Near-Death Experiences Explained?

[Burnt State]

Not so, Roberto!

Eye see.

 

[smcder]

Eye see.

Aye, think maybe you do.

 

[smcder]

All of the OBE reports I've read describe a pov not unlike the typical pov experienced by a human. This indicates to me that the disembodied consciousness is in a fixed location in time and space. Yes, still physical concepts, but that's what's reported. A pov typically from above (floating in the air) in a corner (fixed location) of the room. And as far as know, time seems to be experienced the same as well.

That's a pretty specific—and not incredibly unusual—pov. Obviously being up high looking down on one's body is unusual, haha, but pretty much everything else is normal. Although, some describe everything being more vivid as well.

Compared to states of consciousness reported under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, that's pretty mundane.

So we should certainly use our imaginations in an attempt to conceptualize a non-phsycial, disembodied conscious self, but when it comes to OBE reports, the experience doesn't seem to be too great a departure from typical conscious states.

I'd be interested to hear if there have ever been reports of unusual pov. I've looked in vain for anything regarding 3rd person pov with no luck.

I Googled:

"third person point of view in out of body experiences"

Some interesting results ensued, among them:

What Happens When Memories Aren't Seen In First-Person? Out-Of-Body Experiences Are Harder To Remember

"It’s a pretty unusual thing to consider: Our memories — the lasting ones, at least — are all seen from a first-person point-of-view. So, is it possible to remember things we experience from an out-of-body, third-person point-of-view? With implications for people with psychiatric conditions, researchers have now found that our memories tend to fail us when we’re not experiencing them in the first-person."

Relevant? Or are you using third person POV in another sense?

 

[Soupie]

"Compared to states of consciousness reported under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, that's pretty mundane."

Newsweek Cover Story or Internet Posting About Drugs? A Quiz

I was referring specifically to OBEs; I know NDEs can be very similar to DMT experiences.

Re: 3rd person pov. Roughly speaking, imagine the pov of a room if it were conscious of the things going on inside of it.

 

[Burnt State]

The one OBE I had as a teen early one morning following a night of acdic revelry was pretty damn terrifying - nothing third person about it. Interestingly, the experience of night terrors has a kind of omniscient narrative feel to it all. You are conscious of all the surreal primary nightmarish sequences as well as listening to your body, muscles frozen, moaning and trying to scream, while inside the night terror you are screaming quite clearly. All are very memorable for their intensity, despit the bi-locating consciousness experience.

 

[smcder]

I was referring specifically to OBEs; I know NDEs can be very similar to DMT experiences.

Re: 3rd person pov. Roughly speaking, imagine the pov of a room if it were conscious of the things going on inside of it.

To differentiate this from a floating POV I imagine something like how a movie is shot with multiple cameras and changes (perhaps instantaneous) in POV as we move through the scene ... is that right?

In the OBE accounts you have read about, does the POV or other aspects of the experience differ according to the media the person has been exposed to? (Advent of motion pictures or changes in media technology?)

OR do you mean something like a global viewpoint? A POV where you can see 360x360 (in all directions at once?)

 

[Soupie]

To differentiate this from a floating POV I imagine something like how a movie is shot with multiple cameras and changes (perhaps instantaneous) in POV as we move through the scene ... is that right?

In the OBE accounts you have read about, does the POV or other aspects of the experience differ according to the media the person has been exposed to? (Advent of motion pictures or changes in media technology?)

OR do you mean something like a global viewpoint? A POV where you can see 360x360 (in all directions at once?)

Yes, global viewpoint.

Sensory processing organs aside, my logic is that if a conscious self can be, or is, disembodied, why should it have the same exact pov as an embodied conscious self.

If this disembodied conscious self can gather information about the environment—sounds, sights, etc.—without a body, why should its experience be essentially the same as a conscious self confined to a body?

 

[Soupie]

To differentiate this from a floating POV I imagine something like how a movie is shot with multiple cameras and changes (perhaps instantaneous) in POV as we move through the scene ... is that right?

In the OBE accounts you have read about, does the POV or other aspects of the experience differ according to the media the person has been exposed to? (Advent of motion pictures or changes in media technology?)

OR do you mean something like a global viewpoint? A POV where you can see 360x360 (in all directions at once?)

A global view sans the "point."

 

[smcder]

If "consciousness" is detached from the physical body, as some claim happens during OBEs and NDEs, how is this disembodied "consciousness" getting sensory information about the physical environment? How is this "consciousness" hearing voices, seeing things, carrying things, etc. without eyes, ears, hands, etc.?

I'm very open to the possibility that something more than hallucinations are going on in some of these cases, but until someone can explain how a disembodied consciousness can carry physical paper towels without a [physical] body or see someone standing beside a table without a [physical] pair of eyes, I'm not convinced there is a disembodied glob of consciousness "floating" around the room.


