Lots to react to here. Have you ever heard such stories from family or friends? Would you agree with the scientist’s answers to these questions? How would you answer them? Does this make the pro-God or pro-religion argument weaker? What do you think the relationship should be between religion and science? Do scientists have a harder time being religious?
When talking about brain or mind, for me it was always an interesting topic to think about. I read several articles about near-death experiences and I accept Mr. Nelson’s explanation of our visions when we are in a near-death or about-to-faint state. I agree that we don’t know exactly how the brain works and therefore we will never discover whether we, humans (or animals), have also a spiritual side. For example, it is also an interesting issue that we can think and what provides it. I never experienced such experience but I also heard about some cases when the person was away for a few hours and was saying that he/she experienced some scene from the past (by that I mean ancient times, for example) and it lasted only a few minutes. That could also have a relation with the REM system and maybe the person was on the edge of consciousness/unconsciousness. But what is particularly interesting, in this article the actual out-of-body experiences weren’t fully explained. Dr. Nelson spoke about them only in general. I think his explanation was being awake and feeling what happens to our body, but the REM system did not switch off. Therefore I think that to the person happens something like dreaming, and the person can completely imagine what goes on in the room. It could be compared to experiences like when we wake up in the morning, but we are still in a kind of dreaming state – we know what is going on, we hear voices and sounds, and it somehow gets into our dream. Of course, it is not the same, because something different goes on in our dream and in reality. In cases of out-of-body experiences, people were able to tell doctors what they were saying during the surgery. So on the one hand, it could be the cause of our spirits and the spirit really went out of body, or the REM system caused this vision based on hearing voices (and the exact sentences of the doctors), sounds such as laying down the instruments, footsteps or others. It is known that in conscious state we use only about 10% of our brain capacity, so maybe on the verge of these states this usage increases and the brain is able to fully recreate what goes on, even though our eyes are closed.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dr. Nelson that experiences like near-death experience or out-of-body experience or fainting have something in common. Maybe the light that you see or the voices you hear. I think it has something to do with dreams, because as it is said in the article, when you dream, you are in REM state of sleep. It was said that when you are experiencing a near-death experience, your mind is also in the state of rapid eye movement. Maybe it is the REM that causes us to see things in our dreams.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Dr. Nelson that these experiences vary greatly from person to person. For example, not everyone really sees the tunnel and the light when they have near-death experience. I think that everyone experiences it in his own way. Everyone has his own dreams during sleep and these dreams are not shared with someone else. Well, maybe they are but no one really knows. I want to point out that people’s dreams differ from other’s dreams and so the near-death experiences do. For example, when I fainted two years ago, I had strange hallucinations. I felt like I was a whole universe, all the shiny little stars rotating everywhere around me. Isn’t it strange what low blood flow into your brain can make?
Article is in my opinion very interesting insight to the world of psychology, specifically neurology. Near-death experiences have, however, myriad sides from which we can look on them and therefore creates many controversial debates. One includes connection with God, the other explanation on the scientific level and of course many others. What I find fascinating is that scientific contributions and explanations are in a great extent only theories and only few of them were proven 100% valid. Thus I would like to point out that we should not believe completely what is said in this kind of articles as all of these theories still might undergo a lot of changes in progressive studies. But still, these assumptions can influence our perception and so this article did influence my perception on near-death experience.
ReplyDeleteThe scientific explanation of tunnel, which is seen before death, is probably the only thing, from all that had been written that I would believe and agree completely. Reason? Explanation is rather trustworthy, I would say. But REM intrusion hypothesis? I would not really trust that. Though it is still HYPOTHESIS. Of course, I cannot anyhow refute it but at least I can share my opinion. Pattern of how we come into hallucinations, talking to our dead beloved might be similar but does not necessarily explain why we experience these things. In fact, I think that after undergoing such experience when people are not awake results then that in conscious state people might totally distort this experience. They create a reason to explain what actually happened in a way they want, maybe in a way that is the most pleasant for them. Though meeting for example with a dead husband when a wife was so close to death is probably the first thing she would unconsciously make up in a conscious state (when totally woken up), I suppose. Similar example can be applied to extremely religious individuals who claim that they had met God. My further explanation to this might lead us to human naivety as we often tend to believe what is not true.
