As many of you know, sometimes people (before they die) claim to have seen a spiritual entity which could have been a deceased loved one, or a religious figure. I read that these can even sometimes occur about a month before the person dies, or they can occur one hour before the person dies. People in favour of NDEs and deathbed visions like Peter Fenwick and Pim Van Lommel would argue that these cannot be hallucinations, as hallucinations would not be as clear, and they would not be calming and comforting. Rather they would be quick, scary to some people. They also say that medication cannot cause these sensations. What do you guys think?
What do I think? I think this doesn't really differ significantly of another thread you've already made, quite recently.
In any case. If someone can prove it's a 'supernatural' occurnance, I'll do my best to accept it as such.
Until that time. I see no need to.
People who are ignoring the actual science in favor of NDEs are mere apologists seeking to make their claims with no actual evidence to support them, per usual.
Yogis and saints ... live on their death-bed as a matter of discipline. This is why some yogis practice "cremation ground" meditations. Something anathema to the Western mind. Of course Shiva is actually covered in the ashes of the cremation of his followers. And that isn't even Tantra.
When a person is near death their body chemistry is pretty much fubar, in addition to the fact the brain is probably not receiving all the oxygen it needs, and both contribute to hallucinations or vivid dreams. Plus they are probably heavily medicated in many instances.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: The brain does funny things when deprived of oxygen.
The body produces some pretty great chemicals when it is under extreme stress. NDEs are a result of that and the resulted hallucinations
Quote from: Manga on March 18, 2017, 05:15:15 PM
As many of you know, sometimes people (before they die) claim to have seen a spiritual entity which could have been a deceased loved one, or a religious figure. I read that these can even sometimes occur about a month before the person dies, or they can occur one hour before the person dies. People in favour of NDEs and deathbed visions like Peter Fenwick and Pim Van Lommel would argue that these cannot be hallucinations, as hallucinations would not be as clear, and they would not be calming and comforting. Rather they would be quick, scary to some people. They also say that medication cannot cause these sensations. What do you guys think?
What do I think? I usually pass and avoid claims from indoctrinated theists, and NDE claims almost always can be traced to indoctrinated theists. In my limited anecdotal expereince, they often lie, misrepresent and demonstrate willful ignorance. I choose not to waste time with them.
But go ahead and buy into it all you want if that's your choice.
If you have your own NDE or paranormal experience, good for you. I don't believe in hallucination as ... false. I consider human experience to be subjective and primary. But I wouldn't seek them out. The only reason for wanting to be different, is because you want to be special. Ordinary experience is supernatural ... you don't need anything else.
I've seen dead people many times. Sometimes they were piled up in front of my guns.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on March 19, 2017, 01:36:32 PM
I've seen dead people many times. Sometimes they were piled up in front of my guns.
Ah, but will you see them again ;-( It is necessary to kill people sometimes ... if it was necessary, then you don't have much to worry about.
Quote from: Baruch
If you have your own NDE or paranormal experience, good for you. I don't believe in hallucination as ... false. I consider human experience to be subjective and primary...
My whole "schizophrenic" experience began, when I was visited by a ghost of myself, from the future. That single event, altered the course of my life drastically. The next phase, was when I began hearing the voices of my neighbors, family and friends, speaking clearly, in the empty room with me. The same day that those voices began, I heard a voice coming from a disconnected speaker. It said:
"If you can hear this, you're not a soulmate. Only dead people can hear at this level." That curious message repeated, over and over, non-stop until I left the apartment, and went to the hospital, in search of some help. When I got to the hospital, the same message was repeating, like an endless loop, over the P.A. speakers:
"If you can hear this, you're not a soulmate. Only dead people can hear at this level." At one point, I remember hearing a nurse say, "Yeah, it's
real, isn't it?" The hospital was a trip. It's like they had dealt with this phenomenon before, and they were secretly prepared to train me, on how to ascend to some new level of human awareness. I couldn't begin to describe all the fascinating weirdness. I embraced it, at first. It was all so new, and thrilling. It didn't take too long, before the only thing I wanted, was for it all to stop, and go back to normal.
Quote from: Baruch...But I wouldn't seek them out.
I don't even know if "seeking them out," would really even work. At least not to the level that I am experiencing.
