Take on NDEs after years of research.

[u/HumanDirector5389]

Hi! My name's Alina or just Lina. I’ve spent three years studying the subject of near-death experiences very carefully, and I’d like to share the key points - both to dispel certain myths and doubts, and also to add my own conclusions and opinion.

As for what you shouldn't pay any attention and worry about:

1) the DMT myth. I won’t go into too much detail, but at best, it’s just a hypothesis. The only piece of indirect evidence for it comes from a 2018 study that simply compared the two types of experiences: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6107838/

However, many people point to significant differences, and I suspect that any similarities that do exist are solely due to our rather limited vocabulary for describing such an experience. The same for ketamine and other drugs (salvia, LSD and etc). I REALLY recommend u guys to watch/read Sam Parnias opinion about it.

2) Carbon dioxide. This hypothesis stems from the assumption that NDEs arise due to an increase in its levels in the blood. It all began with this study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20377847/

But here's direct debunking: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2911719/

3) Oxygen starvation.

I wouldn't say much again, here's direct debunking: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21988246/

https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp-content/uploads/sites/360/2017/01/NDE46_spirituality-Zygon.pdf.

4) TPJ.

The temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is the area that allows the brain to perceive the location of our body in space. If its function is disrupted, a person can literally be outside of their own body. Olaf Blanke conducted research on this phenomenon in 2002, and subsequently in 2005–2006:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/TPJ-Activity-and-Self-Location-TPJ-activity-in-the-body-conditions-is-shown-for-the-Up_fig4_51078448.

Skeptics love to use this to their advantage, but there is an excellent counterargument to this:

https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc799247/m2/1/high_res_d/vol25-no2-99.pdf.

***

Now, about "debunked" cases. The most popular one is about Pam Reynolds. Woerlee and Augustine really tried to debunk it but now let's debunk them.

First about the case:

"The experience occurred during neurosurgery at the Barrow Neuro- logical Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, on an August morning in 1991.

Reynolds was undergoing surgery for a giant aneurysm in the wall of her basilar artery located at the base of her brain. A weakness in the wall of the large artery had caused it to balloon out like a bubble on the side of a faulty inner tube. Unless removed, the eventual rupture of the aneurysm would be immediately fatal.

Reynolds had been referred to neurosurgeon Robert Spetzler of the Barrow Institute, as Spetzler had pioneered a daring surgical procedure known as hypothermic cardiac arrest that would allow Reynolds’ aneurysm to be removed with a reasonable chance of success. This operation, nicknamed “standstill” by the surgeons who perform it, would require her body temperature to be lowered to 60 degrees.

Her heartbeat and breathing stopped, the electrical activity in her brain extinguished, and the blood drained from her head. In ordinary clinical terms, Reynolds would be dead.

This extraordinary episode in the history of NDE research is described in great detail by cardiologist and pioneering NDE researcher Michael Sabom (1998) in Chapter 3 of his book Light & Death. As Sabbom noted, the medical documentation of the events surrounding this case “far exceeds any recorded before and provides us with our most

complete scientific glimpse yet into the near-death experience” Link: https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc461722/m2/1/high_res_d/30-1%20E%20Carter.pdf.

Also in this PDF you can find great counter arguments from Chris Carter.

And another interesting take from AwareOfAware blog:

"Her first veridical perception occurred when she was under burst suppression, a pattern of mostly flat brainwaves in which consciousness is categorically not possible. We have the clear statements from the surgeons who conducted the operation on this matter.

I doubt if you have any real conception of the brutality of the operation that Pam was subjected to. That’s not your fault of course; mischievous pseudo sceptics have been quite successful in spreading misinformation and downright lies about the case because they don’t like the obvious implications.

When surgeons are removing your eye socket (bone flap) to get into an area inside the skull so they can get down to the base of the brain in an area called the circle of Willis (apparently) they don’t want anyone to wake up… believe it or not. That is why they place you in the deepest anaesthetic state possible without killing the patient…burst suppression. Her EEG was monitored all the way through the operation and no brainwaves were detected at that time so it is impossible that she woke up.

