Psience Quest

This doctor apparently has had a similar experience to Dr Mary Neale. I don't know anything about it and have no assumptions one way or the other. Presumably we will get to hear more about it soon.  

https://isgo.iands.org/webinar/dallas-ft...f-iands-2/

In 2018, Dr. Peter Cummings was a husband, father and board-certified neuropathologist who spent his days teaching neuroanatomy and neurobiology at a prestigious medical school in  Boston. As an atheist, thoughts of God and spirit rarely crossed his mind.

Then he and his family went on a white-water rafting trip in Costa Rica, where Peter fell into a Class IV rapid and drowned. But during the eight minutes his Apple Watch showed him to be in cardiac arrest, he had an extraordinary experience of peace, light, and love, watching from above as his wife and son were rescued from the rapids, events that were later verified. 

Dr. Cummings returned from his near- death experience with an altered experience of time, living in a perpetual present with no sense of past or future and set out to discover the truth about what he had seen and felt. Was it real, or a trick of his dying brain? What he found contradicted everything his training as a brain scientist had taught him and left him convinced that the mind, the afterlife, and yes, even God, are real. His upcoming book [i]Forever Now[/i] is the surprising, scientifically rigorous, deeply moving story of his quest for understanding.

Peter Cummings, MD is a triple board certified physician specializing in neuropathology and forensic pathology. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maine in Orono and a masters degree in pathology from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He attended the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin Ireland, graduating medical school with honors. 

He completed his residency in anatomic pathology and his fellowship in neuropathology at the University of Virginia. He is an award winning educator and best selling author. He has been accepted as a medical expert in the courts of 27 states and 7 different countries.
 

Further to the previous post, I purchased the IANDS video of the recent webinar with Dr Peter Cummings. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to post it here so that members can see it, I don't think I'm legally allowed to, either of course by IANDS or the admin of this forum. (if that is incorrect please advise)

However, I can (as far as I know) post a summary which will be accurate without being verbatim. Dr Cummings has impeccable credentials, triple board certified in brain pathology and neuro pathology/neuroscience which means he's undertaken a lot of extra training to compliment his initial graduation from medical school etc. He notably retrospectively worked on JFK's autopsy report trying to determine from which direction the shot(s) originated from, apparently.

Although he was born and raised (partially) Catholic, he described himself previously as an atheist/materialist and on a good day, maybe agnostic at best. There was no soul and the brain was responsible for all experience, period. 

(Just to add for proponents, just be aware as, I'm sure you are, that Cummings' medical expertise/acumen in brain pathology will make not "one iota" of difference to the debate, from the point of view of sceptics). 

However, it can't be seriously denied that he is at least better qualified than most people, even medics, to comment, being a recognised 'brain expert' and also having just had an experience that contradicted everything he thought he knew about the brain (where have we heard that before lol) :

His wife was an outdoor sports enthusiast and had booked a trip to Costa Rica, white water rafting. They had to cover thirty miles of river in two days (of rafting) and during one particularly difficult stretch of torrential water, the raft overturned and they all fell in. Cummings (apparently) doesn't like water (he only learnt to swim quite late in life) and eventually got caught up in a hydraulic (a powerful 'suction downwards' from a spinning vortex of water). The order of this is more convoluted but for brevity ...

...he was unable to breathe but eventually he went back up again and managed to reach a raft (another raft). Unfortunately, a paddle came down on his head nearly taking his face off (he said) and sent him back down under water again, where he slammed into a large rock which he could see in detail (shortened). He realised he was going to die but felt strangely calm and peaceful and thought "this isn't bad at all". Everything was getting brighter...

He then found himself viewing everything from above (out of the water). Not with "eyes" like the eyes in his head, but as if he was somehow 'over' the whole scene. He could see his wife being rescued (in detail) and also his twelve year old son hanging over the side of a raft. This was something he couldn't possibly have seen, as he was underwater, but he was later able to verify that all the details were correct (he claims).

Happy and contented that they were going to be okay, Cummings was now ready to go. He also reported having a vision of his son's future which additionally assured him that his 'job' here was done and he could die. Furthermore, he saw that one of his family had a serious problem/difficulties that he didn't know anything about previously. 

