Talk:Near-death experience/Archive 1

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disambiguation requested

apparently, there is a term of art in academic business strategy circles also called a 'near death experience', which is basically a crisis for a company wherein the company's survival is in jeopardy. here is the video I found it in--- http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/video/bif3-clay-christensen-- its a harvard business school consultant/teacher saying it, so there's your RS for ya. basically modern business theorists are using the theory of evolution to explain competitive business strategy. all that remains is the academic article this originated in and the creation of the new page. editors with authority, please create this page as a stub at the very least, even if you don't have sources, and let the community take care of it. god I love this encyclopedia. its like our baby! twalala68.59.4.188 (talk) 01:09, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Source/material suggestion

I know that some of you editing this article probably came across this, but if you haven't I'd like suggest everybody to check out the conference "Beyond the mind-body problem" held at the UN and presented by UN NGO section/University of Montreal/Nour foundation. I just came across it and I find it very interesting and open minded and I definitely think that discussion held at the conference can help in shaping this article... The conference is recorded and can be watched at http://www.mindbodysymposium.com/

I'm not neutral in this subject and I want to believe in the "fantastic" explanation, but I think that this conference is very neutral. I was happy to see it because I believe that it shows that there is an mainstream "old school" view that is dominant in the scientific community that is (or was) quite agressive and tends to inhibit unconventional research. And I think that this article should not be based on that view just because it's mainstream but give all views on NDEs an equal "respect". Hdagelic (talk) 21:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The AWARE study is mentioned in the last paragraph of the Research section. --EPadmirateur (talk) 14:49, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

New explanation

To do list - arguments to discuss: A)A person will have a NDE when he/she is declared to be dead or when a person has the subjective impression to be in a fatal situation. It might be possible to use the prefix: ´In a very unusual situation, e.g.´ when a person is declared to be dead .... But the original text already describes the same: ´Most (= not all) NDEs are started after a crucial experience (= an unusual situation) e.g. (= for example) ...´ . B) it might be a good idea, to write: persons who are not able to move, or who are in a perilous situation where they are struggling to escape´ will have a OBE. (A person who is struggling to escape is not free to move the own body, wherever he/she wants.) C) According to Mr. Moody´s Book ´Life after Life´ a very unpleasant sound/noise was described as the first sensual experience. If the expression ´very unpleaseant´ would be removed, then it would fit for every acoustic experience (e.g. music).

During a NDE, a person need not to experience all the core elements. Some persons experience only one part or some of these core elements. => But a good theory has to include an explanation for all the core elements in ascending order. D) In the Kinseher-theory the tunnel experience is absolutely no birth-canal theory. The tunnel experience is described as a prenatal experience with the developement of the optical sense. (Also the acoustic sound/noise is seen as prenatal, in a case where it is experienced before and/or together with the tunnel experience.) This is a big difference, because this explanation for NDEs is new.

If the theory is right, then it would give us a better understanding of the human brain, - if not, then it´s discussion might help to find a better model. Up to now, there is no other model, which might explain all the core elements and cultural differences at the same time.

(The sentence of Nebbel/7 July 2007: ´In non-Western NDEs, tunnels do not appear at all´ is very special. To evaluate it, we should know a) whether it is true and b) how the colour of the mother´s skin is.
Case 1) If the prenatal tunnel experience represents the neuronal flashes of an increasing number of working optical cells, then all persons world-wide should have the same possibility to experience this movement through the tunnel.
Case 2) If the prenatal tunnel-experience represents a light (seen through the abdominal wall of the mother) seen with an increasing number of working optical cells, then persons will be preferred to see this tunnel-movement, when the own mother had a white skin. Because brown/dark skin contain much more light absorbing melanin-pigment than white skin. Additional, a dark dress might influence this effect.)

User(s): 217.250.*,  8 July 2007‎ 

Grammar and Tone

In the Near Death Experience Characteristics section there are several uses of exclamation points outside of quoted text. From the Wiki Style Manual, regarding exclamation points "it is an expression of surprise or emotion that is unsuited to a scholarly or encyclopedic register." --Kmorris1077 17:49, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, it was a mistake to use exclamation points

---

CHARACTERISTICS SECTION POV

First we get "In most cases, an NDE is very different from beliefs of the person undergoing the experience has. Atheists who expect no afterlife find they are alive after dying."

Browse no further than the discussion page and we find:

The author Lobsang Rampa talks about "hell" in his books: your NDE is exactly what you imagine. If you expect winged angels and pearly gates, that's what you get. If you expect black nothing or red devils with pitchforks, your imagination and NDE will matter-of-factly accomodate you.

So which is it? I can certainy buy the idea that some people have NDE's that differ from "their beliefs", But "in most cases"? I highly doubt it can we get some numbers for that?

Bias

It seems that this was written by someone who thinks there is a definite connection to the afterlife. I like the mention of Howard Strom who was an agnostic but had a bad NDE and became more faithful.

• This entire article is so unNPOV it's unbelievable. Reading through it, I can't even judge the validity of the sources (i.e. reputed scholar vs. crackpot). This article needs work.

138.251.164.3 11:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• • This article reads like a crackpots dream, rather like a NDE itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.94.54.14 (talk) 01:06, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Saturday March 10, 2007 5:50AM CST

What I think needs work, is not scrutinizing, belittling, or condemnig a piece of work because of a few possible falsifications or biased opinions in the details. It takes a long time, and many hours of research to produce these articles on wikipedia, yet instead of accepting them, we replace it with our own single mindedness because we may think it is "incorrect," or "shallow," or any other adjective which could describe one's own dislike. It is only natural that our bias gets in the way, yet when someone attacks it --whether it be critizism or any other means of analytical procedure-- it just adds fuel to the fire, and even more confusion and doubt. I believe that intellectualism starts with accepting new ideas and new thinking. People may very well delete this post that I made because they themselves may feel "attacked" by my own understanding of the topic. It is also natural for peoples of all beliefs that they research themselves to further suit their need, or want for an answer they can relate to. "They" is a very vauge word however, but the subject here is death and eventually it will encompass us all. So the real question is, "Why must we despute another's theories and research if our own cannot, or may not be able to be backed up 100 percent?"

The point is, there are multiple sides to everything. The bias that we share is a powerful tool for learning and understanding. I can advise indubitably that fact. But I cannot rule out the possibility of something more (such as. . another persons response to this, my post).

Give me your best shot Wiki Readers. I value your input. (Reminder. . This is an opinion to the discussion. . No sources were used in the making of this post{if not already inferred by the name of the section. . "Bias")

It has nothing to do with not accepting new ideas. it's about calling a spade a spade. An unencyclopedic article is an unencyclopedic article. Which it most certainly was at the time of those comments. Novium (talk) 23:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Linguistic details

In the first sentence, "...dead and then somehow revived" seems to imply that there's something odd or mysterious about this, rather than the common well-known occurrence of medical resuscitation. --Lee Daniel Crocker

It was intended to. Raymond Moody's books explore the possibility that there is more to reality than the material world. Some NDE's involve a Being of Light telling a person to go back to the world. Dr. Moody himself maintains a strict NPOV on the question of life after death, of course. Unlike me, who believe it. We could change somehow revived to came back to life if you want.

"...were brought back to life" is better--it doesn't generally happen without intervention.

Okay, but many of the NDE's occurred without (physical) intervention. --Ed

Such near-death experiences, though, are just that--not actual "clinical death" as the first sentence implies. That has a very specific meaning, and is not generally reversed without some intervention (even if minimal). Most of the people who report NDE's are either (1) genuinely clinically dead, and know this because they are under the care of doctors who tell them about it after they are revived, or (2) are not under the care of doctors, and believe that they were dead for a time, but have no real evidence of that. I have no doubt that people in precarious medical condition report all kinds of experiences--the brain is a marvellous thing. --LDC

If doctors really can bring a dead person back to life it rather takes away the miraculous qualities of the ressurection, does it not?

