My Own Near Death Experience.

[Rozlee]

I wrote a comment in the Stephen Hawking OP that I decided to expand into it's own journal. I've always considered it an interesting anomaly.

I had a Near Death Experience once. My deceased mother came for me. She smiled, took me in her arms and guided me toward a lighted figure in the distance. I was filled with such a feeling of euphoria, that I still get a flashback of it thinking about it even now.

Only, I wasn't dying. I was having a seizure. Well, maybe I was dying. I had stopped breathing for almost a minute or so. But, I remember the vision so clearly.

I guess I'm too damn skeptical. I started doing some research and found a few articles. It turns out that if you stimulate areas of the brain with electrical currents, you can induce hallucinations of NDEs, visions of the Virgin Mary or even alien abductions. I mailed the authors of one of the articles and explained what had happened to me. She told me that people with epilepsy have often reported delusions right after a seizure; possibly related to neural activity in the area of the brain that causes NDEs and other hallucinations when stimulated. The hallucinations usually tend to be of a religious nature or some other cultural zeitgeist. I imagine for a lot of young girls nowadays, a bunch of them would involve hunky vampires that sparkle in the sun or shirtless werewolves.

It's been a long time since that incident. I can see how people can get caught up in the delusion and build an entire religious mind view around it. It's really seductive and I miss my mother so much. But, a religious mind view isn't an option. My head just isn't wired that way. I can't ever bring myself to err on the side of woo.

It does make one wonder, however. It really explains to me how these NDEs are so prevalent. As you're dying, neural activity in your brain from oxygen depletion is doing it's thing. And once you're revived, you're awed and a convert: you saw Jeebus. Really, people. Next time, try for the hunky vampires and shirtless werewolves.

[laconicsax]

1. Eww...necrophilia and bestiality...

(Vampires and werewolves)

On a serious note, I find the explanation of NDEs far more interesting than the individual interpretation. The fact that the entire experience is the result of electrical activity in the brain opens up so many fascinating things that are being explored by neuroscience and is almost like a bottomless pit, just waiting to be explored.

[Rozlee]

2. I read once where a couple of saints' visions could definitely have been

the cause of epileptic hallucinations. Lucia Santos, the l0 year old that saw the Virgin at Fatima was an epileptic. She probably saw the "vision" and convinced her younger cousins who then got caught up in a folie a tres and confabulated the whole thing. Joan of Arc was supposedly an epileptic herself. See what that got her and England and France. It's all so dispiriting. Religionists look for signs of god in entrails. They really get carried away with delusions from oxygen-starved brains.

[onager]

3. Easily duplicated in a centrifuge, which I find fascinating...

A US Air Force doctor, James Whinnery, found himself flooded with reports that sounded like NDEs. Problem was, his patients weren't dying. They were the healthiest people in the world - pilot candidates for the Air Force.

Whinnery called the phenomenon "gravity induced loss of consciousness," or G-LOC. They always occurred in a centrifuge, where the pilots naturally experienced oxygen deprivation as they were flung around.

The fascinating part is what they reported - all of the classic NDE features:

Tunnel vision / bright light
Floating
Automatic movement
Autoscopy
Out-of-body experience
Not wanting to be disturbed
Paralysis
Vivid dreamlets / beautiful places
a. Euphoria
b. Dissociation
Pleasurable
Psychologic state alteration
Friends /family inclusion
Prior memories / thoughts inclusion
Very memorable (when remembered)
Confabulation
Strong urge to understand

Whole story here:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/triggers06.html

[trotsky]

4. Thank you for sharing your story.

NDEs are truly amazing incidents and really display the full power of our brain, reminding us where "sensing" things actually happens. While it would certainly bring comfort to read into your experience that A) an afterlife exists, and B) your mother is there waiting for you, it is exactly the things we WANT to be true that we need to question the most.

[Warpy]

5. I didn't see anyone

but I felt the most amazing sensation of peace as everything I cared about in any way, even the pain, became irrelevant.

Whether we find a Happy Hunting Ground, achieve Nirvana, spend eternity on a cloud and scrubbing a harp, or just float into nothingness on a tide of happy hormones, those hormones are very happy.

[cayanne]

6. I know two others who had similar experiences

When they "died and were bought back, some for 1 1/2+ minutes, they experienced someone taking their hand and telling them it wasn't their time.
I don't know of course what really happens but I find it curious that this has happened to both of them.

[awoke_in_2003]

7. I suffered from seizures...

from the age of 17 to 25 or so. What went on in my brain exactly fits a lot of the NDE experiences. Errant electrical activity in the brain does funny things- maybe I can start a new religion and get rich :)

[Warpy]

8. ...

[RebelOne]

9. I have a friend who has had 5 heart operations.

She had Morphins(sp?) Syndrome. During her last operation, she said that all of a sudden, she was floating above her doctor. The next thing she remembered was the doctor waking her and saying that he almost lost her. Sort of makes me wonder.

[sakabatou]

10. Funny...

When I have a seizure, I fall asleep right after.