As is always the case with the NDE's we hear about, he came back, bobbing up to the surface (somehow) and was himself also rescued. Coincidental to his time under water where he couldn't breathe (obviously), he mentioned that his Apple watch informed him (registered) that his heart had appeared to stop for eight minutes, though he can't be certain that it actually did. It may have malfunctioned he said, but it never has before. 

All in all it was what might term more of a 'superficial' or the first stage of an NDE, but an NDE nonetheless which has changed his life. He said he's examined the arguments, the sceptical proposals/objections etc and has come to the conclusion that he cannot explain how he was able to see these events from above. He's also aware that cynical sceptics will say he's being unscientific (basically) but is not worried by that, and is content to let them believe what they want to. 

He also mentioned that he doesn't understand why well documented veridical NDE/OBE reports cannot be taken seriously, although he is aware that sceptics do not. 

Some more to follow

My near-death experience

Rafting a river in Costa Rica, I was swept underwater by a powerful current and drowned. Dying during a traumatic experience is a common claim made by people who have had near-death experiences (NDEs), but my experience differs in a very important way. I was wearing my Apple Watch, which continually monitors my heart rate. During the time I was underwater and having my NDE, my watch indicated that for more than 8 minutes, I had no heartbeat. The watch was not malfunctioning, because once I pulled myself out of the water and returned to a more normal state of consciousness, the watch recorded my heart rate. 
 
Bottom line: I was in cardiac arrest, and yet while I was, I had the most extraordinary experience of my life.

 https://www.petercummingsmd.com/

Dr Cummings has written a book about his experience. I make no judgement about that but I would anticipate that that in itself may draw some criticism from sceptics.  

I find his peaked interest in NDE research to be quite inspiring. He apparently took the Greyson test and scored a 16, indicative of a 'transcendental component'. His reflection on how he changed his mind was powerful too:

Quote:However, now, as I began researching my own NDE, I found that orthodoxy shaken. I'm a neuroscientist, yet I could find no compelling evidence to support the idea that either neural activity, low oxygen levels, or any other physiological factors could have created the hyper-real, logically consistent, veridical (truthful and objectively verifiable) experience I'd had. Plus, I had been in cardiac arrest for more than eight minutes! Within about two minutes of my heart stopping, my brain should not have been able to produce a coherent conscious experience of any kind. Yet I had one.

(2020-11-17, 09:27 PM)OmniVersalNexus Wrote: [ -> ]I find his peaked interest in NDE research to be quite inspiring. He apparently took the Greyson test and scored a 16, indicative of a 'transcendental component'. His reflection on how he changed his mind was powerful too:

Personally, I'm sort of reserving judgement but what I think isn't important, it's his experience and we either accept what he's telling us or reject it, I guess. I see no reason to think he would be making anything up, though; in the video when he was telling the story, particularly the bit where he was under water, he became very emotional and perspired visibly. 

And whether or not his heart stopped (as he said) is not actually that important, it's the "observing" of events he couldn't possibly have seen, if he is telling us the truth and I have no reason to suspect otherwise. 

What I find intriguing and very significant is that he is an undoubted expert on the brain and it's pathology, but he doesn't accept that he's been tricked/fooled by his own.  

If anyone is interested, there are quite few of these NDE's from drowning in rapids. Googling Diane Goble near death experience will bring up her story which although is a much deeper NDE, the beginning is quite similar.

Scarlett Heinbuch and David Schwartz are a couple who apparently 'met' in a shared near-death experience. While I'm a little skeptical about their credibility/authenticity (given this apparently occured during some kind of 'healing session'), their experience(s) is certainly interesting: 


Her website is: https://scarlettheinbuch.com/

Sharon Hewitt Rawlette covered it on her blog, and I noticed Titus Rivas in the comments there too 
https://sharonrawlette.wordpress.com/201...xperience/

Edit: Apologies if I posted this in the wrong thread, feel free to move this post if needed!

This thread is entitled "Commentary thread for tim's "NDE's" thread", and is intended I assume to keep the main content uncluttered.

I'm think we should also do the same for Doug's "NDE Multimedia Resource Thread" which was originally very focussed on actual content rather than discussion. It seems to have drifted away from Doug's intention.

Done. The new thread is Discussion split from: NDE Multimedia Resource Thread.

Thanks Laird - I'd not realised how many earlier comments were also in that thread as well as more recent ones.

No problem, and yes, there were quite a few. I left some of the shorter exchanges, and some where comment was specifically solicited, behind in the original thread.