People can have mental activity, but not recall it due to brain injury or the effects of drugs on the brain... So they can have mental activity without the brain, but memory of those experiences is affected by the brain? If those mental events happen without the brain, how would they ever--in any case--become physical memories in the brain? That is, if someone were to have a true, paranormal OBE wherein consciousness existed apart from the body-brain, how could this experience be recalled by the brain after the fact, as some reports claim?

You can't have an experience without the brain, and then afterword have the brain recall the experience... You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either the brain is not involved or it is involved.

Again, I'm open to the idea that something more than hallucinations are occurring, but recalled consciousness experiences without a sensory/nervous system and brain doesn't add up imo.

"If consciousness" is detached from the physical body, as some claim happens during OBEs and NDEs, how is this disembodied "consciousness" getting sensory information about the physical environment? How is this "consciousness" hearing voices, seeing things, carrying things, etc. without eyes, ears, hands, etc.?"

The question is if it's possible to have sensory experiences without physical senses.

What does the evidence say?

The math gets a bit heavy on this one but Tressoldi argues for the existence of "extraordinary evidence" for NLP:

http://deanradin.com/evidence/Tressoldi2011Bayesian.pdf

If we accept that conclusion or if we just want to exercise our imagination waiting for further evidence to come in ... we can change the question to "How can our senses operate non locally?"

This sidesteps the problems of "detached" consciousness, although we could examine claims for non-local consciousness. Again it's easier if we reject physical metaphors such as globs of floating consciousness.

 

[smcder]

Yes, global viewpoint.

Sensory processing organs aside, my logic is that if a conscious self can be, or is, disembodied, why should it have the same exact pov as an embodied conscious self.

If this disembodied conscious self can gather information about the environment—sounds, sights, etc.—without a body, why should its experience be essentially the same as a conscious self confined to a body?

OK - but you also have to answer some of my question too.

First, I could counter that by saying it seems perfectly reasonable that a disembodied conscious self has **the same exact** (I would say only similar, sense a floating POV isn't the same exact (aside: why can we dream of flying?) POV ... but this gets at the different ideas we might have about what it means to be disembodied. And that's a significant point. Traditionally, the idea was about subtle bodies ... not a completely non-physical free floating consciousness. After death a person might even work there way through several layers of progressively subtle bodies ... and different POVs may with these different bodies - from that POV, it makes sense to have a similar POV in an OOBE as the first layer of sheath, the first subtle body is very similar to the physical body. (do you remember the discussion of "shadow matter" a while back? From the BATGAP podcast?)

Second, I would say good - would you be willing to take a crack at answering that question? One of the best ways to challenge our own assumptions (which requires finding them) is to try and argue the other side.

Back to my question in the previous post ... is there an indication that media exposure, advent of motion pictures, etc have altered OOBE reports?

But ... even IF some OOBEs do involve a completely disembodied consciousness, is it reasonable to assume that a disembodied consciousness would have a global point of view? I can't even visualize what that would look like ... interestingly, I did see a movie recently in which they used something like this ... it had Wesley Snipes in it, I'll see if I can find the title. So is that just something we have in mind because it's in movies?

The other thing I can think of is reports of this kind of vision in the martial arts and in combat ... I believe I have read of Vietnam era combat veterans reporting this kind of global viewpoint.

 

[Soupie]

Maybe limited-omniscient would be a better phrase.

 

[smcder]

Maybe limited-omniscient would be a better phrase.

LOL ... I already have that.

 

[smcder]

The Snipes' film is The Art of War ... I'd have to go back and see if I can find the scenes ... I'm thinking it may be more my imagination, but I did think they were going for some kind of 360x360 effect ... like a wheel in the middle of a wheel.

 

[smcder]

If "consciousness" is detached from the physical body, as some claim happens during OBEs and NDEs, how is this disembodied "consciousness" getting sensory information about the physical environment? How is this "consciousness" hearing voices, seeing things, carrying things, etc. without eyes, ears, hands, etc.?

I'm very open to the possibility that something more than hallucinations are going on in some of these cases, but until someone can explain how a disembodied consciousness can carry physical paper towels without a [physical] body or see someone standing beside a table without a [physical] pair of eyes, I'm not convinced there is a disembodied glob of consciousness "floating" around the room.


People can have mental activity, but not recall it due to brain injury or the effects of drugs on the brain... So they can have mental activity without the brain, but memory of those experiences is affected by the brain? If those mental events happen without the brain, how would they ever--in any case--become physical memories in the brain? That is, if someone were to have a true, paranormal OBE wherein consciousness existed apart from the body-brain, how could this experience be recalled by the brain after the fact, as some reports claim?

You can't have an experience without the brain, and then afterword have the brain recall the experience... You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either the brain is not involved or it is involved.

