NDE Multimedia Resource Thread

[Laird]

Moderator note: recent posts veer into sociopolitics. If this continues, they'll be moved into a companion thread in the opt-in forums (alternatively, feel free to create a new thread there in which to continue the discussion).

You have no idea how bad it is on r/consciousness right now on Reddit. Tons of people basically accusing any non physicalist of being “afraid of death” “religious” or “wanting an afterlife”.

A lot of non physicalist theories have nothing to do with religion or afterlife. It’s gotten so obnoxious and toxic on there it’s impossible to have any discussion.

A website pretty much dedicated to & for a particular New Atheist type, with admins who can just delete any thread or argument that leaves materialists stumped.

These hivemind locations don't worry me overmuch because the fact they have to hide out in such little areas means their power continues to wane in the larger public sphere...

This is yet another case of a medic having an NDE (just an OBE in this case). Obviously authentic, the Spanish doctor was doing his hospital shift when he suddenly felt dizzy and fainted. His colleagues took him to the hospital scanner and detected a massive pulmonary embolism (which is fatal without immediate attention). This then migrated and stopped his heart (I'm pretty sure he tells us that but not certain).

Lying on a stretcher, he then experiences a sensation that "he'd never felt before", that of being "projected" out of his body and up to the ceiling where he could see what was going on, his own body and his colleagues resuscitating him. 

The auto translation is far from perfect but you can just about get the gist of it. 

  (1) MÉDICO AFIRMA que SALIÓ de su CUERPO (Vida después de la Muerte) - YouTube

A short piece from the BBC on near death experience. Rachel Finch who was featured in "Rethinking death" recently, gives quite an illuminating insight (impact wise). Greg Kowalewski (if that is the correct spelling) has a tattoo of the ECG pattern (looks like VF I think but not certain) that was seen while he was dead (or a bit dead for those that prefer).

His recollections (of leaving in an aeroplane) are very unusual but I have come across that before. I did wonder if it might have been a misunderstanding of the tunnel which as they traverse it, sometimes appears to have holes in it that the experiencer can look out of, but I think that's too much of a stretch. Anyone sceptical of NDE's will like his recollections and point to them as clearly some kind of hallucination, generated by his subconscious desires/familiar experiences and I do believe that is why the BBC has (cherry?) picked it. 

Of course it doesn't actually follow that it is a hallucination because of that, as his brain should have been off line. You can see though, when Parnia is brought in to comment and explain how this can possibly happen (it's because of the brain spikes) it's seems to me it's very accceptable to them, they do like it. 

The mechanism is therefore, some brain waves, generated late into resuscitation (which one might have reasonably expected anyway as they are trying to bring them back to life, aren't they?). How this explains veridical out of body experiences just after the heart has stopped, doesn't seem to be important. 

 An inside look at the near-death experience - BBC Reel

A short piece from the BBC on near death experience. Rachel Finch who was featured in "Rethinking death" recently, gives quite an illuminating insight (impact wise). Greg Kowalewski (if that is the correct spelling) has a tattoo of the ECG pattern (looks like VF I think but not certain) that was seen while he was dead (or a bit dead for those that prefer).

His recollections (of leaving in an aeroplane) are very unusual but I have come across that before. I did wonder if it might have been a misunderstanding of the tunnel which as they traverse it, sometimes appears to have holes in it that the experiencer can look out of, but I think that's too much of a stretch. Anyone sceptical of NDE's will like his recollections and point to them as clearly some kind of hallucination, generated by his subconscious desires/familiar experiences and I do believe that is why the BBC has (cherry?) picked it. 

Of course it doesn't actually follow that it is a hallucination because of that, as his brain should have been off line. You can see though, when Parnia is brought in to comment and explain how this can possibly happen (it's because of the brain spikes) it's seems to me it's very accceptable to them, they do like it. 

The mechanism is therefore, some brain waves, generated late into resuscitation (which one might have reasonably expected anyway as they are trying to bring them back to life, aren't they?). How this explains veridical out of body experiences just after the heart has stopped, doesn't seem to be important. 

 An inside look at the near-death experience - BBC Reel

To my ear, Parnia is basically arguing for some kind of dualism, camouflaged in pseudoscientific nonsense about a braking system on consciousness getting inactivated by dying. I wonder if he has given up on the ”Aware” line of inquiry? After many years on the fence and being very careful with his statements he is suddenly quite vocal.

camouflaged in pseudoscientific nonsense

Do you really need to pepper phrases like this in what you write?

Surely by coming here, you recognise that materialism may not be an adequate way to describe reality?

David

Do you really need to pepper phrases like this in what you write?

Surely by coming here, you recognise that materialism may not be an adequate way to describe reality?

