New article is blaming NDEs on gamma waves again

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/there...00453.html

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/there...00453.html

The relevant bit:

These waves are usually associated with a conscious experience. In this context, they may be involved in near-death experiences reported by people who have survived cardiorespiratory arrest.

This is about rat brains, but beyond that for me this doesn't seem like a big deal. We've always known the brain is deteriorated but not irrevocably so, and at least I've assumed there is some kind of activity in the brain that works with unconscious systems in the body during an NDE.

The biggest issue is always the evidential anomalous reporting of OOBEs, rather than the varied visionary experiences. The latter are of course of interest, but secondary to me save for when there is some additional paranormal phenomena like meeting a loved you who you didn't know about in life.

The relevant bit:


This is about rat brains, but beyond that for me this doesn't seem like a big deal. We've always known the brain is deteriorated but not irrevocably so, and at least I've assumed there is some kind of activity in the brain that works with unconscious systems in the body during an NDE.

The biggest issue is always the evidential anomalous reporting of OOBEs, rather than the varied visionary experiences. The latter are of course of interest, but secondary to me save for when there is some additional paranormal phenomena like meeting a loved you who you didn't know about in life.

There is still the mystery (from the materialistic standpoint) of the inexplicably transcendent and spiritual nature of many of the experiences given in the accounts. A few examples: why is the predominant experience: various versions of The Light, inexpressible Love, a life review, travel to a higher spiritual realm by means of some sort of tunnel or other transportation means, communication with spiritual beings, etc. This specific coordinated self-consistent elaborate picture rather than the random distortions and hallucinations to be expected of some sort of abnormal neurological activity caused by progressive organizational breakdown of the brain in the process leading to death. This area of (indirect) evidence is independent of the fact of there being a lot of direct empirical evidence in the form of many verified veridical NDEs.

There is still the mystery (from the materialistic standpoint) of the inexplicably transcendent and spiritual nature of many of the experiences given in the accounts. A few examples: why is the predominant experience: various versions of The Light, inexpressible Love, a life review, travel to a higher spiritual realm by means of some sort of tunnel or other transportation means, communication with spiritual beings, etc. This specific coordinated self-consistent elaborate picture rather than the random distortions and hallucinations to be expected of some sort of abnormal neurological activity caused by progressive organizational breakdown of the brain in the process leading to death. This area of (indirect) evidence is independent of the fact of there being a lot of direct empirical evidence in the form of many verified veridical NDEs.

Are we sure this is the predominant experience?

These commonalities are definitely of interest, especially when doing a deep dive into historical NDEs, but I don't know if they would rate above being a curious feature without the more paranormal aspects.

I guess these factors do become of more serious value due to their alignment with In-Between Life memories, but even those are important because of the paranormal memory retention of a previous life.

The relevant bit:


This is about rat brains, but beyond that for me this doesn't seem like a big deal. We've always known the brain is deteriorated but not irrevocably so, and at least I've assumed there is some kind of activity in the brain that works with unconscious systems in the body during an NDE.

The biggest issue is always the evidential anomalous reporting of OOBEs, rather than the varied visionary experiences. The latter are of course of interest, but secondary to me save for when there is some additional paranormal phenomena like meeting a loved you who you didn't know about in life.

Sandi T from r/NDE also mentioned that it seems like it's just talking about energy leaving neurons and the article is just the mainstream media misinterpreting it again.

Are we sure this is the predominant experience?

These commonalities are definitely of interest, especially when doing a deep dive into historical NDEs, but I don't know if they would rate above being a curious feature without the more paranormal aspects.

I guess these factors do become of more serious value due to their alignment with In-Between Life memories, but even those are important because of the paranormal memory retention of a previous life.

A curious feature? Several studies have identified a number of common and related features, in particular: a feeling of inner peace, out of body experiences, traveling in a dark environment or “void” (usually associated with passing through a tunnel), reviewing one's life from childhood onwards, seeing an overwhelmingly bright spiritual light, entering an extraterrestrial “other realm,” and communicating with spiritual beings and deceased loved ones. Any plausible theory of NDEs has to explain this cluster of closely related spiritual and transcendental effects occurring as opposed to the random disruptive hallucinations from the paroxysms of a dying brain.

A curious feature? Several studies have identified a number of common and related features, in particular: a feeling of inner peace, out of body experiences, traveling in a dark environment or “void” (usually associated with passing through a tunnel), reviewing one's life from childhood onwards, seeing an overwhelmingly bright spiritual light, entering an extraterrestrial “other realm,” and communicating with spiritual beings and deceased loved ones. Any plausible theory of NDEs has to explain this cluster of closely related spiritual and transcendental effects occurring as opposed to the random disruptive hallucinations from the paroxysms of a dying brain.

I agree there are commonalities ->

In summary, just as we dream in symbols – giving form and apparent “reality” to fears, desires, worries, hopes, and other abstract concepts without conscious intent or deliberation – it is conceivable that we manifest our afterlife experiences in the same way. NDEs are apparently universal on contextual, thematic, and interpretative levels. They also share highly specific cross-cultural similarities on the symbolic and narrative levels. The most common features can therefore give us some idea of what the afterlife experience could be like, including OBE, darkness, light, heightened awareness and emotions, meeting spirits of the dead, personal evaluation, and so on – all given specific form by our individual and cultural particularities. Such features also regularly occur in the mediumistic and PLR accounts, though the reports of intermission states in spontaneous reincarnation memories appear to be more closely aligned with NDEs and without such extensive elaboration and idiosyncrasies.