"Near death" means "Near death" not "Dead". Exile

Furthermore - if you follow the link to clinical death you find this means an "irreversible" state of death. I was under the impression that NDE referred to people who, for example, had cessation of breathing and no pulse but were revived. If you were "irreversibly" dead you wouldn't be able to come back and tell us about it. If no-one responds to this I'm tempted to rewrite. Exile

The article on "Clinical Death" is explicit: clinical death is so reversible that it has medical applications in cases of cerebral aneurysms or aortic arch defects. (The patient is chilled to 64ºF, emptied of blood, repaired, and resuscitated. And they're a lot kinder to leftovers afterward.) Medically speaking, it is the quintessential "near-death" state. In contrast, Information-theoretic death is the sort of term applied to someone smashed to pulp by a meteorite the size of a Volkswagen, or otherwise beyond repair. TravellerDMT-07 06:15, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

NDE's are common

Added some stuff. NDE's are actually rather common.

For NPOV, we need to be sure that we emphasize that NDEs are a well-documented subjective phenomenon; on the other hand, the meaning of NDEs is still up for grabs. Even Jansen is careful to state that his work is addressed to the scientific paradigm. As he notes in [1] and [2]:

'I am no longer as opposed to spritual explanations of these phenomena as this article would appear to suggest. Over the past two years (it is quite some time since I wrote it) I have moved more towards the views put forward by John Lilly and Stan Grof. Namely, that drugs and psychological disciplines such as meditation and yoga may render certain 'states' more accessible. The complication then becomes in defining just what we mean by 'states' and where they are located, if indeed location is an appropriate term at all. ... My forthcoming book 'Ketamine' will consider mystical issues from quite a different perspective, and will give a much stronger voice to those who see drugs as just another door to a space, and not as actually producing that space'.

...

Despite its association with sensationalist media reports, populist books of doubtful scientific value, and a series of dubious Hollywood films, the NDE is still of considerable importance to medicine, neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry, psychology and, more controversially, philosophy and theology (Stevenson and Greyson, 1979; Greyson and Stevenson, 1980; Ring, 1980; Sabom, 1982; Jansen, 1989a,b, 1990b, 1995, 1996). Philosophical and theological issues are beyond the scope of the present discussion, which is based within the scientific paradigm and is thus best assessed from within this paradigm.

...

Spiritualists have sometimes seen scientific explanations of NDE's as dull and reductionist. However, the exploration of the mind-brain interface is one of the most exciting adventures which humans have ever undertaken. The real reductionism lies in attempts to draw a mystical shroud over the NDE, and to belittle the substantial evidence in favour of an scientific explanation.

Science for scietific questions, and religion for religious questions. Cheers - Chas zzz brown 00:16, 24 January 2003 (UTC)

Unexplainable Reports

"Children report seeing relatives who are living as part of the NDE, which begs explanation if the NDE is an experience of an afterlife."

In the paragraph that discusses "Unexplainable" reports in NDE accounts, the last sentence about children's NDE's doesn't really fit, since it isn't about unexplainable reports of worldly events/objects from an out-of-body perspective. Is there somewhere else in the article it should go, or is there a concept it is trying to convey that might need to go in a new paragraph? To me it seems to belong in the realm of interpretations of the NDE. Whether what somebody sees in the spiritual part of the NDE seems appropriate has nothing to do with the paragraph in question. Oh, and it occurs to me that children may blur the different realms and tend to report everything they saw as one realm. Perhaps the see their family living and dead from various realms. ??? Point being that the sentence really needs expansion and justification. Tom 19:01, 12 July 2004 (UTC)

Hell NDEs

I was just curious if anyone knows anything, and can add to this article, about NDEs where people report going to Hell. I have read of only one case, in the early 20th century, where a former cowboy, who had killed many people in his days in the Old West, came back from a stroke-heart attack combo and had said he had been swallowed up and had went to Hell. Most reports talk about going to Heaven, but Id be curious to read about going the other way. Husnock 8 Nov 2004

Let's see what we can do. Tom - Talk 20:17, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

There. How's that? (These things just do me in. I can't write them without plucking an undeniable recognizance somewhere inside me.) Tom - Talk 21:09, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

I have added a reference to Attwater's chapter in which he discusses Hellish near-death experiences. Cardamom

These kind of experiences have been discussed by researchers Greyson & Bush, see article bibliography. --Hawol 11:50, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The author Lobsang Rampa talks about "hell" in his books: your NDE is exactly what you imagine. If you expect winged angels and pearly gates, that's what you get. If you expect black nothing or red devils with pitchforks, your imagination and NDE will matter-of-factly accomodate you.

CBS "48 Hours (TV series)" and Oprah Winfrey had several people on their tv shows who had a near-death experience that included visions of 'Hell', of being seperated from God, and seeing demon-like creatures.204.80.61.10 19:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)Bennett Turk

Moving the section

Although interesting in itself I believe that the theme of Hell in NDE-experiences should be introduced later in the article. It would be better for the reader to get familiar with different viewpoints and research before being introduced to this very delicate issue. --Hawol 14:10, 9 November 2004 (UTC)

Yes. Have at 'er. Thank you for caring enough to want to re-organize. I am quite sure nobody will contest your actions. I wasn't sure where to put it. Tom - Talk 17:36, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Major elements

The major elements section needs to be finished. It is obviously a stub since Hell is a minor major. I will think about how to expand the section. Tom Haws 19:51, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Please give bibliographical references to any material that is contributed. It is much easier to do a source-critical reading that way. Hawol 15:28, 8 February 2005 (UTC)

When we compare all the experiences of a person, which can be made since the time, when the brain is able store it (6th/7th month of pregnancy), with all the major elements of a near-death-experience (except of the Out of Body experience) then we can see a lot of corresponding facts!!! Thus we can presume, that the brain of a person scans during a Near-Death-Experience the complete episodic brain of a person, to find a way out of the situation -I will die, I am dead-. But all these old experiences will be judged during a Near-death-experience with the actual(!) intellect. Therefore, when we remind us of the development of the optical sense, we have the wrong impression: to move through a tunnel. (But this is a misinterpretation.In reality we remind us only of the development of the eye: at the begin, we do not see anything (black foto), then one optical cell is working (foto with a small light), the more optical cells are working, the more light can be seen on the ´fotos´. When we remind us of these experiences, all these single fotos can be seen like a very quick film, therefore we have the impression, as to move through a tunnel.)

Out of body hypothesis - random messages

Can someone point out where to find more information on the experiments cited in which messages were placed in positions where people experiencing NDEs should have been able to see them? --68.15.144.115 15:08, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't at the moment. Perhaps you could find and add some? Tom Haws 16:57, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Anyone else, please reply if you do have information on them. 68.15.144.115 07:18, 15 February 2005 (UTC)

We could e-mail PMH Atwater or Kevin Williams for help. Tom Haws 19:46, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

According to Fenwick (2004) this kind of experiment has been carried out by a researcher called Sartori (from Morriston hospital in the U.K.) who did it as a part of her Ph.D. thesis (not yet published). According to Fenwick none of the experiencers, who supposedly left their bodies, reported seeing the randomized cards that were placed in the room by the researcher. Fenwick and colleagues are however designing a new experiment with a different methodological angle in order to do more testing of the "out of body hypothesis".

Source:

Fenwick, Peter (2004) Science and Spirituality: A Challenge for the 21st Century. The Bruce Greyson Lecture from the International Association for Near-Death Studies 2004 Annual Conference. Also available at IANDS website --Hawol 11:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The live-review show obviously experiences, which are stored in the episodic memory! We might presume, that all the other experiences (except of the OBE) might be also from the same part of our brain. Therefore me might see, the NDEs as a scan of our episodic memory: In the 6th/7th month is the acousic sense developed to function, and our brain is able to store experiences => therefore a NDE starts very often with acoustic experiences. Then the optical sense is developed, the increasing number of working receptors are stored in several individual experiences (like fotos) into the brain. To see these experiences very quick, one after the other, is judged as the experience of a film, where we fly through a tunnel towards a light. AND SO ON! If we compare the possible experiences of a person during his/her developement with the NDEs, we might see a lot of similarities!

Life flashing

What about one's life "flashing before one's eyes" like one hears about on TV all the time? My mom says she experienced this.. Does this phenomenon belong in this article? Either way I can't find it in wikipedia.

