7 ms·

The Science of Near-Death Experiences

40 points by Hooke 12y ago

DanielBMarkham 12y ago
Read the first bit, then scanned some, then read the closing, so fair warning: I may have missed some important parts. (I like The Atlantic, but I do not always have time to consume it) I think the problem in digesting all of this that the author describes is due to the fact that this is not a science -- it's philosophy. That doesn't make it any less real, it just makes the issues and questions more difficult to grasp. I would find it odd if people traveled half-way around the world to go to a conference on NDEs and all thought the idea was hokum, so the author may be a little unfair in his observations. If you're looking for falsifiability and reproducibility in something that so far has been intermittant and subjective, then you are using the wrong tool. What's probably going to happen -- especially with some of the suspended animation stuff going on -- is that we'll start seeing an emerging "science of death". Assuming the suspended animation stuff keeps chugging along, the AI guys start augmenting/transferring small bits of consciousness, and we gain better and better instrumentation to look at what happens at death? We're going to start seeing a really cool field of study open up in another 20-40 years. But we ain't there yet, sadly. Right now it's just a lot of fumbling around in the dark.
caniscrator 12y ago
What we can perceive collectively tells us little about our collective consciousness. Humans are more than just meat.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- louwrentius 12y ago
  Why do you think that we are more than 'thinking meat'? Seems like there is no evidence for that at all. [Let’s say experiments are done, and there is finally a comprehensive, scientifically rigorous, and materialist account of what causes an NDE. What then? Does it mean that all the stories people tell of seeing angels and meeting their deceased relatives are just fairy tales to be ignored?] Yes, but that's even unrelated to NDE's.
  - charliefg 12y ago
    > Why do you think that we are more than 'thinking meat'? Seems like there is no evidence for that at all. Irrelevent > but that's even unrelated to NDE's Exactly What is interesting is how NDEs share traits of the unconscious mind and its archetypes. Commonality that is shared by everyone from dreams, through to meditative states, vision quests and various states of psychosis. Even Jung started building his framework with insights from an NDE; the incorporation of eastern philosophy into our western analytical model allows for a very deep study of our psyche -- regardless of world-view -- and opens up horizons for the mind that were previously inaccessible due to a lack of sophistication in that area. NDEs are another intrigue that can be added to the list of phenomenon that allow us insight into our psyche.
  - vixen99 12y ago
    'Thinking meat' is mere derogatory verbiage appropriate for an arena like HN but that's just jousting.
  - collyw 12y ago
    Self awareness differentiates us from "thinking meat".
    - charliefg 12y ago
      Why is self-awareness an indication of something other than "thinking meat"? Why can't it be a more abstract form of thought?
  - jk4930 12y ago
    Even higher beings confirmed that we're just thinking meat. So I'm fine with that. http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html
vinceguidry 12y ago
Reading this gave me a lot more respect for the god of the gaps, or, at least, the gaps themselves.
up_and_up 12y ago
Anecdotally speaking, I have had 2 out of body experiences which were extremely vivid. Think about if your consciousness could be ejected outside and above your body somehow and you were looking down at your physical self. One experience was while awake meditating and the other was while sleeping. No drugs involved etc. While these were not technically NDE's, it definitely opened up for me the possibility that an NDE is potentially possible and that more research should go into this.
- krazemon 12y ago
  Does your username have anything to do with these experiences or is it just a serendipitous coincidence?
- origin-unknown 12y ago
  An out of body experience occurs when the mind is concentrated and the body goes to sleep. It's a skill that can be learned. It takes some people months of practice, while others do it on their first try.
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
    Crap now I'm scared of meditating kind of.
    - origin-unknown 12y ago
      Haha! I know what you mean. It can be scary because we're essentially confronting the unknown, but concentration helps with that. Fear is a distraction that takes you away from a single pointed mind. When you recognize fear or worry popping up, you gently return to your object of concentration until it goes away.
