NDE study by Kondziella and Olsen

Max said > "We know that some people are dreaming whilst they are under general anaesthesia, and not at the end, because we can put headphones on them, and play them audio tapes, and the words on the tapes can get incorporated into their explicitly recalled experiences in interesting associative ways."

Can you post a link to where this has been established ?

Max said > "As someone who refers to the validity of patients near death experiences under GA all the time, it’s strange to me to see you using science to argue for the idea that people cant dream during GA."

What has disembodied consciousness got to do with dreaming under anaesthesia ? I mean, you're not being serious, are you, Max ? 

By the personal experience of my mother, and what the doctors told her after that, I'd say people can dream under common G.A.

The point is that REM sleep isn't common dreaming. It has a pattern on the EEG (correct me if I am wrong), and it should show up. Until now, Dr. Parnia and previous studies found no such pattern in patients during CA

Can people dream without rapid eye movement, Raf ? Under general anaesthesia, the brain stem reflexes are absent according to the experts. The eye reflexes are a property of the brain stem.

I think we have to accept (until further evidence) that patients can't dream under general anaesthesia. Telling us that your mother dreamed under GA  whilst it is interesting, must remain an anecdote. Remember, sceptics don't accept anecdotes.

Can people dream without rapid eye movement, Raf ? Under general anaesthesia, the brain stem reflexes are absent according to the experts. The eye reflexes are a property of the brain stem.

I think we have to accept (until further evidence) that patients can't dream under general anaesthesia. Telling us that your mother dreamed under GA  whilst it is interesting, must remain an anecdote. Remember, sceptics don't accept anecdotes.

I know, but al though it happen many years ago the doctors told her that dreaming was possible. Not exactly common, but possible. I mostly refer to their words.

But it was at least 20 years ago. Maybe now we know that people doesn't dream during G.A?

I know, but al though it happen many years ago the doctors told her that dreaming was possible. Not exactly common, but possible. I mostly refer to their words.

But it was at least 20 years ago. Maybe now we know that people don't dream during G.A?

I think it's always been the case, Raf. That's what the experts say anyway.

These issues seem to primarily be of whether some NDEs are associated with REM phenomena, whether the congenitally blind can experience REM sleep, whether if this is true could this indicate NDEs in general including those of the congenitally blind are somehow basically a combination of waking consciousness and REM sleep consciousness, and if that is true whether that could be evidence that NDEs are merely a special case of brain processing of dream images in a partially conscious way - no soul or spirit required.  

Not to beat a dead horse, but it seems to me that this chain of hopeful materialist neuroscientific conjectures are dead in the water from the start, because they are trumped by the extensive empirical evidence of separation of mind and body during NDE - especially the presence of many veridical elements, experience of clear NDEs during periods of no brain function such as cardiac arrest, and long term inexplicable major spiritual personality changes following deep NDEs. 

I'll add another conjecture - perhaps associations between some NDE and REM phenomena (if they really do occur) are really indicating that retaining the memory of having an NDE requires a relatively rare occurence of a dream state following the NDE, incorporating elements of the NDE experience itself. The REM intrusion perhaps fixes some of the NDE experiences in memory and occurs only in a small minority of NDEs, explaining the apparent relatively rare 10% or less NDE rate in the population. I doubt that these latter conjectures would be popular in the neuroscientific community - they prefer their own far fetched conjectures.

Ian Russell’s studies in on Anesthesia are one example, he’s got lots of papers, you can look em up on Google Scholar.

What part didn’t you understand, about the strangeness of your position where you deny one type of well known experience under general anesthesia by trying to invoke science arguments, whilst fully endorsing another type of experience under general anesthesia?

Max said > where you deny one type of well known experience under general anesthesia by trying to invoke science arguments,

I'm not denying anything. Those three links I provided are the opinions of experts in anaesthesia. Who should I cite ? An expert heating engineer ? Sometimes I wonder, Max if you actually read my posts to you.

And what does trying to invoke science arguments mean ? You mean instead of invoking a load of old cobblers that I just made up ? Can you find one of my posts that invokes bullshit ?  I hate bullshit.

I googled Ian Russell and got this :

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-tur...anesthesia

That is about anaesthesia awareness. That's not dreaming, she remembered a conversation and I believe it's called implicit learning and it does seem to occur occasionally in general anaesthesia. But it doesn't occur under burst suppression.

There is also the broader question of whether Long is aware of the continuing work on whether the blind also experience visual imagery in their dreams, and if so whether he feels it affects his published arguments about NDEs. That might be interesting to follow up, but I don't think I'd better add it to my own list of things to do, which is quite long already.

This was what I was referring to. I wouldn't mind e-mailing him myself about it, if I knew the best place to contact him.

I think the point is somewhat moot when it comes to the Reynolds case. She wasn’t only under burst suppression, but also had the “clickers” on her. It takes more than a mere dream to describe her surroundings under such conditions.

This was what I was referring to. I wouldn't mind e-mailing him myself about it, if I knew the best place to contact him.

Please do. There are many types of “blindness” that can affect a young child, from development issues that affect the optic nerve to abnormal angiogenesis that affects the cornea, surely the considerations for all are not equal.

This was what I was referring to. I wouldn't mind e-mailing him myself about it, if I knew the best place to contact him.

Try this, Will. nderf@nderf.org