The experience is typically described as a progression of stages. First, the person has a sense of peace, then a sense of separation from the body. The person then enters into darkness, and sees a bright light like the end of a tunnel. Finally, the person enters the light and interacts with an entity, described as God, Allah, or simply a universal cosmic force.
During the time that people report the feeling of detachment from their physical body, or an out-of-body-experience, they report a perception of floating above their body, or floating near the ceiling in the room where the experience occurs. This aspect of the experience plays an important role in the study.
The initial phase of the study will outfit participating rooms with shelves placed high up on the wall. On the top of each shelf will be a picture, visible only from the ceiling. Doctors will test whether patients who report a near-death experience are able to recall the image. If patients -- as few as four or five -- can positively recall these static images, then the study will move on: randomly generated images will be projected onto the shelves, which will further test the ability of the test subject to recall images. If no patients can recall the static images, the study can conclude that the floating effect is a trick of the mind.
So, the test is not only for consciousness, it is a first step toward testing to see if there is a real deity at the end of the tunnel. Sure (wink).
I think that the projected random images ought to be playing cards. When the patient wakes up, you could ask, "Okay, what card were we holding up?"
It is comical how we approach this. It reminds me of the movie Oh God with George Burns and John Denver. There's that great scene when he goes before the judge and asks the judge to pick a card here. After that scene, after God exits, they decide that each person must decide whether that was God who was there, or some trick.
And here, we have a scientific study, looking for a trick of the mind. That is an amazing conclusion, so weak, a trick of the mind. It seems at first as if it would be, but that's what we look for, card tricks, and that's what we get. This way, we can control for sleight of hand and optical illusion.
ITA, Rus. It isn't that clear-cut nor is it the same kind of experience for each individual. I know this didn't happen when I died for four minutes; I do know when i was airlifted to the hospital I was dying and I remember vaguely waking in the helicopter on the way to a major hospital to save my life after I went into cardiac arrest but I didn't "see" anything; I just know I had not "been" anything. I was in so much pain, it overwhelmed everything. It was a coma-conscious scarlet red-smelling death and it was flowing through black strips in my brain and was vivid and almost like over-articulated and outlined shapes of red and black lava, almost; but, see, that's not it, either.
NDE differs so wildly for each of us, how can anyone possibly reduce it to a pseudo-scientific kind of hokey-jokey investigation the way the 'graphs you cite seem to do? It's beyond sheer terror; and, afterwards, when you know you've come through, how do you know it's not the morphine that's causing the peaceful feeling, the release from pain, or that kind of malarky?
(Oh, right; exscuzee; you wuz the King of Hearts, Hon :).)
I know what I saw and I know what I felt, though, despite the pain. It is damned-near inexpressible (and, why would I want to try to express it when there are items like this in circulation?). I believed in God before it happened; and, I believed in God after it happened. But, I know that my faith was profoundly affected in a way I cannot begin to describe, at least not in a blog for millions to read.
I also remember you telling me you'd had a NDE and I understood completely when you couldn't go further because one cannot, not in any kind of linear linguistic fashion (since it is not time to cue twi-zone music nor anything near this, is it? It cannot be described so neatly; it would take me a lifetime to communicate it and I'd still be missing the mark by millions of miles).
Here, logic plays a role: If you are experiencing a NDE, something deeply traumatic has initiated it, something so devastating in terms of its blow, you cannot feel anything but the pain surrounding the event and therein lies the mystery . . .
Thus, Lee, you're right; and, the difference is crucial (milk of human blindness notwithstanding nor levitating). Dying and staying dead are two different kettles of worms, IMO. That's why the experience is called "Near-Death" and not "Death."
So, very funny, Scottie; but now, beam down my clothes, eh?
So, to further the study, they should tape a playing card, face up, on the top of each emergency helicopter. And for those who have an out-of-body NDE while in the chopper, they could be asked which card is being held up.
