Validity of NDERF accounts

In another thread, I noticed this assertion

The trouble is that NDERF has had its fair share of plagiarised or fraudulent NDEs,

Since it is a broadly sceptical comment, I thought it better to comment on it here rather than the original thread.

While it's certainly the case that there are some faked reports on there - I've identified a few of them myself - in my opinion they are a tiny minority. The ones noted simply read like a work of fiction or creative writing, and also stood out from the rest which represent ordinary people talking about their lives.

Of course anyone can fake a report just to prove a point. But is it really widespread? I'd like to hear more evidence to support the claim of a "fair share of plagiarised or fraudulent" reports.  What does a "fair share" amount to in practice? Could anyone give an estimate of (roughly speaking) what proportion of the accounts are fraudulent. As for plagiarism, that should be easier to demonstrate, though what it means is a separate matter. Is the plagiarism echoing a supposed fraud, or simply repeating a supposed genuine account?

So according to r/NDE, when I was active there, a user claimed there are several NDE stories given on there that have been plagiarised by other users, including in other languages, and some that appear to be pushing a specific religious dogma to an almost fundamentalist degree. However, I have seen that many of us agree on that already-these types of NDEs are the ones to be skeptical of. 

Perhaps I exaggerated when I said 'fair share', but to my understanding there isn't exactly any software implemented to detect plagiarism on NDERF, which is unfortunate. I might try asking Dr Long about this at some point. 

I've also mentioned this several times before on other threads, but you had this ordeal as well (while that site I do find to be useful, there is some stuff on there that comes off as being a bit too biased and heavy-handed for someone new to NDEs. The stuff on there about religion and astrology would cast some doubt for example). 

I do, however, have a hard time believing that a majority of the NDE accounts on there are from creative writers. I also have a hard time thinking they're all just 'mistaken' or 'deluded'. 

On a side note, I have heard of some who simply want attention, which leads to the 'but they wrote a book for money!' excuse, such as one I recall from Reddit who claimed he had an NDE, but when pressed for details, gave what sounded like a generic OBE, and then refused to give any further evidence or information when he started claiming his story was 'in the news'. His post history then made me seriously doubt his anecdote.

Aren't some of the cases from Self Does Not Die drawn from these sites but then followed up for confirmation?

I think it's fine to say NDERF accounts are at a lower level of confidence than cases that have more confirmation.

But we should also separate arguments for a mind/brain distinction and the quest of trying to suss out what the afterlife might be like.

The former comes from verified cases of such things as Peak in Darien cases and OOBEs, the latter is drawn from varied discussions of cases beyond NDEs.

Any site that collects experiences are going to have some fake cases unless they are following up with every poster. I mean everything I've written on this forum about my personal experiences could be a lie, and from my perspective the same could be true of everyone else. Just at what point do you extend some degree of trust.

I mean everything I've written on this forum about my personal experiences could be a lie, and from my perspective the same could be true of everyone else. Just at what point do you extend some degree of trust.

Well apparently, no matter how detailed the anecdotal experience is, and no matter whether it gets investigated and shown to be validated and verified by another party/parties with little to no ties to the experiencer, it can be ignored and dismissed, not even worth reading into or around. 

BUT if a self-professed 'skeptic' (who still remains a skeptic after, that's the important part  ) gives an anecdote, because it isn't as 'extraordinary' and because you should just automatically and blindly trust what a skeptic says 100% of the time for some reason, then that's perfectly fine!...Even though they could very well be lying, mistaken, embellishing or misremembering themselves. 

Here's a piece from Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/...ter-others

One person may recall the experience of helping a friend move boxes in general terms. It seemed that there were a lot of boxes. The boxes were reused. 

Another person may recall that she had carried 17 of 39 boxes. There were five boxes that had contained cans of San Marzano tomatoes, three boxes carrying the logo of Chiquita bananas, and so forth. 

Why does recall differ so greatly between two people? There are many plausible reasons for such differences, but the most important may well be the simplest. The second helper recalls more information because they encoded the event in greater detail to begin with.

