Is there any chance that NDE's are dreams?

[lillyj]

Ive studied them a bit but do not have extensive knowledge that i know some on here will have
to me they seem real but ive read a few that the people that experienced them themselves said they thought they seemed like dreams which led me to wonder and question
If you believe they are not dreams or halucinations or such like why not?

For me they are yes very different but there is one similarity with certainly alot of them when they cross over there is the ability to communicate with telepathy and this is always unexpected to the person this happens almost exclusively in the ones i read with only a few exeptions this is the one thing for me that makes me wonder if they are real

But then this could be explained by the collective unconcious that they are plugging into something shared and thats why the similar senario with communication

what are your thoughts

[Internal Queries]

well, my NDE was certainly "interesting" enough to be a hallucination but in the reality my Id was in soaring over some mountains was entirely natural. and even if the NDE experience is merely the last chemical firings of some fading synapses what difference would it make, since the hallucination produced by those sputtering synapses creates a sense of "timelessness"?

and hmmmm. though i have my doubts about the actuality of my imaginary friends (since i yet to receive any varifying proof of said actuality) i have had telepathic communications with certain friends which were immediately varified so encountering telepathy in an alternate reality isn't really strange or unexpected, IMO.

[Westleigh]

I would turn that question around a little and ask: what if dreams are NDEs?

Because we have dreams every night, most people think of them as very ordinary, everyday things, and imagine there is nothing special about them whatsoever - they are just crazy nonsense produced by a sleeping mind which we can barely remember in the morning. But think about what a dream actually is. If you have ever had a lucid dream, you will know there is no difference between dream reality and waking reality. A lamp post in a dream is no less a lamp post than a lamp post in reality. You can still see every tiny stone in that gravel path, or pick one up and examine it. No scientific theory can explain how a human brain, a biological instrument, has the power to create an exact replica of the phenomenal, complex universe around us which cannot be distinguished from the real one - and not only is it able to do this, but it is then able to bend that reality to its own will! If we had conscious control of this ability we would all be gods.

So what are dreams? My spirit guides tell me that we are part of the spirit world when we dream. We can change our environment with our thoughts in the spirit world the same way we do in dreams. Unfortunately, the consciousness at the helm while we dream is our sleep-confused human mind, which is why we end up in a nonsensical little world of our own creation every night. I would agree that a NDE is similar to a dream, but with the vital difference that we are fully conscious in it, like the much-coveted phenomenon of a 100% lucid dream. Might it be that the hazily-remembered world you see as that of dreams is the real one and the dream is the world you are in right now?

Just some things to ponder...

There's a chance that NDEs are dreams just like there is a chance that dreams are NDEs or dress-rehearsals for death.

On the other hand, they could all be products of synaptic interactions!

Oh yeah, btw...

Some scientists reckon endogenous DMT (dimethyltryptamine) plays a role in dreaming, mystical states, near-death experiences, OOBEs as well as waking states of consciousness. The latter posits that even our perception of the waking world is an elaborate hallucination concocted by our brains based on the signals it picks up from the environment.

I suspect that the self is nothing but thoughts. I think that's all we are. And these thoughts may originate in unconsciousness before they slip into consciousness. In Tibetan Buddhism, ultimate reality is of a "radiant nothingness". There really is no observer nor observed. I think science is coming to this conclusion too if one considers the subatomic world. Everything is more like waves of potentiality than anything else.

Scientific experiments have also shown that activity in the brain's motor regions occurs about 350 milliseconds before a person is aware of deciding to move. Hmmm...it's definitely something to ponder about. It seems like things are decided in the unconscious mind which will then result in a symptom observable in the brain before we become aware of what has been decided in the waking state. This seems to make sense when I consider that when I have visited people in 2nd phase OOBEs, I have seemingly seen what's on the minds of others or slightly inaccurate replicas of what they were doing in waking life. I even had conversations with their unconscious selves while the conscious part of them was unaware of this. Stranger still was the fact that a friend of mine I visited felt strange while he was meditating at the time of my experience. He even reported to his girlfriend the feeling and added that he felt as though he was supposed to remember something or someone...

I also thought a lot about the possibility of an afterlife before or at least the survival of consciousness beyond death:
http://astralviewers.com/random-chat...-an-afterlife/
Hypothetical but worth a read!

If the self is made of thought, then quite possibly it goes on the reside in the realm of thoughts post-physical death. It is also interesting to see that the description of the intermediate state of death in The Tibetan Book of the Dead is akin to a lucid dream or astral projection where one acquires a "mirage-like vision".

They also believe that ultimately, the karma that the dead person has accumulated during their earthly life will propel them to the next rebirth and not necessarily as a human being (this, according to Buddhism, is uncontrollable). The spiritual practitioner, however, knows that rebirth in cyclical existence always entails suffering. This is why their aim is to become liberated from rebirth and to experience no more i.e. the cessation of being (a very hard thing to achieve and even if you do achieve it, there is a good chance that you may spring back into existence).

