NDEs and epileptic seizures

Out of body experiences are strange things. I had a few myself - but not recently. My brain wasn't damaged or compromised in any medical sense. But they were still deeply interesting. In one I found myself flying at near rooftop-height along a main road in Manchester. It looked entirely plausible, but there was nothing which could be used to verify whether it corresponded with reality or not. In another I was transported upwards from the surface of the Earth, not to mere orbiting height, but to somewhere far in the universe where none of our normal night sky was visible, there were stars and so on, but it was a vast distance from here. What i took from that experience wasn't the visual impression but rather the deep sense of the vastness of existence, in more than just a physical sense, there was something profound about it, a different sense of being.

But other people have reported various types of more controlled OBEs, with some degree of verifiable observation - though this is an intriguing area. I'd say when one has verified observations at a distance, it does rule out brain-based explanations, whether the brain is active or not. But this has all been covered before, it isn't the NDE topic, but the OBE topic.

One thing which does seem apparent in the OBE is that though the world may look just like this everyday one, when we are operating in the non-physical, there isn't necessarily any reason to expect the norms of this physical reality to apply. We know for example in an NDE how rapidly people can shift their location, their reality too, it seems there are many realities. I'm not entirely expecting this physical world to exert its primacy once one leaves the body. In the physical world we must play by physical rules. In the non-physical - do we know what rules apply? I often think the expectation that everything should be just as we see it here to be naive, perhaps more importantly, something we can't justify. We might hope or want the world to work the way we imagine, but maybe different rules apply?

I remember one NDE account where a person found themselves moving through the same house, the same building that they'd just left, but it was in a different time period, the curtains, the furniture, the decor, everything was from another time. That's just one small example of how the OBE component may surprise us. I really think that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Interesting, Typoz ! Just to be clear, you weren't asleep during these OBE's or partially asleep (REM) ?

The reason your getting push back especially from one particular member is simply for one overarching reason: people want to know there's a way to cheat death.

I think you may have got the wrong end of your fishing pole, Steve.

Interesting, Typoz ! Just to be clear, you weren't asleep during these OBE's or partially asleep (REM) ?

That's not something I can give a clear, unambiguous answer to. I was lying down in bed at the time - but for me that is the easiest way to be able to relax and completely lose awareness of the body - sometimes I get partway there while just standing still,  but I'd be concerned that I might fall and injure myself if I completely released.

There was a sense of being completely wide awake - not like any dream. People have asked me about lucid dreaming, not something I've experienced much, but that tends to have an air of unreality, the craziness of dreaming. This wasn't crazy, it was just normal level-headed awareness. In some of these I experienced the sense of leaving the body, I was fully aware of the process, but in at least one occasion, I awakened from a dream and found myself in an OBE. The ending tended to be abrupt, I'm not a skilled pilot in that sense, it was as though I crash-landed, in a metaphorical sense, at which point I became aware of being in my body again.

But I'm not expert here, the things I described were years ago, I've not tried for a long time. In fact originally I made a conscious decision to stop, because I encountered other people, who were very familiar with what they were doing, and I felt out of my depth, as though I'd ventured into a jungle full of unknown dangers, armed with, well, nothing.

I think you may have got the wrong end of your fishing pole, Steve.

Perhaps I do. Perhaps you do. The fact is there are no facts, there are though people tossing around their perspectives.

No, but I lived there for quite a few years, both as a student and working there too. At the time (in above post) I was living there.

Nottinghamshire is where I'm from, though I like the scenery over the border in Derbyshire better.

Yes Derbyshire has some stunning scenery.

Perhaps I do. Perhaps you do. The fact is there are no facts, there are though people tossing around their perspectives.

You could have phrased that a bit better, Steve.

The reason your getting push back especially from one particular member is simply for one overarching reason: people want to know there's a way to cheat death.

Well, I don't really think that all NDE proponents are scared shitless about death. Some may be, surely, I am terrified by it, but there are researchers who just happen to be curious, and people that went from atheism (not being scared by death but want oblivion) to some form of spirituality.

I think it's a really varied world that of NDE researchers.

As for Steve001's absurd attempts to psychoanalyse others, perhaps a mirror might be a useful accessory.

Well, I don't really think that all NDE proponents are scared shitless about death.

This is one of their favourite 'shibboleths'. Proponents are all soft headed sentimentalists who can't face up to the hard reality of death. And therefore they seek comfort and delude themselves with wishful thinking in respect of what various anomalous phenomena actually mean.

In fact many people who previously described themselves as materialist atheists, also have near death experiences (for example) and the vast majority of them change their minds. It doesn't seem to occur to these dogmatic sceptics that if they had one of these experiences, they would also have to change their mind.