(November 8, 2017 at 12:18 pm)Aegon Wrote: Well, almost every NDE I've ever heard involves:
-intense feelings of peace, joy, calmness
-feeling as if the person is departing their body (looking down)
-being in a tunnel / moving through dark space
-seeing bright, comforting, light
-entering light, seeing peaceful landscapes
-sometimes seeing dead relatives or a review of their life
The physiological explanation for these is the activation of the angular gyrus, and endorphin flooding the brain. Really, it seems that beyond that, any, erm, "customization" of a NDE is obviously related to that person's beliefs. Christians, surprise surprise, say they see heaven or hell. Even life long atheists will see it, if they have been primarily exposed to Christian belief and thought their whole life. A Lakota Sioux medicine man reported seeing things related to his tribe's beliefs and life experience, including a spiritual journey across the Atlantic, heavenly horses, migrating geese, and spotted eagles.
So I'm sure they're telling the truth. But it does not mean much to me.
In addition, there's also the effects of confabulation to consider; the brain filling in gaps in the narrative after the fact, as a result of suggestion or otherwise... such that what is immediately reported about an NDE after waking up is more reliable evidence than anything that follows, which could be basically contaminated by this process.
