near-death experience thread

[Lord of the Large Pants]

@Lord of the Large Pants Many of those who experience NDE often do so after having been through a traumatic accident rather than something like, say, a long term illness. Drownings, falls, car crashes. This means the body is dumping a ton of adrenaline in response to the situation (leading to a sharp clarity even when you're losing oxygen). This coupled with the release of serotonin as the brain is shutting down leads to heavenly experiences. Maybe those experiencing Hell/dread have the adrenaline part but their brains aren't giving them serotonin.

I don't really know enough about the biochemistry to say if it's plausible, though it's certainly true that NDEs are generally associated with traumatic brushes with death. Most of the information I've seen about various chemical causes is "it's possible but hasn't really been studied", again with the exception of ketamine.

However. If we're asking that question I'd want to look at it in relation to deathbed visions. This is a distinct but (I strongly suspect) related phenomenon that is much, MUCH more common, but for some reason less talked about. This is when people get visitations from dead relatives when they're dying themselves, and this is usually the last few weeks of chronic illness. Again, all cultures, all ages, mentally healthy people. This is admittedly wild speculation on my part, but I think this is possibly the "slow death" counterpart of NDEs.

 

[CAPTAIN HAPPY]

The floating about and seeing things about your surroundings is the spooky shit.

 

[We Are The Witches]

Yes, one time I almost got ran over by a bus.

It was my (at the time) godlike instincts that saved my life. If it wasn't for that, I'd be a pancake witch right now.

 

[AnsemSoD1]

The floating about and seeing things about your surroundings is the spooky shit.

I don't even want to know what the "things" are, although I think we Christians all know the answer to that question already...

 

[Dysnomia]

I'm fairly convinced that NDEs are something real, but I don't exactly know what. They don't quite fit with any established religion.

Organized religion is just people's best guesses. I don't know if I buy that all those texts are actual experiences with God. Maybe some are. But knowing how humans can be, there's got to be a lot of tall tales mixed in by ancient famewhores and control freaks.

NDEs have a number of strange aspects. Thought tends to become much clearer, which is the exact opposite of what you'd expect in a dying brain, especially from oxygen deprivation. They happen regardless of religious belief, or history of mental illness. They happen at every age in every culture.

Finally free from the confines of your meat suit. I think when you die for real, as in no coming back to this life, everything becomes clear like you always knew it. When you have an NDE you are still tied to your flesh so whatever you see is muddled by human belief or physical constraints that remain. If your body can be resuscitated with at least partial consciousness then you aren't dead yet. You are just drifting in the spaces in between and can glimpse at things out of this reality. Maybe that's why Grandma and Uncle Jack tell you that you have to go back. You can't actually go anywhere but back to your body because you are still tied directly to it. That line doesn't sever until you are beyond surviving whatever it is that happened to you.

I've heard it said that you cannot actually die until it's your time to die. I'm not sure if that's true. But people survive suicide attempts, horrible accidents and diseases all the time. People that should have absolutely died become medical miracles and defy the odds. Look at that guy in India who was the sole survivor of a plane crash. There was also Juliane Koepcke. The sole survivor of a 1971 lightning strike plane crash over the Amazon. A few other passengers survived the crash but died from their injuries before being rescued. Juliane survived 11 days in the rainforest before finding help. Her survival in the rainforest is likely due to the fact that she had lived in it for a number of years. It's still an amazing story of someone who should not have survived.

To some degree the NDE can be shaped by cultural experiences, but this is mostly interpretation of events, not the actual events. For example, one rare type of NDE involves floating in a dark void for what seems like an extremely long time. Westerners who experience this consider it hell. Eastern cultures think of it as Nirvana.

My understanding is that you are supposed to want to return to that nothing. I guess if nothingness isn't your jam you will want out of it. Some say that your afterlife is made up of what you desire or believe because after death we have the ability to shape what we see in accordance to that.

I had a dream a few years ago of my mother, who died in 2017. It was a lucid dream. She was in a bar that kind of looked like Cheers. I asked her to tell me the nature of reality. She said that there are different levels that you have to go through.

Now of course that's just a dream and you can't take it as gospel because of that. But it's also not that far fetched of a concept either. Many religions and cultures believe in different planes of existence. Maybe those planes are a lot different than what we envision them to be.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Organized religion is just people's best guesses. I don't know if I buy that all those texts are actual experiences with God. Maybe some are. But knowing how humans can be, there's got to be a lot of tall tales mixed in by ancient famewhores and control freaks.

Well, ultimately no more than one religion can be true, at most. But what I'm saying is, NDEs aren't merely people seeing what they expect to see based on their own religious beliefs.

My understanding is that you are supposed to want to return to that nothing.

A Buddhist would probably say so. That's why it's interesting. The variety of experiences is broadly cross cultural, but there's a lot of disagreement on what they mean.