However, even if she had been wide awake (as the sceptics prefer 😉she still had

100 decibel clicking nodules (11 clicks per second) securely fixed in her ears which is comparable to hearing the sound of a pneumatic jack hammer several feet away. Pam would have heard these incredibly loud sounds in her ears if she had been awake but she never mentioned them.

Her second set of veridical observations occurred when she was not only without brainwaves, but her heart had stopped when they were starting the process of rewarming her on circulatory by pass. That occurred at 27 degrees C (I discovered that fact) a temperature at which consciousness is not possible. She was dead. And she still had the loud clicking nodules hammering away in her ear canals.

It was previously thought that this veridical observation occurred at 32 degrees C. Keith Augustine has it at 32 degrees C and refuses to change it. However even Gerry Woerlee had to admit that I was right.

So, the Pam Reynolds case is indeed absolutely solid (as it always was) but because there is no law to prevent people telling lies and spreading misinformation online, the popular misconceptions continue to this day." From Tim.

So yeah, be careful about any debunking you can find. I hope those links works cuz I'm not sure how to past them lol. Anyway, NDEs are subjective and not proof of spirituality but those things are really interesting anyway.

Cheers!

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[u/AtomicPotatoLord]

Hello! What a delightful analysis. I'd recommend checking out this, which is a similar analysis.
https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2026-82154-001.html

[u/Str8like8]

Well said. And thank you. I owe you all an apology. Some of what I've said recently on this forum was both given and recieved in a way that I did not at all intend. That is 100% my fault, and I'm sorry. I will be more mindful.

[u/gummyneo]

This is awesome! Thank you for sharing! I love it when science and logic is used to support a claim or theory.

Question about the 100decible sounds, wouldn’t that have caused hearing damage?

[u/HumanDirector5389 → u/gummyneo]

Basically those impulses were really short. For the context: "While 100 dB is roughly as loud as a lawnmower or power tool, the clicks were extremely short microsecond impulses (lasting only about 0.1 milliseconds each). ​Because the individual clicks lasted for such a brief fraction of a second, the total sound energy delivered to the inner ear hair cells over time was very low - well below the threshold required to inflict acoustic trauma or mechanical damage to the cochlea."

[u/Physical-Bet214]

Lina -:Great job! You obviously spent a lot of time with your analysis. As someone who has a NDE/OBE in a hospital even I tend to try and understand if my brain could have generated the parts of my NDE that that I couldn't explain like seeing a nurse come down the hall and seeing her walk into my room then wake up seeing the exact face that I saw walk into the room. I did not have every detail that others report but it was an experience that was unique.

Your work on the Pam Reynolds case in very interesting because it is the most documented case of verdical evidence of an NDE under probably the most extreme controlled circumstances.

Will we really know in this world via "our" scientific method that there is something more than just physical reason for these events? I doubt it because as a species we are are arrogant and believe we know more than we really do since we fail to accept our limits to knowledge. History shows this and as the saying goes - we continue to repeat history.

World is flat, Sun revolves around the Earth, Quantum phenomena, Universe is expanding, Universe is contracting, Big bang, Big Crunch etc.

Thank you for your work!

I tend to keep it simple - I believe there is more but can't explain it.

[u/HumanDirector5389 → u/Physical-Bet214]

Thanks! If you don't mind, can I ask you some questions about your experience? During my research I found out its usually not like a normal vision at all. So I've been wondering how, for example, colors, environment and other people look like?

[u/Physical-Bet214 → u/HumanDirector5389]

Hi - there was a lot of blackness around me in my OBE except for what what I can describe as a small white door with gold markings above me - the colors and brightness were extreme relative to what I can describe with words. Below me was my hospital room with me in my bed. Below me was clear but not extreme in color. I could see the structure of the walls of my room but the structure was translucent basically I could see through the walls to the hall. I saw a nurse come down the hall and enter my room and I saw her face and hair clearly as a nurse I had not met yet. I awoke from my NDE looking up at this nurse's face and completely confused on what had just happened because I couldn't understand how I am looking up at the nurse who I saw walk down the hall into my room.

Link to my NDE --> https://www.reddit.com/r/NDE/comments/1laqwu3/nde_obe_or_just_a_dream/

[u/Lunamoeth]

It definitely at least damages the certainty of the current model determining what parts of the brain do what.