain? Is the NDE a phenomenon for which consciousness transcends the brain? If so, what about other phenomena such as lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences? We can all concede that these states of consciousness all have a chemical basis. But are they only a brain thing? Is the mind only the product of the brain? Near-death studies are revealing the ability of consciousness to transcend the dead brain. One of the best examples of this is the NDE account of Pam Reynolds who perceived verified events in the operating room while being brain dead.
Why Near-Death Experiences Are Not Hallucinations
Skeptics claim NDEs are only the product of the brain occurring during life threatening situations. They claim the brain produces an avoidance response to such situations in the form of endorphins flooding the brain thereby causing hallucinations. Skeptics also claim NDEs are a hallucinatory experience similar to hallucinations brought on when LSD is introduced into the body. They point to scientific studies showing how psychedelic drugs, meditation, and other triggers can be used to induce non-ordinary states of consciousness, such as a NDE, and claim this falsifies the Afterlife Hypothesis. But hallucinogenic drugs cause distortions of reality, alterations of body image, and disorientation as to time and place. However, NDEs do not involve such distortions. They have been described as perceptions of a hyper-reality superimposed over current reality. NDEs can be induced in many ways and the Triggers of the NDE section of this website lists them and provides examples. But all this proves is there exists a biological component to NDEs. Near-death researchers do not deny the existence of a biological component to NDEs. Near-death studies have discovered the existence of a metaphysical "umbilical cord" connecting the physical body with the subtle body during the out-of-body experience component of the NDE. This cord corresponds with a boundary or "point of no return" during NDEs which cannot be crossed without resulting in irreversible death. Evidence shows that when this cord is severed, this point of no return has been crossed and death results.
There is also an assumption among skeptics that a person's subjective experience - even consciousness itself - is not objectively real. They assume only physical things are real and anything else is not. These include the experiences of intuition, the taste of wine, or even seeing the color red. But there are serious problems in denying the existence of subjective reality. Here are some comments by experts in this field:
Psychologist John Gibbs states:
"NDE accounts from varied times and cultures were found to be more orderly, logical, defined and predictable than comparable accounts from drug or illness-induced hallucination. Impressive data from Tart, Moody and Carl Becker also argue for the objective elements of a NDE, including returning with knowledge later verified and third-party observations of odd death-bed phenomena (such as luminosity or apparitions)."
Neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick, describes the difference between the NDE and hallucinations:
"The difficulty with those theories is that when you create these wonderful states by taking drugs, you're conscious. In the NDE, you are unconscious. One of the things we know about brain function in unconsciousness, is that you cannot create images and if you do, you cannot remember them."
Fenwick describes the unconscious state of the NDE:
"The brain isn't functioning. It's not there. It's destroyed. It's abnormal. But, yet, it can produce these very clear experiences ... an unconscious state is when the brain ceases to function. For example, if you faint, you fall to the floor, you don't know what's happening and the brain isn't working. The memory systems are particularly sensitive to unconsciousness. So, you won't remember anything. But, yet, after one of these experiences (a NDE), you come out with clear, lucid memories ... This is a real puzzle for science. I have not yet seen any good scientific explanation which can explain that fact."
So it appears we may never know exactly what a NDE is or what produces them, until science can define exactly what consciousness is. We may have a long way to go to learn this.
Dr. Kenneth Ring, the leading figure in NDE studies has this to say:
"Drugs, anesthesia and medication did not seem to be a factor in inducing these impressions and exquisite feelings of a NDE. Indeed, drugs and anesthesia seemed to be more likely to cause a person to forget memories of a NDE."
Dr. Ring concluded NDEs are not hallucinations because hallucinations are rambling, unconnected, often unintelligible and vary widely, whereas NDEs tend to have similar elements of a clear, connected pattern.
Ketamine is a drug which several researchers feel creates effects which are similar to NDEs. However, they have not published controlled studies to substantiate their point of view. Scott Rogo describes similarities between NDEs and ketamine induced visions, but ultimately feels ketamine often causes bizarre, paranoid visions not seen in NDEs.
It is interesting to note that Karl Jansen, a leading ketamine researcher, not only believes NDEs and ketamine induced visions are the same, but is convinced that BOTH induced real visions of a real god. For this reason, he considers himself a very spiritual person as a result of his ketamine research.
