| The Duck |
11-14-2008 09:42 AM |
Near-death experiences are real and we have the proof, say scientists
Do you think that you are your body and that your brain produces your mind and consciousness? I believe consciousness (your soul) is independent of our brain and body and that the body is merely a biological computer we use to experience this reality, which experimental physics is now providing evidence is an illusion in the form of a super hologram manifested by our collective consciousness. Kinda out there if you have no prior knowledge on the subject, I know :winkwink:
I recommend the book the holographic universe on the subject of illusory reality.
I will follow the progression of the experiment outlined in the article below with great interest.
Quote:
Jeanette Atkinson is surprisingly relaxed about the time she died and went to the edge of heaven.
?I do not want to die again in the near future because I still have too much to do,? she says. ?But I have no fear of death.
?People see the pain and suffering of dying and equate that with death - but they?re not the same. Death is the progression of life.?
Jeanette, a 43-year-old student nurse from Eastbourne, had a near-death experience in 1979 when she was just 18-years-old. It was triggered when a blood clot in her leg broke up into seven pieces and clogged the main vessels in her lungs, starving her body of oxygen. The doctors were certain that she would die. She did ? but then returned to tell the tale.
?The first thing I noticed was that the world changed,? says Jeanette. ?The light became softer but clearer. Suddenly there was no pain. All I could see was my body from the chest downwards and I noticed that the time was 9:00pm.
?In an instant I found myself looking at the ceiling. It was only a few inches away. I remember thinking it was about time they cleaned the dust from the striplights!
?I then went on a little journey around the ward and along the corridor to see what the nurses were up to. One was writing on a notepad. It never occurred to me that I was dying. It was a lovely experience and very, very serene.?
Jeanette then began the journey that many others before her have reported ? being drawn into a long dark tunnel suffused with light. ?Everything went fuzzy,? she says. ?I found myself being drawn into a tunnel shaped like a corkscrew.
?All I wanted to do was reach the beautiful lights at the bottom. The longing was so powerful but so gentle. I knew I desperately wanted to be there. But then a voice bellowed at me: ?Come on you silly old cow it?s not your time yet!?
?I then shot back into my body ? it?s all a little unclear ? all I can say is that I remember seeing the clock again and it was 9:20pm. The next thing I was aware of was waking up a few days later, surrounded by equipment and feeling terrible. Later on I realised that the voice I?d heard was my grandmother?s. She?d died when I was three years old.?
For decades near-death experiences like Jeanette?s have been written off as delusions by scientists. They are dismissed as no more than the last twitches of a dying brain. Modern science has no place for mysticism and the paranormal. But now a group of British researchers are challenging the scientific establishment by launching a major study into near-death experiences. They hope to settle once and for all the question of whether there truly is life after death.
?We now have the technology and scientific knowledge to begin exploring the ultimate question,? says Dr Sam Parnia, leader of the research team at London?s Hammersmith Hospital. ?To be honest, I started off as a sceptic but having weighed up all the evidence I now think that there is something going on.
?It?s not possible to talk in terms of ?life after death?. In scientific terms we can only say that there is now evidence that consciousness may carry on after clinical death. Our work will prove one way or the other whether a form of consciousness carries on after the body and brain has died.?
Several scientific studies have suggested that the mind ? or ?soul? - lives on after the body has died and the brain ceased to function. One study published in the prestigious Lancet medical journal found that one in ten cardiac arrest survivors experienced emotions, visions or lucid thoughts while they were clinically dead. In medical terms they were ?flatliners? or unconscious with no signs of brain activity, pulse or breathing.
About one in four people who have a near-death experience also have a much more profound ? and sometimes disturbing ? experience such as watching doctors try and resuscitate their bodies. These ?out-of-body experiences? often include seeing a bright light, traveling down a tunnel, seeing their dead body from above, and meeting deceased relatives.
Research in America has uncovered even more bizarre results. Blind people who underwent near-death experiences were able to see whilst they were ?dead? ? even those who had been blind from birth. They did not experience perfect vision, often it was out of focus or hazy, as if they were seeing the world for the first time through a thin mist. But the vision was sufficiently clear for them to watch doctors trying to resuscitate their clinically dead bodies.
Dr Parnia has previously studied near-death experiences. Two years ago his work was published in the prestigious medical journal Resuscitation. Dr Parnia?s team rigorously interviewed 63 cardiac arrest patients and discovered that seven had memories of their brief period of ?death?, although only four passed the Grayson scale, the strict medical criteria for assessing near-death experiences. These four recounted feelings of peace and joy, they lost awareness of their own bodies, time speeded up, they saw a bright light and entered another world, encountered a mystical being and faced a ?point of no return?.
According to modern medicine all of these patients were effectively dead. Their brains had shut down and no thoughts or feelings were possible. There was certainly no possibility of the complex brain activity required for dreaming or hallucinating.
Dr Parnia?s initial trial was especially rigorous - he wanted to confound his critics before they could muster their arguments. To rule out the possibility that near-death experiences resulted from hallucinations after the brain had collapsed through lack of oxygen, he rigorously monitored the concentrations of the vital gas in the patients? blood. Crucially, none of those who underwent the experiences had low levels of oxygen.
He was also able to rule out claims that unusual combinations of drugs were to blame because the resuscitation procedure was the same in every case, regardless of whether they had a near-death experience or not.
?Arch sceptics will always attack our work,? says Dr Parnia. ?I?m content with that. That?s how science progresses. What is clear is that something profound is happening. The mind ? the thing that is ?you? ? your ?soul? if you will - carries on after conventional science says it should have drifted into nothingness.?
Dr Parnia says that every near-death experience is subtly different but that they all share eight or nine key features, whatever the nationality, culture or religion of the patient. These include intense feelings of calmness, traveling down a long dark tunnel, being drawn into an intense loving light, seeing your dead body from above, and meeting long-deceased relatives or friends. A few experience a brief form of ?hell? where they are drawn, petrified, into a dark swirling well of bitterness, hatred and fear.
There are cultural differences in these experiences. Tribal people may report paddling in a canoe down a long dark river for three days towards the sun, for example, rather than floating down a tunnel towards the light. The experience, whatever the cultural differences, usually have a deep and long lasting effect. It often leaves behind a legacy of profound spirituality and removes the fear of death.
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Source: http://www.newsmonster.co.uk/paranor...cientists.html |