Excellent point. Yes, it does. Can you add something? Tom Haws 16:47, 16 February 2005 (UTC)

It was in the year 1970, I died and seen a blue light I was above my hospital bed and I seen my body laying there. The nurse aide that was by my bed had just told me that my blood pressure was 320 over 230 and I died. I saw the nurse aide and heard her scream that she could not get a blood pressure nor a heart beat then she ran out of the room. Meanwhile I heard and seen everything from the ceiling. I even heard the doctors telling her to calm down and then I thought that I didn't want the aide getting into trouble so I returned to my body. Since that happened I have dreams and they come true and when I say things to people it comes true. I once told a old boy friend of mine that he was gonna burn twice once here on earth and the rest in Hell and seven years later he fell in a bucket of hot steel at a mill called Sharon Steel in Pa. His name was Ernest Buchanan. I have regreted what I said and my father informed me to always be careful what I say because some people have special gifts expecially after a comeback from death regardless how brief the out of the body experience was.

Removal

I am removing a phrase from the "As an afterlife experience" "In a story commonly repeated as a parable,". I don't object to this phrase, but it is confusing and needs to be explained better if it is to be in the article. Tom Haws 19:08, 23 April 2005 (UTC)

Problematic section - Major elements

I have given this edit a lot of thought, and I hope I do not offend anyone by doing it. I find the section on "Major elements" to be a bit problematic. It's autobiographical tone comes across as fictional and somewhat coloured by new-testament semantics. There is nothing wrong with New-Testament semantics and imagery as long as it is placed within a context where it belongs and where such a context is made explicit to the reader. But unsupported by critical commentary or bibliographical references, as is the case here, these stories - unfortunately - come across as something out of an evangelical pamphlet or a fictional book. If these autobiographical elements should continue to function as a separate section within the article, I belive that they should at least be informed by bibliographical references and critical commentaries from the field of Near-death Studies. The way it is now it is difficult to do a source-critical reading.

I do however appreciate the initiative from the contributor to include autobiographical elements (they are crucial for an increased understanding of the phenomenon), but I cannot support the current version of the section. I hope I have not offended anyone by removing the section (for now). I am - after all - humbled by new insights to this field of study. I do not rule out that I could support some future version of the disputed section. In such a case I suggest that it undergoes a major re-write, including an addition of bibliographical references, and a more academic commentary that can help new readers to orient themselves within this very delicate field of study. The welfare of the reader is important.

See also Wikipedia:Cite_your_sources --Hawol 16:19, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your careful explanation. Somebody asked for an explanation of Hell in NDEs, so I added a bit, and it got substantially expanded and reworked. Would this version be less problematic? [3] Tom Haws 19:05, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your response! Well, it is less problematic but I still can not support the improved version. Since the theme is such a delicate issue as "Hell In NDE- experiences" I believe the version would benefit from critical commentaries from the field of Near-Death Studies (such as-> what has leading NDE-researchers said about this issue? Is it a well-known issue in NDE-research? What are the different opinions about this issue?). It would also help the reader a lot if a literary reference for the three autobiographical accounts could be given, or else they might be interpreted as legendary material (as a kind of urban myth) or as fictional. Finally, I believe that this kind of delicate issue (Hell in NDE's) should be introduced fairly late in the article. It would be beneficial to the reader to get familiar with the broad scope of the article and its subject matter before he is introduced to the issue of hell in NDE's. I hope these are constructive suggestions that clarify my position. I will look forward to any suggestions for improving the article. --Hawol 13:30, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Beyond the issues specific to the section you cut, there is the concern I have long had that the section was a lopsided addition. I didn't let it bother me too much. I assumed that eventually we would fill out the article in a more balanced way. I guess maybe I take a more easy-going approach to problems I see in articles. The article should eventually contain much more about the major elements of NDEs, with references from significant studies and accounts. If you want to add references and additional material, feel free. As far as the content that you removed goes, I hope you find a way to add it back in eventually in hopes that the article will continue to grow and improve. Tom Haws 14:10, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for clearing that up. I see now that this section is more of a first draft for a larger section on major elements of NDE's. Such a section would of course be very relevant to the article, but as the section is now, introducing only one element (Hell), it looks very unbalanced, if not odd. I hope we will be able to put the material back in a more broad and comprehensive context. --Hawol 14:17, 26 April 2005 (UTC)

Most definitely. Oh, to have a thousand lives! Tom Haws 15:44, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Problematic sentence

There have also been accounts of patients seeing things they apparently could not have seen had they not been out of their bodies.

I have removed this sentence until further notice. Since it is unsupported by a reference it has the tonality of a "hearsay". I believe it is best to leave it out until a proper reference can be given. I know this phenomenon was reported in the BBC documentary on NDE's (The Day I Died. 60 minutes, color, BBC 2002) so maybe it is possible to find it in the research of Parnia or van Lommel.

--Hawol 20:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Clinically dead for a day

"It is generally accepted that some people who reported NDEs were shown to be clinically dead, sometimes longer than a day. However, it is not shown that the experiences themselves took place in any time other than just before the clinical death, or in the process of being revived. In altered states of consciousness such as this and during dream states or under the influence of drugs, the subjective perception of time is often dilated."

The wiki article on clinical death "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death" seems to suggest someone is clinical dead when revival is impossible based on our current medical knowledge. If this is the case, I fail to see how someone could be clinically dead for longer then a day then revived. Even if this definition is incorrect, I don't see any definition of clinical death that would allow someone to be revived after over a day...

It is not unheard of for people to be declared clinically dead and then come back to life. I know somebody who was declared dead multiple times as a baby. Coconuteire 23:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I have updated the article on clinical death. Clinical means "based on direct observation of the patient" or "very objective and devoid of emotion; analytical" [4]. And death is defined, in the US at least, by the UDDA [5]: "irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or the irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem". Of course clinicians are only human, so clinical mistakes are made. But by definition (and US state laws), you don't survive clinical death unless a mistake was made in the clinical determination of death. The general public, press, and even some clinicians, just incorrectly refer to a temporary cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions as "clinical death" Skeptic06 00:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)Skeptic06

Karl Jansen

The discussion of Dr. Karl Jansen's work on ketamine (in the 'Naturalistic explanations' section) places him in the materialist-skeptic camp. This is highly misleading. True, he started out as a debunker of the notion that NDE's are evidence of a spiritual (or at least transnormal) realm. But with time he developed a more agnostic hypothesis - that ketamine may in fact be one particularly powerful trigger of authentic spiritual experiences - of which near-death may be another. In each case, according to Jansen, the subject gets catapulted out of ordinary egoic consciousness into an altered state. To claim that Jansen refuses any ontological significance to the 'worlds' disclosed in these 'trips' is unwarranted. Latterly he seems much closer to Jung, Ken Wilber, Stan Grof and Daniel Pinchbeck (who has written a book on hallucinogenic shamanism entitled 'Breaking Open The Head') than to Susan Blackmore or Nicholas Humphrey (two particularly high-profile skeptics). Can anyone weave this crucial point into the text?? - Dexter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.71.44.46 (talk) 00:23, 13 September 2005‎ (UTC)

Near Death Experiences

To whoever decided to write this huge section:

Dude, the list is waaay too long and contains unobjective stuff like info about a specfic religion. Also I'd suggest you make an account.

• God exists. - deleted because implied by other stuff
• God is omniscient and omnipresent, yet he restricts from having any influence on worldly matters - this is not and cannot be a conclusion. Also, it's just a repeat of what many scriptures say.
• God manifests himself as immense brightness, which is not physical light nor cerebral sensation of light - this is not a "conclusion"
• time is a property of matter - a gradient of entropy. Time can exist only in conditions where there are material particles and matter - time is not a property of matter and there is no way you can conclude that from NDEs
• Our goal is to develop towards the Omega Point - this, although very interesting, is not a conclusion from NDEs
• Scientific models of evolution, cosmology etc are valid; however, paradigm of materialistic monism is not. - Although I agree with this opinion, a person is very unlikely to develop this opinion from a NDE
• Godhead - focuses on only one religion. changed to God
• Near death experiencers report 360 degree vision and ability to see both extremely accurately and also detect other wavelengths than just the visible light. - is the same as omniscience
• (boddhisattva). - focuses on only one religion.
• The finite speed of light and the vast distances between habitable planetary systems are to prevent the various life forms from interfering each other. The "aliens" are similar children of God as we humans. - whilst this point is interesting, it's not a common conclusion of NDEs. you might want to include it elsewhere, in another article maybe.
• (This is very much the same as the Islamic concept of Greater Jihad. - unneeded and irrelevant to NDEs

and you might want to put some full stops (periods if you're US) in in your next edit :P

Infinity0 11:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC) A neglected skeptic here is James Randi, who argued widely that when he has conducted experiments with people who have a history of nearly dying and leaving their bodies during surgical operatons, he left them instructions to look at a message left by him on top of a high cupboard that they could look down on as they floated up intot he air. None of them have ever been able to tellhim on recovery what his 'message' was. (User:arthurchappell

Removing section called "As evidence suggesting the existence of God"

I have removed the recently contributed section called "As evidence suggesting the existence of God". My reasons for doing so are mainly source-critical.

