Near Death Experiences, real or not?

My thoughts are: Why are you so terrified of death?

There was a halfway interesting show on NDEs on Penn & Teller's Bullsh#t. I don't generally enjoy that show, but this one had some food for thought.
It's on YouTube, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=714AS39CQ_I

I don't know personall if they exist but If I had one I would know. I have asthma so I know what it feels like to think you're going to die. However my mom overdosed on heroin and was brought back from death. She says she remembers dieing and going back into her body. So we do have souls, that I believe.

I also am afraid to die. It just seems wierd to me and I really hate death. It's the most emotional pain a human can feel when someone they love leaves this earth. I hope when I do die that it's quick and I'm somewhat healthy. I know what it's like to be sick and I don't want to die sicker than I am now.

I do not want to die either. I love this life so much.

Rumple, you have the chance - right now this minute - to make your life better, to be happy, to give others happiness. Do it!

I do not believe there is an afterlife - no second chances. You do what you can NOW. I believe some chemical activity in the brain and body persists for a while after death, but I'm not sure what a near death experience would be.

RumpleTumbler said:

I guess in a lot of ways, all selfish, I'd like to have lived before I die.

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Then Live. Take life by the throat and run with it, screaming, naked, down the road.

It's yours, live it. There's only one per customer.

I don't believe in an afterlife, either, which is why I fear death so much. This is all there is.

So I should be valuing my life more, grabbing it by the throat and...well, we'll forget about the running naked down the street.

But like Rump, I think I need to concentrate on life before death.

NDEs are a variety of out of body experiences. I investigated this years ago, spending several weeks at The Monroe Institute (near Faber, Va.). While I had many interesting experiences, I was never sure if the phenomenon was real or not.

I take each account with an initial grain of salt. But that said, I'll tell you about my experience as a two year old:

I was very sick (with what-- no clue), fevered and listless in my father's arms as he carried me across the street to the door of the ER. I clearly (I can't stress this enough) recall the buildings lining the street, the street lights glowing in the middle of the night, the wet streets reflecting the street lights. But my super clear memory wasn't from being carried in my father's arms. It was as if I were "sitting on the phone wires", high above, watching the "drama" unfold. I saw my Dad & Mom carry me into the hospital (a side entrance in what is now residential housing) and I watched as they laid me on the gurney. My next memory was "from my own body". Apparently, a doctor and nurse treated me, a mask over their faces. I remember looking into their eyes, and being surprised/pleased that "cat and dog" faces looked back at me. (I now suspect this was *me*-- a two year old-- expressing my happiness in my too-short "trip out of my pain-wracked body") That's where the memory ends.

I so clearly remember the reflecting lights of the wet streets, that when I drive by the site today, I get a rush of memories-- no matter the time of day or night. And always... the memories come from the view point of sitting on the telephone wires. Obviously, I was too young to make any of this up, and I didn't realize until I was grown just what the memories were.

So, there you have it. Yes-- I believe people have NDEs. But-- I also believe in *Living Now*. Heaven (or whatever your personal "after" is) will wait. I don't fear death... but I *do* fear not living every day as if it would end.

Redd Ryden said:

I take each account with an initial grain of salt. But that said, I'll tell you about my experience as a two year old:

I was very sick (with what-- no clue), fevered and listless in my father's arms as he carried me across the street to the door of the ER. I clearly (I can't stress this enough) recall the buildings lining the street, the street lights glowing in the middle of the night, the wet streets reflecting the street lights. But my super clear memory wasn't from being carried in my father's arms. It was as if I were "sitting on the phone wires", high above, watching the "drama" unfold. I saw my Dad & Mom carry me into the hospital (a side entrance in what is now residential housing) and I watched as they laid me on the gurney. My next memory was "from my own body". Apparently, a doctor and nurse treated me, a mask over their faces. I remember looking into their eyes, and being surprised/pleased that "cat and dog" faces looked back at me. (I now suspect this was *me*-- a two year old-- expressing my happiness in my too-short "trip out of my pain-wracked body") That's where the memory ends.