You are right to react with the aspect of your experience that cannot be explained. Because what the linked-to study wants to show is that each NDE is a "trick of the mind." It takes the pretense to want to show a possibility that the "typical" journey experience leads to a deity, to play with it, but it really wants to shut the door, and make NDEs have such an explanation that they fit into the physical-only description of being--the view that the consciousness derives from, or is an aspect of the physical, versus the spirit- or consciousness- or soul-predominant view that what we observe is a mere physical and very corrupted representation of who we are. Are we the funhouse mirror, or is the physical world our funhouse mirror?
In the physical-dominant view, what we might experience as our return to our body, the "scientific" observer might refer to as our body's re-animation. The NDEs would then be discardable corruptions: how the mind fizzles out as the brain stops functioning at death.
So, it seems Dr. Sam Parnia's true hypothesis is that NDEs are mind tricks, and that he will be insistent with this no matter what the results. In the "Oh God" movie, as God lays out the card trick before the judge, the judge is insistent that he has seen other tricks like it before, even one whereby an elephant was made to disappear. After the scene I linked to, comes the scene in which the judge spearheads the opinion that is made to prevail, that each of us has to decide for ourselves what happened in that court room, whether it was God or a trick of the mind, himself favoring the mind trick.
Let's say that Sam Parnia is surprised, that a significant number of the people who have out of body experiences, do indeed tell which card is face up on the high shelves. At this point, nothing spiritual need be accepted. The quest will begin to find a way to explain what took place in perfectly reasonable physical terms, even to the point that alterations will be made in the way the physical world is conceived in order for this to take place. A new "scientific" protocol or two might just come of such a surprise. That's what science is doing with studies like this, trying to see if they can get this monolithic model of the physical world to be a perfectly good explanation of everything, to make the mirror the be-all. And if successful, they can then choose not to believe in anything else, because they will have devised one perfectly good explanation, and no one else would have.
So what happens if and when the surprise takes place, that the card trick works. The quest will begin to find the sleight of hand. It will begin by developing studies to find whether the people who "saw" the card face up during, can do this without having a death experience. There will begin studies of "mind travel" to first make it quite mundane.
Close your eyes, and see if you can travel into the future. Can you read the science book explanations for NDEs? Now look around, are there any playing cards face up on the desks? No. Why? Because all the decks are stacked, face down.
Rus, I am particularly struck (not nearly dead) by your second 'graph, because it cuts to the chase, IMO (and, I think we both balk at the implications of what's wanted by these pseudo-gations is some kind of palpable proof of something that, by definition, cannot possibly be provided by same); analagously, how does one explain stigmata; or, even more to the point, the story of Bernadette or St. Theresa or, even, for that matter, the Resurrection?
Ain't gonna happen. Not in this (nor any other) life. Why? Because the FACT is the mystery, not the other way around (which seems to be the crux, pardoning pun, of the material world versus what lies beyond it within us, if that makes sense to you).
I believe even Henry Gee would agree with me when I note that recent scientific investigations, divagations, and related explorations have abso-deffo demonstrated the so-called mind-body split's no longer supportable as an option for a viable existence as a human being being human. There are phenomena that cannot be explained; and, they have always existed, from the moment we became conscience of our selves as selves (versus distinct from others on the evolutionary scale, I guess).
For me, it can be reduced to a very simple Q & A: Why do I like cherry pie? Because I like cherry pie. Does that make sense? I don't understand the need to discover a scientific (or "real") reason for such events as NDEs in the same way I don't need to understand the scientific basis for The Trinity. I mean, logically, how can The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit all be the same thing but separate at the same time?
Reductionism has its place; but, when it seeks to deprive a fertile and creative mind of its mysteries, anomalies, and beyond-sayable faiths, it strips us of our essential humanity, IMO.
I don't want to know what that card is; it's prolly just another joker; what I do want to know is that, in this world, mystery exists side-by-side with the certainty "[T]here are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in" *our* cosmology — cosmogany? cosmography — Rusatio :).