For example:

Various naturalist explanation models of the near death experience have failed to convincingly explain the nature of the near death experience, and some of the models are simply impossible while others are in conflict on what is today known of medicine and evolution

- Please identify these explanation models in the academic landscape. Preferably with bibliographical references.

However, the near-death experiencers themselves are fully convinced of the validity of their experiences. Some common conclusions they draw from their experiences include:

- Please identify a published document (or documents) where this information about Near-Death experiencers is validated, or where these conclusions are discussed. Maybe it is available from a published survey-study of near-death experiencers?

Many of the mentioned themes (God, Time, Soul, Religions, the Omega Point, telepathy, reincarnation) are indeed discussed in near-death research and they are highly relevant to the article. I just believe that for the sake of clarity, and considering the welfare of the reader, it is important to identify who these commentators are?.. who is saying what?.. from what epistemological position are they speaking?..which academic fields are discussing these themes?.. and what are the major conflict lines? In other words, I believe it is important to place this discussion within academic discourse. --Hawol 15:18, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Ketamine theory

I have removed the following section:

A theory which combines both the materialistic explanation and the afterlife explanation is that the ketamine experiments have simply discovered the mechanism on how the consciousness or soul detaches from the matter (brain). It is claimed that the consciousness doesn't actually reside in brain and synapses, but rather that brain is only the user interface of consciousness to the material world, the consciousness itself lying on the sub-particle level in the structure of universe. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the memories, "memory bank", has not been succeeded to located in brain.

"It is claimed"--> who claims?

I am not questioning the relevance of the information, I am questioning the lack of sources. Please identify the originator(s) of this hypothesis, preferably with a reference. I do not intend to be overtly critical or normative in my editing style. I just believe that since the near-death experience is such a controversial and delicate area of interest, we owe the reader a thorough sorce-critical assessment of all the information that is published in this article. --Hawol 15:41, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia: Cite_sources

Jansen, Negovsky: two suggestion for improvemets

The text says: Critics of Jansen's hypothesis point out that although some aspects of the experience may be similar, not all NDEs exactly fit the ketamine experience..

--> We need to identify these critics.

Also, I did several web-searches on the Negovsky title but did not succeed to find the name of the publisher of the book, or the publishing year. If anyone can look into this matter that would be nice. --Hawol 11:51, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

It's difficult to look into. I find references to it, which seems to be an academic paper, not a book, and there is plenty of information on the late Vladimir Negovsky "the father of reanimatology” in his obituary here: http://www.erc.edu/index.php/newsItem/en/nid=136/

The paper's original title is likely in Russian, which is where the difficulty lies. If anyone who can read Russian can locate the Russian article on the subject on pravda.ru, the title of the paper is probably in there. The English version is here: http://english.pravda.ru/printed.html?news_id=14745 --TouchGnome 04:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I see. But you have indeed provided two good reference points. Maybe the best thing to do would be to cite the Pravda article while we await more information on the Russian title. I will try to do such an edit. --Hawol 17:42, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I know that anyone can edit wikipedia, so i'm just putting this here in hopes that someone will look into it. Sorry that I have no citations . . . Erowid.org might have something. Anyhow i'm a strong atheist, and i'm pretty sure that NDE's are caused by the release of a hallocianagen within the brain the is relieased upon death, kind of how adrenaline is released during a fight or flight situation. . . its the brains way of dealing with death. . . thats why anyone who has an NDE reports similair experiances, because the chemical is found within all human brains and it also explains why no one reports an NDE about going to Hell. . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.135.181.184 (talk) 17:56, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Problematic section - As an afterlife experience

This section is problematic from a source-critical point of view and needs more documentation:

It is generally accepted that some people who reported NDEs were shown to be clinically dead, sometimes longer than a day.

- This statement sounds a bit eccentric without the support of a clinical study.

However, it is not shown that the experiences themselves took place in any time other than just before the clinical death, or in the process of being revived.

- We need to find theorists that can elaborate upon this view. It does sound reminiscent of some of the theories of Blackmore though.

Those who report NDEs typically respond by a major change of life perspective and direction, generally away from self-orientation toward outward orientation, or what they call a more loving life. The NDE is reported by some to feel "more real than life"[2]. Some former atheists have adopted a more spiritual view of life after NDEs[3] (for example Howard Storm and George Rodonaia). Those who report NDEs typically look forward to death, but despise suicide.

- These observations can probably be verified by some of the research that is done within the field of Near-Death Studies, but we need references.

--Hawol 10:09, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

The statement that those who report NDEs despise suicide needs further explanation. Also the frequently heard statement (which is not yet discussed here) that survivors of a suicide attempt typically report very uncomftable NDEs (similar to "Hell" rather than "Heaven"). I know about selected cases from television where suicide survivors report the typical heaven-like NDE (bright, warm light at the end of the tunnel, good feelings etc.), and in one case the survivor committed another suicide attempt. I suspect that mentions of bad NDE in connection with suicide are not always reported truthfully but made up in order to deter people from suicide. Imagine that an author presents a collection of NDEs (like R. Moody) but with truthfully reportes goog suicide NDEs and some peoble commit suicide after reading. In some countries (e.g. the U.S. I think) relatives of those could bring an action against the author (like those against the tobacco industry). But I also have made the experience that this topic seems to be among those not welcome to be discussed in the public. So it is very hard to get more information.--SiriusB 20:23, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with some of these observations. The following sentence needs more elaboration, preferably supported by a clinical study:

Those who report NDEs typically look forward to death, but despise suicide.

I have therefore removed this sentence until further notice. --Hawol 11:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I added the sentence originally. Here is why, and I agree expansion might be good. Suicides do not necessarily lead to negative NDEs. However, the effect of the NDE is nevertheless generally a deterent to further suicidal tendencies. It is an interesting speculation that positive suicide NDEs are not reported due to liability concerns. But the fact is that a positive suicide NDE was included in Moody's movie "Life After Life". There is not to my knowledge any special suppression of suicide NDE accounts. The sentence should be restored and expanded, IMHO. Let me also say I can see my choice of the word despised relied on an archaic meaning ("depreciated") and gave the wrong picture. Tom Haws 06:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Greyson has done some research on this issue. Maybe you can re-write the sentence and cite his study as a reference. Check out PubMed PMID: 7233478. Greyson B. Near-death experiences and attempted suicide. Suicide Life Threat Behav. 1981 Spring;11(1):10-6. PMID: 7233478 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]. --Hawol 16:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The suspicion of suppression of suicide NDEs is supported by the decision of some regional newspapers not to report spectacular suicide attempts any more. It has been noticed that reports of suicices, e.g. peoble jumping from a bridge, seems to attract more suicides. So there has been an agreement to stop reporting such incidents. Furthermore, in Germany it is unlawful to publish positive experiences with drugs because they are treated as incitement to drug usage. Although (attempted) suicice does not violate law in Germany, incitement to suicide could violate the laws of protection of minors. Last but not least, there is no neurological or even psychological reason why suicide NDEs should be more prone to negative emotions than others. The effect of endorphines should be completely indepentend of the motivation, and any moral or conscience related influences ("feeling guilty") should be negligible if the brain activity (especially activity of the cerebrum) is low enough. Thus, the extreme bias in NDE reports towards negative suicide examples contradicts science and even logic.

I do not think that there is any kind of conspiracy (since no conspirator would benefit from it). But there might be silent agreements (like the non-silent one mentioned above) not to publish such NDEs. I must admit that I also would think twice about publishing reports that have limited use but probably induce much damage, especially if reported in typical TV talk shows or something like this.--SiriusB 19:01, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Could someone please give a short summary of Greyson's research and results?--SiriusB 19:01, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

A short summary of the research and results of this particular study (Greyson, 1981) is given in the PubMed abstract available at PubMed PMID: 7233478. Just write the PMID (7233478) in the search box and click Go. --Hawol 17:18, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Current revison - Implications for health professionals

The following remark concerns the section called Implications for health professionals (point 6).