Again, I'm open to the idea that something more than hallucinations are occurring, but recalled consciousness experiences without a sensory/nervous system and brain doesn't add up imo.

If "consciousness" is detached from the physical body, as some claim happens during OBEs and NDEs, how is this disembodied "consciousness" getting sensory information about the physical environment? How is this "consciousness" hearing voices, seeing things, carrying things, etc. without eyes, ears, hands, etc.?

Some claim - ... but not all? What do others claim happens? If there are other explanations than disembodied consciousness, then can we do away with this set of problems:

I'm very open to the possibility that something more than hallucinations are going on in some of these cases, but until someone can explain how a disembodied consciousness can carry physical paper towels without a [physical] body or see someone standing beside a table without a [physical] pair of eyes, I'm not convinced there is a disembodied glob of consciousness "floating" around the room.

?
.......

People can have mental activity, but not recall it due to brain injury or the effects of drugs on the brain... So they can have mental activity without the brain, but memory of those experiences is affected by the brain? If those mental events happen without the brain, how would they ever--in any case--become physical memories in the brain? That is, if someone were to have a true, paranormal OBE wherein consciousness existed apart from the body-brain, how could this experience be recalled by the brain after the fact, as some reports claim?
You can't have an experience without the brain, and then afterword have the brain recall the experience... You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either the brain is not involved or it is involved.
Again, I'm open to the idea that something more than hallucinations are occurring, but recalled consciousness experiences without a sensory/nervous system and brain doesn't add up imo.

What experiences are claimed that could only be explained by disembodied globs of consciousness?

OOBEs and NDEs: - no matter what definition of clinical death we use, we can always argue they weren't really, really dead and/or evoke NLP as an explanation for veridical information as needed.

Reincarnation: A young child recalls an experience from a past life. A physical being with a brain is recalling an experience that happened to a physical being with a brain that is now dead. Similarly ...

Anomalous information reception by research mediums demonstrated us... - PubMed - NCBI

CONCLUSIONS:
The results suggest that certain mediums can anomalously receive accurate information about deceased individuals. The study design effectively eliminates conventional mechanisms as well as telepathy as explanations for the information reception, but the results cannot distinguish among alternative paranormal hypotheses, such as survival of consciousness (the continued existence, separate from the body, of an individual's consciousness or personality after physical death) and super-psi (or super-ESP; retrieval of information via a psychic channel or quantum field).

So, at first glance ... I'm not seeing a case that absolutely requires disembodied consciousness per se as an explanation ... and I'm trying to think how we could set up protocols to rule out all other explanations? ... the experiment above was unable to distinguish survival and super-psi ... so can you take any claim of disembodied consciousness and counterclaim NLP or super-psi or some other explantion? I think so because disembodied consciousness can't make any unambiguous claims on the physical.

For that matter, consciousness as non-physical can't make any unambiguous claim on the physical ... and now, we are right back to an old problem, aren't we? Isn't it a paranormal claim (or at least a pre-scientific one) that we make when we say:

When I think: "I will move my arm." that thought has the effect of moving my arm? And that makes your disembodied glob of consciousness a homunculus ... if it's non-physical, it doesn't matter if it's in the head or not, does it? In fact, if it's non-physical, it can't be in anything.

But by trying to move it "outside" - we've added a new wrinkle because we see that disembodied consciousness can't make unambiguous claims on the physical, and so now I'm wondering if it's possible to extend that argument to all conceptions of consciousness period? ... whether they are physical or non-physical and whether they are causally impotent or causally effective ....?

@Constance posted some recent information about failure to replicate studies that seem to show that consciousness occurs after the fact and that argue consciousness does have an effect. So maybe we should look there ...

What Explains Consciousness? Or…What Consciousness Explains?

Especially this:

There are also increasingly common identifications of methodological bias in, along with failures to replicate, studies reporting unconscious controls in decision, social priming—as there have been in perception, learning, problem solving, etc. The literature critique has provided evidence taken as reducing, and in some cases eliminating, a role for conscious controls—a position consistent with that ideology out of behaviourism into cognitivism. It is an ideological position that fails to recognize the fundamental distinction between theoretical and metaphysical assertions.

 

[boomerang]

The pivotal question in seeking non-subjective evidence of disembodied consciousness interacting with our physical world would seem to hinge on claims of observations made by the temporarily deceased of activities taking place during the brain's well documented down-time. In other words--has it been verified that the out of body person indeed remembers details, usually having to do with medical procedures, during the time when he or she was clinically dead?

We seem to have a hard time either verifying or negating such claims.

 

[smcder]

The pivotal question in seeking non-subjective evidence of disembodied consciousness interacting with our physical world would seem to hinge on claims of observations made by the temporarily deceased of activities taking place during the brain's well documented down-time. In other words--has it been verified that the out of body person indeed remembers details, usually having to do with medical procedures, during the time when he or she was clinically dead?

