NDE. Near Death Experiences

Have you experimented or obtained any informations about these phenonmenons ?

I pondered such things before every surgery with anesthesia I have had and I asked my wife the same about the many more frequent surgeries with anesthesia she had.

And every single time the answer is a big nothing, nada, rien de patat, zilch. Never had any experience even nearing it. The anesthesia was like turning a light switch off completely, which is probably what being dead feels like: absolutely nothing. A total lack of all sensation and dreaming.

And that is both comforting ans scary. The scary part being the anticipation of what is unstoppable. The comforting part is that it is nothing, nothing but non-existence which we cannot really experience.

1976 i was admitted into the hospital with a broken back . l ,3 l,4 l,5 vertebrae. 2 hour surgery turned into 5 hours when they found spinal deformity from birth.

I woke up looking down from a height above someone that had an oxygen hose taped over his beard and into his nose. Looking at him I was thinking “that's going to hurt when they take it off" I realized that is me. The next instant I was being woken up in my room by a male nurse putting in a catheter telling me he's sorry but this had to be done.

We never have, but a co-worker claims to have had one. Following some surgery he had a heart attack and (like @nytwatch1 ) found himself sitting in the window ledge watching as the use the paddles to jumpstart his heart. He thought the whole scene was peaceful and claimed he saw “the light”.

I thought it was a dream he must of had.

The closest I came was as a kid riding my bicycle in a snow storm after dark and I fell down. There was a car coming at me and I'm quite sure he couldn't see me but I managed to squirm out of the way. He came a few inches from running over me. It seemed like it took an hour for him to travel about 50 feet to go by me.

When I was in the hospital for my heart bypass surgery I was not worried a bit but it was a Catholic hospital and I scared a Nun half to death. She came in to see me before the surgery asking if I wanted a priest to visit. I said no and she asked what religion I was. When I told her Methodist, she ran out of my room like she had seen the devil himself and never returned.

I am curious about these experiences too. I wish people would do more verification of these experiences. After they experience an NDE, they should ask the doctors and nurses if the details of the NDE tally with what the doctor and nurses saw as well. There are many means of verification, for instance the number of people in the operating theatre, the color of the paddles used to jumpstart his heart, the locations of the windows. The sounds and voices and interactions contain lots of details. It seems to me that NDE experiences usually have the audio off. Do ghosts have eyes but not ears?

The sounds and voices and interactions contain lots of details. It seems to me that NDE experiences usually have the audio off. Do ghosts have eyes but not ears?

That is a good indication that such experiences should not be considered as much more than the results of chemical imbalances due to traumatic or exceptional circumstances.

Nor should we discount the effect of cultural expectations. We've heard so much about NDE's that the notion has become something of a staple in our culture. I am certain that many people wish for such experiences to happen to them. Auto-suggestion alone should account for many having such experiences, people convincing themselves ahead of time, ahead of surgery for instance. And then upon awakening, ‘remember’ what they desperately wished to happen.

I fear it is not much more than another manner of trying to comfort ourselves about the inevitable result of being alive as a human: that we know we will all die.

Sorry agracier but that sounds like someone trying to make sense of something that they haven't experienced themselves.

What happened to me very well might not have been a near death experience, It very well could have been an out of body thing, but it was more real then anything i have ever experienced awake. I saw the three lights hanging from the celling and thinking if they go out he's toast, seeing the taped O2 hose and it took me a moment to understand it was an O2 hose. It took a moment and it was almost a surprise, no it was a surprise to me that I was looking at myself.

I never believed in any such things myself before that happened. I used to believe much as you do. I have been much closer to death several times after that but never experienced anything like it since. 1989 in the bed next to a coworker as they covered his body before removing it i could hear the doctors discussing my chances of living, but i knew i was awake. I was just going in and out and struggling to stay awake.

Yeah I'm up at 4 A.M. again in too much pain to sleep.

Sorry agracier but that sounds like a some one trying to make sense of something that they haven't experienced themselves .

I've often wished such things would happen to me, but nothing ever has.

I suppose some people have such an ability and others don't, much like lucid dreaming perhaps.

I don't think it's an ability. I kind of think it does or doesn't happen. No control over it.

I once read an account of a man, It turns out he was a real jackass, but it was in the late 1920's, he convinced a man who was dying and the hospital administration to let him place four scales under the bed's four leg's of the man who was dying. As it happened he was there to witness the man passing away and recorded the weight before and after death. There was a three gram loss. The assertion was that the soul weighed three grams. I say all that can be proved is the loss of three grams. No one can prove anything else.

But it does make one think, just what was that three grams? Could it have been the amount of air in the mans lungs that was expelled on his death? The easiest explanation is that the experimenter lied. The hardest explanation is that that man's soul weighed three grams. And if so, did that man's soul look back down on his body as he left it forever? On that I don't think any one could ever prove it did or not. It would be very easy to prove it didn't. Or that the soul doesn't exists. But what was those three grams? It all comes down to whether or not the experimenter lied or not. If not then what was those three grams?

I once read an account of a man, It turns out he was a real jackass, but it was in the late 1920's, he convinced a man who was dying and the hospital administration to let him place four scales under the bed's four leg's of the man who was dying, as it happened he was there to witness the man passing away and recorded the weight before and after death. There was a three gram loss. The assertion was that the soul weighed three grams.

@nytwatch1 Don't know if this is the same or another study performed.