They are more open to details and more actively processing their surroundings as opposed to being psychologically absent in some imaginary realm while the tedious task played out.

I've heard accusations of embellishment for veridical NDEs before (e.g. Pam Reynolds), accusing them of being too vague in the descriptions or making slight errors. Perhaps this was addressed in cases covered in The Self Does Not Die or other literature?

I'd suggest actually reading Self Does Not Die and seeing for one's self what its contents are.

The cases don't seem vague to me.

I'd suggest actually reading Self Does Not Die and seeing for one's self what its contents are.

The cases don't seem vague to me.

I really wish more people knew about the Self Does Not Die. Eban Alexander is great and all but we've got better stuff. 

To me at least, nowdays, there's no denying the validity of NDEs, only their cause. There is obviously ones that may be suspect, but that's why people have skepticism towards their own field, I've already seen plenty of people talking about how they're suspicious whenever someone starts talking about fire, brimstone and repenting to jeebus on here. There's not really any evidence saying that a lot of reports are faked, this is people who have just had legitimate experiences who want to talk about them.

Further confirmed and followed up NDEs merely add weight to the pile. Even if, blowing up to huge proportions, 1000 NDEs were faked online, exaggerated or legitimate hallucinations, the fact that veredical perceptions exist in books like the self does not die is enough to prevent all NDE cases from being called into suspect, there's just too much evidence for them to be valid to ignore. 

Nowdays the only thing skeptics have is the fact that WE don't have the smoking gun of specifically tested veredical perceptions, like someone seeing an overhead target. As soon as we get something like that, we'd be on the top of the hill, and we're already pretty high up there now since the best counter to NDEs nowdays is "well here's how they might happen and we're gonna ignore all that spooky evidence". Though to give them a inch, if there's like, 10 studies done in a row with numerous OBEs with targets and we get no hits that doesn't look good for us, but even that might not be enough to explain away everything we've got.

I think that the videos of NDEs that were made before they became as well known as they are today are the best ones. There are so many NDErs on record now that it doesn’t really matter if even the majority of recent videos made are made up (I’m not saying they are).I’d guess that a fair few are indeed fantasy, but there are more than enough that by now, for me, the evidence is more than enough. 

There are lots of German ones on YouTube being filmed with subtitles that I’m currently enjoying.

I really wish more people knew about the Self Does Not Die. Eban Alexander is great and all but we've got better stuff. 

To me at least, nowdays, there's no denying the validity of NDEs, only their cause.

I think it's that notion that gets banged into your head as a kid, that everything is made of atoms/fields/etc and the laws of physics govern all of that.

And also the implications that people see -> So many people grew up with the threat of damnation and some oppressive religious system, and how puberty's natural desires were portals to Hell, that to even allow the Survival Hypothesis an inch would return us to the Dark Ages.

We need a generational transition, I suspect, where oddly enough increased secularism and challenges to religious orthodoxies the world over will help open the doors to academia giving the Survival Hypothesis a more unbiased evaluation. Where people once feared the judgement of the gods, now many long for Hogwarts and the MCU.

The truth [though] is parapsychology undermines religion as much as it helps. NDEs where atheists are greeted warmly, the Miracle of the Sun & visitation of Mary being far more likely an alien encounter, "miracles" really being examples of psychic healing or some other Psi ability, etc.

I don't like to accuse people of lying, but I'm a bit suspicious on this one:
https://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1iain_t_nde.html

Just with the fact I looked up the crash and there were zero reports of any injuries (only fatalities) or the name of this person.
And the fact that Holy Koolaid did a video of himself making a fake NDE for this website, and I wouldn't be surprised if his fanboys repeatedly have done the same.
I wish there was a site with more investigation on these.

Well the 2nd edition of Self Does Not Die contains even more follow up reports, I think it's 20 something new  cases. I would take that over NDERF if I was looking for more rigorous follow up.

NDERF is probably a place people can go to to see if there are patterns or for researchers who might be worth following up with to double check.

I wouldn't hold it as anything beyond that.