I so clearly remember the reflecting lights of the wet streets, that when I drive by the site today, I get a rush of memories-- no matter the time of day or night. And always... the memories come from the view point of sitting on the telephone wires. Obviously, I was too young to make any of this up, and I didn't realize until I was grown just what the memories were.

So, there you have it. Yes-- I believe people have NDEs. But-- I also believe in *Living Now*. Heaven (or whatever your personal "after" is) will wait. I don't fear death... but I *do* fear not living every day as if it would end.

Sometimes... I feel like I have the hang of it.

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Now that is an answer.
Precisely "I dont fear death, but I do fear not living every day as if it would end".
Rep to you for recounting this tale, and the extreme piece of clarity at the end of it.

scarletpeaches said:

I don't believe in an afterlife, either, which is why I fear death so much. This is all there is.

So I should be valuing my life more, grabbing it by the throat and...well, we'll forget about the running naked down the street.

But like Rump, I think I need to concentrate on life before death.

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So here it is-I'll take the risk for friends

Shot right under the right tit-no lights-no tunnel-no nothing. Was I dead? Docs say that the old ticker stopped a few times and that they thought on more than one occasion that I was-no vital signs and all that I suppose. Thing is it was longer than a good sleep-I was out for a matter of days they say. But it was a good sleep-just kinda peaceful unconscious nothingness. So that is why death does not scare me a jot. For me it is nothing more or less than lack of consciousness-make sense? Probably not but hey it does to me. I think death is just that-death-nothing-gone see ya later pal. So what is to be afraid of? A good unconscious sleep? Nah too much crap here and now to be worried about that-kinda look forward to it to tell ya the truth. Well that is just me Scarlet and Co. Don't worry be happy!! Dave

davids said:

So here it is-I'll take the risk for friends
I think death is just that-death-nothing-gone see ya later pal. So what is to be afraid of? A good unconscious sleep? Nah too much crap here and now to be worried about that-kinda look forward to it to tell ya the truth. Well that is just me Scarlet and Co. Don't worry be happy!! Dave

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No need to get your panties in a twist, Dave! (...and what a visual THAT is...)

A close friend of mine who's a Buddhist/Vegetarian/Writer/Artist/Serial-Killer (just threw that last part in to see if you were listening) once told me that, personally, he didn't believe in an Afterlife and he thought that once he died it'd be just nothingness. I told him: "When we die-- you and me-- we're both bound to be greatly surprised... ME-- because it's sure to be not what I expected-- and YOU because I told you so.

Maybe I am a touched confused. Near death experiences are something akin to "I saw the light then ran the hell away from it" right?

I have never had one of those.


Have I ever come close to nearly dying? Yes, probably a couple times.

Is the former real? I don't know but I am hell-fire sure that the latter is quite common for everybody.

I think NDEs might really just be spontaneous astral projection. Brought on by lack of oxygen to the brain or something like that and that's why people feel like they are floating or "coming back to their bodies" or looking at things from above 'cause that's the impression I get when I'm APing.

Gosh...that sounded so New Agey...

Anyway, I don't want to die but I don't fear death. I don't care if there is an after life the way it's usually thought off. I don't need to remain "myself", conscious of who I am. I don't think there is an afterlife that way with heaven or some other sort of place just that the energy that makes me me whether it's a soul or whatever disperses into the universe and I cease to exist as an entity. This does not bother me in the least. Like physics says "nothing is destroyed, everything transform".

Redd Ryden said:

No need to get your panties in a twist, Dave! (...and what a visual THAT is...)

A close friend of mine who's a Buddhist/Vegetarian/Writer/Artist/Serial-Killer (just threw that last part in to see if you were listening) once told me that, personally, he didn't believe in an Afterlife and he thought that once he died it'd be just nothingness. I told him: "When we die-- you and me-- we're both bound to be greatly surprised... ME-- because it's sure to be not what I expected-- and YOU because I told you so.

He grinned and said: "You're on-- It's a deal!"

