Near Death Experiences: A Dummies' Guide

[Jack Shaftoe]

Just to add, there's a series called Surviving Death on Netflix at the moment, the first one is a fantastic NDE from a woman who had a kayacking accident, the next two are about a medium convention and it's exactly as awful and unconvincing as you'd expect, I kind of loved it for making me realise I wasn't completely credible about all this stuff. Then there's a kid who had all these past life memories that were researched and found to be weirdly accurate. I mean, it could all be bollocks, from beginning to end, obviously, but it doesn't half make my brain sit up and take notice.

[Buelligan]

If there was an after/further life I don't see why your corporeal life should necessarily have much if any bearing on it. Maybe this is some kind of larval stage. I should add I don't really believe there is anything after so I haven't really thought this through.

If you're a logical sort of person, a person who has truck with ideas like evolution, rather than God in charge, this path is quickly problematic. 

If a higher thing is running the corporeal show, our life, the larval stage, why is stuff like evolution even a thing?  How/why would it even be a thing if this existence isn't the whole shebang? 

If you're getting wiped out by Nature because you're a Dodo, why bother, why waste the energy, if you're bound for Dodo heaven, all of you.  Why bother having bodies?  Why bother having death?  Why not just skip to the main show if everyone gets in anyway?  Even the sittingest of ducks ultimately rewarded by a soft-as-butter but mindless universe.

Doesn't work really as a concept.

Personally, I believe the afterlife is our energy, flittering elsewhere, the sunlight of 300 million years ago shining from the ashes of a coal fire.  That is the afterlife.

[Alberon]

Regarding the 'it's the brain comforting itself' idea, someone pointed out that the brain is terrible at comforting itself, it would far rather have panic attacks or become full of guilt or fear or anything that might keep its owner alive for a few more moments. And the out of body stuff is deeply strange, as I said, so many weird little details or conversations the person shouldn't have heard or seen (often in other rooms, sometimes halfway across the world), that later get confirmed.

I expect the reasons for the comforting experiences is far more mundane than post-death survival. Beyond the cultural programming we've had all our lives (about tunnels and meeting predeceased family and the like) is the fact our brains are all wired pretty much the same. It's probably not much different to how hypothermia can make you feel warm and sleepy. It's not the brain trying to protect you from a traumatic experience, it's the body going beyond its limits and shutting down.

[madhair60]

unfortunately all these "near death experiences" are made up. all that happens when you die is intense, blinding pain like you've never experienced before, then nothingness for the rest of eternity

[Jack Shaftoe]

oh Madhair you grinch

[Menu]

If you're a logical sort of person, a person who has truck with ideas like evolution, rather than God in charge, this path is quickly problematic. 

If a higher thing is running the corporeal show, our life, the larval stage, why is stuff like evolution even a thing?  How/why would it even be a thing if this existence isn't the whole shebang? 

If you're getting wiped out by Nature because you're a Dodo, why bother, why waste the energy, if you're bound for Dodo heaven, all of you.  Why bother having bodies?  Why bother having death?  Why not just skip to the main show if everyone gets in anyway?  Even the sittingest of ducks ultimately rewarded by a soft-as-butter but mindless universe.

Doesn't work really as a concept.

But if there is some sort of 'afterlife' it's unlikely to be a concept that we humans would fully understand anyway. We're like a dog trying to understand quantitive easing. It's going to be far beyond the scope of our puny monkey brains.

[Buelligan]

I like dogs, I think they're sound.

Personally, I believe the afterlife is our energy, flittering elsewhere, the sunlight of 300 million years ago shining from the ashes of a coal fire.  That is the afterlife.