This part is great:
ReplyDeleteThe experience is typically described as a progression of stages. First, the person has a sense of peace, then a sense of separation from the body. The person then enters into darkness, and sees a bright light like the end of a tunnel. Finally, the person enters the light and interacts with an entity, described as God, Allah, or simply a universal cosmic force.
During the time that people report the feeling of detachment from their physical body, or an out-of-body-experience, they report a perception of floating above their body, or floating near the ceiling in the room where the experience occurs. This aspect of the experience plays an important role in the study.
The initial phase of the study will outfit participating rooms with shelves placed high up on the wall. On the top of each shelf will be a picture, visible only from the ceiling. Doctors will test whether patients who report a near-death experience are able to recall the image. If patients -- as few as four or five -- can positively recall these static images, then the study will move on: randomly generated images will be projected onto the shelves, which will further test the ability of the test subject to recall images. If no patients can recall the static images, the study can conclude that the floating effect is a trick of the mind.
So, the test is not only for consciousness, it is a first step toward testing to see if there is a real deity at the end of the tunnel. Sure (wink).
I think that the projected random images ought to be playing cards. When the patient wakes up, you could ask, "Okay, what card were we holding up?"
It is comical how we approach this. It reminds me of the movie Oh God with George Burns and John Denver. There's that great scene when he goes before the judge and asks the judge to pick a card here. After that scene, after God exits, they decide that each person must decide whether that was God who was there, or some trick.
And here, we have a scientific study, looking for a trick of the mind. That is an amazing conclusion, so weak, a trick of the mind. It seems at first as if it would be, but that's what we look for, card tricks, and that's what we get. This way, we can control for sleight of hand and optical illusion.
Yours,
Rus
It's interesting research, even though I expect there's a profound difference between near-death and death.
ReplyDeleteITA, Rus. It isn't that clear-cut nor is it the same kind of experience for each individual. I know this didn't happen when I died for four minutes; I do know when i was airlifted to the hospital I was dying and I remember vaguely waking in the helicopter on the way to a major hospital to save my life after I went into cardiac arrest but I didn't "see" anything; I just know I had not "been" anything. I was in so much pain, it overwhelmed everything. It was a coma-conscious scarlet red-smelling death and it was flowing through black strips in my brain and was vivid and almost like over-articulated and outlined shapes of red and black lava, almost; but, see, that's not it, either.
ReplyDeleteNDE differs so wildly for each of us, how can anyone possibly reduce it to a pseudo-scientific kind of hokey-jokey investigation the way the 'graphs you cite seem to do? It's beyond sheer terror; and, afterwards, when you know you've come through, how do you know it's not the morphine that's causing the peaceful feeling, the release from pain, or that kind of malarky?
(Oh, right; exscuzee; you wuz the King of Hearts, Hon :).)
I know what I saw and I know what I felt, though, despite the pain. It is damned-near inexpressible (and, why would I want to try to express it when there are items like this in circulation?). I believed in God before it happened; and, I believed in God after it happened. But, I know that my faith was profoundly affected in a way I cannot begin to describe, at least not in a blog for millions to read.
I also remember you telling me you'd had a NDE and I understood completely when you couldn't go further because one cannot, not in any kind of linear linguistic fashion (since it is not time to cue twi-zone music nor anything near this, is it? It cannot be described so neatly; it would take me a lifetime to communicate it and I'd still be missing the mark by millions of miles).
Here, logic plays a role: If you are experiencing a NDE, something deeply traumatic has initiated it, something so devastating in terms of its blow, you cannot feel anything but the pain surrounding the event and therein lies the mystery . . .
Thus, Lee, you're right; and, the difference is crucial (milk of human blindness notwithstanding nor levitating). Dying and staying dead are two different kettles of worms, IMO. That's why the experience is called "Near-Death" and not "Death."
So, very funny, Scottie; but now, beam down my clothes, eh?
Good morning, Judith,
ReplyDeleteSo, to further the study, they should tape a playing card, face up, on the top of each emergency helicopter. And for those who have an out-of-body NDE while in the chopper, they could be asked which card is being held up.
