What's your opinion on out of body experiences?

by qwerty 50 Replies latest jw friends

rem

Outnfree,
Ian Stevenson's research into reincarnation has been widely criticised even by fellow parapsychologists. His work with allegedly reincarnated children has shown to be shoddy, and even his most impressive accounts have been discounted.
Also, parapsychologist Susan Blackmore has done much work on NDE's, OBE's and Astral Projection. After years of research (and getting her phd on the topic) she finally became skeptical. She never found any evidence that OBE's are anything more than normal body functions. This is a person who used to have (and probably still can have) OBE's and do Astral Projections pretty much at will!
Skeptics have not quickly jumped to conclusions. It is only after reading many books on the subject and doing research on both sides have I concluded that the NDE and OBE experience is purely physical. Extraordinary stories of NDE's and OBE's seem to become quite ordinary under closer examination.
Read Susan Blackmore's In Search of the Light for her experiences in parapsychology and why she became a skeptic after many years of research.
Also, Pseudoscience and the Paranormal by Terence Hines is a great University level text book that compiles much of the research done on these subjects.
rem
Mary

"......parapsychologist Susan Blackmore has done much work on NDE's, OBE's and Astral Projection......." Ya, and I'm supposed to take a woman who dyes her hair BRIGHT PINK seriously??
".....She never found any evidence that OBE's are anything more than normal body functions....." And exactly what kind of evidence was she looking for? OBE's are anything BUT normal body functions, because if they were normal, there would be no examinations of them of any kind.
"......Skeptics have not quickly jumped to conclusions......." Skeptics have indeed quickly jumped to conclusions, because skeptics refuse to acknowledge anything thats outside of the physical world. In their opinion, if you can't see it, and physically touch it, it doesn't exist. To acknowledge that there is a spiritual body that continues on after death would be admitting that there is probably a Creator, God. And skeptics will not acknowledge this either. To them, it simply HAS to be a normal body function, because if it's not, then they've been wrong all along.
".......Extraordinary stories of NDE's and OBE's seem to become quite ordinary under closer examination......."
Really? Can you read Lyin' Eyes post and explain it? Or how do you explain someone who's had a NDE, and where they meet a sibling that they never knew they even had? This happened to one guy I know back in the late 1980s. He was in an accident, was clinically dead, had an NDE, came back and described what had happened. He asked his parents if he had had an older sister. His parents were stunned. His older sister had died before he was born and they had never told him about her. If this was simply his oxygen-deprived brain, then how in god's name could he POSSIBLY know he had an older sister? Please explain this one. I'm dying to know how Skeptics rationalize this one away.
Mulan

"Out of body" experiences are nothing more than unusually intense dreams, or dreamlike states of mind. I sometimes have extremely intense dreams where I'm convinced I'm awake and experience somewhat unusual things.
This might be right. I had one of those experiences when I gave birth to my second child. I was given a drug for pain (inhaled.............it was the 60's) and I took quite a lot of it. I floated to the ceiling, and looked down on the scene, with me on the delivery table. It was very real, and I told everyone what I saw, and what they were saying, although I was "out". They said I was right on too. I believe it was a hallucination caused by the drug.
Beans

I have participated in many of these experiences, and I must say have enjoyed every minuite of them as well as the other participant. The key is turning it around to an inner body experience!
Beans
http://Quotes.JehovahsWitnesses.com
rem