We seem to have a hard time either verifying or negating such claims.

Doesn't that hinge on increasingly sensitive measures/definitions of "clinical death"? Also there are studies showing that hallucinogens actually decrease brain activity, aren't there?

 

[smcder]

One other thought is that is there any aspect of experience not encompassed by dreaming?

No one has ever dreamed of a hallucinogenic experiences? An NDE and OOBE? Of dying and being reborn? Of being someone else? Of being no one? Of being awake? Tibetan monks train to meditate in their sleep. I've dreamt the whole world was other than it was and awoke to be relieved, or horrified that it wasn't ... but who is to say I woke up in the same world?

The point is do similar questions/problems not arise in our own every night experiences as in NDEs, OOBEs, etc? What's more exotic than your dream, what's more mundane than mine?

If there is a terror more intense than I've experienced in dream and twilight states ... I don't want to know about it. If there is a beauty more intense than I've experience in dream and twilight states, I can't imagine it. A lot of anti-religious fervor, aside from being exactly like religious fervor, I think is based on the fear that something more terrible than simply not being could be in store for us at the end of life. NDEs suggest we might not know. Suppose the NDE was hell-like and persisted long after the plug was pulled, the room was dark and the body was cold ... consciousness running on the faintest of energy, nothing paranormal about it. Suppose it was heavenly and you thought "yes, it's really true! I made it! There's sparky ... running toward me!" But every night its the same - you dream, then nothing, of course, then you wake up. So maybe for some the fear isn't of nothing but of what kind of dreams we might have before that nothing.

I had an experience of pure, undifferentiated light - it seemed to happen instantly as I was lying in bed awake and thinking, but it could have been in a hypnogogic state and it was terrifying because I could no more see in pure light than I could pure darkness.

I've also had experiences where the most intense light I've ever seen, the most vivid images were in these kind of states ... I used to practice that kind of visualization and I'm fairly sure I was awake ... mostly landscapes would appear, not familiar to me but like ordinary life only extraordinarily clear and beautiful ... so is my optic nerve involved and firing when this happens? I wouldn't be surprised, but the light coming in was from my darkened bedroom ...

I also recently dreamed of being stung by a wasp ... and it hurt in the dream and I remember in the dream thinking this can't be a dream, because you don't feel pain in a dream, do you? But I'd been stung three times in the past few weeks when that happened and it was exactly the same sensation.

I've had dreams of flying, so how does my brain "know" what it feels like to fly and yet it seemed exactly like what it would be like ...(I wasn't surprised by how it felt to fly) - but I have no way to affirm that ... I can imagine flying but I don't think it's the same sensation I had in dreams ... flying in an airplane isn't the same .... could the mind extrapolate from being thrown in the air as a child or being on a trampoline? Does that explain floating and gliding? And of course I fell ... years later I would jump off a 33 foot diving board (it takes about a second and a half) and yes, that was the same feeling of falling, prior to that I'd never fallen far enough to have those exact sensations ... so how did I know? Or is that a trick question?

 

[smcder]

The one OBE I had as a teen early one morning following a night of acdic revelry was pretty damn terrifying - nothing third person about it. Interestingly, the experience of night terrors has a kind of omniscient narrative feel to it all. You are conscious of all the surreal primary nightmarish sequences as well as listening to your body, muscles frozen, moaning and trying to scream, while inside the night terror you are screaming quite clearly. All are very memorable for their intensity, despit the bi-locating consciousness experience.

13??? I didn't know they had acid back then! Acidic revelry for me would have involved over eating at Shoneys Buffet.

Have you had flashbacks?

Anyone else here had an OoBE? @Soupie?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[manxman]

The one OBE I had as a teen early one morning following a night of acdic revelry was pretty damn terrifying - nothing third person about it. Interestingly, the experience of night terrors has a kind of omniscient narrative feel to it all. You are conscious of all the surreal primary nightmarish sequences as well as listening to your body, muscles frozen, moaning and trying to scream, while inside the night terror you are screaming quite clearly. All are very memorable for their intensity, despit the bi-locating consciousness experience.

This i can relate to, mid to late teens, having the weight of the world sitting on your chest pinning you to the mattress.

 

[Wade]

I also recently dreamed of being stung by a wasp ... and it hurt in the dream and I remember in the dream thinking this can't be a dream, because you don't feel pain in a dream, do you? But I'd been stung three times in the past few weeks when that happened and it was exactly the same sensation.

This is an ever occurring theme in many of my dreams and it's nearly always at the base of my spine and sometimes at the top of my spine at the base of my neck and it always wakes me up. I don't feel pain but I think I've felt a pinch. I'm pretty sure my muscles do this involuntary contraction like when you tense up, I know it's coming so I brace myself.