 

[Lerias]

An Indian sat next to me

 

[Otterly]

don't really know enough about the biochemistry to say if it's plausible,

I don’t think anyone does. It’s not studied well, there’s a few papers I’ve seen on it but we don’t even understand how our brains produce consciousness when we are alive so it’s all very speculative
I think there’s a kernel of truth in the idea. Undoubtedly many many grifters as there is with anything non-provable.
The visions are consistent across cultures and times. There’s something to it. I also agree with what you say about slow death visions.
I hope there is somewhere good to go after we die. We will all find out one day.

 

[A-Stump]

I was in the same room as a black person once.

To this very day I'm grateful to be alive.

I hope you're getting therapy

 

[Candlelight Desolation]

You only enter and see the afterlife upon death and its finality, so I assume near death experiences are bullshit by default. But I keep an open mind because so much weird shit has happened in my life.

I'm fairly convinced that NDEs are something real, but I don't exactly know what. They don't quite fit with any established religion.

Show me in Biblical scriptures where someone died, went to Heaven or Hell, and came back to tell people about it. Neither Paul nor John were allowed to talk about things they were shown and told in Heaven (with the latter, some utterances he was specifically told not to write), so why could we be able to? Lazarus stayed in Heaven with Abraham, and the rich man stayed in Hell instead of spending 23 minutes there. The rich man wanted someone to be sent to earth so he could warn his family, though he was unable to.

I personally believe people can have "glimpses" of things for lack of a better term, (like I have heard some pretty horrific atheist deathbed stories of demons arriving to drag someone off to Hell) though I do not believe a person can fully enter Heaven/Hell and come back. Plus, if you are one of the righteous scarcely saved and make it into Heaven, why would you ever want to go back?

A relative of mine had a blood infection and was dead for several minutes. They said they only experienced blackness.

Oxygen deprivation to the brain will do funny things to you if you're conscious for it though.

As someone who experienced this exact thing twice in my life, can confirm this as a fact.
There was nothing, just blackness, void of nothingness.

I was in a bad car wreck many years ago. I remember the loud metallic bang of the impact, and then waking up in the hospital sometime later. Between those two points there was nothing. There were no dreams, visions, or sensations. Nothing but a black undefined emptiness.

Because it's appointed unto men ONCE to die. Being in a state of what could be the equivalent to some mixture of a brief coma/asleep without dreaming isn't the same thing as death in the sense of life being removed fully.

 

[A-Stump]

@Candlelight Desolation Nobody outside of like two dudes have even been to Heaven from the scriptures. Everyone is waiting until the resurrection. They're 'all with Jesus' but are in a waiting room until then. Any Christian senses of NDE is complete horseshit. We are all waiting for the reckoning.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Show me in Biblical scriptures where someone died, went to Heaven or Hell, and came back to tell people about it. Neither Paul nor John were allowed to talk about things they were shown and told in Heaven (with the latter, some utterances he was specifically told not to write), so why could we be able to? Lazarus stayed in Heaven with Abraham, and the rich man stayed in Hell instead of spending 23 minutes there. The rich man wanted someone to be sent to earth so he could warn his family, though he was unable to.

I personally believe people can have "glimpses" of things for lack of a better term, (like I have heard some pretty horrific atheist deathbed stories of demons arriving to drag someone off to Hell) though I do not believe a person can fully enter Heaven/Hell and come back. Plus, if you are one of the righteous scarcely saved and make it into Heaven, why would you ever want to go back?

I have no theological explanation for it. That's one reason it's a difficult issue. But the data is the data.

Paul and John were having religious revelations, not NDEs. We have no idea how much further they might have seen beyond the veil.

The parable of Lazarus and the rich man isn't about the afterlife any more than the parable of the sower is about farming techniques. It was not a description of the actual afterlife. It was a story about how the Jews, who allegedly believe in Moses and the prophets, don't recognize the Law Incarnate standing right in front of them. And if they don't understand it from seeing Jesus, not even the Resurrection will convince them.

Because it's appointed unto men ONCE to die. Being in a state of what could be the equivalent to some mixture of a brief coma/asleep without dreaming isn't the same thing as death in the sense of life being removed fully.

Hebrews 9 seems to have much more to do with Covenant and Atonement theology than any specific picture of the afterlife. I don't think it really has anything to say about NDEs as such.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

I flushed my toilet when I was sitting on it and I almost got sucked in.

I saw my life flash before my eyes.