You are right to react with the aspect of your experience that cannot be explained. Because what the linked-to study wants to show is that each NDE is a "trick of the mind." It takes the pretense to want to show a possibility that the "typical" journey experience leads to a deity, to play with it, but it really wants to shut the door, and make NDEs have such an explanation that they fit into the physical-only description of being--the view that the consciousness derives from, or is an aspect of the physical, versus the spirit- or consciousness- or soul-predominant view that what we observe is a mere physical and very corrupted representation of who we are. Are we the funhouse mirror, or is the physical world our funhouse mirror?
In the physical-dominant view, what we might experience as our return to our body, the "scientific" observer might refer to as our body's re-animation. The NDEs would then be discardable corruptions: how the mind fizzles out as the brain stops functioning at death.
So, it seems Dr. Sam Parnia's true hypothesis is that NDEs are mind tricks, and that he will be insistent with this no matter what the results. In the "Oh God" movie, as God lays out the card trick before the judge, the judge is insistent that he has seen other tricks like it before, even one whereby an elephant was made to disappear. After the scene I linked to, comes the scene in which the judge spearheads the opinion that is made to prevail, that each of us has to decide for ourselves what happened in that court room, whether it was God or a trick of the mind, himself favoring the mind trick.
Let's say that Sam Parnia is surprised, that a significant number of the people who have out of body experiences, do indeed tell which card is face up on the high shelves. At this point, nothing spiritual need be accepted. The quest will begin to find a way to explain what took place in perfectly reasonable physical terms, even to the point that alterations will be made in the way the physical world is conceived in order for this to take place. A new "scientific" protocol or two might just come of such a surprise. That's what science is doing with studies like this, trying to see if they can get this monolithic model of the physical world to be a perfectly good explanation of everything, to make the mirror the be-all. And if successful, they can then choose not to believe in anything else, because they will have devised one perfectly good explanation, and no one else would have.
So what happens if and when the surprise takes place, that the card trick works. The quest will begin to find the sleight of hand. It will begin by developing studies to find whether the people who "saw" the card face up during, can do this without having a death experience. There will begin studies of "mind travel" to first make it quite mundane.
Close your eyes, and see if you can travel into the future. Can you read the science book explanations for NDEs? Now look around, are there any playing cards face up on the desks? No. Why? Because all the decks are stacked, face down.
Yours,
Rus
Rus, I am particularly struck (not nearly dead) by your second 'graph, because it cuts to the chase, IMO (and, I think we both balk at the implications of what's wanted by these pseudo-gations is some kind of palpable proof of something that, by definition, cannot possibly be provided by same); analagously, how does one explain stigmata; or, even more to the point, the story of Bernadette or St. Theresa or, even, for that matter, the Resurrection?
ReplyDeleteAin't gonna happen. Not in this (nor any other) life. Why? Because the FACT is the mystery, not the other way around (which seems to be the crux, pardoning pun, of the material world versus what lies beyond it within us, if that makes sense to you).
I believe even Henry Gee would agree with me when I note that recent scientific investigations, divagations, and related explorations have abso-deffo demonstrated the so-called mind-body split's no longer supportable as an option for a viable existence as a human being being human. There are phenomena that cannot be explained; and, they have always existed, from the moment we became conscience of our selves as selves (versus distinct from others on the evolutionary scale, I guess).
For me, it can be reduced to a very simple Q & A: Why do I like cherry pie? Because I like cherry pie. Does that make sense? I don't understand the need to discover a scientific (or "real") reason for such events as NDEs in the same way I don't need to understand the scientific basis for The Trinity. I mean, logically, how can The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit all be the same thing but separate at the same time?
Reductionism has its place; but, when it seeks to deprive a fertile and creative mind of its mysteries, anomalies, and beyond-sayable faiths, it strips us of our essential humanity, IMO.
I don't want to know what that card is; it's prolly just another joker; what I do want to know is that, in this world, mystery exists side-by-side with the certainty "[T]here are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in" *our* cosmology — cosmogany? cosmography — Rusatio :).