Close Buddhist/Vegetarian/Writer/Artist/Serial-Killer/Friends are the best!​

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YUK YUK YUK YUK-need that laugh Red-thanks-my knickers are only twistable while being snapped by a death seeking Buddhist serial killer who is a vegetarian atistic wire walker cereal eater/sugar pop headed neo canundrist! It is never what we expect-dead or alive!!!!

I think NDE's are real, but then again, I also believe in there being something beyond this world. Otherwise, there would be no explaination for the spirits I've seen, caught on film, and heard in my house. They're certainly not still alive in the human sense!

Given the state of medical knowledge, you'd have to accept as true that some people have medically been on the verge of death, i.e., stopped heart and stopped breathing, and as the brain begins to lose oxygen, it begins doing things.

People on the verge of death may begin to lose peripheral vision and focus, blurring everything into a "white light" and memories of loved ones who have passed may very well come into the conscious mind as the brain tries to cope with the situation.

But whether these are memories or "souls" or "guides" as it were would not be something you could scientifically prove either way.

My feelings are that if I am physically at the point where I am going through a near death experience, it ain't gonna help much either way.

Parkinsonsd said:

My feelings are that if I am physically at the point where I am going through a near death experience, it ain't gonna help much either way.

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There are these two books on the topic, with opposing opinions:
Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives by Brian L. Weiss:

Dying to Live: Near-Death Experiences by Susan Blackmore:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0879758708/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

I haven't read either one. I got the first one through paperbackswap.com (I couldn't bear paying good money for it) after someone online mentioned it and said it absolutely convinced him that stuff is real. Well, it's on more than NDE and stuff. I've only read a few pages, and I can't get into it. Blackmore uses some good arguments (in the book I mention below) that I didn't see in this book. I think if I pushed my way through it I wouldn't be convinced, I'd just be annoyed that I wasted my time reading it. But if you're really interested in the book, don't let my bias stop you.

I mention the Blackmore book because I was once "ESP curious" and read her book "The Adventures of a Parapsychologist" on her investigating paranormal phenomena and writing her master's thesis on it. She didn't find any evidence of such phenomena, but her methods were more rigorous than others. Her colleagues often found things until she found and pointed out problems in their experiments. Well after publishing the book, she eventually gave up investigating paranormal phenomena. Short story:
http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/NS2000.html
Long story:
http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapters/Kurtz.htm

RumpleTumbler said:

Because my life has been a living hell from the moment I came into the world.

When I was young it was someone else's fault. When I was older it was my self destructive and protective nature that resulted in one bad decision after another after another. By the time I realized that something good wasn't just going to happen I had literally blown my life. To die with a lifetime of regret, having never experienced happiness, genuine love (other than for my child), to have wasted it, is horrifying to me.

I guess in a lot of ways, all selfish, I'd like to have lived before I die.

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My life has been a bit messed up too (you have a child? I don't, and at my age I doubt I will). A decade or two ago, after managing to clean up a few aspects of my life, I decided it would take a long time for me to "fix" some other aspects, and life might not be that long. I happened to come across the book "The 120 Year Diet" and was fascinated. It's about caloric reduction (eating a lot less food) and optimal nutrition (eating only food with the best nutritional value), so it's a pretty strict diet, and I haven't been able to do it. The latest edition is "Beyond the 120 year diet" and there are people doing this at crsociety.org.

Another reason I'm interested in this is I hope to outlive those I knew in school so I can attend their funerals, and well, excuse me while I answer the call of nature...

Don't relive the past, put it behind you (you can't change it) and go forward. Hopefully you will have learned something in this life and can carry it forward with you. Try to enjoy life, even though at times it isn't an easy thing to do. And about dying...

Here is a line from my book...

"Enjoy life; don’t spend an excessive amount of time worrying about dying, it will happen in due course."

MidnightMuse said:

Then Live. Take life by the throat and run with it, screaming, naked, down the road.

It's yours, live it. There's only one per customer.

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News Anchor: ...an up and coming writer was caught fleeing down the street of a small suburban neighborhood, throttling a chicken in either hand. More at eleven.