2007-03-13 15:46:54 · 23 answers · asked by Gone 4 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Because of the similarities between the many reported Near Death Experiences, I believe it is a combination of what people expect to happen and an actual neurological reaction to the trauma which has caused the body to shut down temporarily.
In the aftermath, however, people tend to have epiphanies which result in major personality and life changes. They can be negative (families drift, friends stop talking, marriages fail) and/or positive (new outlook and appreciation for life and loved ones), and a great deal of emotional pain and stress comes when the experiencer tries to convey the ideas to the people around him/her.
Whether they're real or not, the people who have experienced them certainly did experience something, be it spiritual or biological. What ever helps them get through the night doesn't bother me at all :)
2007-03-13 15:51:55 · answer #1 · answered by Allo 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
A description of a "Near Death Experience" is unreliable for many reasons, primary among them the fact that by now there is such an extensive record of people having experienced (allegedly) the tunnel with the light in the distance and dead relatives awaiting them in the afterlife that it has become the standard or expected report of those experiences; it is not possible to know whether the person relating the event did or did not actually envision the scene. Additionally, a near-death experience is NOT a true death in that brain activity is still occurring; no one has ever returned to describe absolute death. I have read an explanation by a physician who surmised that the electrical activity continuing in the brain during an occurrence of the temporary cessation of breathing or heartbeat very definitely might produce exactly such visions as are reported, particularly the tunnel and light. Heaven (which appears to be what is being glimpsed) in actuality, should it exist, would be stunning, beyond the ability of mere humans to comprehend or describe...
2007-03-13 16:49:08 · answer #2 · answered by Lynci 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
When I was 14, I did in fact nearly die in my sleep
Years later, it seems very dreamlike. But, I was out of my body looking down at me. The part of me that was thinking, was actually above my body near the ceiling.
Some will say I was dreaming, but to them I say " You weren't there!"
Can't claim to know what happened, but I know what I remember. However, on the night of May 8 1976, Something nearly took my life. I have the scar in my brain to prove it. (Can't see it w/o a CT scan)
2007-03-13 15:58:31 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think that to people who have experienced them, they are very real. However, the very circumstances under which these occur tend to be ones where vivid hallucinations or dreams are common such as a loss of oxygen to the brain and having been administered powerful drugs to save ones life.
2007-03-13 15:53:55 · answer #4 · answered by babydoll 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Good for the person having the experience, the problem comes in to play when they try to tell others of their experiences.
2007-03-13 15:50:58 · answer #5 · answered by MoPleasure4U 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Not as good as the After Death Experience.
-----dudes, I'm speaking literally.
2007-03-13 15:50:20 · answer #6 · answered by ? 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I think it’s when you get a big bump on the head and you see a light and you think it’s an angel or Jesus. The biblical Paul got stoned and went to the seventh heaven and came back (aka NDE). Still, I think other dimensions exist (as string theory mathematics demonstrates), and it may just take a certain kind of bump to perceive it.
2007-03-13 15:53:41 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is definatly a spiritual thing. What exactly is a near death experience is different for everyone mine was when I met a tractor trailer truck on a narrow two lane road with rock wall on his side and steep drop off on mine and he was over the yellow line by three feet. The grace of God got me thru that one but I thought I was dead--the car behind me thought so too as they pulled over behind me when we got to a place to pull over. I was shaking so bad. This old couple was on their way to a church revival. The old man did not know how either one of us got thru the narrow passage without hitting the gaurdrail and plunging 150 feet. near death experience? perhaps. I think it was.
2007-03-13 15:55:05 · answer #8 · answered by dinkylynn 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋
The term defines itself: NEAR death. not actually dead.
One might say " well the person was "clinically" or "legally" or "medically" dead: But these are all man-made artificial classifications. Only God knows the moment a person actually dies.
2007-03-13 15:53:21 · answer #9 · answered by revulayshun 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
People take LSD and see purple elephants.
Is it so hard to imagine the brain doing equally crazy things when you are near death?
2007-03-13 15:50:20 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