6. Recognize that near death experiences may have a profound effect on those considering suicide. In some cases, it may make suicide an even more tempting option. Sometimes, those who have attempted suicide and have had near death experiences return to life with the firm conviction that suicide is not a solution.

→ History says: (cur) (last) 13:26, 7 March 2006 Kitch m (→Implications for health professionals - Clarified the suicide notation)

How is it clarified? Unfortunately I don't have the text which these points are adapted form (Morse, 1991; Morse & Perry 1992). Anyway, if I were to speculate about the original meaning of this point I would suggest the following re-write.

6. Recognize that near death experiences may have a profound effect on those considering suicide. In some cases, it may make suicide an even more tempting option. However, those who have attempted suicide, and have had near death experiences, sometimes return to life with the firm conviction that suicide is not a solution.

--Hawol 14:16, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

I have removed the following two sentences as I found them to be in conflict with NPOV and unsupported by a reference.

Few experiencers tend to view the NDE as a brain hallucination. The tendency to explain the experience in terms of a materialistic model is usually offered by non-experiencers [6].

Ultimately, the hallucination theory is one which is very convincing to materialists, and very unconvincing to the vast majority of NDE experiencers [7].

--Hawol 15:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Do that, but it's true.... people who say that NDE are "hallucinations" are really "grasping at straws."

Yoda921 13:28, 1 January 2007 (UTC)Yoda921

add to "As a naturalistic experience"

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060411_near_death.html Should have information added to "As a naturalistic experience" section? Near death experiences more common in people that have difficulty separating sleep from wakefulness.

What does sleep paralysis have to do with NDEs? -Iopq 14:44, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it Sleep paralysis is first of all a sleep disorder, and not a near-death related experience. That said, it might - in some circumstances - share some similar dynamics to the features of a NDE. For example visual and auditory phenomena, and the feeling of being sourrounded by a presence. --Hawol 10:15, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

External links section

I have done a clean up on the external link section, keeping only links that redirects the reader to well established organizations of academia and research. I believe that this kind of maintenance is necessary in order to keep this section as slim as possible. I do however believe that it is unfair to delete the problematic links as they certainly include a wide variety of interesting perspectives on NDE's. I have therefore provided a space for these left-over links here on the discussion site. This space might also be used to move future additions of problematic links from the mainsite. --Hawol 10:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

External links, moved fom the main article:

• Young Abraham Lincoln's Brush With Death (moved from the main article by --Hawol 10:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC))
• Crank.net page on NDEs (moved from the main article by --Hawol 10:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC))
• Homepage for The Near Death Experiment (A real Flatlining experiment)(moved from the main article by --Hawol 10:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC))
• An example of a complex Near-death experience containing both classical and mystical elements (moved from the main article by --Hawol 10:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC))
• Light after Death - NDE viewed from the perspective of the Bahá'í writings (moved from the main article by --Hawol 10:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC))
• Discussion of some of the weaknesses of the scientific explanations for NDEs (moved from the main article by --Hawol 10:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC))
• Ken Mullens' Personal Near Death Experience and the After Effects (moved from the main article by--Hawol 10:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC))

More skeptical articles in the external links would be good. All of the speptical links on there right now are blocked by my scool's web nanny (WebSense). 216.184.95.12 13:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

"We"?

What's up with this personal "we" style in the article? We find, we can rule out, all we can say is, etc. I found it very distracting when I read the article and I think it should be changed. Thoughts? --217.233.248.137 03:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Recent contrubution, not supported by a reference

The following contribution is relevant information, but it is unsupported by a reference. Please report a written source where these observations are noted.

Some experiencers took note of having a corporeal form where others did not; a few report noting a silver cord as a quasi-physical link to their physical bodies.

Otherwise, interesting. --Hawol 15:49, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe this is just people confusing their lives with the anime Bleach.

I'm astonished to discover that the silver cord isn't mentioned in the article. I definitely remember seeing it in at least two near-death experiences, one precipitated by being buried in sand (suffocation) when I was about 13, and another by a suicide attempt, accompanied by an out-of-the-body flight over my neighborhood, 64th Street and York Avenue in NYC, when I was about 22. Surely it must be discussed in nonfiction books. Unfree (talk) 16:36, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Question

I know there is no possible way to find out, but does a near-death experience also happen to one who has died, but never was revived? --70.77.11.85 23:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is detailed in several Lobsang Rampa books. See section above on TLR. --Robertkeller 21:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

S/He wouldn't be having a "near-death" experience now would they? ;) NeoFreak 15:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Recent change

Some one removed the sentence from the first paragraph which basically said that NDEs are caused by the fading brain and ofcourse have absolutely nothing to do with the afterlife, and put instead a sentace illuding that NDEs are somehow "linked" to the afterlife. In light of no evidence, disregard to the concensus of scientific community, and introduction of unsupported believes, I had to remove it, and restore it to the previous version. Igoruha 19:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

The article seems too slanted towards a naturalistic explanation for the NDE. I added material to balance it out more and provide readers with a less biased viewpoint. NDE research in the Netherlands and elsewhere has shown that NDEs are not the result of anoxia, hypoxia or hallucinations caused by medication. Additionally, research by Dr. Michael Sabom described a woman who underwent surgery for an aneurysm and the blood from her brain was emptied completely. She described having an NDE despite a flatline EEG. This is in contrast to some scientists belief that NDEs are caused by a fading brain (which, by the way, is NOT the "consensus of the scientific community." far from it. See: Morse, Sabom, Moody, Stevenson, Ring, et al.)

I support the balance; can you provide a scintific literature that justifies your view point ?Igoruha 22:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC).

I already have. Van Lommel is a cardiologist and so is Dr. Michael Sabom. Both have been published papers and written books on the subject. Dr. Melvin Morse wrote about NDEs in children and used his famous Seattle study to back up the work of Dr. Penfield from the 1940s (e.g. that NDEs can be triggered by stimulating an area near the Sylvian fissure in the brain). Morse hypothesized that the soul is connected to the brain and that this mind-body connection helps explain why NDEs are so different than consciousness while in the body. Articles published by Lancet and IANDS are generally supportive of NDEs being an afterlife experience.

Let me rephrase, can you provide an internet link to the work(s) you read (or atleast cite them properly) ?Igoruha 22:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

1) http://iands.org/research/vanLommel/vanLommel.php 2) http://iands.org/research/vanLommel/vanLommel0.php

The peer-reviewed 2001 Van Lommel/Dutch/Lancet study is here: http://www.zarqon.co.uk/Lancet.pdf. The IANDS writeup is here: http://www.iands.org/dutch_study.html. Note that this study claims to "show that medical factors cannot account for occurrence of NDE." However this interpretation is disputed. For example, as noted in the IANDS writeup, which quotes British psychology professor Christopher French: NDE might result from "prior knowledge, fantasy or dreams, lucky guesses, ...details learned between the NDE and giving an account of it, and...false memories...the mind trying to retrospectively 'fill in the gap' after a period of cortical inactivity." Skeptic06 03:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)Skeptic06

Someone Be Bold

Someone be bold and remove all of the uncited and shittily cited (things cited like "Stefanski, 2001"). This is possibly the worst article in the whole of Wikipedia. 76.210.187.57 21:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You need to get out and see some more of Wikipedia if you think this is the worst article out there :) I'll see what I can't do as this article was on my hit list anyway but you have to remember that not every single line or statement is going to have a cite on it when much of the article is pulled from physical sources like books, newspapers and magazines. Don't be afraid to be bold yourself, get an account and dive in. If it's bad it can always be reverted with a few clicks.

On another note I have some copyvio concerns with this article as well as it reads like muchof it was just pulled from source texts. Can the editors with the refs chime in, please? NeoFreak 22:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Well my attempt to extend the content some was trounced as "doesn't give any information" - I'm certain it could have been expanded but sometimes I guess it's easier to just cut. I used to particpate in online discussions a lot but was not happy hours of research would just age away into lost history. Now hours of research can be deleted because it's no good. I'm sure it's an improvement somehow.--Smkolins 23:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a Terrible Article

This article is in need of some serious work. It seems to be entirely written by someone who completely believes that NDEs are a connection with the afterlife and that they are unexplainable by normal means. The article is very misleading at times as well. For instance, It leads one to believe multiple times that clincal death means one is actually dead which is not true, one is not truly dead until brain death has occured. Also, it makes one believe that our understanding of the brain and its complex systems is relatively complete which definitely not true. It lists very few possible biological explanations (when there are many) for NDEs and those that it does list it gives very little description to and seems to cast off as implausible. Did anyone else notice that the "citations" for all the "proof" for a paranormal explanations are substantially lacking (e.x. [Ring, Cooper, 1999])? Some please clean this stuff up. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.190.218.242 (talk) 06:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC).