Shushan, Gregory . The Next World: Extraordinary Experiences of the Afterlife (pp. 252-253). White Crow Productions Ltd. Kindle Edition.

However without additional aspects that are directly paranormal - such as those documented in The Self Does Not Die - it would be difficult to argue these NDE features are markers of an actual afterlife.

It could be a "soft" argument, that because there are a priori reasons to believe the self doesn't die - the varied philosophical arguments for the mind being irreducible - these commonalities in reported NDEs suggest an afterlife...but without things like OOBEs the argument would certainly be much weaker.

I agree there are commonalities ->


However without additional aspects that are directly paranormal - such as those documented in The Self Does Not Die - it would be difficult to argue these NDE features are markers of an actual afterlife.

It could be a "soft" argument, that because there are a priori reasons to believe the self doesn't die - the varied philosophical arguments for the mind being irreducible - these commonalities in reported NDEs suggest an afterlife...but without things like OOBEs the argument would certainly be much weaker.

An analogy might be the output displays of an old PC ridden by malware, erratically displaying unrelated random and sometimes scrambled Internet site pages and whatnot, culminating in the dreaded black or grey screen. It would be considered a miracle if the error breakdown process suddenly started to display a coherent set of related and meaningful pages with a message. The conclusion would be that this must have been designed into the PC system, or it must be some sort of systematic outside interference introducing this new information into the system, all from an intelligent outside source, not random breakdown effects. The existence of such an outside intelligence with a message would be a reasonable conclusion from the evidence, not just an idle guess. Similarly, the coordinated and common to each other information-rich experiences during many NDEs point to an outside paranormal source with a message, not to breakdown processes of a dying brain. True, this is not pointing directly to an afterlife, but it is strongly implying it.

An analogy might be the output displays of an old PC ridden by malware, erratically displaying unrelated random and sometimes scrambled Internet site pages and whatnot, culminating in the dreaded black or grey screen. It would be considered a miracle if the error breakdown process suddenly started to display a coherent set of related and meaningful pages with a message. The conclusion would be that this must have been designed into the PC system, or it must be some sort of systematic outside interference introducing this new information into the system, all from an intelligent outside source, not random breakdown effects. The existence of such an outside intelligence with a message would be a reasonable conclusion from the evidence, not just an idle guess. Similarly, the coordinated and common to each other information-rich experiences during many NDEs point to an outside paranormal source with a message, not to breakdown processes of a dying brain. True, this is not pointing directly to an afterlife, but it is strongly implying it.

I know Dr Penny Sartori for example has commented on NDEs from other parts of the world, but in general we have very few, scattered bits of information with not much detail about NDEs in other cultures. That places a bit of an open-ended question, one with no available answers, on what NDEs are typically like, worldwide.

On the other hand, the vast numbers of English-language and western NDEs very typically (though not always) have some sort of life review, which includes additional information - what another person was experiencing and feeling, how that other person's life was affected etc. - which could not realistically be ascribed to anything contained in a person's brain (nor anywhere else in the body, come to that). These experiences aren't outliers or oddities, they fit pretty much in the middle of the data.

So what we have is at least two things: that it appears reasonable to conclude that an NDE cannot be purely based within the physical brain or body of the person, and perhaps more disconcertingly to some, contains ideas on how any given person - and by perhaps by extension other people too - might readjust their priorities in life, to reconsider what is and isn't important.

I know Dr Penny Sartori for example has commented on NDEs from other parts of the world, but in general we have very few, scattered bits of information with not much detail about NDEs in other cultures. That places a bit of an open-ended question, one with no available answers, on what NDEs are typically like, worldwide.

I'd be curious what kind of metric Sartori is using, because Shushan has gathered a decent amount of NDEs from around the world across different time periods.

There was also a study of NDEs and deathbed visions conducted in India, though I'd have to double check the exact details and findings. (Chris Carter refers to it in his books, and I've talked about the study in the past.)

We also have a few Pureland Buddhist NDEs, though I suspect at least some of these are made up to buttress the spread of that religion. Of course there are NDEs in other historical situations that also fit into what looks like an evangelism campaign or an attempt at reinforcing certain beliefs.

There are commonalities but in many cases the details of the NDE are drawn from the cultural context around a person. However there are cases of NDEs adding to a culture, where a person returns and at least claims to have been inspired to introduce new religious practices.

To draw from Chris Carter I'd say the more interesting - from an evidential standpoint re: Survival - commonalities are the way OOBEs during NDEs have similarities to other OOBEs as well as witnessed apparitions, and the way the afterlife described during NDEs parallels the Intermission Memories in Reincarnation cases as well certain mediumship descriptions.

I'd also say that when you take into account Terminal Lucidity and Savants, along with Replacement Reincarnation and evidence for Psi, you end up with a picture that supports the "Filter/Transmitter" hypothesis. There's also the metaphysical consideration that the nature of consciousness is quite different than the nature of the "physical" world which gives us reason to believe Survival evidence is to be expected.

Indirectly I'd also note the varied cases that suggest spirits of a more elemental sort along with certain "Deep Weird" cases. These aren't proof of Survival, but they do further weaken the case made by the Materialist faith.