 

[Dutch Courage]

If you want a theological perspective, I do not think people see heaven or hell. They may have an intense flood of emotions from a brain that is in shock. And these can feel heavenly or hellish; euphoric or agonizing. But it doesn’t mean a part of them entered a non-physical place. I do not think God would allow that to happen for three reasons,

1. Suppose someone did see Heaven. Well, that’s a bit cruel because now their experience on earth will feel “spoiled” by comparison. Like they were dragged back to earth. The reality here will easily pale when compared to heaven, which is better than we can possibly imagine.
2. Suppose someone did see Hell. Well, seeing is believing, and they will repent out of fear rather than wanting to seek a connection with God.
3. God wants humanity to choose Him not out of blind faith or fear. That is a hollow kind of love that is like an AI chatbot saying “I love you”. If someone chooses to love you for you, of their own free will, that is far more meaningful. Think of vapid forms of love that are for your money or your looks, which are vain and ephemeral. It’s not sincere.

I think "heaven" and "hell" are not what you experience in an afterlife. They are conditions you experience on Earth, in life. The Bible admonishes against sin because living in sin or with sin degrades the quality of life you live, materially and spiritually. That is hell. Godliness and abstinence from sin makes life a lot nicer, materially and spiritually. That is heaven. Thus, it is foolish to hope for Heaven after death, because heaven is a state of being on Earth. And wishing someone would go to hell is pointless because they are probably already in hell. This is probably closer to a Rastafarian point of view than anything else, and I have no use for Rastas beyond the music they make. But they may have a point here.

 

[Black Man Underwear]

I couldn't feel my legs after taking a massive shit. Does that count as an NDE?

 

[William F. Clinton]

I had this sorta surreal experience when I almost drowned as a little kid. I hardly remember it, but I do know that everything seemed slightly off for the following few days. I think colors looked different than they used to and my sense of scale for the world seemed to "snap" into something different.

Not really an NDE, but it was pretty fuckin weird.

 

[Can of Bread]

One thing that's similar to NDEs, but probably not exactly the same thing, that's become interesting to me is people who are near death or dying, and instead of having NDEs of going into another realm, they hallucinate here on Earth.
I think pretty much all of my dying relatives have mentioned people who are already dead having come talked to them, even though they generally have to be reminded that said person isn't alive. Interestingly, they've never seemed concerned upon being told this. It's also not made a difference on the mental acuity of the person. A couple of my grandparents/great-grandparents were completely lucid, but still saw passed loved ones or friends, while others were senile (but I find that's more expected in that case). The weirdest one, though, is that my grandmother (who died) and an elderly friend of my family (who almost died, but ended up making a recovery) both saw numbers and writing in a strange language on the wall, and asked about them, pointing to locations that were completely blank. Could it just be some kind of chemical reaction in the brain as it preps to shut down? Sure. But I've had relatives who lingered for several months or years in a diminshed state, and still saw these things toward the beginning. Even on a spiritual level, one could question, if it was real, if the people the dying see are really those individuals, or guides who take that shape to help comfort those before they pass.

That said, like others have already said in the thread, I don't think people who experience NDEs are seeing Heaven/Hell. If the visions are real, they are probably in-between places between realities. When an NDE occurs, you're probably still locked to your mind, and I question whether a human mind can even comprehend Heaven or Hell, or a possible third place where you wait for Judgement. There seems to be distinction between mind, body, and soul, and, despite the fact they all interact and mesh heavily together, it's likely only an unbound soul can truly understand the beyond.

2. Suppose someone did see Hell. Well, seeing is believing, and they will repent out of fear rather than wanting to seek a connection with God.

This leads to an interesting theological question: Would seeing Hell prior to having a relationship with God prevent the average person to even being able to obtain repentence and salvation?
A connection with God is the most important, as well as most overlooked, property in salvation. If one only attempts repentence because they are consumed by fear of Divine Punishment, can that essentially sever any possibility of forging a connection? Of course, through God all things are possible, but I still find it an interesting question of if, when faced with a true vision of eterenal divine punishment, can repentence occur? Because otherwise, wouldn't all but the most deranged repent once they are put in front of the Lord to be judged?

 

[Dysnomia]

Well, ultimately no more than one religion can be true, at most. But what I'm saying is, NDEs aren't merely people seeing what they expect to see based on their own religious beliefs.

This is one of the reasons why I am highly skeptical of those people who claim they saw the stereotypical Christian Heaven. There's quite a few people who say they met Jesus or can now speak to the archangels any time they want. That they are now on missions or have powers. Or things like "Don't go into the light because the archons are tricking you into endless reincarnation so they can steal your loosh".

I guess you will know when it happens to you. I've come close to death but not close enough to have an NDE. So I have nothing to add. I don't think death should be feared though.

 

[ChompChomp]

An Indian sat next to me

I think that's a Near Delhi experience.

 

[Sirius]

Went to a steakhouse after not sleeping for around 36 hours and almost had to get the heimlich done on me because I ate too fast, definitely wasn't firing on all cylinders at the time. I managed to not choke to death, but the feeling of trying to breathe in and having a clogged airway is something I'm not gonna forget for a while. Pretty silly, I know.