The web-page www.near-death.com is a lot better - I'll agree with you there.

........................................... The citations were MLA format. . and the sources were listed inside the article via parenthasis and Names of Organizations, including publication years. Look harder and please do some proof readingm or get some pointers on proper punctuation. How are we to take you seriously if you cannot keep sentence structure to the standards of the English language? Please. . I'm giving constructive critisizm. . . Fix up your own post that took you two minutes to type (or if you are slow. . 5 minutes).

• Yeah whoever wrote this article should be considered "clinically dead", LOL. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.94.54.14 (talk) 01:12, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The ketamine theory is flawed.

I am a wholehearted believer that their exists only oblivion after death... but the ketamine theory is flawed for one simple reason, often times people have NDE while under cardiac arrest and with absolutely no brain activity detected. Ketamine might be able to replicate NDE's, but to replicate NDE as well as stopping all heart and brain activity is another thing entirely.--Rotten 21:39, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Olaf Blanke interview comments

I spent some time trying to verify the accuracy of this claim in the Olaf Blanke section: "Blanke however does not dismiss the idea that these experiences may have objective factors. In a 2002 BBC Radio interview he stated that one of his patients had accurately perceived information outside of her sensory range after stimulation of her right-angular gyrus. He went on to say that more research was needed. [8]"

The only reference I was able to find was the tripod.com article. Consequently, I wrote to Dr. Blanke to ask him whether he could confirm the claim. I sent Dr. Blanke the relevant material from the above page:

  In a 2002 BBC Radio debate, Dr. Olaf Blanke revealed that the epileptic
  patient - who unexpectedly reported out-of-body perceptions when her
  right-angular gyrus was stimulated - actually made visual observations
  of the operating room that the conventional scientific paradigm cannot
  explain. Even though he understandably excluded these details from the
  article published in the journal Nature, the Bern neuroscientist did
  not dismiss the possibility of the objective out-of-body experience,
  stating many more studies should be carried out.

to which he responded:

 "The patient in question never made any observation about an operating room (she was actually
  in the neurology ward) and also did not see anything outside her visual field nothing was
  excluded from the article (more detail appeared in a follow article) also the examination was
  carried out in geneva (not in bern) as mentioned in the quote)"

His email is quoted with permission. On that basis, I have removed the relevant material from the OBE page. --Booloo 21:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

References

The references mentioned in the text of the article need to be converted into Wiki format. I'll work on this later today. --Wasted Sapience 12:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Dividing Points

I want to break sections of this article off into other articles, but I don't know exactly where to do this. Suggestions? --Wasted Sapience 19:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I went ahead and created two new articles: Effects of Near-death experiences and Religous and scientific views of near-death experiences. I think those were good breaking points. Should we need to fix the names of these articles, we can later. The sections about these which I left in this article need to be fixed. --Wasted Sapience 19:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Pam Reynolds accounts and references are mistaken

Even the Dr. who believes Reynolds had an NDE notes that both of her major experiences happened BEFORE she was put in a state of caridac arrest, not during her flatline, as the article implies. I've edited these sections to coincide with, well, reality.Plunge 13:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

NDE due to attempted suicide

Kenneth Ring has found in Heading toward Omega (1984) that there is apparently no correlation between the cause of a near-death situation and the kind of the NDE. Especially the common belief that suicide-related NDEs were usually (ore at least more often than other NDEs) "hell-like" seems to be wrong. I have to admit at this point that I have read the German translation only (Den Tod erfahren - das Leben gewinnen. Erkenntnisse und Erfahrungen von Menschen, die an der Schwelle zum Tod gestanden und überlebt haben., Bern, München, Wien: Scherz, 1984)), but it should be equivalent to the original book.--SiriusB 16:00, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Removed Link to CSICOP Online Article

I removed the link to the CSICOP Online article for two reasons. Firstly, it was in the "Neutral" links section when in fact it was highly skeptical, and in fact not only skeptical but mocking. Moreover, it has nothing significant to contribute to an understand of the phenomenon under discussion. And that is why I did not put it in the "Skeptical" section but rather left it out entirely. CSICOP is well represented by the Dr Susan Blackmore article linked in the Skeptical section - that is a thoughtful and intelligently-written article (even though I do not agree with it.) Hi There 13:52, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

NDES refuted

Didn't the Olaf Blanke's experiment refute the NDE? NDEs are simply some dysfunction of the Brain and death is the end, complete annihilation of the mind. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.106.150.101 (talk) 10:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

No. Blanke's experiments are very similar to those conducted by Dr. Wilder Penfield in the 1940s, but neither conclusively disprove the theory that NDEs are anything less then an afterlife experience. The alternating spectrum fields of PBC and ADC -- Pre-Birth Communication and After Death Communication, respectively -- also show promising results supportive of an afterlife hypothesis. PBCs deal with communication between unborn spirits and their prospective parent(s), while ADCs typically involve visitations and direct communiques between loved ones and their deceased counterparts.

I have been researching NDEs, OBEs, PBCs and ADCs for a number of years now and have come to some startling conclusions based solely on the available data. It is clear to me after almost a decade studying these fields that something exists outside of three-dimensional reality. That "something" is bigger than humanity and even the universe. - Paul P.

Really? You've discovered something larger than the universe have you? How much larger, exactly?

Have you written anything up? Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 00:08, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

New explanation (Kinseher)

Sorry if I'm in the wrong spot here--first time logged in, and a bit lost.

The "New explanation" section of the Wikipedia page describing a single-theory explanation of NDEs is so full of errors it really needs to be shut down. For instance:

1) he is declared to be dead by a doctor or nurse, or when a person has the subjective impression to be in a fatal situation (´I will die´): Cannot be made as a blanket statement. Occasional NDErs hear a physician say they are dead; most do not; many NDErs report no thought of being dead or near-dead, only that they are in an unusual situation.

3) Most of the patients are not able to move. It is flatly untrue that people who have an NDE are unable to move. Accounts abound of OBEs occurring during violent struggle in a physical attack or sexual abuse, in combat, or when people are floundering in a near-drowning or struggling to escape a perilous situation.

4) A very unpleasant sound/noise is the first sensory impression: Untrue. Occasionally someone reports an unpleasant sound; however, some people describe hearing beautiful music and other people mention hearing only silence; sometimes a noise appears later in the experience, but not necessarily an unpleasant noise.

5) During the memory-scan of a NDE - when we remind us of these pictures very speedy one after the other like in movie, then we have the impression to travel through a dark tunnel towards and into a light. I thought the birth-canal theory about NDEs had been discarded 20 years ago. Popular impressions notwithstanding, the tunnel is not an universal feature of an NDE, nor is the light. In non-Western NDEs, tunnels do not appear at all.

And so on, throughout. I am too new here to know the protocols for shutting down really erroneous information, but this one qualifies. Nebbel 21:24, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Nebbel, answers to your arguments are on top of this page in the chapter ´new explanation´ (I made a mistake, to add it not here)

Different Religions

I was wondering whether or not there are any recorded cases of someone who is not Christian, but of a different religion, going to their after life, for instance, a Buddhist going to Nirvana, a Muslim going to Paradise, ect...

yes you can find many accounts of people with different religious backgrounds here [9] Funny thing is they almost always see and enter the same light, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.180.246.38 (talk) 03:42, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Intro

The introduction is in poor English and doesn't even say what a NDE is, so I have amended it.Ben Finn 17:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Ken Mullens

Again, I have been bold and removed this section because it wasn't cited properly but did contain a link to a website selling the book which I thought might be considered spam.