One can experience the abnormal ... in a controlled way, or an uncontrolled way. Certainly to be on an LSD trip without medical assistance, would be similar to your experience. People argue if MJ as a medical thing ... should it be in a medical setting, or a recreational setting. I could suspect that auditory clairvoyance ... is much as you experienced. Shamen are people who were ... abnormal in some way, but recovered. Having recovered ... yes, you would be different than if that hadn't happened. That would be a truism.
I friend of mine underwent a terrible physical problem when in elementary school ... had to be in traction, away from his family, for years. Eventually he recovered, and went back to his family and since then has been ordinary. He is a completely different person, for having had that experience. But not something one would volunteer for, if one could. What I was cautioning, are people who seek out extraordinary experiences, because they want to be different, special. If you can be ordinary .. then that is a good thing.
But I wouldn't privilege normality, any more than I would R-D political ideology (the majority POV).
LSD ain't got nothin' on this shit, Baruch. The "visitation," that started it off, was way beyond any kind of hallucination. My ex-girlfriend had been hearing my voice talking to her, for days, and came to me with the problem. We went for a drive, and to make a long story short, the ghostly future-me took control of steering the car, turned the windshield into a "movie-screen," and showed us scenes from my future. Hours of time went by, while the two of us witnessed this. When it was done, only a few seconds of actual time had passed, and one car had passed us on the road.
"Crazy...Toys in the attic... I am crazy...Truly gone fishing..." - Pink Floyd: "The Trial"
Quote from: Solomon Zorn on March 19, 2017, 03:54:39 PM
LSD ain't got nothin' on this shit, Baruch. The "visitation," that started it off, was way beyond any kind of hallucination. My ex-girlfriend had been hearing my voice talking to her, for days, and came to me with the problem. We went for a drive, and to make a long story short, the ghostly future-me took control of steering the car, turned the windshield into a "movie-screen," and showed us scenes from my future. Hours of time went by, while the two of us witnessed this. When it was done, only a few seconds of actual time had passed, and one car had passed us on the road.
You should have made it into a script, sold it to Hollywood, with Tom Cruise playing you ;-)
Quote from: Baruch on March 19, 2017, 07:50:38 PM
You should have made it into a script, sold it to Hollywood, with Tom Cruise playing you ;-)
If it weren't for the peripheral embarrassment, that an autobiography would cause, I would probably write one. But Tom Cruise - no.
That gives me an idea:
http://atheistforums.com/index.php?topic=11447.msg1171664#new
The title of the thread says it all - "Opinions on Deathbed visions?" That's all anyone can have is opinions. My own opinion is no better than anyone else's, but I think they're just physiological responses to imbalances in the neurotransmitter system in the brain.
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 21, 2017, 06:21:29 PM
The title of the thread says it all - "Opinions on Deathbed visions?" That's all anyone can have is opinions. My own opinion is no better than anyone else's, but I think they're just physiological responses to imbalances in the neurotransmitter system in the brain.
You are also describing wife beating and voting ;-)
So you say...
Quote from: Unbeliever on March 21, 2017, 07:07:15 PM
So you say...
Have you stopped beating your President? Answer only yes or no ;-) The Americans are like the Honeymooners ... Jackie Gleason's character actually did hit Alice "to the Moon" back during the Apollo missions.
Quote from: Baruch on March 22, 2017, 12:00:05 AM
Have you stopped beating your President? Answer only yes or no ;-) The Americans are like the Honeymooners ... Jackie Gleason's character actually did hit Alice "to the Moon" back during the Apollo missions.
I just liked this post for the fucking off-the-wall beauty of it...
Quote from: Baruch on March 18, 2017, 09:52:10 PM
If you have your own NDE or paranormal experience, good for you. I don't believe in hallucination as ... false. I consider human experience to be subjective and primary. But I wouldn't seek them out. The only reason for wanting to be different, is because you want to be special. Ordinary experience is supernatural ... you don't need anything else.
The deathbed experiences of the dying are non-factual. When my mother was dying, she said all sorts of non-facts as her brain failed. I assume her brain was unspooling in an odd way They weren't embarrassing family things, just nonsense. I think her last thoughts were about old movies, but it wasn't clear. Dad held her in her last moments. He said she had no idea where or who she was. Dad died the same way several years later.
My Dad's mother, died two years after he did, on the same date. My aunt reported, that in her last hours she was talking to my dad, as well as his brother and sister, who had preceded him in death.