“The 21 grams experiment refers to a scientific study published in 1907 by Duncan MacDougall, a physician from Haverhill, Massachusetts. MacDougall hypothesized that souls have physical weight, and attempted to measure the mass lost by a human when the soul departed the body. MacDougall attempted to measure the mass change of six patients at the moment of death. One of the six subjects lost three-quarters of an ounce (21.3 grams).”

That experiment was inconclusive and I don't believe it has been repeated with a larger sample space. To experience a true near death experience (e.g. “seeing the light” etc.), or to lose weight at death due to your “soul” departing the body, one must believe there is some form of life after death.

Been reading about memories flashing by upon death - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brain-scans-suggest-life-flashes-before-our-eyes-upon-death-180979647/

Along that line, I wonder when a person is cremated if the intense heat causes a few moments of brain activity…

Rigel I'm sure you are right. I'm old and my memory sometimes betrays me. But the experiment sounds right. No matter, there is still the question of the missing matter/weight. Over the years I have known people I had no reason to know. One from Tibet, another from India. I have known Amerindain Shaman. One that I still know is a member of the bird clan and on the Summit Lake Paiute Tribal council. I have chased the meaning of life with Buddhist monks at the city of light to sweat lodges and peyote ceremonies in lonely Teepee's. But nothing was as real or impressed me so much as that night in the hospital when I looked down on myself. I have chased that, trying to find that wonderment, that sense of knowing again. That absolute knowledge of what is to come. Just a little knowledge to add. One cannot be a shaman unless born to the bird clan.

Thinking about this; the thought occurs to me that we have no memory of the two most important things we experience - being born, and dying.

@reddevil - A blessing or a curse!!??!!

Thinking about this; the thought occurs to me that we have no memory of the two most important things we experience - being born, and dying.

I'd say this is half true.

Of being born we have no memory and also more important: no premonition that it would occur. In other words, no one can remember from before being born.

The nasty thing about dying though, is that we all have knowledge that come what may, however much we rage and protest against the dying of the light, it will nevertheless inevitably happen. And often enough, it can be a prolonged affair in awful circumstances of which we are all but far too much aware of what the outcome will be.

Sort of like the opposite of being born. Pretty shitty if you ask me.

This was not my experience, but one that I was witness to. Early in my career as a paramedic, I was dispatched to a cardiac arrest at a construction site. A 40ish year old patient was in cardiac arrest at the base of a ladder. According to witnesses, he fell off the ladder and was “out instantly“. While assessing the patient, I was also assessing the scene. The patient was wearing an electrician’s tool belt, which led me to realize that he was working on an energized junction box at the top of the ladder. According to coworkers, it was supposed to be powered off. It wasn’t.

We were able to defibrillate his heart twice, and he returned into a sinus rhythm (Regular heartbeat). He survived and was discharged from the hospital 4 days later. Another case where bystander CPR made the difference.

How does this tie into a near death experience? I was able to talk to my patient on the day he was discharged from the hospital. He was able to tell me everything that was said, and everything that happened. He remembered me identifying that he was an electrician by his tool belt. He remembered everything about the scene. he remembered everything that happened, despite the fact that his heart was not beating for several minutes. He was not conscious. By rights, he was dead…or was he?

It was that call that taught me to choose my words wisely, even when working a cardiac arrest. The patient’s level of awareness despite being without a pulse during that time was nothing short of amazing.

He remembered everything about the scene. he remembered everything that happened, despite the fact that his heart was not beating for several minutes. He was not conscious. By rights, he was dead…or was he?

Since he is still alive, or was after the accident, that means that, by definition, he did not die. There is no coming back from the dead.

All it means is that the definition of death needs fine tuning and will in the future undoubtedly be revised.

What is the definition of a near death experience? Many combat veterans in firefights or navy pilots doing carrier landings at night in a sea state of four have had near death experiences.

Since he is still alive, or was after the accident, that means that, by definition, he did not die. There is no coming back from the dead.

Agreed that he was not “dead dead”…however, he was far from conscious. His heart was not beating. Had we done nothing, he would not have survived. When folks aren’t conscious, such as when under anesthesia or even asleep, they typically have no memory of events happening around them. This guy was far beyond that, and yet remembered it just like he was awake. I can only explain it as being an out of body or near death experience. By all science, it shouldn’t have been possible.

By all science, it shouldn’t have been possible.

Scientific knowledge constantly shifts further and further as we learn new things and especially with strides in technology. The more tools we have at our disposal, the more we can accomplish.

Several centuries ago, learned men would have said that, what we know now, to be beyond scientific knowledge and an impossibility to conceive.

I'd say get ready for more revelations as time goes by. Concerning the determination of irrevocable death, I'd say that many gruesome things will be revealed as we increase our knowledge of what actually happens. Who knows for instance how conscious we truly are of the process of dying?

@agracier Who knows for instance how conscious we truly are of the process of dying?

That's what scares me about being cremated - perhaps the intense heat causes just a bit of brain activity to feel pain or realize what's happening. 😮

That's what scares me about being cremated - perhaps the intense heat causes just a bit of brain activity to feel pain or realize what's happening. 😮

Egad. What a notion.

I would think however that quite a substantial amount time elapse between being declared dead and the actual cremation. It's not something that is done an hour or so after death. Although it has been told that the old KGB were not above cremating their ‘traitors’ while still very much alive and doing so slowly, feet first.