The other fact that I would like to share is connected to people who already had experienced near-death experience or at least fainting, which has similar symptoms as is claimed in the article. Honestly, excluding those who feel unpleasant emotional response, I think that this kind of experience might lead to very ineligible consequences. Precisely, I suppose that people would want to experience them again and again just to meet with God or dead beloved again. Therefore I would extremely assure that these people are aware of possible fatal effects as each of this experience weakens body in some way. Drugs and alcohol is one possibility to simulate symptoms of near-death experience but I guess that it is not the right way how one should deal with his problems by pleasing desires by evoking of fainting or trying to kill himself just to experience symptoms again.
To conclude, I prefer that we would believe the scientific explanation on biological and neurological level but I would not trust peoples’ statements.
This topic is quite interesting for me because I want to find out the connection between the scientific point of view and the religion one. The paragraph signed as “First things first” looks really authentically but some sentences contain word might and that means that is not sure at all.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the state of “near death experience” is possible to be obtained scientifically makes it less interesting for me. However all that 18 million people that know what felling it is, have never been near death and therefore the emotions cannot be so relevant. The connection of feeling peace, love and unity is not sufficiently described in the article. Ok, there is some connection found between REM system and dopamine reward system but this has as many holes as Slovak law system.
The research result is very logical. The switch that works sometimes well and sometimes poorly is acceptable. But there is still no explanation why there is low blood pressure or how extreme situations could affect the brain work.
I am especially interested in situations as hearing dead people or seeing ghost while people are paralyzed. What is said in the paragraph containing this topic is not enough for me. The connection between two borderlands is probably real, but what influence that change in blood flow? What influence the heard rate? How it is biologically possible that as person is lying still, there is a pressure change? There is still much missing in the text.
The difference between near-death and returning from death seems as simple thing for the author Katherine Don. But how is it possible that when there is such a thing called evolution, none of the ice age animals is still living? Why the ones that have frozen in that time have not just appeared now? There is something about your theory, but I think it is still a theory. If your cells freeze it is just not so simple to burst into life again. Living is not just structure of molecules, it is also life. That is why people (or to be honest nothing) can just make life. Dead cells are dead cells, no matter if they are frozen or not.
What I absolutely agree with is the author´s idea about brain. “I rely on well-established knowledge about mechanisms of the brain, but my understanding of the brain is more of a "systems" approach.” This is what I share with Katherine. Although it is very hard to fulfill, brain is not just a sum of chemicals or specific regions. It is a system. And this is where I start to think about where did it come from? Where is the scientific explanation for this? It is all just a coincidence? The answer is touched a bit in next paragraph. “I understand spiritual experiences in biological terms, but no matter how much we understand about how the brain is working, we won't know why it works in this way. There will always be a mystery to that.” That is right. How far and deep the human knowledge went during the last centuries, the answer for “WHY?” was not found.
The drugs topic somehow supports my opinion about all this out-of-body experiences. If drugs could lead to the same results as near death state, it makes it absolutely ordinary. It is very easy to biologically produce compounds presented in this process.
Finally, I consider this article to be sufficiently good, with many interesting opinion and some proven facts. However it did not answer to my question about “God and Science war”. “Does evolution prove that God doesn't exist? I don't think so.” This is what author said in his book. My conclusion is that this is right. This never endless war is absolutely stupid. There cannot be any evidence against God because God and science just walk side by side.
We are all curious to know what happens after our death, because we are all mortal. Near death experiences have severely influenced lives of many people on this globe, especially from the religious standpoint.
ReplyDeleteI would argue with Olga that these people are making up stories, or wrongly interpreting the near death experience, in order to make it „pleasant for them“. Conversely, atheists are the ones who turn up to be the strongly religious people after experiencing „the bright white light at the end of the tunnel“. I don’t regard myself to be naïve, if I believe to peoples afterlife experience, of their experience from heaven or hell, although I have to admit, every time we remember or see something, we reconstruct it. Fortunately, at least once in a lifetime, we will all come there and see what it is like. In other words, I think that it would be a great mistake to perceive our last moments of life as a decrease of blood pressure in our eyes, activation of REM system and put due to dopamine reward system.
Accordingly, science has always studied the way things work, as in the case of near death experience. Therefore I admire dr. Nelsons achievements, he spent a lifetime studying this topic and as I can see ,he came up with several reasonable explanations of the way his area of expertise does work (from the scientifical point of view). I find this tremendously significant, many doctors and scientists used to neglect this topic, because they found it irrational, since there was no scientifical explanation for it.