Mary,
"......parapsychologist Susan Blackmore has done much work on NDE's, OBE's and Astral Projection......." Ya, and I'm supposed to take a woman who dyes her hair BRIGHT PINK seriously??
That's pretty much the norm for people involved in parapsychology research. Bunch of woowoos, yes. Of course this is just fallacious Ad Hominem argumentation.
".....She never found any evidence that OBE's are anything more than normal body functions....." And exactly what kind of evidence was she looking for? OBE's are anything BUT normal body functions, because if they were normal, there would be no examinations of them of any kind.
The issue comes down to unnecessary explanations. This is where Occham's Razor comes into play. If there are known physical explanations to a phenomenon, there is no reason to posit other supernatural causes. It's just not logical. OBE's are actually more normal than you may be aware. They are quite common and are not nearly as mysterious as you would like everyone to believe. But then again, you really haven't done the research. I love how people armchair speculate and then they jump on people who have actually spent the time looking at the issue.
"......Skeptics have not quickly jumped to conclusions......." Skeptics have indeed quickly jumped to conclusions, because skeptics refuse to acknowledge anything thats outside of the physical world. In their opinion, if you can't see it, and physically touch it, it doesn't exist. To acknowledge that there is a spiritual body that continues on after death would be admitting that there is probably a Creator, God. And skeptics will not acknowledge this either. To them, it simply HAS to be a normal body function, because if it's not, then they've been wrong all along.
Skeptic = Atheist? You are being ridiculous. OBE's or a spiritual realm or a separate dimension do not provide evidence for any god, so I'm not sure how an atheist is supposed to be threatened by such concepts. The skeptic mearly points out that there is no evidence beyond anecdotes, therefore there is no reason to believe (otherwise we'd believe in a whole host of urban legends!).
".......Extraordinary stories of NDE's and OBE's seem to become quite ordinary under closer examination......."
Really? Can you read Lyin' Eyes post and explain it? Or how do you explain someone who's had a NDE, and where they meet a sibling that they never knew they even had? This happened to one guy I know back in the late 1980s. He was in an accident, was clinically dead, had an NDE, came back and described what had happened. He asked his parents if he had had an older sister. His parents were stunned. His older sister had died before he was born and they had never told him about her. If this was simply his oxygen-deprived brain, then how in god's name could he POSSIBLY know he had an older sister? Please explain this one. I'm dying to know how Skeptics rationalize this one away.
First of all, you act as if every anecdote must be explained, as if a spiritual possibility exists as a probability until the very last anecdote is debunked. This is fallacious reasoning. The issue is that there is clearly a lack of information here. There are many potential ways for people to get information. Perhaps he knew of his older sister and blocked it out of his memory as a child and the traumatic event triggered the memory. Maybe he didn't know about her at all and it was just a coincidence! Maybe (probably) the story you got handed down was corrupted and resembles nothing of what really transpired. (Perhaps he saw his non-existant brother or cousin and the memory was translated to his older sister).
There are many possibilities... all more probable than positing a spirit realm without any evidence. See, Occham's Razor at work, yet again.
rem
Mary

".......There are many potential ways for people to get information. Perhaps he knew of his older sister and blocked it out of his memory as a child and the traumatic event triggered the memory........"
But that's the whole thing: he did NOT know anything about his older sister. His parents never told him about her (they told me this themselves one day when I was visiting him) and both sets of his grandparents lived in England and had very little, if any contact with him. All his cousins also lived in England. There was no outside information given to him regarding his sister before his accident.
"......Maybe he didn't know about her at all and it was just a coincidence!......"
A coincidence? Surely you jest. I'm sure someone could just pick this story out of a hat.
"......Maybe (probably) the story you got handed down was corrupted and resembles nothing of what really transpired...."
Oh, okay, so now my friend MUST be lying about the whole thing. I guess that has to be it when there are no other scientific explanations.
(Perhaps he saw his non-existant brother or cousin and the memory was translated to his older sister)........."
FYI, he has two younger brothers and his cousins all live in England. I noticed that no skeptics took up the challenge to try and explain Lyin' Eyes' post either.
rem

Mary,
But that's the whole thing: he did NOT know anything about his older sister. His parents never told him about her (they told me this themselves one day when I was visiting him) and both sets of his grandparents lived in England and had very little, if any contact with him. All his cousins also lived in England. There was no outside information given to him regarding his sister before his accident.
Nobody can prove that he didn't know about his sister and the scenario that he got information about his sister is more probable than a posited spirit realm that has no evidence. You see, there are multiple ways for a person to gain information, even if relatives live out of the country (telephone, Internet, letters, gossip from friends, airplane travel etc.). These are all possible scenarios - we know that telephones, the Internet (well maybe not in the '80's), letters, gossipy friends, and modes of inter-country travel exist. The fact that we have evidence for the existence of these channels of communication and no evidence for a spiritual channel means that the former are more probable.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. To prove this claim the case has to be air-tight and there must be much documentation. Otherwise it's just as good as an Urban Legend.
A coincidence? Surely you jest. I'm sure someone could just pick this story out of a hat.
The whole point of coincidences is that they are extraordinary. Billions of coincidences happen every day. We just remember the noteworthy ones and forget all of the 'misses'. It's a well known psychological phenomenon.
Oh, okay, so now my friend MUST be lying about the whole thing. I guess that has to be it when there are no other scientific explanations.
I never said anyone was lying, but stories and memories naturally become corrupted over time. If you've done any research on the additive nature of memory you'd know all about this. No lying is necessary. Also, have you ever played the 'telephone' game? The more times a story is repeated the more it becomes corrupted. Do you have written contemporaneous documentation of this event? If not, then why should I accept that this particular account is immune to normal corruption mechanisms?
FYI, he has two younger brothers and his cousins all live in England. I noticed that no skeptics took up the challenge to try and explain Lyin' Eyes' post either.
In the 20th century there were many ways of communicating with family and friends accross national boundaries, as explained above.
Again, not every anecdote need be explained. Unexplained events are just unexplained events - proof that we don't have all of the information. It is no proof of a spirit realm. We don't blame unexplained crimes on the paranormal! We just know we don't have enough information to solve them. In any event, I'm not sure of what post by Lyin' Eyes' you are referring to.
rem
Mary