However I believe it still may be of interest if it could be rewritten.There is some information that might be useful. I tried rewriting it earlier to improve the style but decided to delete it. Anyway, I'll paste the section here, (which includes my improvements )so that it can be discussed and possibly salvaged if it's deemed appropriate by another editor --Godfinger 20:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC):

There also exist reports about connections between deceased persons and persons who have had an NDE. Ken Mullens (1992;1995), who was clinically dead for more than 20 minutes, reported spiritual encounters in his life after his NDE. According to Mullens deceased persons he claimed to have communicated with were often unknown to him, but were connected to people he met at a later point. While such reports are dismissed by skeptics, others maintain that such reports are not easily discredited .Since they have no apparent medical or physical explanation they are said to belong to the interpretative and phenomenological dimension of the NDE, as investigated by the field of Near-death studies. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Godfinger (talk • contribs).

Article needs complete makeover

The current state of this article is horrible. It has become a mixture of netuality and of opinion. Over the past weeks people have been constantly writing their own opinions about this issue and this needs to stop. Just a friendly pointer to Omvegan, that Susan does not dismiss the spiritual significance of these experiences. Susan herself, practices Zen. I don't mind people posting their opinions on the discussion page, but comments like 85.106.150.101's just make me me mad. I despise when people make narrow minded assumptions like that. Saying that "this is evidence for afterlife and it exist" or "this is not evidence for the afterlife and it does not exist" is too close minded and I completely agree with Omvegan about the spiritual aspect of these experiences. People need to more open minded and be less abosulute. I should just rename myself "Power Agnostic" Trilobite12 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trilobite12 (talk • contribs) 20:44, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

It's pretty hard to help an article when you get reverted without explanation. ——Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 04:14, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Great Way of putting it

Thanky you Jasumi. That was a great way of phrasing it. I have to admit that statment I made on the biological aspects kinda had a opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.222.30.24 (talk) 15:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Not biased Jasumi

The fact that the experience has a huge impact on the observer is not a biased opinion, it is a fact. Also the fact that scientists are trying to understand these experiences not debunk them should be left on the article. If you disagree, please share it on the disscusion page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trilobite12 (talk • contribs) 17:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Opps!

Sorry Jasumi, my computer just did not show the that certain paragraph for some reason. I apologize —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trilobite12 (talk • contribs) 17:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup October 2007

14-Oct-2007: This is simply to note that, during copy-edit cleanup, I had to make more than 90 minor changes, so it might look like the article has been changed everywhere, including:

• in the "progression" list of symptoms, put lowercase bullets;
• removed period @"Index"; downcased "epilepsy"; put "an NDE";
• put "are" for phrase "we find"; italicized title "Skeptic";
• fixed spelling of "Knoblauch"; upcased author names;
• reused Bright-Lights & Cardiac footnotes as tags "bright" & "cardiac";
• indented many footnotes for internal clarity;
• quoted article titles, but italicized magazine titles;
• added many commas or colons;
• untagged for "{{cleanup}}" and "{{tone}}" tags.

Typically, articles require less than 40 changes for cleanup. -Wikid77 03:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Cultural bias.

I notice that this article seems to have a slight cultural bias towards near-death experiences in Western cultures. There are many accounts from different cultures, in which people report seeing the afterlife or supernatural world that they personally believe in. --Aquillion (talk) 05:37, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Experiences of a Tibetan woman

Extract :From the Chapter – Tales from the Bardo : After Death Experiences of Tibetan Delogs FORM INSEPARABLE FROM WISDOM: THE EXPERIENCE OF DAWA DROLMA

Austerlitz -- 88.75.95.44 (talk) 07:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whether all of the socalled delogs of Tibet have been women. Anybody knows? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.75.95.44 (talk) 07:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Real NDE case

Who did removed my link 666? I had real NDE and don't understand why this link is worse of many others! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickols k (talk • contribs) 08:33, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Your link has been removed since it was in violation of one of the Wikipedia guidelines about No Original Research by citing yourself, with no third part source supporting your statement. DagosNavy 01:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I had visited the afterlife and had meeting with the beast and received his mark! Which things are ordinal here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickols k (talk • contribs) 09:22, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

John Wren-Lewis - page no longer available - but I have a copy.

I do have a copy of something John Wren-Lewis wrote, which is no longer out on the Net. It was here: [10]. I don't know what happened to it.

Here is my copy: [11]. Omvegan (talk) 15:26, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Coverage on "Today"

In the United Kingdom, this topic was covered by Sam Parnia on the Radio 4 programme "Today" on September 18, 2008 - this perhaps merits mention. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:58, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

It's included in Near_death_experience#Research. --EPadmirateur (talk) 23:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Red River Productions videos

These videos appear to be posted on Google by the company that produced them (per a news item from 2003) and so are not a copyright violation. --EPadmirateur (talk) 04:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so I was wrong there, but perhaps, could it not be argued that it's spammy? Is there a reason why we are including this company's video? That would open the gates to posting links to every documentary on NDEs ever made, and we aren't a repoistory for links. hbdragon88 (talk) 05:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The more I think about it the more I agree with hbdragon88. The videos probably shouldn't be linked to per wikipedia policy and as such I have removed them. Themfromspace (talk) 13:22, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Most of the scientific community??

The article claims that:

Most of the scientific community regards such experiences as hallucinatory...

Where is the support for such a claim? All the "big names" in NDE research are of a different opinion as far as I have understood; NDE's can not be explained as a "product of the brain". The interesting part about NDE's is quite the opposite; "Most of the scientific community", or at least the part of the "scientific community" who is looking at NDE's are of the opinion that they can NOT be hallucinations. I feel that this sentence is not only misleading but probably also totally untrue. If there are no references to back up the claim I feel that that sentence should be removed. --Dalahimself (talk) 18:11, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

NDEs are a product of the brain. I know a lady who had a NDE while driving a car. On a very narrow road, another car came suddenly from the other side. She thought ´my life is finished´ and had a NDE(life review) - but nevertheless she was able to make way for the other car - without accident. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.209.86.24 (talk) 04:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

It makes you wonder if your soul gets confused and releases you from you body. Or does our minds just play the same picture for almost everybody when we lose control. When my siter was in high school she had a panic attack which lead to an "out of body experience". She was looking down on everyone in the room, thinking, "how can this be?". She had never even heard of an "out of body experience" before. She didn't know this had happened to other people before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.180.246.38 (talk) 03:55, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

You derived from the original subject for this conversation guys. Personally, I feel that this article is currently pretty good and almost neutral, but indeed the "most of the scientific community" seemed to me very weird. We shouldn't make generalities, should it be spiritual or scientific. GrosBedo (talk) 13:44, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Duration of being pronounced legally dead is not given & no somaform

How long have these people who have NDEs (what ever they are) been pronounced LEGALLY DEAD by the attending physician who officially makes this call for a hospital floor? Any material? From 1 minute to 2 days? I think this info should be in the article? Are these people really dead? Or have they only approached death. No data on somaform dissociation.

None of them was dead. A NDE is only the result of a brain function: When we have the experience ´I will die, I am dead´ (= trigger), then our brain scans the episodic memory to compare ´had I already had such an experience - and what had I done in this situation´. The experience ´I am dead/I will die´ is a nonsense (paradox) to an organism, who is still alive(!!!) => therefore a very thorough scan is made. The brain concentrates all his attention on this scan - therefore it may be observed by the owner of the brain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.209.105.248 (talk) 10:40, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Cite your sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.49.115.179 (talk) 23:20, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

IANDS takes a neutral position on the interpretation of NDEs

The link to the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) web site was placed under the subheading of "As an afterlife experience". This is an incorrect attribution. According to the IANDS web site (about IANDS),

Where scholarship does not indicate a reasonably clear position on the origin or interpretation of these experiences, we remain impartial and open to the presentation of varying points of view; however, while all personal beliefs will be respected, IANDS is under no obligation to consider them all equally supportable. Whatever the viewpoint, IANDS never supports proselytizing.

Consequently, I have moved the link to a "General" subheading. --EPadmirateur (talk) 23:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

This article is horrific. Smells of New-Age all over it.

It needs a good reshuffling of its information into a more scientifically-centred view. This is wikipedia, not, Madam-Madonna's card Tarot prophecies. --AaThinker (talk) 21:32, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

It may help you to express the concern you are having if you read WP:NPOV a few times. Tom Haws (talk) 21:50, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

What is Consciousness?