But as I have said, it would be a pity to disregard the spiritual side, and thus discriminate thousands of people who have really met with God. For instance, some advanced scientists from the discovery channel are able to define appearance of paranormal activity as an undefined magnetic field. Simply said, even the spiritual things have to work in some way, although we cannot prove them. Consequently, I fully agree with Miso and his quote that God and science walk side by side. They are here not to dispute each other, but to advance our society.
Responding to Tomáš:
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you and Dr. Nelson, that near-death experience and out-of-body experience or fainting are somehow connected and have many similarities. However your assumption that it could possibly be the same for dreams is right, but was mentioned in the text, so I do not find it so extraordinary. The REM is fascinating thing and I just cannot imagine that by the time you are sleeping your eyes are rapidly moving. It sounds unbelievable to me but if scientists have proven facts, I am opened to this information.
The variety of these things is logically great. As all things that depend on human mind (or brain), every experience is something unique because it is overlived by person and therefore all people are unique, these experiences have to be special for each person as you said. Your experience is strange but seems funny to me , maybe you could tell more about that. And I absolutely agree with your opinion about that low blood pressure flowing to the brain. It is hardly believable how extremely influenced are we as humans by such a frivolous seemed liquid flowing in our bodies. I sometimes think about this situation. How we could now what is reality like, when such a small change as low pressure could absolutely gammon our senses.
It is a pity that you did not really express your idea about these near-death experiences. I would like to know your idea about connection between science and religion and also some other opinion relevant to the article. For example do you believe in meeting dead people again?
@Oli
ReplyDeleteOli, I think you perfectly expressed also my own impressions from the article and I agree with you on most of your points. The thing you raised that we cannot fully trust scientific explanations in spheres as unclear and mysterious as near-death experiences are is one that I have no doubt about. As science is leaping forward with giant paces we can never predict what it comes up with next. I also support you on the credibility of the tunnel explanation but we differ on the second point with REM intrusion hypothesis.
I wouldn’t undermine the hypothesis itself, as in my opinion all it does is it puts together all effects of REM on our brain and what we eventually see or experience. I guess that with low blood flow to your brain you are really able to undergo various unbelievable states of mind as brain is so delicate and sensitive organ extremely prone to damages. Therefore I would at least partially believe the people telling about their extraordinary experiences although I must agree that some tend to be hyperbolic. I assume that not all of them actually faced the experience in the same way they described but there was still the rapid eye movement factor that made them see something. The problem is, as you also said, that it is natural for humans to provide spiritual explanations for everything they don’t understand and create also things that don’t exist therefore we can’t separate the facts from their imagination. However I wouldn’t blame the hypothesis as in my opinion it doesn’t support the fact that these things they see are real. It only explains that REM stands behind all of it and that could be true.
The last thing I would like to comment on is the addiction to near-death experiences. In my opinion there are people that are possessed by the hunger after extreme situations, no matter if they are caused by drugs, alcohol or attempts to kill them. If they experience any of them, and they enjoy the feeling going with it, I see only a little chance of stopping them from doing what they desire. Moreover I don’t think such guys mind whether it is fatal or not. They go for it no matter what. I only wish that the “adrenaline junkies” were sane enough to know their limits but unfortunately in most cases I think it is useless to tell them anything.
Alex
@oli:
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the point of looking at all the information gathered in this article very critically and trying to evaluate what sounds like it could be proven true and what sounds like an unlikely hypothesis. But even in this spirit, I do not understand why you disapprove of the REM intrusion theory. If I did not misunderstand your statements, you think that the hallucinations are not caused by the REM intrusions, but by the limitations of human memory. I am not saying this is not true, only that I do not comprehend why you think so. You are stating that it is because Dr. Nelson does not explain the cause of these matters. However, he himself said that he is not trying to do that, only to describe them. Additionally, if people imagine all the things that they experience during the near-death period only afterwards, I cannot see why they could not have really seen them during the near-death period itself. At this point, a comparison with dreams might be appropriate. If someone dreams of their husband a lot, why cannot they see him when close to death as well? It might be even more likely to happen when one realizes the danger and manages to think of them before becoming unconscious. But apart from this detail, I found your points on this topic interesting, and I agree with the rest of your opinion on this article.