[Jack Shaftoe]

There's a great NDE account which compares the afterlife and past/future lives to the pieces of a Rubik's cube, thusly:

She (the woman's gran) likened the soul to a 'puzzle cube' I believe she meant a rubric cube. The cube was the whole soul. Each side was a section of our soul, each space was a learning experience required for each section of the soul. As she explained it, each section of the soul touched a different dimension, and would continue returning to that dimension until all the spaces of learning were completed. Then that dimensional level would not repeat, and your soul would work on the next section. I know it is confusing, I do not still understand it all. She also said that only a portion of your complete spirit was housed in the human body with each reincarnation. It was directly connected to your 'core' soul. When your 'human' portion of soul would learn, it would directly impact the 'core' soul. She also alluded to the fact that a human body could sometime hold more than 'human' portion of a soul connected to different 'core' soul. This was more common when the earth was less populated. Each soul yearns to learn and complete its lessons, so 'human' vessels would be shared. Once the 'puzzle' of the soul was competed your whole spirit would remain intact with all the knowledge it collected, it would not have to return to a vessel, and would live in the presence of God forever. It is so much information I can't remember all she said at this time. But, I will say she alluded to the fact that there were other 'vessels' of learning for our soul other than those here on earth. The other striking comment was that she was in contact with my core soul and I would from time to time feel her presence because our 'learning' portion of our soul is connected to the 'core' soul.

I think you'll agree this clears it all up nicely.

(Less sarkily, I want to get this, but I think someone's going to have to do a 3D animation or something)

Also, I liked the idea posited by someone on that site that we've existed before and our current incarnation is unlikely to be our first - more likely it's one we've specifically chosen, to get one particular experience. I found that quite comforting.

[Menu]

I like dogs, I think they're sound.

Not having a go at dogs, just wouldn't want one making executive decisions at the Bank of England during a global financial crisis.

[Alberon]

There's a great NDE account which compares the afterlife and past/future lives to the pieces of a Rubik's cube, thusly:

I think you'll agree this clears it all up nicely.

The only way I ever completed a Rubik's cube was using a screwdriver, levering out most of the blocks and clicking it back in the right spot. 

Which suggests I might need a good few incarnations more to get a handle on all this.

Also, I liked the idea posited by someone on that site that we've existed before and our current incarnation is unlikely to be our first - more likely it's one we've specifically chosen, to get one particular experience. I found that quite comforting.

Mine is clearly experiencing life well-endowed.

(I'm implying I have a large penis)

[Menu]

Also, I liked the idea posited by someone on that site that we've existed before and our current incarnation is unlikely to be our first - more likely it's one we've specifically chosen, to get one particular experience. I found that quite comforting.

I like that too. Fuck knows what experience my life is going to provide anyone but compared to, say, the life of an american dairy cow, or a pig in a multi-story Chinese slaughterhouse, it's possibly a step up. I sincerely hope if there is reincarnation that some of the animals who have been forced into lives of such unimaginable suffering get to be professional footballers or in Blazin Squad or something.

[tdurbo]

I had a heart attack ten years ago. I'm not religious in any way, and all I was left with from the experience is that really weird shit was happening in my head, I can't remember anything ABOUT the weird shit, but I'm left with absolutely no fear of dying at all, which is good in some ways but quite dangerous.

My grandad had an NDE but then ruined it by dying five seconds later.

[Maurice Yeatman]

I was thinking we're a larva for whatever it is that makes our consciousness carry on to another life when the body dies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_2zhlQW_VY&t=501s

[shiftwork2]

I had a heart attack ten years ago. I'm not religious in any way, and all I was left with from the experience is that really weird shit was happening in my head, I can't remember anything ABOUT the weird shit, but I'm left with absolutely no fear of dying at all, which is good in some ways but quite dangerous.

My grandad had an NDE but then ruined it by dying five seconds later.

This is a great post.  Thanks.

[Menu]

Not sure if it;s the same thing but isn't there a reasonably established medical phenomenon that people, just before they die, feel a sense of intense euphoria? Its why people who have been in chronic pain are often said to look 'at peace' after they pass away. For whatever reason, the brain floods your senses with happiness just before you die. This MIGHT also be viewed as the person entering a definite heavenly afterlife or it might be some evolutionary thing, who knows. Maybe a bit of both!

[Maurice Yeatman]

Shouldn't the brain have evolved to trigger the euphoria 60 years sooner by now?