- nsxwolf 12y ago
  Did you collect any information about your surroundings in that state? Do you feel you were you really "looking" at your physical self, through some other sensory capability, or was it a mental construction?
dghf 12y ago
It would be interesting to find someone who had had an NDE and taken LSD (on a separate occasion), and ask them to compare the two experiences in terms of vividness, beauty, feelings of peace or being loved, etc.
- reitoei 12y ago
  > vividness, beauty, feelings of peace or being loved, etc. Or, you know, the complete opposite.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
kleer001 12y ago
Nothing new here, move along. But it's a good primer if you've never read up on this stuff before.
2015weird 12y ago
i was in an acoma at 16. I was floating around the room way above my bed in the hospital. my mom walked in looked up at me straight in my eyes. behind her was a preast with a purple around his neck. I yelled out that i was not going to die,my the time not going to die ,i was back in my body.momlaughed commented how she knew this would work. the priest had an odd look on his face as he looked at me and mom.it was a shooked look. this was normal crap for my family.
2015weird 12y ago
i was in an acoma at 16. I was floating around the room way above my bed in the hospital. my mom walked in looked up at me straight in my eyes. behind her was a preast with a purple around his neck. I yelled out that i was not going to die,my the time not going to die ,i was back in my body.momlaughed commented how she knew this would work. the priest had an odd look on his face as he looked at me and mom.it was a shooked look. this was normal crap for my family.
2015weird 12y ago
i was in an acoma at 16. I was floating around the room way above my bed in the hospital. my mom walked in looked up at me straight in my eyes. behind her was a preast with a purple around his neck. I yelled out that i was not going to die,my the time not going to die ,i was back in my body.momlaughed commented how she knew this would work. the priest had an odd look on his face as he looked at me and mom.it was a shooked look. this was normal crap for my family.
2015weird 12y ago
i was in an acoma at 16. I was floating around the room way above my bed in the hospital. my mom walked in looked up at me straight in my eyes. behind her was a preast with a purple around his neck. I yelled out that i was not going to die,my the time not going to die ,i was back in my body.momlaughed commented how she knew this would work. the priest had an odd look on his face as he looked at me and mom.it was a shooked look. this was normal crap for my family.
2015weird 12y ago
i was in an acoma at 16. I was floating around the room way above my bed in the hospital. my mom walked in looked up at me straight in my eyes. behind her was a priest with a purplecloth around his neck. I yelled out, that i was not going to die,by the time the words, not going to die got out of my mouth ,i was back in my body.mom laughed commented how she knew this would work. the priest had an odd look on his face as he looked at me and mom.it was a shooked look. this was normal crap for my family. i know know most people are not like this.
jacel 12y ago
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe DMT can be produced in the pineal gland? I can't read this paper from 1976 but that's what the title says http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-4159.1976.tb04456.x/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-4159.1976.... DMT is hallucinogenic, similar to LSD and psilocybin (magic mushrooms), and these NDEs sound quite similar to the results of medical psilocybin trials http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment. I'm surprised the author didn't mention this aspect (or if they did, it was very brief). As the author alluded to, the disappointment for me is with this false dichotomy - mystical and wonderful or scientific and mundane. Isn’t the idea that a bunch of neurons can produce these incredible experiences wonderful enough? How great is it that we can produce a drug to make the last moments of our life beautiful? Aren’t we lucky that sometimes we get a second chance, and our brain can rewire so dramatically we change the way we live our life? And just think how it will change our understanding of consciousness when we figure out how all of this happens! I think that’s a much more fulfilling explanation than the intangible mind/soul argument. But maybe that’s just me.