Actually it's the first two on this other link under the same subject. The first one talks about a blind woman who had an NDE where she could actually see for the first time ever..........for those of you that are hell bent and determined that there "must" be some scientific evidence for spiritual experiences, no amount of evidence will ever convince you otherwise.
Here's the link:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/47244/1.ashx
LyinEyes

This debate reminds me of those who say that God does not exsist. And on the other hand you have those who say he does.
Honestly , there is no way to prove to OTHERS, what you believe and whatever you believe may not be asbolute truth, or maybe not even close .
I for one will not take the word of anyone, regardless of how educated they may be, or how many years they have studied it, doesnt matter. In the end I have decided in this matter,, there is just not enough real hard and fast truth to say either way. I havent experienced enough in my life to totally believe , and I have not seen or read anything to make me think there is no God.
I just want to keep an open mind about the possibilites of both sides of the story. Maybe in my life time I will find what I believe to be true. Or I can just be stuck in this limbo state of hoovering between the two.
Just a little more info on my grandmother, she was not very educated only went to school a few years and had to get out to pick cotton. She could write her name and a few words, but couldnt read . She didnt watch tv, and lived in the country. She was Catholic and had those beliefs. In my family they were also native american indians, and I think they were very intune with the spirit world, nature things like that.
I don't know if she truly saw what she did, or if it was a dream. But I know one thing my grandmother was not dramatic , and since I was holding her hand as she said these things, I can tell you whatever she saw,,,,,,, she 100% believed it to be true. She even had a glow to her face , even so close to death.
On the issue of my mom coming to me in a dream after she died,,,,,,,, that is first hand experience there. At the time being a JW , it bothered me to have such a real dream about the afterlife. But It was so real , that it always made me doubt that JW's might be wrong on what they were teaching.
Something eles happend that I can't explain. I was still very much JW, and again it was in a dream.
My husband's mom went to help with her dad while he was sick with cancer. He had six months to live.
One night I dreamed , she called and said,......"well , it's over now", and then I dreamed I went back to sleep and she called again and said, wait he is not dead, they thought he was but he is not... I will call back. Then in the dream , she called and said he really is dead now." Well I woke up about 2 am and was upset and asked my husband if the phone rang, he said no...... I told him what I dreamed and what was said, he told me to try and get back to sleep.
A little more than an hour later,,,,,, the phone rang,,,,,,for real this time,,,,,,,no dream...... and my motherinlaw said,,,,,,,,,"well , it's over now", and we told her how sorry we were and we would be on our way. It was word for word what I had dreamt she said...... weird.
Later that week I told my motherin law this dream and I said how she had said he was dead , then he wasnt, then he was.
She said that is how it happened. They declared him dead, but he was actually still alive, and then finally died about 30 minutes or so after the first time they thought he died. He was at home with a hospice nurse.
She , my husband and I were so shocked that I dreamed this exactly how it happened very close to the time that he actually really died.
I have no explanation as to the events of how this happened , I mean the words were the same , just as she said when she called and in my dream. Same tone, it was like a recording .
I have no idea why or how I could dream that, but even as a child , I had dreams that came true. Nothing major just little things, my mother knew about my dreams and I told her things that would happen and sometimes we laughed at how they somehow came true.
She said my daddy's side of the family were crazy Catholics and probably were into" that backwoods swamp voodoo" ,,,,,and that I was probably a little witch......... of course she was joking and we laughed about it all.
But to this day I can't say even with the things I have seen and heard, how , why or where this comes froms, if anywhere.........shrugssssss.. who knows!!!!!!!
AlanF

Hi Outnfree,
: 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.
Thanks, but I just don't have time to read them. However, I did a quick web search for critical material about Stevenson. Here's what I found:
Book reviews of "Reincarnation: a critical examination" by Paul Edwards:
http://www.csicop.org/si/9901/reincarnation.html
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/anthony.campbell1/bookreviews/r/edwards.html
Another link to some critical comments:
http://www.skepticreport.com/psychics/stevenson-belief.htm
I'm extremely skeptical of extraordinary claims like these because every time I've investigated them, I've found a great deal of misinformation put forth by promoters, ranging from simple misunderstandings to outright deception. Often a promoter is engaging in massive self-deception. I suppose this attitude might be a reaction to the nonsense promulgated by the Witnesses, but in order for me to accept extraordinary claims, I deman extraordinary evidence. If I didn't, I might fall prey to any number of charlatans as bad or worse than the JW organization. No way I'll do that again!
AlanF

What's your opinion on out of body experiences?

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