Dr. Jeffrey Long states:
"One concern of NDE skeptics is the concept of a dual physical and spiritual life presence, with the spiritual presence surviving bodily death. The physical presence is easily discernable, while the spiritual presence is generally not easily discernable. It is very helpful to personally have a NDE or NDE-like experience to address such concerns. For virtually all NDErs, a NDE cures NDE disbelief. However, only approximately 4% of the United States adult population have a personal history of NDEs. Others find they are opened to the possibility of a dual physical/spiritual life presence through other spiritually transformative life events.
"These life experiences may include, but are not limited to, markedly serendipitous events, other personal paranormal experiences, and acceptance of other people's accounts of their spiritually transformative experiences. I personally believe that if such spiritually transformative experiences are sincerely sought, they are likely to be encountered. NDE research is somewhat unique due to the subjective nature of the experience. This subjectivity precludes certain conventional scientific methods of studying NDEs, such as replicating NDEs or studying physical changes associated with the experience.
"This inability to study NDEs via certain accepted methods of conventional scientific verification results in the need for some element of faith to accept the reality of NDEs. I think this necessary element of faith is a problem for many people in accepting the reality and significance of NDEs. Mitigating against this concern is the fact that NDEs are relatively common. Millions of people have had NDEs. NDEs are quite varied, but the consistency of the NDE elements (OBE experience, tunnel, light, meeting other beings, etc.) is striking. There is no plausible biological explanation of NDEs. There is no other human experience so dramatic, shared by so many people, and so relatively consistent in its elements. The preceding suggests faith in the validity of NDE accounts is the most reasonable conclusion from the evidence."
Dr. Stanislav Grof agrees:
"I had my training as a psychiatrist, a physician and then as a Freudian analyst. When I became interested in non-ordinary states and started serving powerful mystical experiences, also having some myself, my first idea was that it (consciousness) has to be hard-wired in the brain. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how something like that is possible.
"Today, I came to the conclusion that it is not coming from the brain. In that sense, it supports what Aldous Huxley believed after he had some powerful psychedelic experiences and was trying to link them to the brain. He came to the conclusion that maybe the brain acts as a kind of reducing valve that actually protects us from too much cosmic input. So, I don't see, for example, that experiences of archetypal realms, heavens, paradises, experiences of archetypal beings, such as deities, demons from different cultures, that people typically have in these states that they can be somehow explained as something that comes from the brain. I don't think you can locate the source of consciousness. I am quite sure it is not in the brain not inside of the skull. "It actually, according to my experience, would lie beyond time and space, so it is not localizable. You actually come to the source of consciousness when you dissolve any categories that imply separation: individuality, time, space and so on. You just experience it as a presence.
"People who have these experiences can either perceive that source or they can actually become the source, completely dissolved and experience that source. But such categories as time and space, localization coordinates, are not relevant for that experience. You actually have a sense that the concepts of time and space come from that place. They are generated by that place; but, the cosmic source itself, the cosmic consciousness cannot be located certainly not in the material world."
So the real questions are these: What is consciousness? Where is it located? Can it exist separately from the brain? Is the NDE a phenomenon for which consciousness transcends the brain? If so, what about other phenomena such as lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences? We can all concede that these states of consciousness all have a chemical basis. But are they only a brain thing? Is the mind only the product of the brain? Near-death studies are revealing the ability of consciousness to transcend the dead brain. One of the best examples of this is the NDE account of Pam Reynolds who perceived verified events in the operating room while being brain dead.
By Meeri Kim August 12, 2013
It’s called a near-death experience, but the emphasis is on
“near.” The heart stops, you feel yourself float up and out of
your body. You glide toward the entrance of a tunnel, and a searing bright light envelops your field of vision.
It could be the afterlife, as many people who have come close to dying have asserted. But a new study says it might well be a show created by the brain, which is still very much alive. When the heart stops, neurons in the brain appeared to communicate at an even higher level than normal, perhaps setting off the
last picture show, packed with special effects.
“A lot of people believed that what they saw was heaven,” said
lead researcher and neurologist Jimo Borjigin. “Science hadn’t given them a convincing alternative.”
Scientists from the University of Michigan recorded
electroencephalogram (EEG) signals in nine anesthetized rats after inducing cardiac arrest. Within the first 30 seconds after the heart had stopped, all the mammals displayed a surge of highly synchronized brain activity that had features associated with consciousness and visual activation. The burst of electrical patterns even exceeded levels seen during a
normal, awake state.In other words, they may have been having the rodent version of a near-death experience.
