Seen this before? What do you think?

Question

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/experts06.html

Answer 1

No, I haven't seen it.

This study leaves a lot to be desired. Unless this website is embellishing, he's accepted (and reported) a lot of questionable data:
"...could not wear watches as they would mysteriously break"
"...electrical conduction problems such as shorting out lap top computers and erasing credit cards"
If so, then measure the field strength around these people and compare it with the field strength of the rest of the population.
"...25% of parents had a vivid premonition of the event..."
What constitutes a premonition? How many parents of kids who didn't die also expressed anxiety about something that might happen to them?

"We must stop trivializing and dismissing death related visions as hallucinations of a dysfunctional brain"
His evidence for this was unconvincing.
"He found that 23/26 children who nearly died had NDEs whereas none of the other children had them"
The control group was not dying. His experimental group was. That's a problem. The difference is that one group has no oxygen supply to their brain. That's all he's testing against.

"He found that having a NDE is good for you, resulting in a love for living"
To me, that's more interesting than the obvious implication that there is life after death.

All told, I'm unimpressed. It's the same NDE stuff that's been around for years: people approaching death are revived and have an interesting story to tell. First, no one has ever been fully dead (total cessation of all physiological function) and come back to tell the tale. Second, no matter how interesting it is, a handful of personal accounts is not good data. Third, and most importantly, no two accounts are identical, which tells you something of the inherently-subjective nature of the phenomenon. I've read books and seen interviews with people reporting NDEs. The people are honest. I think they are giving an account, to the best of their ability, of what it was like to come close to dying. However, until we look at NDEs as "life while dying", instead of "life after death", the research isn't going anywhere.

Answer 2

As a mere human, I have no idea what happens. When I was about 4 years of age, I had an experience that has startled me for the following 67 years. I was very sick and first think I knew, I was up against or into the ceiling looking down at the little girl on the bed. I did not recognize her. Her family was all around and were worried. One person there was a doctor I knew and he said "If she makes it until morning, I think she will live." I can still hear his voice saying that.

Anyway, there were other people on the ceiling with me but I did not talk with them. I was fascinated with the little girl.

The first thing I knew was that I was being pushed from the ceiling and into the little girl. When I got to the little girl, her body just enveloped me with a jolt.

I was scared. I started crying and everyone seemed to be happy I was crying. It is still a dread in the back of my mind.

Sorry to be so long winded.

Answer 3

Interesting Article.

It doesn't address the interaction these children had with their parents and family members after these traumatic events.

When someone almost dies, they are almost always questioned about it, verses someone who is under medication that knocks them out.

Think about it. If you go into surgery, and go under morphine, would your parents ask you if you saw Jesus after it was done? Would they ask about a lighted tunnel?

Children are very suseptable to suggestion, I have 4 boys and have seen them convince themselves that they have been to Australia, because that is where i was born. The three younger ones even had stories about their visit there and what my Grandparents were like. None of them ever went, they just saw pictures of me and assumed they must have been there too.

I would guess that children asked about NDE's by interested parents, and doctors could easily imagine similar events as they would be guided by the types of questions asked.

If you ask a child if they saw a bright light in their dreams, right when they wake up, most of them will say Yes and then describe it. Not because they saw a bright light, but because they were questioned about it.

Interesting study though.

Answer 4

Visual and/or auditory disturbances are common when the brain has hypoxia and sensory neurons are about to die. This is why the "tunnel of light" is such a common phenomenon. If oxygenated blood flow is restored to the brain, then reversal of damage, including full recovery and partial recovery, is possible.

Have you ever hit your head and been knocked unconscious? If so, did you see a flash of light as your head hit the object? Does this mean that the cosmos were trying to reach out to you? No.

Blind children that have mental handicaps will often bang their heads against the wall to "see" stars. I doubt this fits into the religious or philosophical realms. It is simply the body reacting to trauma.

Answer 5

Near-death experiences are all very similar to each other. This is WITHOUT REGARD to the person's religion or culture or whether or not they've been 'saved'. This would imply that their experiences are NOT religious in nature, but are instead physiological. They can now reproduce out of body experiences in the laboratory by chemical means.

Answer 6

I don't have time to read all that.. however I do believe there is a connection in all of these experiences. Many people describe the same things with a near death experience.. It's the little children who can describe it best because they are still pure in their hearts and minds and haven't been programed to lie about such things.

Answer 7

NDE is very easy to study now, since it can be produced safely and easily using Ketamine.

The effects (moving rapidly through a tunnel, light at the end, etc.) are caused by the brain becoming disconnected from the body. That happens in the process of dying, but it can be done chemically as well.

Answer 8

I've read some of his work, interesting.
My grandmother had an experience before she died. She saw the proverbial garden then sat up in her hospital bed and started waving to people, then calling out their names.
All "dead".
She died a few days later.

†

Answer 9

Yep, typically during death the brain overloads and generates a bunch of various random signals.

Answer 10

I think its a load of crap, they say it them selves, they compared someone who was clinically dead to someone who is very sick, very different, and the ones who died and were brought back, surely had something different than someone who was living yet ill.