I believe that people who call in question the neutrality of this page and stating that it is entirely written by afterlife believers are completely wrong. Just because their opinion is also too biased, because they merely believe that NDE is explainable by "normal" means. May I ask the question what is "normal means"? Regardless of what the afterlife is and whether it exists or not, the fact is that our moderns science knows nothing about what the consciousness is. For these who believe that our consciousness is just a brain function, I would recommend reading an interesting article "Reality in quantum mechanics, Extended Everett Concept, and consciousness" by M. B. Mensky which has been published in English in "Optics and Spectroscopy" jounrnal on 12 Oct 2006. [12]. This article raises some interesting points on nature of the mind and it's dependence on outward things (e.g. our brain).

Below is an Abstract to this article:

"Conceptual problems in quantum mechanics result from the specific quantum concept of reality and require, for their solution, including the observer's consciousness into the quantum theory of measurements. Most naturally, this is achieved in the framework of Everett's "many-world interpretation" of quantum mechanics. According to this interpretation, various classical alternatives are perceived by consciousness separately from each other. In the Extended Everett Concept (EEC) proposed by the present author, the separation of the alternatives is identified with the phenomenon of consciousness. This explains the classical character of the alternatives and unusual manifestations of consciousness arising "at the edge of consciousness" (i.e., in sleep or trance) when its access to "other alternative classical realities" (other Everett's worlds) becomes feasible. Because of reversibility of quantum evolution in EEC, all time moments in the quantum world are equivalent, while the impression of flow of time appears only in consciousness. If it is assumed that consciousness may influence the probabilities of alternatives (which is consistent in case of infinitely many Everett's worlds), EEC explains free will, "probabilistic miracles" (observing low-probability events), and decreasing entropy in the sphere of life."

It would be great if someone could adapt this text for use in article on NDE or Consciousness

This quantum-article is nonsense. NDEs and some dreams are functions of the brain, which can be observed by its owner, when his/her attention is concentrated on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.209.103.110 (talk) 04:16, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Bingo, not to mention many experience these so called NDEs during experiences with high dose of dissociative drugs, not death. C6541 (T↔C) 01:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but nonsense is your statement, not this article. After all, Menskiy uses serious argumentation whilst you just postulate your idea. You should have read the original source before submitting such comments.

universal similarities/ varying experiences depending on upbringing or faith

After having done some reading I've really confused about what the actual records are of peoples' experiences. Many researches have claim that there is a huge amount of variation, or that the experience entirely depend on an individual's faith or country of origin and culture, while others say that all of their data shows there is a standard, common experience that all people have during a near death experience, independently of all this. I found an example to the second on of these in the "different religions" section above. This debate seems to be to be absolutely central to understanding what near death experiences are. Can anyone shed some light on this who has been exposed to a lot of research in the area? I'm also curious about other peoples' thoughts on this matter. It seems someone is warping evidence or just plain fabricating it to prove their point here. I'm really curious as to why there's not unanimous agreement... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alex56l (talk • contribs) 19:01, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

News article

Here's a news article that might lead to a new, updated source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8607660.stm – VisionHolder « talk » 13:13, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Removed paragraph

Some research has suggested that unconscious patients can overhear conversations even if the hospital machines are not registering any brain activity. Research conducted at Sheffield University led to a finding that the release of adrenaline caused by tissue damage during surgery may cause this. Recent findings have also shown that people diagnosed in a "persistent vegetative state" can communicate through their thoughts, as detected by an fMRI.

• I removed this, as it does not appear to be relevant; patients who are unconscious or in a vegetative state are presumably not clinically dead. Ben Standeven (talk) 21:40, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose that Tunnel of light is merged with this article, simply because it is a part of the near death experience, and the whole article consists of three sentences and a reference. If nobody has any good arguments against this proposal, I will do this, but not earlier than 27/6. Lova Falk talk 20:04, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

dovel

I removed the passage about Matthew Dovel from "effects" because the list of effects he claims, following on from a scientific discussion, are hopelessly out of place. Besides, its sourced to his own website, which is not great. Maybe it can be placed back into the article within the spirituality section, a task for an editor more inclined that I am. Here it is:

Matthew Dovel, author of My Last Breath, having had two near-death experiences, discusses the side effects associated with having had a NDE (empathic, telepathy, clairaudience, clairvoyance, precognition, remote viewing, communication with animals, children, and the failure of timepieces). +|||||||||||||||||||||||||+ (talk) 01:13, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Criticisms

I'm a little distressed by some of the sections that purport to "explain" NDEs. They have basically zero evidentiary support, whereas thousands of NDEs have been documented. I only lean in the direction of the evidence. To say that NDEs may be like lucid dreaming, in which sexual experiences occur, while sexual experiences never occur in NDEs, is quackery, hogwash, and more perniciously, delusional. Usually Wikipedia does not tolerate such unfounded conjecture. I can understand things being outside of one's weltenschauung, but some of this absolutely defies credibility. Why the dying brain would evolve to die a certain way lies completely outside the realm of evolution - dying is not positively selected for. That is the essence of evolution. Computer models that purport to model neuronal death are entirely pointless until a computer recovers from heart failure or recorded brain death and tells us what happened. It's fascinating that in these cases clinicians deny their own belief in their profession's definition of brain death. Astounding. Similar rebuttals can be made of the other entirely absurd criticisms -- "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof must one be silent."Masondickson (talk) 10:47, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Death is not reversible, therefore persons which reported a NDE must have been alive and conscious during this experience. NDEs are usually started by a trigger: when a person (conscious) hear or feel that he/she might die. Persons who don´t have this stimulus, usually don´t have a NDE - this is the reason why 70-80% have no NDE when they lose consciousness (after the heart beat stopped). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.146.225.225 (talk) 14:17, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

This is a straw man argument. It makes one wonder why then anyone would bother to assess brain or heart death. And of course no one knows how many people who are actually dying/die/have died have had NDEs. Your phrase "alive and conscious" has not been borne out in the most intractable (in terms of a satisfactory explanation) cases. We seem willing to accept that they remained "conscious," but the problem is that in some cases scientific methods have failed to recognize them as "alive." Also I would I think most people who have a heart attack realize something is very wrong - they tend to not lose consciousness immediately. It would be painstaking to address all of the tenuous correlations you've managed to establish in a few sentences. See above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.21.104.57 (talk) 07:14, 22 September 2010 (UTC) 173.21.104.57 (talk) 11:18, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

A little more. According to this article, we can't compute the nervous function of a worm with 302 neurons. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/science/21consciousness.html?pagewanted=1&ref=science Relevant neuronal models will only occur when we have computers that can approximate organic human brain function. (I'd give it at least 100 years.) 173.21.104.57 (talk) 11:25, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Heart attack and a stop of the heartbeats should not be mixed up - because these are different experiences. A heart attack can be painful, but when the heartbeat stops, a person will lose consciousness within 15-20 seconds, without recognizing the situation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.146.217.85 (talk) 14:16, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Not what I wanted

I was looking for an article about a different kind of near death experience. Not people who claim to have seen, the after life, but people who simply came close to being dead, that is people who survived terrible accidents or were rushed to the hospital just in time. To me, a near death experience needn't have anything to do with the afterlife. Makewater (talk) 17:06, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

NDEs are started by a trigger; e.g. when a person think that he/she might die. This trigger ´I am dead´ is a paradox to the situation: the person is healthy and alife; - therefore the NDE is started. It needs no terrible accident. E.g. an acquaintance was with her car in a very difficult traffic situation. She thougth ´I will die now´ and thus she had immediately an NDE, parallel to this she could manage the situation without accident. This example show, that NDEs are started only by a trigger-experience. A similar experience can be found in the book ´Life after Life´: A lorry-driver who had an accident, experienced a NDE - but he was not hurt at all. This example might fit to your wishes - and it has the advantage, that it was described my Mr. Moody himself already 1975 in his book.

NDEs sometimes came to an end by a second trigger experience - when a person it thinking ´I do not want to die´ or ´my family needs me´.

funny

it is very entertaining to compare this article to its german pendant. the english article lacks a section of criticism (of non scientific theories) and the german article barely contains a section with non sientific arguments for a dualistic mind-body theory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.203.15.162 (talk) 15:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

New scientific based information can be found at www.skeptiko.com > 116. Dr. Sam Parnia Claims Near Death Experiences Probably an Illusion, Oct. 14th. Dr. Parnia is/was responsible for ´The AWARE Study´, which was supported by the United Nations Organisation; a research study to understand what will happen, when we die.