“On a fundamental level, this study makes us think about the neurobiology of the dying brain,” said senior author and anesthesiologist George A. Mashour. It was published Monday online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Near-death experiences have been reported by many who have faced death, worldwide and across cultures. About 20 percent of
cardiac arrest survivors report visions or perceptions during clinical death, with features such as a bright light, life playback or an out-of-body feeling.
“There’s hundreds of thousands of people reporting these experiences,” Borjigin said. “If that experience comes from the brain, there has to be a fingerprint of that.”
An unanswered question from a previous experiment set her down the path of exploring the phenomenon. In 2007, Borjigin had been monitoring neurotransmitter secretion in rats when, in the
middle of the night, two of her animals unexpectedly died. Upon reviewing the overnight data, she saw several unknown peaks near the time of death.
This got her thinking: What kinds of changes does the brain go through at the moment of death?
Then last year, Borjigin turned to Mashour, a colleague with expertise in EEG and consciousness, for help conducting the first experiment to systematically investigate the brain after cardiac arrest. EEG uses electrodes to measure voltage fluctuations in the brain caused by many neurons firing at once. A normal, awake brain should show spikes depending on
what types of processing are going on; in a completely dead brain, it flat-lines.
When the heart suddenly stops, blood flow to the brain stops and causes death in a human within minutes. A likely assumption would be that, without a fresh supply of oxygen, any sort of
brain activity would go flat. But after the rats went into cardiac arrest, Mashour and his colleagues observed the opposite happening.
“We saw a window of activity with certain signatures typically associated with conscious processing,” he said.
Those signatures include heightened communication among the different parts of the brain, actively seen in an awake state. Mashour speculates this could be a marker of consciousness — in which the brain integrates disparate aspects of the world, like visual in one area and auditory in another.
“The brain kind of gets it all together so we have this
unified, seamless experience,” he said.
In the rats, this connectivity went above and beyond the levels seen during the awake state — which could possibly explain the hypervivid, “realer-than-real” perceptions reported close to death, Borjigin said.
Scientists are still trying to pin down a clear-cut electrical marker of consciousness because there are many gray areas — for instance, being under anesthesia or in a vegetative state or having a seizure.
“We don’t have any rough and ready way to take a measurement and assign a meaning to it with regards to conscious content,” said neurologist Nicholas D. Schiff of the Weill Cornell Medical College, who was not involved in the study.
Borjigin also noted an increase in a certain type of EEG
pattern that has been tied to visual stimulation in humans that could possibly explain the very bright light that survivors describe.
“My hypothesis would be that during the near-death process, the visual process is highly activated,” she said.The researchers also confirmed the effect using another form of death, asphyxiation via carbon dioxide inhalation. The same highly aroused features were seen in a nearly identical pattern.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/surge-
Midwest sticky
Resident Smartass & midget connoisseur
Hmm...that is interesting. I'll be pondering that for a while.
Midwest sticky
Resident Smartass & midget connoisseur
Okay I've pondered, still just hallucinations.
Well, there are claims that before death dmt is released, and smoking dmt, imho, is a bit like dying, whereas you are taken to other dimensions. And there are claims that people who have had experiences like abduction, their brain was simply releasing/producing alot of dmt.
Midwest sticky
Resident Smartass & midget connoisseur
it's all just hallucinations just like people who think they can fly they can't and the people who make all these sort of claims are just hallucinating.
Do you know terrence mckenna ? He was a pioneer in the visionary plant movement.
He wrote a book called true hallucinations, arguing that hallucinations created by plants and substances are actually real.
They are called visionary plants. I believe some might be able to bring about subconscious as well as reveal things to you.
I believe, or rather im ready to believe. Ive had my experiences and i would say that, there could be a lot of potential there.
He wrote a book called true hallucinations, arguing that hallucinations created by plants and substances are actually real.
They are called visionary plants. I believe some might be able to bring about subconscious as well as reveal things to you.
I believe, or rather im ready to believe. Ive had my experiences and i would say that, there could be a lot of potential there.
Midwest sticky
Resident Smartass & midget connoisseur
No never heard Terrance McKenna,but hell I guess anything is possible. I think I'll read that book sometime it sounds interesting.
Mad Lab
Member
agreed
Midwest sticky
Resident Smartass & midget connoisseur
Midwest sticky
Resident Smartass & midget connoisseur
^lol
And pedophiles came to be through Christianity so whats your point i forgot you have no point
Since we don't really know what consciousness is, how can we know what happens to it when our meat suits stop working?
Midwest sticky
Resident Smartass & midget connoisseur
I'm more curious than afraid. I really do like all the info you've posted thanks
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