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Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

newscientist.com

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Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#171

Post by mensetmanusman »

rbanffy wrote: post #140
mensetmanusman wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the process, the plane of existence where the object is. Many who have left Plato’s cave doubt that those objects are made of material.

Without a definition of what’s material in this context, this discussion makes very little sense. We can’t see objective reality since all we see and sense have to go through our brains. What we can do is to interpret what we see and try to arrive at something that represents a consensus among our different perceptions.

Are you saying the mind is another form of interpretation? Where is that plane of interpretation happening?

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#172

Post by NovaDudely »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #150
wessorh wrote: post #146

Having recently recovered from Legionnaires where I was in a medically induced coma for nearly 2 months where I received CPR twice for flat-lining here is my experience... I didn't know what happened but I did get to meet deities, aliens and participate in a bunch of sci-fi oriented excursions. In short I learned about where the mind goes under a lot of drugs and I appreciate the experience. It was easier to remember…

I had open heart surgery once, and was given a lot of drugs. It was extremely intense and strange, and I felt like I was at the edge of discovering something immensely important. In retrospect I believe I learned nothing.

I think I posted it on here before but I recall a story of someone who said they would speak to God on LSD and that everything was profound.

So one time they decided to ask "God" what the meaning of life was and they would write it down to study the next day. The next day all that was written down was "Walls". It felt profound but meant nothing.

That is unless walls is the answer and it is just too blunt for us to understand but that is a question for another day. ;)

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#173

Post by akomtu »

supertofu wrote: post #113

The filter theory* of consciousness holds that consciousness is an element independent of the human brain. Every brain acts as a unique filter for this elemental consciousness, structuring reality in the most optimal way for that creature to survive. This filtered consciousness forms the "default mode network", which is the construction of ego or separate self. Near death experiences (and psychedelics and Buddhist jh…

It's an interesting idea. When someone plays chess with himself, he creates two filters that represent the two imaginary players.

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#174

Post by crossroadsguy »

wessorh wrote: post #146

Having recently recovered from Legionnaires where I was in a medically induced coma for nearly 2 months where I received CPR twice for flat-lining here is my experience... I didn't know what happened but I did get to meet deities, aliens and participate in a bunch of sci-fi oriented excursions. In short I learned about where the mind goes under a lot of drugs and I appreciate the experience. It was easier to remember…

Definitely not like you but last year I had COVID and while everything else was fine as doctor said I had high fever for 5 days straight with little dip and I hallucinated like anything had known before.

Then after some time I had dengue. Well, that made COVID fever experience a walk in a well maintained park. I would not wish dengue on anyone!

The difference of these hallucinations was that it seemed so real. I got to remember what happened and a lot I can remember even now - after months. Characters, people, my connection with them, whys, whats, names, clear faces, places, signs and marks around me from those episodes. While in case regular dreams by the end of an hour so it disintegrates so fast I can barely remember I had a dream and can’t recall much of it.

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#175

Post by akomtu »

andrewflnr wrote: post #136

The digression into mysticism in this thread is weird. Finding a physical correlate of NDEs reinforces the materialist view, which is basically the null hypothesis for "sceptics". Everyone who didn't already believe in an immaterial soul can calm down.

What is "materiality"? Electrons guided by magnetic field that form one universal wave function? In that case even the hardcore materialists are fundamentally in agreement with mysticism.

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#176

Post by afastow »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #144
yarg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The universe is perfect The universe is a cosmic horror, life emerges and with it untold suffering. The very notion of perfection is also emergent (not to mention self relative), outside of the conceptual framework of the observer's mind perfection does not even exist. The universe is beautiful, life emerges and with it all understanding, love and joy. Two sides of the same emergent coin, the nature of all experien…

Sigh, now you've got me sitting here having an existential crisis over my long held belief in the perfection of the universe. The belief was primarily based on a deterministic view of it, with the notion that everything comes from something, and becomes something else. Every moment has two perfectly balanced sides, with perfect knowledge of the laws of the universe giving you a perfect understanding of all the transf…

If you want to intensify your existential crisis then you might enjoy this interesting half astrophysics half philosophy article from the NY Times today (should be a gift link):

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/02/science/end-of-universe.h...

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#177

Post by akomtu »

garganzol wrote: post #135
fnordpiglet wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elucidate?

Imagine a film of still and moving images depicting all situations that you ever experienced in your whole life. When you have a near death experience, that imaginary film appears in your consciousness and you immediately recall all those situations down to the greatest details, in parallel. You recall and relive even those moments that you thought were irreversibly lost in your memory. That process of recalling take…

There is an old saying: spirit lives by giving, matter lives by taking. One interpretation: by sharing knowledge, your "possession" doesn't diminish, but grows as it lives in more minds; however when you share food, you have less food. This explains how the spirit's innate drive to grow becomes greed when it expresses itself thru matter. Only when it stops identifying with matter, it becomes free.

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#178

Post by sakopov »

reuben_scratton wrote: post #130

When my mother died she had been completely unconscious for a whole week, but just 30 minutes before she died she opened her eyes and looked around the room. I was later told by a nurse that this is quite common when people are about to die. It seems to fit with the notion of one last burst of brain activity.

People also inexplicably get better for a few days/weeks before they die. This happened with my grandfather who died of cancer and my great-grandmother who died of sepsis.

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#179

Post by akomtu »

Moneyyyyy wrote: post #114

Why do we clinge on this type of ideas? It's an EEG not a super high resolution device. Yes our brain does stuff at the edge of breaking. EEG changes somehow when we put ourself under anesthesia . Still we don't really get it. And weirdly enough comments here go into afterlife and other esoteric stuff. We know enough about our brain that we know we are our brain...

We've just discovered that most of the world is made of "dark" matter of unknown origin. Clearly, what we know is just a thin layer of reality. And even about this thin layer we know very little.

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#180

Post by EvanDotPro »

wessorh wrote: post #146

Having recently recovered from Legionnaires where I was in a medically induced coma for nearly 2 months where I received CPR twice for flat-lining here is my experience... I didn't know what happened but I did get to meet deities, aliens and participate in a bunch of sci-fi oriented excursions. In short I learned about where the mind goes under a lot of drugs and I appreciate the experience. It was easier to remember…

This sounds quite similar to many DMT experiences you see on YouTube and hear about on podcasts. I wonder if there's been any studies monitoring DMT levels in realtime as people pass away to measure if there's a significant spike around the time of death. I recall hearing that measuring DMT levels is difficult because we process it so quickly.
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