All of this, plus my experiences is what makes me strongly suspect that dreams, OOBEs and NDEs are a dress-rehearsal for death. You may even think of them as "temporary deaths". What do you think guys?

Then again, in Buddhism, consciousness as the ground of all being is called Dharmakaya. Within this, the existence of several realms is made possible. The transcendent realm of archetypes is called Sambhogakaya and the manifest realm of experience is called Nirmanakaya. There are several states of consciousness through which the self can experience. These states are known as "bardos" in Tibet and they are categorised as follows:

1st BARDO - Birth.

2nd BARDO - Lifetime. This entails childhood, adulthood and the moment before death.

3rd BARDO - Death.

4th BARDO - The start of death's journey. The "clear" light of consciousness appears before the soul (surviving self) and, if recognised, liberation from the karmic wheel is attained.

5th BARDO - This state mimics the 2nd bardo in life. The self encounters the forms of the archetypal world (metaphysical ?). The clear light is now seen as "dull" and its recognition will embark you on a nirvanic path where one becomes liberated only in the non-material world of Sambhogakaya. You are still, however, bound by the karmic wheel of Samsara (the manifest world).

6th BARDO - If you fail to recognise the light at the 5th bardo, you will go through the samsaric path. This is the bardo of rebirth as the self has missed the opportunities to identify with pure consciousness.

I would say no chance at all,the sheer lucidity of an n.d.e. precludes this.Many n.d.e.s include precise observations of others,ie what the surgeon was doing to your body whilst you were (your spirit) hovering near the ceiling,the recall of the actions of people as they gathered around your so called "dead body" after an accident,this clearness of observation is in total contrast,to the surreal confusion that is inherant while dreaming,this is not to say that meaningful dreams dont come through,but it,s a case of sorting the wheat from the chaff

Originally Posted by lillyj

Ive studied them a bit but do not have extensive knowledge that i know some on here will have
to me they seem real but ive read a few that the people that experienced them themselves said they thought they seemed like dreams which led me to wonder and question
If you believe they are not dreams or halucinations or such like why not?

I read a book called Life After Life, which deals with the subject. The author, Dr. Raymond Moody, does a chapter on why he feels that dreams and hallucinations are separate from the NDE. He says that it is due to the surprising similarity between most of the NDE accounts. He supposes that if it were a dream or hallucination, most of the experiences would be wildly different.

Originally Posted by lilly

But then this could be explained by the collective unconcious that they are plugging into something shared and thats why the similar senario with communication

That could be so, I guess, but then, we won't know until we get there... and then after that, I guess we wouldn't have to worry, because there wouldn't be anything to know at all. I guess that's kind of scary, but if you were to become simply non-existent, then there is nothing left behind to be scared.

But honestly, what do you feel will happen after you die? Just answer yourself simply. You don't even have to tell anyone on this forum. Just let the answer pop into your mind:

What do you feel will happen you to, when or after you die?

[Left Behind]

I think there is very little likelihood that NDE's - TRUE NDE's - are dreams or hallucinations.

For one thing, by definition an NDE occurs to someone at or beyond the threshold of clininal death. To say that "it's just the dreams of a dead person" would be self-contradictory: the dead have no brain with which to dream.

Also, as another poster pointed out, you have this recurring, cross-cultural similarity of WHAT people experience in NDE's. Personally, I have never in my life dreamt in any great detail of deceased relatives. I have never in my life dreamt at all about traveling in a tunnel, seeing a being of light, realizing that I'm dead, asking or being told that I must return to life, etc.

Also, the extent to which NDE's are rejected as being dreams by those who undergo them.

Also, the extent to which NDE'ers have experienced change lives thereafter as a result.

I doubt that many people have turned their lives around as as result of a dream.

Oh, maybe Ebeneezer Scrooge!

Jim

[Silver]

OOBE's = road trip

NDE = unexpected temporary check-out

Dreams = spontaneous unplanned road trip

(of our souls/essences?)

Originally Posted by Silvergirl

OOBE's = road trip

NDE = unexpected temporary check-out

Dreams = spontaneous unplanned road trip

(of our souls/essences?)

Well said Silvergirl

Hi lillyj,

Not every NDE is the same. I never had an interest in NDEs until I had an extraordinary Light experience which I later learned was very similar to some NDEs. I know that Light is real it wasn't just an ecstatically beautiful dream because it healed a chronic and serious right arm/shoulder injury and because I felt an amazing energy course through me for years thereafter. This was sure eye-opening proof for me. I would suggest staying open-minded and maybe you'll be shown someday that without a doubt we're more than a body and death isn't the end...something even better awaits. =)