Although I feel I can safely rule out any all-powerful God, I don't completely discredit the possibility of an afterlife, or more probably, a between-life.
Quote from: Solomon Zorn on March 22, 2017, 04:53:18 AM
I just liked this post for the fucking off-the-wall beauty of it...
inspired by a cartoon ... posted by someone else, on another thread here.
Quote from: Solomon Zorn on March 22, 2017, 05:34:47 AM
My Dad's mother, died two years after he did, on the same date. My aunt reported, that in her last hours she was talking to my dad, as well as his brother and sister, who had preceded him in death.
Although I feel I can safely rule out any all-powerful God, I don't completely discredit the possibility of an afterlife, or more probably, a between-life.
Nothing is real, unless repeated in controlled circumstances, by qualified professionals. Could you get some zombie experts to resurrect them, and have them die again, several times, so see if the paranormal stuff is repeated?
Stress brings on remarkable reactions, even when not near death one's self. I would have sworn I saw my uncle in my mom's kitchen with a mug of coffee in his hand, eight hours after I watched him die in the hospital. I know I didn't actually see him, but it was a remarkably realistic experience that my emotional state treated me to, and it was helpful since my mind's eye gave me him when he was still healthy.
So yeah, people see things, but they need to look inside for the source of the vision.
Quote from: trdsf on March 23, 2017, 03:38:47 PM...So yeah, people see things, but they need to look inside for the source of the vision.
Why?
Quote from: Solomon Zorn on March 23, 2017, 04:42:58 PM
Why?
That's where their visions are coming from -- unless someone happened to physically be in the room. I meant inside quite literally, not figuratively, since any such vision/hallucination will be generated by the viewer's own brain.
Quote from: trdsf on March 23, 2017, 04:46:22 PM
That's where the viewer's visions are coming from -- unless someone happened to physically be in the room. I meant inside quite literally, not figuratively, since any such vision/hallucination will be generated by the viewer's own brain.
Facilitated by the viewer's own brain, but the origin of the pattern, can be outside of yourself...at least that has been my experience. Perception. Is it valid, to the one perceiving it, or not?
Quote from: Solomon Zorn on March 23, 2017, 04:59:06 PM
Facilitated by the viewer's own brain, but the origin of the pattern, can be outside of yourself...at least that has been my experience. Perception. Is it valid, to the one perceiving it, or not?
Oh, I only meant that such visions are not driven by *completely* external (and allegedly supernatural) forces. I would still say the source is internal since it's going to be driven by the meaning it has to the perceiver.
Quote from: trdsf on March 23, 2017, 06:57:28 PM
Oh, I only meant that such visions are not driven by *completely* external (and allegedly supernatural) forces. I would still say the source is internal since it's going to be driven by the meaning it has to the perceiver.
Based on the experiences of my dying parents, I would have to say that memories become random (less organized even than a typical dream state), slightly more vocal (when vocalizations are physically possible), and very confused.
Quote from: trdsf on March 23, 2017, 06:57:28 PM
Oh, I only meant that such visions are not driven by *completely* external (and allegedly supernatural) forces. I would still say the source is internal since it's going to be driven by the meaning it has to the perceiver.
I know what you meant, Brother. But the weird shit that I have heard and seen, just seems too real, to dismiss as Schizophrenia.
Quote from: Solomon Zorn on March 24, 2017, 08:16:17 PM
I know what you meant, Brother. But the weird shit that I have heard and seen, just seems too real, to dismiss as Schizophrenia.
Oh, it's not schizophrenia, it's just the (mis)firings of a complex organ under powerful stress. There's no pathology involved at all -- well, unless it's actually happening on one's deathbed, but then you've got much bigger problems than not thinking clearly.
Quote from: trdsf on March 25, 2017, 12:09:00 AM
Oh, it's not schizophrenia, it's just the (mis)firings of a complex organ under powerful stress. There's no pathology involved at all -- well, unless it's actually happening on one's deathbed, but then you've got much bigger problems than not thinking clearly.
The conscious brain resists death. It will do almost anything to maintain itself. It's what we ARE mostly (as humans) beyond being just apes.
Quote from: Cavebear on March 25, 2017, 02:26:08 AM
The conscious brain resists death. It will do almost anything to maintain itself. It's what we ARE mostly (as humans) beyond being just apes.
Willful apes, just not lazy apes.