What's your opinion on out of body experiences?

by qwerty 50 Replies latest jw friends

  • Solace
    Solace

    Good grief,

    Not that pink unicorn again.

    Sixi,

    Not everyone is on drugs when they see dead people (sounded dumb) but seriously, I was actually trying to get the Dr. to give my aunt some meds because she was so anxious when she was dying and talking to her dead relative, but they hadent given her anything at that point. Lack of oxygene, maybe. Who knows.

    I have also had dreams about my dead grandparents and in them they have told me things that I would have no way of knowing only to find out later that it was true. I totally understand that it could be a coincodence, but I find it odd that none of my JW family dreams of them and they are close minded as hell.

    I work with the elderly and our nurses aids have so many stories of our clients dying it would blow your minds. I would never tell anyone what to believe, but when I hear someone say there is absolutly no existance after death, I have this nagging feeling, based on my experiences and those that I know of, which makes me believe that they could be wrong in their assumption.

    Thats just my opinion though, not the pink unicorns.

  • qwerty
    qwerty

    Cheers everyone for your input. I have enjoyed reading your thoughts.

    QCA1........My opinion on out of body experiences is that we are more than our body.

    That's what I have come now to believe. My JW wife also!

    Nightwarrior...........i felt myself detaching fom my physical body moving over towards the woman in a seperate body yet still the same body and kissing her on her cheeck,afterwards i felt drained,my testicles felt different as if they were throbing but no pain,

    At first I thought you was just being sarcastic! Sounds scary, no wonder the Elder closed his mind to any possibility you were telling him the truth.

    AlanF......."Out of body" experiences are nothing more than unusually intense dreams, or dreamlike states of mind.

    I can see why you are convinced of this. However you shouldn't use the words "are" , one day you could find you "maybe" wrong.

    Eppie.......Are there any experiences known of people that were not drawn to some kind of light but to some kind of horrible dark place?

    Good point! .............No answer though.......that might be the answer!

    Littletoe ........I believe that there is far more, outside the miniscule capsule of synapses that we call our minds, than we dare believe.

    Exactly my point too!

    Heaven ..........Sometimes people only believe what is physical, or solid.

    Doubting Thomas's

    Simon.............Like a computer, our brain is capable of 'rendering' the scene from sifferent viewpoints. Just because I can have a picture from the corner of the room does not mean that I've been in the corner of the room.

    But doesn't a computer have all info (if it's preprogramed)......Size, Shape, Distance, of the view already programed in? The brain can on have that info if it is at that view point. I carn't imagine in detail exactly what is going on outside my home right now, unless I am there. That's taking into consideration I now the basic layout of my street. I hope you can follow this?

    Ginosko................ I think it may be common to confuse lucid dreams with out of body experiences

    Very true. It does not mean that OBE do not happen!

    Outnfree .........."Return from Heaven" by Carol Bowman discusses four different major reactions of people to the out of body experience. You can order a copy by going to www.returnfromheaven.com.

    Thanks Outnfree for you hard work on this topic, I enjoyed what you said on the other thread (my fault I double posted thinking the first did not work). Will go to that web addy thanks.

    SixofNine ..........I know you don't mean to be insulting to AlanF, LittleToe, but do you think it is just possible that AlanF is every bit as brave in thought and action as yourself?

    AlanF seem to be closed minded on the subject I guess. That's up to him though, but to be dogmatic on the subject is to much like WTS teaching. No offence Alan.

    Heaven ........In my opinion, stating to know for a fact that there is, or isnt life after death when we havent even been there ourselves is a pretty close minded thing to do.

    Exactly! Tell AlanF that.

    Gerard ...........I had a "guide" he was not a relative and it was a memorable journey.

    Sounds like something the north American Indians have!?

    Cicatrix ..........At any rate, whatever it was, it was a positive experience for me and I'm glad it happened.

    Like the ones in the TV program, life was changed for the better.

    SixofNine..........I've yet to be shown a situation in life where it can be argued that healthy skepticism is a bad thing, like you, I want to keep an open mind. It's a delicate balancing act though, imo. I think most of ours' experience shows we humans have a tendancy to glom onto belief, w/o good evidence. Nothing closes a mind faster than believing.

    I would go along with that. I guess to be one hundred percent sure, we would have to die!

    AlanF..........Hi qwerty, I can’t explain the blind woman’s experience. However, I suspect that if the full story were to be told, it wouldn’t be nearly as clear cut as you’ve been led to believe. I have yet to see such wild stories stand up under careful examination. How is it that my stepson sometimes has “out of body experiences” when sleeping normally? He’s convinced that they’re real, but I’m convinced that they’re just intense dreams, since I have very intense dreams sometimes.

    The clear cutness of the way it was presented could be true, good point. I would like to talk to that women and see. She did sound very convinced how ever and the experts could not explain it.

    Mary.............Paul describes an Out-of-body experience in 2 Corinthians 12: 1-4 where he says:

    "...I shall pass on to supernatural visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in union with Christ who, 14 years ago--whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know; God knows--was caught away as such to the third heaven. Yes, I know such a man--whether in the body or apart from the body----......that he was caught away into paradise.........."

    Brilliant, never thought of that before. There is other examples of this, the Apostle John in Revelation also.

