[inavalan]

Originally Posted by soulforce

I can respect your position, but I don't like your metaphor though. I think science is just starting to catch up. It doesn't always make giant leaps in discoveries. Sometimes it takes a series of experiments like the one done in Sweden to start building a case for consciousness. Perhaps it was premature for the article to call it a proof, but IMO it's an interesting discovery for sure.

I don't believe people who are experiencing OBE's or NDE are imagining it. People who are day dreaming or imagining scenarios have an Alpha level brain activity. People who experience OBE's have a Theta level of brain activity, and dreaming is part of REM level brain activity.

When some one is dying or experiencing an OBE, the brain is behaving differently than normal sleep cycle.

I don't believe the brain produces consciousness, but rather it filters it.

I guess I didn't convey my opinion clearly enough, in some respects. We also have some differences of opinion.

I didn't say that the brain produces consciousness.

Dreaming happens in theta state, not in alpha, same as OBE and lucid dreaming. There is also dreaming in delta, without REM. Imagining happens in beta mostly.

What I intended to say is that OBE / lucid dreaming / astral projection are focuses of attention into the imagination plane, that is a non-physical plane, but it isn't the same as the afterlife plane. Whatever you experience there isn't less 'real" than the reality we perceive consciously in the physical. I don't equate making up stuff" with dreaming, OBE, etc..

Whatever you experience during an OBE is what your subconscious creates, from your beliefs, emotions, perceptions of your inner senses. If you encounter a guide, a deceased relative, alien, etc., they aren't actually those, they are creations / interpretations of your subconscious of some stimuli. Your perceived physical reality is your subconscious creation too.

I wrote all of the above to, hopefully, clarify what I meant, not to argue who's right.

Although I have a scientific background, or maybe because of that, I know the limitations of the scientific method, and how much weight the scientists' conclusions deserve.