(June 22, 2016 at 8:26 am)Gemini Wrote:(June 21, 2016 at 12:39 am)KevinM1 Wrote: The doctors used to use ketamine on me as a surgical anaesthetic back in the late 80s/early 90s. Pre-teen me tripped balls on that shit. I mean, dreams of my mom operating on me, giant 3D letters whizzing by my head, a castle on a floating rock in the middle of a storm cloud... Stuff that I still remember because it was so vivid, with sounds and smells and tactile sensations as well as the visuals.
One hypothesis to explain NDEs is that is that the brain has a defense mechanism against exitotoxicity from excess glutamate, such as is released in response to oxygen deficiency. Blockading the NMDA receptor protects neurons, but also causes dissociation. This is exactly what ketamine does, and there are a number of similarities between ketamine-induced experiences and NDEs.
What we know is that a person doesn't have to be clinically dead or even in a life threatening situation to have a NDE--Howard Storm is an example. Also, young children who have NDEs often report seeing fictional characters like Santa Claus up in heaven.
So I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be convinced even if I myself had a NDE. Skeptics have these kinds of experiences all the time and aren't swayed--A. J. Ayer is an example (there's plenty more examples in William James's "The Varieties of Religious Experience").
That doesn't explain why so many of these NDE people can see what happen inside the hospital while dead.
They lie down in the emergency room totally zombied out with nothing working in their body-brain and yet they can see what happen inside other rooms and once back to life describe what they saw which was
verified by staff members.
Sorry Gemini your guess is just a guess which is contradicted by the real experiences.