    Farkel..........The problem is proving that such is so, since there are so many other explanations for it. I don't totally discount that possibility, but I don't embrace it, either.

    Every expert likes to theorise. Just way can they not just be a bit more like you!

    Ken P........He also said he was talking to others in the spirit realm(or whatever it was) and asked what religion was right, they just laughed and said religion didn't matter. He was never a JW.

    Thats the conclusion I am coming to, when it come to religion. Is not love more important?

    Heaven ...........I work with the elderly and our nurses aids have so many stories of our clients dying it would blow your minds. I would never tell anyone what to believe, but when I hear someone say there is absolutly no existance after death, I have this nagging feeling, based on my experiences and those that I know of, which makes me believe that they could be wrong in their assumption.

    I have some close friends that are still JW's they are a married couple and both work with the elderly. I wish I could ask them if they have had any experiences. If they have I wonder how they dismiss them!

    Thanks Everyone.

    Qwerty

  • qwerty
  • wednesday
    wednesday

    i always wonder, if the dead are reicarnated, or we go to heaven(i refuse to believe in a hellfire-it is a horrible belief that anyone would torture someone with fire forever-)then why haven't more of us had contact with our relatives? I know if i was departed and able, i would certainly watch over my children and care for them. And if able, i would make contact with them.

    I have had OOB experiences , but believe it was due to a disassociative state. I once experminted with astral travel and later met someone later who said they had "seen' me on my travel. I used to have a reoccuring sort of dream that seemed to be a past life.Who knows what that was all about.

    This is such a difficult area, is it possible that the suggestibilty of the person, influnced this. I once watched a program where -if u will -ghost busters_ went in to film . Many of the hotel occupants had seen ghosts, but the scheptic, who spent the night, saw nothing, and had never seen anything.

    Many people believe that the OOB experiences people have near death are due to chemicals in the brain that cause them to hallucinate.This does not seem unreasonable, humans hallucinate .

    I would like to believe, but have a lot of doubts,a and think some things can be explained by various states of mind a person could be in.

  • Mary
    Mary
    Eppie.......Are there any experiences known of people that were not drawn to some kind of light but to some kind of horrible dark place?

    Actually yes. Approximately 15% of people that have Near Death experiences do not see a bright light and/or God, but rather they experience what one of them describes as "a classical example of Hell." I recall seeing an interview with one guy who had this experience a few years ago: he didn't believe in God, used drugs, screwed around on his wife, was a lousy father, etc. After he experienced this NDE of Hell, he realized that he had a chance to make a better person of himself. He stopped taking drugs, stopped committing adultery, was a much better father and became a Christian. He feels that he is a much better person now, and actually counsels young people about the dangers of living an immoral lifestyle.

    So if this was simply the brain shutting down because of lack of oxygen, I would think that everyone would have the same experience: bright light, euphoric feeling, seeing God or Jesus........but apparently, that's not the case.

  • outnfree
    outnfree

    Eppie (and all),

    I was mistaken in the above reference to the book which describes the hellish NDEs. It is "Beyond The Light; The Mysteries and Revelations of Near-Death Experiences" by P.M.H. Atwater. Sorry!

    "Beyond the Light" describes four major types of NDEs: Unpleasant and/or Hell-like Experience, Pleasant and/or Heaven-like Experience, Transcendent Experience, and Near-Death-like Experience. It then discusses the Aftereffects and Implications.

    AlanF,

    Apparently there is quite a voluminous body of scholarly, scientific work on children's past lives and physical evidence of such by one Ian Stevenson. I have references to several of his articles published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease , and the University Press of Virginia (I believe he is now retired from a professorship at the University of VA).

    If you are at all interested in the citations, I will be happy to provide them.

    outnfree

  • outnfree
    outnfree

    Wednesday,

    Did you read Lyin' Eyes' experience on the double-posted thread? What she describes about her mother coming to comfort her but only having a limited amount of time to do so is in keeping with what others have revealed about Life Between Lives. (Down to the being able to smell the scent of the dead loved one's perfume or hair spray -- this has been reported before, Dede.)

    Also, the book "Return from Heaven" that I mentioned above, (but which is NOT the book that speaks about the bad NDEs?) -- talks about how dead family members often reincarnate back into the same family group or tribe. You might find it an interesting read. Carol Bowman is the author when and if you feel like investigating.

    Dede,

    We will talk in Dallas, OK? You can tell me all your "crazy" stories then.

    Everyone,

    Since we all were once religious people, this tidbit might be of interest: the Aramaic word (Jesus spoke Aramaic most likely, NOT Hebrew) for death translates "not here, present elsewhere." Also, apparently many Christian scholars feel that belief in reincarnation is not incompatible with Christianity. And I also read somewhere that Origen believe in reincarnation, too. (I haven't checked that out for myself yet, though.) So when you're reading New Testament Scriptures on what Jesus had to say about "death" keep that definition in mind.

    out

  • qwerty
    qwerty

    OutnFree

    of interest: the Aramaic word (Jesus spoke Aramaic most likely, NOT Hebrew) for death translates "not here, present elsewhere."

    MMmmmmmm very interesting, thanks.

    Qwerty

  • Emiliano
  • Emiliano

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit