OOBEs, NDEs, Lucid dreaming and proof of the spiritual dimension.
Using the book,
Into the Magic Shop, a neurosurgeon’s true story of the life changing magic of compassion and mindfulness, by Dr. James R. Doty, Avery (February 2, 2016), 286 pages.
On page 192, Doty related a near-death-experience (NDE). When we comparatively study OOBEs and NDEs we see how they are one and the same phenomena; however, the conditions for the experience differ in that the NDE occurs when a person experiences death typically in surgery, an illness, or an accident; whereas, the OOBE most often occurs during sleep.
The NDE is generally explained away by science as what happens to the mind during oxygen starvation. However, the OOBE is much the same experience and occurs more often during sleep; and therefore cannot be dismissed as simply a case of oxygen starvation of the brain.
Also, spiritual literature abounds with reports of visitations from the dead upon the person’s death to a living relative or friend who reports it. So, we also cannot dismiss all of these reports as simply games the mind plays when it is oxygen-starved. In fact the experience provides evidence of a non-physical reality to which we all have access to, if we take up a fruitful contemplative life.
“In the next moment, I felt as if everything shifted and tilted. I was suddenly looking down at myself from the corner of the ceiling. I didn’t feel any pain. I could see the rays of light coming off the light bulbs in zigzag patterns. I could see every droplet of liquid in the in the IV bags. I could see the top of the chairman’s head, and the sweat that dotted his forehead. I looked down and saw myself in the bed. I looked small and vulnerable, and very, very pale. I could see the monitors, their lines and numbers moving up and down erratically, and it seemed as if I could hear the blood in my vessels moving, and it seemed as if I could hear the blood in my vessels moving, and could sense that there was not enough. I could hear my heartbeat. It sounded like a far-off drum, pounding out a rapid rhythm. I observed all of this happening to me and around me…”
“And, then blackness.”
“My experience after this blackness is something that I could never adequately explain nor ever forget. It is all the more puzzling for being a rather common and yet extraordinary experience, one that has been repeatedly reported over the centuries.
“Suddenly I was floating down a river. I was moving slowly at first. Ahead I saw a bright white light, much like the tip of the flame I used to stare into at the magic shop. I began to speed up, and soon I was rushing toward it. All along the sides of the river I saw people I had known, crowding along the banks of the river. I thought I saw my father. I thought I saw Ruth. I felt loved and accepted in a way I never had before. Many of the people I saw were still alive. I saw my mom in her bathrobe. My brother laughing with me from our bedroom in Lancaster. I saw the girl Chris who I had a crush on in junior high school. I saw my old orange Sting-Ray bicycle. I saw myself on the bus to Irvine, and I saw myself trying on a white coat for the first time. I saw myself turning my face into the mist on that very same night. I felt the white light getting warmer and closer. It was getting bigger. I somehow knew that this light was love, and it was the only thing that meant anything in the universe. I just had to reach it, and I knew that when I did, I would be one with all things. This is what I had been searching for. This was the only thing I needed. I wanted to merge with the light. And, suddenly I realized that when I merged with that warm, inviting light, I would no longer be part of this world. I would be dead. “No,” I screamed. Or, at least, I thought I screamed. And, suddenly I was going backward, away from the light. As if I had stretched a rubber band to its maximum and let go. I was going in reverse so fast that I could barely comprehend it. I felt the presence of all those who had greeted me now falling away…”
“It is estimated that up to fifteen million Americans have had a near death experience, or NDE., as they are commonly called. In 2001, the journal Lancet published a study showing that between 12 and 18 percent of patients who experienced cardiac arrest or cessation of breath might have had a near death experience after medical conditions involving low blood pressure, impaired brain oxygenation, or global impairment of brain function through trauma or disease. These similar experiences often include descriptions of being out of one’s body, floating, a flashback of one’s life, having a feeling of being with deceased loved ones or hearing their voices, a feeling of warmth and unconditional love, and often traveling on a river or being in a tunnel while being drawn toward a light. Such descriptions have also been described in multiple cultures and throughout recorded history.”
“In Plato’s Republic there is the “Story of Er,” in which a soldier has been slain, is found not to decay, and awakened on his funeral pyre twelve days later. He gave a similar description of his own near death (or death) experience, including several of the common elements associated with modern NDEs. Some have claimed the famous sixteenth century painting Ascent into Empyrean, by the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch, is a representation of a near death experience with its tunnel that leads to a bright light with shapes and forms possibly representing the world beyond life on earth. There is also the story of British Admiral Beaufort, who described his near drowning in 1795, and an American physician A.S. Wiltse, who in 1889 described his own similar experience during a bout of typhoid fever. Each of these descriptions has several components associated with classic NDE–seeing their body from a distance, a sensation of floating, seeing loved ones, and traveling toward a white light.”
“In the late nineteenth century, Victor Egger, a French epistemologist and psychologist, used the French term experience de mort imminente (experience of imminent death) to describe a similar phenomena occurring in climbers who “saw” their lives pass before them as they fell to what they thought would be their deaths. More recently, Celia Green, in 1968, published an analysis of four hundred accounts of out-of-body experiences that led people to question whether our consciousness can exist out of our bodies, and in 1975, psychiatrist Raymond Moody published a book of such experiences and coined the term near death experience, garnering the interest of scientists in this phenomena, which previously had been described only in the realm of religion, philosophy, and metaphysics. Many descriptions including religious symbols like angels and figures such as Jesus or Muhammad. Usually such symbols correlate with the faith or religious beliefs of the individual. For many such experiences are life altering. Individuals who are atheists report many of the common NDE elements as experienced by believers. One of the most famous is that of Sir A.J. Ayer, a British philosopher and the author of Language, Truth and Logic, an avoid atheist, who in 1988 almost choked to death while eating. Following the event, he was quoted as saying, “My experiences have weakened, not my belief that there is no life after death, but my inflexible attitude toward that belief.” Among the recorded NDEs of atheists, a number report no impact on their beliefs, while for others there has been a spiritual conversion.”
“Because of the work of Moody and others there is a growing interest among scientists to study this phenomena. In addition, we know that similar experiences can be artificially induced through such medications as the anesthesia drug ketamine and some psychedelics. They can be triggered by electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe or hippocampus in the brain. They can happen during decreased levels of brain oxygenation through decreased blood flow to the brain (as experienced by fighter pilots) and even during hyperventilation. It’s interesting that, while induced experiences have components of the NDE, with the exception of psychedelics, they are not typically associated with transformational or life-changing responses in the individuals who experience them. Is it truly the risk of death (or a part of the brain that interprets the situation as such) that is the common denominator in these situations that makes them transformational?”
“It has been postulated by psychologist Susan Blackmore that the experience of passage down a tunnel toward a bright light is a result of increasing neural noise occurring as more and more brain cells start firing in response to a lack of oxygen to the brain. She also suggests that the sense of serenity and peace is due to a massive endorphin release from the stress of the event. In a recent study, psychologist Jimo Borjigin, using a rodent model of hypoxia, demonstrated a transient surge in synchronous coherent gamma oscillations, which were global and highly coherent, occurring within thirty seconds of cardiac arrest. In other words, rats deprived of oxygen and who go into cardiac arrest and die had brains that showed a heightened consciousness after death. These gamma oscillations are noted in both wakeful consciousness and heightened states of consciousness associated with meditation as well as during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is the period during sleep when memories are consolidated and strengthened. Clearly, there are a number of well-documented neurophysiologic events that are occurring during NDEs and that can occur during other types of brain stressors or be replicated utilizing a variety of methods not associated with an NDE.”
