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Awareness at Death

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Re: Awareness at Death

#41

Post by saulpw »

taberiand wrote: post #24
surfsvammel wrote: post #7

The brain is a strange thing. Perception and experience is very difficult to wrap one's head around. I have fainted several times, for different reasons. Often in medical settings but also in other settings. Often when I wake up I am in a state where I feel like I’ve been gone for hours, it feels like I’ve been basically dreaming the equivalent of a full length movie, when in reality I’ve been out for maybe a minute.…

It's not necessary to have an experience that lasts hours in order to have a memory of an experience that lasted hours, even less necessary if it's just the feeling of an experience that lasted hours. Our memory is highly fallible and easily manipulated, at least compared to how much people tend to believe it's a flawless record of the past. All memories exist in the present, a memory created a minute ago about an ex…

There is experience after your before-birth, though; how do you know there won't be another experience after your death? Maybe it takes a trillion trillion years, and the collapse and rebirth of the entire universe; but all that would happen in subjectively no time at all.

Re: Awareness at Death

#42

Post by ericmay »

nytesky wrote: post #35
hyggetrold wrote: post #3

I had an English teacher in high school who had a near death experience during a surgery. His description of the experience tracks with what's in the article - floating above the body, a tremendous feeling of peace and acceptance, and the feeling of being drawn towards a bright light. I can't say I'm not afraid of death but it's nice to hear stories like these from folks that help lessen that fear. :)

I try to imagine life before I was born, and that doesn't seem so bad, so i assume worst case that's what death will be like. The moments before, yeah who knows...

I find little comfort in this myself because it’s not the fear of being dead - I almost certainly won’t have a self to experience anything but it is the time leading up to this point when one has to contemplate finite existence that I find terror in the loss of everything and everyone I cherish.

As I recently lost someone close and spent a lot of time by their side, including taking them to appointments and such, the loss of ability and agency associated with various cancers and diseases is also quite scary.

Many times I’ve heard Sam Harris discuss the topic and the topic of meditation and one thing he mentions is taking joy in that the current experience, whether that is dinner with friends or doing a push-up may be the last time you ever have that experience. While I appreciate that one should focus on the moment, I’ve unfortunately found myself doing my best not to “take time to reflect” because the reflection is a reminder of loss and not an inspiration to enjoy the moment.

Re: Awareness at Death

#43

Post by Kalkaline »

elil17 wrote: post #26

>First, most of the 53 survivors initially flat-lined on the EEG, but, with continued CPR, recovered brain activity up to 60 minutes later. Good lord that's a long time. Does this mean that if I'm performing CPR, I should keep going for 61 minutes? Longer?

That's a complicated question and answer with a lot of variables. Are we talking about gam-gam with multi-organ failure on a mechanical ventilator who has had chronic pain for years and just prayed to Jesus to send her home? Or are we talking about a 20 something athlete who just collapsed on the field of play and received immediate attention? Because both of those get different answers.

Re: Awareness at Death

#44

Post by DoingIsLearning »

Very cool to even explore this area. Although I do have to ask how on earth can this work in terms of patient consent?

Because if you ask conscient me, would I want a researcher waffling around in a room I am being resuscitated in, I would certainly not consent.

Physical space around the patient and distraction free environment are a premium in a resuscitation. The "Without interfering with the resuscitation" part reads like something you write down in a proposal to get it past an Ethics committee.

Re: Awareness at Death

#45

Post by buildsjets »

Beijinger wrote: post #5

This sounds odd. I always thought, death is like being on vacation with some Germans.

Rosencrantz: Do you think Death could possibly be a boat?

Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is "not." Death isn't. Take my meaning? Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not be on a boat.

Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.

Guildenstern: No, no... What you've been is not on boats.

Re: Awareness at Death

#46

Post by lawlessone »

sbjs wrote: post #38
hyggetrold wrote: post #3

I had an English teacher in high school who had a near death experience during a surgery. His description of the experience tracks with what's in the article - floating above the body, a tremendous feeling of peace and acceptance, and the feeling of being drawn towards a bright light. I can't say I'm not afraid of death but it's nice to hear stories like these from folks that help lessen that fear. :)

It's a logical fallacy to say that a common experience is the only experience, and that fear therefore should be lessened. Perhaps the fear is there for good reason, and perhaps there is a soul and there is moral judgment at death and perhaps our moral character is sealed in stone at death, whether good or bad. Can't rule these out because lots of NDEs say it's a peaceful experience.

Well the fear is evolved. Outside of action hero movies things that don't adequately fear dying probably reproduce less. Except the honey badger.

Re: Awareness at Death

#47

Post by metamet »

MPSimmons wrote: post #40

In January, 2022, I experienced a 100% blockage of my Left Anterior Descending artery (a "widowmaker" heart attack), and I experienced cardiac arrest for a minute or two while on the exam table in a local emergency room. CPR was administered, and I was shocked back into rhythm, whereupon I regained consciousness immediately. During the time I was dead, I have a memory. It is a singular experience of non-existence. Ev…

> I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. In the face of such evidence and against such powerful and widespread belief systems of the afterlife, I occasionally think of the possibility of an afterlife, but there is no hint that I will see anyone I know, or even continue to exist in any form, but rather a long dreamless sleep.

- Carl Sagan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium

Re: Awareness at Death

#48

Post by OfSanguineFire »

demondemidi wrote: post #2

Whew, glad this dodged the "woo". I've seen similar reports like this, that fail to detect any parapsychological assertions. I often wonder if people who have these experiences have ever done hallucinogens. I have a feeling that if someone has previously experienced the flimsy nature of perceived reality, they wouldn't be so quick to ascribe near-death experiences to something supernatural.

Considering that a popular hallucinogen today, DMT (with or without the ayahuasca ritual), commonly leaves users with the conviction that the drug really opened a portal to another dimension inhabited by godlike entities, and didn’t just scramble their synapses like e.g. LSD – I think that the experience you suggest wouldn’t necessary dissuade people from reaching for a supernatural explanation.

Re: Awareness at Death

#49

Post by thelittleone »

demondemidi wrote: post #2

Whew, glad this dodged the "woo". I've seen similar reports like this, that fail to detect any parapsychological assertions. I often wonder if people who have these experiences have ever done hallucinogens. I have a feeling that if someone has previously experienced the flimsy nature of perceived reality, they wouldn't be so quick to ascribe near-death experiences to something supernatural.

I've had several NDEs and also worked with plan medicines (facilitating and dieting in the amazon) for close to 10 years.

In my experience there's a very different feeling between a perceived reality and an NDE vision (or similar visions that cut through the illusory nature of reality).

Re: Awareness at Death

#50

Post by lawlessone »

taberiand wrote: post #24
surfsvammel wrote: post #7

The brain is a strange thing. Perception and experience is very difficult to wrap one's head around. I have fainted several times, for different reasons. Often in medical settings but also in other settings. Often when I wake up I am in a state where I feel like I’ve been gone for hours, it feels like I’ve been basically dreaming the equivalent of a full length movie, when in reality I’ve been out for maybe a minute.…

It's not necessary to have an experience that lasts hours in order to have a memory of an experience that lasted hours, even less necessary if it's just the feeling of an experience that lasted hours. Our memory is highly fallible and easily manipulated, at least compared to how much people tend to believe it's a flawless record of the past. All memories exist in the present, a memory created a minute ago about an ex…

That is a bit biased too. We don't know what the people actually dead experienced.
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