40 points by Hooke 12y ago

Read the first bit, then scanned some, then read the closing, so fair warning: I may have missed some important parts. (I like The Atlantic, but I do not always have time to consume it) I think the problem in digesting all of this that the author describes is due to the fact that this is not a science -- it's philosophy. That doesn't make it any less real, it just makes the issues and questions more difficult to grasp. I would find it odd if people traveled half-way around the world to go to a conference on NDEs and all thought the idea was hokum, so the author may be a little unfair in his observations. If you're looking for falsifiability and reproducibility in something that so far has been intermittant and subjective, then you are using the wrong tool. What's probably going to happen -- especially with some of the suspended animation stuff going on -- is that we'll start seeing an emerging "science of death". Assuming the suspended animation stuff keeps chugging along, the AI guys start augmenting/transferring small bits of consciousness, and we gain better and better instrumentation to look at what happens at death? We're going to start seeing a really cool field of study open up in another 20-40 years. But we ain't there yet, sadly. Right now it's just a lot of fumbling around in the dark.

caniscrator 12y ago

What we can perceive collectively tells us little about our collective consciousness. Humans are more than just meat.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
louwrentius 12y ago
Why do you think that we are more than 'thinking meat'? Seems like there is no evidence for that at all. [Let’s say experiments are done, and there is finally a comprehensive, scientifically rigorous, and materialist account of what causes an NDE. What then? Does it mean that all the stories people tell of seeing angels and meeting their deceased relatives are just fairy tales to be ignored?] Yes, but that's even unrelated to NDE's.
- charliefg 12y ago
  > Why do you think that we are more than 'thinking meat'? Seems like there is no evidence for that at all. Irrelevent > but that's even unrelated to NDE's Exactly What is interesting is how NDEs share traits of the unconscious mind and its archetypes. Commonality that is shared by everyone from dreams, through to meditative states, vision quests and various states of psychosis. Even Jung started building his framework with insights from an NDE; the incorporation of eastern philosophy into our western analytical model allows for a very deep study of our psyche -- regardless of world-view -- and opens up horizons for the mind that were previously inaccessible due to a lack of sophistication in that area. NDEs are another intrigue that can be added to the list of phenomenon that allow us insight into our psyche.
- vixen99 12y ago
  'Thinking meat' is mere derogatory verbiage appropriate for an arena like HN but that's just jousting.
- collyw 12y ago
  Self awareness differentiates us from "thinking meat".
  - charliefg 12y ago
    Why is self-awareness an indication of something other than "thinking meat"? Why can't it be a more abstract form of thought?
- jk4930 12y ago
  Even higher beings confirmed that we're just thinking meat. So I'm fine with that. http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

vinceguidry 12y ago

Reading this gave me a lot more respect for the god of the gaps, or, at least, the gaps themselves.

up_and_up 12y ago

Anecdotally speaking, I have had 2 out of body experiences which were extremely vivid. Think about if your consciousness could be ejected outside and above your body somehow and you were looking down at your physical self. One experience was while awake meditating and the other was while sleeping. No drugs involved etc. While these were not technically NDE's, it definitely opened up for me the possibility that an NDE is potentially possible and that more research should go into this.

krazemon 12y ago
Does your username have anything to do with these experiences or is it just a serendipitous coincidence?
origin-unknown 12y ago
An out of body experience occurs when the mind is concentrated and the body goes to sleep. It's a skill that can be learned. It takes some people months of practice, while others do it on their first try.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
  Crap now I'm scared of meditating kind of.
  - origin-unknown 12y ago
    Haha! I know what you mean. It can be scary because we're essentially confronting the unknown, but concentration helps with that. Fear is a distraction that takes you away from a single pointed mind. When you recognize fear or worry popping up, you gently return to your object of concentration until it goes away.
nsxwolf 12y ago
Did you collect any information about your surroundings in that state? Do you feel you were you really "looking" at your physical self, through some other sensory capability, or was it a mental construction?

dghf 12y ago

It would be interesting to find someone who had had an NDE and taken LSD (on a separate occasion), and ask them to compare the two experiences in terms of vividness, beauty, feelings of peace or being loved, etc.

reitoei 12y ago
> vividness, beauty, feelings of peace or being loved, etc. Or, you know, the complete opposite.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

kleer001 12y ago

Nothing new here, move along. But it's a good primer if you've never read up on this stuff before.

2015weird 12y ago

i was in an acoma at 16. I was floating around the room way above my bed in the hospital. my mom walked in looked up at me straight in my eyes. behind her was a preast with a purple around his neck. I yelled out that i was not going to die,my the time not going to die ,i was back in my body.momlaughed commented how she knew this would work. the priest had an odd look on his face as he looked at me and mom.it was a shooked look. this was normal crap for my family.

2015weird 12y ago

i was in an acoma at 16. I was floating around the room way above my bed in the hospital. my mom walked in looked up at me straight in my eyes. behind her was a priest with a purplecloth around his neck. I yelled out, that i was not going to die,by the time the words, not going to die got out of my mouth ,i was back in my body.mom laughed commented how she knew this would work. the priest had an odd look on his face as he looked at me and mom.it was a shooked look. this was normal crap for my family. i know know most people are not like this.

jacel 12y ago

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe DMT can be produced in the pineal gland? I can't read this paper from 1976 but that's what the title says http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-4159.1976.tb04456.x/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-4159.1976.... DMT is hallucinogenic, similar to LSD and psilocybin (magic mushrooms), and these NDEs sound quite similar to the results of medical psilocybin trials http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment. I'm surprised the author didn't mention this aspect (or if they did, it was very brief). As the author alluded to, the disappointment for me is with this false dichotomy - mystical and wonderful or scientific and mundane. Isn’t the idea that a bunch of neurons can produce these incredible experiences wonderful enough? How great is it that we can produce a drug to make the last moments of our life beautiful? Aren’t we lucky that sometimes we get a second chance, and our brain can rewire so dramatically we change the way we live our life? And just think how it will change our understanding of consciousness when we figure out how all of this happens! I think that’s a much more fulfilling explanation than the intangible mind/soul argument. But maybe that’s just me.