[Mister Six]

Isn't it just that when you're dying the brain produces massive amounts of DMT, which results in vivid hallucinations of transcendence and encounters with otherworldly beings?

EDIT:

Not sure if it;s the same thing but isn't there a reasonably established medical phenomenon that people, just before they die, feel a sense of intense euphoria? Its why people who have been in chronic pain are often said to look 'at peace' after they pass away. For whatever reason, the brain floods your senses with happiness just before you die. This MIGHT also be viewed as the person entering a definite heavenly afterlife or it might be some evolutionary thing, who knows. Maybe a bit of both!

Snap! More or less.

[Bum Flaps]

Probably oxygen deprivation innit, cheers, bye.

[Minami Minegishi]

Isn't it just that when you're dying the brain produces massive amounts of DMT, which results in vivid hallucinations of transcendence and encounters with otherworldly beings?

As someone who has done a decent amount of DMT I tend to think this is true. When I first did DMT I came 'back' from my trip with this weird sense of not remembering 99% of what had happened (apparently this is mostly the case) and it vividly reminded me of when I regained consciousness after nearly dying of an asthma attack when I was 9. It was pretty Proustian in how similarly I felt.

[Mister Six]

I really would like to try DMT but I don't want to get arrested, so maybe I'll just go and have an asthma attack instead.

[shiftwork2]

Oh right I took drugs and have insight, no, boring.

[samadriel]

(Less sarkily, I want to get this, but I think someone's going to have to do a 3D animation or something)

[Papa Wheelie]

Imagine working down the pit, living off suet and doing the same thing day after day and going to church every week, good God fearing man, dying of emphysema at 32 just after you become a grandad and then

shooting through the stratosphere at rocket speed before presenting in front of a psychedelic demonic space alien who judged my soul with a thousand eyes

👍👍👍

[BlodwynPig]

This is probably one of the most unnerving yet realistic representation of the spiritual bonds that bind the living with the dead. TW: its not for faint hearted

[Buelligan]

You see, things like that really make me hope against hope that there is more to existence than this sterile promontory.  Beautiful.

[Jack Shaftoe]

I can't believe none of you have had a mysterious stranger pick them out of a crowd to pass on a message from a deceased loved one then vanish, never to be seen again, that's ridiculous, think harder.

[shiftwork2]

You see, things like that really make me hope against hope that there is more to existence than this sterile promontory.  Beautiful.

You need to get on the amphetamines ASAP.

[All Surrogate]

I like near-death experiences, but I couldn't eat a whole one! (fat hallucination joke)

[Icehaven]

I can't believe none of you have had a mysterious stranger pick them out of a crowd to pass on a message from a deceased loved one then vanish, never to be seen again, that's ridiculous, think harder.

In the late 90s a friend and I thought we were Coventry's teenage answer to Mulder and Scully and did a few terribly important supernatural investigations, namely a couple of ghost hunting nights in old pubs and my 6th form college, camping by a supposedly haunted ford and visiting a spiritualist church. I don't remember much about the church but nothing remarkable occurred, certainly nothing that couldn't be explained by cold reading or the medium being just vague enough to let the person fill in the details themselves. In fact iirc it was disappointing how little of the "service" was actually spent communicating with the dead, mostly it was sermonizing and praying etc. We should have gone to a psychic night at a crappy social club, at least we could have had a drink . 

[Menu]

Imagine working down the pit, living off suet and doing the same thing day after day and going to church every week, good God fearing man, dying of emphysema at 32 just after you become a grandad and then

👍👍👍

That's precisely why I think any attempt that we make to explain it as a concept is going to fail because we simply don't have the vocabulary or perceptive ability to understand something so massive. We can only draw on our own experiences and things we've read etc - but an afterlife, and the purpose behind it - is going to be far beyond our comprehensions. That's why I drew the analogy of trying to explain quantitive easing to a dog. Doesn't mean the dog's thick(or any more thick than your average dog, which is, admittedly, quite thick), it just won't be able to grasp such a concept or even, obviously, understand the language used to describe it. How would you even begin? That's us trying to understand this.