Neurosurgeon Has Near Death Experience (page 2)

NOLAW

When a was a toddler always prior to waking up I felt like I was floating weightless on air and falling back on earth on my bed and back to my body.

Yeah, being that it's impossible to discern when those hallucinations actually occurred while he was in the coma (i.e. people in comas generally aren't aware of time), it's an extremely questionable claim to me. If he came out of the coma, obviously his brain "awoke" at some point; the hallucinations likely didn't occur when he was getting the brain scan, but when emerging. Impossible to know, as people will wake up from a coma 20 years later, and have no idea of the time that has passed.

I don't doubt that he had an experience, but I doubt his rationale and conclusions. ALL perceptions are subject to bias: that's the very definition of "subjective" experiences. Even physicians are prone to seeing or imagining what they wish to see. l doctors are just as prone to believing what they WANT to believe, and that's exactly WHY we use the scientific approach.

steve2

When neuroelectrodes activate specific regions of our amazing brains, people reliably report 'more real than real experiences'. There is no denying something happens in our brains that is hard to explain with our limited vocabularies and even with our vivid imnaginations. That said, I'd hazzard a guess and state that the brain is capable of producing all manner of weird and wonderful experiences - but whether that constitutes "proof" those experiences are actually real and reflect another dimension or dimensions is another proposition altogether.

Satanus

I always find it interesting how much trash talk guys who were previously considered rational get when an experience like this happens to them and they start talking about it. It is totally understandable, though. I'm sure this guy himself also would have discounted something like this, if he had heard it from somebody else.

He has no more faith no more, i'm sure. It has been replaced w KNOWING.

As well, the similarities in these stories are interesting to me. I compare them w my own experience w 'the light'. Mine was through a focussed meditation. He saw/experienced a lot more than i did, since he had a lot more time there. Knowledge there, comes instaniously and directly, through experience. The total, unreserved acceptance. That was the first message that i recieved, as well. The beings filled and eminating beautiful golden light. Also, what i saw. I also feel transposed to a higher realm when i am in a church w beautiful stained glass and vaulted cielings. The same from the church organ music. The kind of church and what they belief in there are of no importance. The church architects got it right when they designed those features. Also, experiences like that take months or yrs to for the mind to fully open up, afterwards. But, they stay w a person. Realer than real, like the guy says.

S

still thinking

According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited

consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent

This really is the crux of the matter, according to current medical understanding.

He was still alive and a part of his brain enterered a dream like state. I don't see why this is so diffucult to grasp. We use our entire brain, not just bits of it for different things.

Yes science has discovered that certain areas contribute more to certain actions or processes. But this does NOT mean that other parts of the brain don't contribute to these functions. The brain works as a whole to make us who we are.

In the James Randi video I posted above, he is discussing an out of body experience he would have sworn was real if there was no evidence to prove otherwise. Fortunately for him...he was able to prove it didn't happen with some facts. Most people do not have any facts to disprove their experience, so it goes unchallenged and we believe it.

I have experienced sleep paralysis and it seemed VERY real to me. In fact, I sincerely believed I had had this experience for over 20 years...unitil...I learnt about sleep paralysis and how it works. My initial reaction was that my experience was different. I had believed it for years. I would have sworn it was real. And I wouldn't have been lying...it WAS real to me. But now, I relise it wasn't, it was a dream like state somewhere in between being awake and asleep. It was not supernatural, I didn't have someone pushing down on my chest, I didn't see a ghost, I didn't experience some sort of time travel. It didn't happen....well, not in reality, only in my mind.

King Solomon

Well, the "tell" for me was this bit from the article:

Although I considered myself a faithful Christian, I was so more in name than in actual belief. I didn’t begrudge those who wanted to believe that Jesus was more than simply a good man who had suffered at the hands of the world. I sympathized deeply with those who wanted to believe that there was a God somewhere out there who loved us unconditionally. In fact, I envied such people the security that those beliefs no doubt provided. But as a scientist, I simply knew better than to believe them myself.

In the fall of 2008, however, after seven days in a coma during which the human part of my brain, the neocortex, was inactivated, I experienced something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death.

He had the prior exposure to the religious imagery, and more importantly, he had the DESIRE ("envy") to experience such a belief. When he had a crisis, he rose to the occasion by wanting to see what he experienced.

Which brings up another point: why do people who have these after-life experiences always see THEIR conceptions of God, and not someone elses? Why do Shintoists see their conceptions of afterlife, Muslims see Allah, etc? That strongly suggests that once again, we are dealing with God's being created in the minds of men, in THEIR images. Can they ALL be correct, with heaven being home of Allah, YHWH, Ahuru Mazda, Thor (hi EE!), etc?

still thinking

Although I considered myself a faithful Christian, I was so more in name than in actual belief. I didn’t begrudge those who wanted to believe that Jesus was more than simply a good man who had suffered at the hands of the world. I sympathized deeply with those who wanted to believe that there was a God somewhere out there who loved us unconditionally. In fact, I envied such people the security that those beliefs no doubt provided. But as a scientist, I simply knew better than to believe them myself.

I think his deep sympathy and envy of those who did believe in an afterlife helped to convince him that his experience was real...he wants to believe it.

Neurosurgeon Has Near Death Experience

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