David

Please allow me to apologize for the harsh wording, which is merely a result of my limited proficiency in English. Let me clarify my point. I am not arguing in favor of materialism in this thread, which is actually not permitted by the forum guidelines. However, if you delve into the research that forms the basis of his hypothesis about the brain and consciousness, you will likely notice an issue you often raise: the extrapolation of results (for example, general relativity extrapolated to dark matter, dark energy, etc.). The only concrete evidence he presents is the detection of brain waves that sometimes occur during resuscitation, which are not correlated with Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) - that's mere speculation. The discovery of these brain waves is a recent development, previously unknown. Now, materialists are using this to explain NDEs, and Parnia offers an interpretation that teeters between materialism and dualism. The issue is that the detection of these brain waves provides no definitive insights about NDEs. Therefore, we are left with sensational conclusions that lack substantial support.

A short piece from the BBC on near death experience.

 An inside look at the near-death experience - BBC Reel

Thanks for posting this. Something I noticed before, Parnia sounds confused, he intermingles the terms 'brain' and consciousness, sliding from one to the other or back again, as a way of describing what the experience is like, how it feels, and conveys it in a non-threatening manner. If he didn't use the word brain in there, it might not get shown (even in this low-profile way) on the BBC.

Example:

3:15
Normally, in our day to day lives, for example, if somebody is preparing dinner or trying to be at work or trying to deal with their family issues, they couldn't possibly deal with all of their brain processes becoming conscious for them.

But is he really suggesting that our brain processes contain this,

1:15
and I was watching every moment of my life, from birth to death. I wasn't just watching it, I was reliving it. So I was reexperiencing each moment.

As hypotheses go, it's quite a wide-ranging one. He's suggesting that our 'brain processes' contain this detailed account of every moment of our lives, and how it felt at that moment? That's an impressive feat of memory. Luckily he's suggesting we can access this amazing brain content simply by being groggily half-dead so our brain is barely functioning, if at all, which makes complete sense.

At this stage I'm not sure what he really thinks, perhaps he does believe what he's saying though it is pretty wild stuff. Maybe the next step would be to use (a technique developed from) this method so we can remember where we lost our keys or any of the other things we find so hard to recall.

At this stage I'm not sure what he really thinks, perhaps he does believe what he's saying though it is pretty wild stuff.

Good post, Typoz ! I agree with you. My take on this (for what it's worth) is that he's been forced to come up with a mechanism, any mechanism that can be measured, to explain why he believes that patients can be conscious when they are effectively dead (cardiac arrest = death)...because, disembodied consciousness (which is what is actually occuring and he's said so) is not an acceptable mechanism and neither is non local consciousness (Van Lommel).  

He's now got several patients (nowhere near enough, though) who clearly had memories from the time when they had no brain function/dead. If the patient who was standing next to his bed watching the doctors "getting organised" etc etc had only had the common decency to float up in the air and look down to see if there was something unusual, then I think Parnia might have made a move to abandon the brain. Or maybe he wouldn't. One would be an enormous breakthrough but hardly sufficient to alter the text books. 

They are carrying on the study and I suspect it will be refined again. I would have been tempted to suggest placing something on the patient's body, a flashing light on one of their feet, for instance (out of the way) but I suspect they won't do that for obvious reasons and we'd never hear the last of it from Max (just kidding).

As it is, what he's saying or alluding to (and maybe hoping no one will notice, they will) will convince no one. Even sceptics know it's effectively BS, albeit they might be content to put up with it for a while, if it means they don't have to hear any "soul talk" which is complete anathema to them.

Would he have been better leaving out a proposed mechanism? Would he get less funding that way? We can't know, he won't tell us even if we ask. I also did wonder if his use of the brain waves deep into resuscitation might be an attempt to get the pharmaceutical companies on board. He has at least satisfactorilly demonstrated that brains do not die (cells burst) after five minutes, and are still very much viable after an hour into resuscitation which used to be unthinkable (except in special cases). 

Is it an attempt to get "Big Pharmaceuticals" to fund much larger studies, which could be "themed" more towards saving patient's brains, returning them to life, whilst at the same time trying to get the crucial evidence to answer the metaphysical side of the question ?

To my ear, Parnia is basically arguing for some kind of dualism, camouflaged in pseudoscientific nonsense about a braking system on consciousness getting inactivated by dying. I wonder if he has given up on the ”Aware” line of inquiry? After many years on the fence and being very careful with his statements he is suddenly quite vocal.

Well, when Parnia says

And so the brain, naturally, has braking systems that prevent certain pieces of information from coming into our consciousness

it sounds like a restating of the filter theory of consciousness - which often talks about TV sets or radio transmitters and so on. He's managed to slide this in without attracting too much unwanted attention.

Actually (and I may have mentioned this before), I think the current approach is the result of working as part of a team. It may be a compromise to get all team-members on board, or it may be a carefully-crafted ruse to sneak ideas beneath the radar.

By now I'm in danger of becoming one of the folks described here, and really it doesn't matter that much to me:

There's an entire online community at this point devoted to interminable debates over the right way to understand the Esoteric Gospel of Parnia.