Is there any chance that NDE's are dreams?

In the spirit of Divine Oneness, I remain...
a sister in light

Sweet!

Susan Blackmore wrote a book about NDEs in which she says that they are just the activity of a dying brain. So yes, she would say that they are the equivalent of dreams- a flood of images and sensations due to brain chemistry.
There is a lot of support with this theory, but it is clearly unproven.

She is a practitioner of Zen, but interesting enough, discounts all things "spiritual". She vehemently denies anything connected with transpersonal psychology, the continuation of experience after death, and even that consciousness itself even exists.

[Left Behind]

Amazing, isn't it, that our brains, when dying, enable us to think more clearly, imagine more intensely, observe scenes and overhear conversations occurring in other rooms far from our bodies, create religious imagery that contradicts everything the person has been taught about religion, etc.

Jim

But it is interesting to note that many NDEs are similar in what they experience/see. Not like all out dreams are the same.

sorry i only read the Original Post, not the replies so this may have already been said..
But, I think that its down to the way we remember our experiences. Things that we do in the physical seem to be filed seperately to things that we do in the astral. As we enter the non-physical when we dream at night, then we associate other astral experiences, such as OBEs, NDEs etc as a dream.

I had an astral projection and during the projection I knew it was that, I knew it was real. But then after I woke up, and time went on. Then it seemed to feel more like it was just a dream.

I guess its a good thing, otherwise we'd get what we did in our dreams muddled up with what we did in real life. (Which actually does happen sometimes!)

Originally Posted by Left Behind

Amazing, isn't it, that our brains, when dying, enable us to think more clearly, imagine more intensely, observe scenes and overhear conversations occurring in other rooms far from our bodies, create religious imagery that contradicts everything the person has been taught about religion, etc.

Jim

Right, but you don't actually have to come near-to-death to have a similar, if not identical, experience.

Many people have reported having such experiences under the influence of certain psychedelic drugs. Intense bliss, feeling of infinite love, a tunnel of light, out-of-body viewpoints, etc.

Since a chemical compound can generate a similar experience, and since drugs work on receptors in the brain, it seems likely that a similar effect may be happening with NDEs.

For instance, there is evidence that the brain releases massive amounts of endogenous dimethyltrytamine around the time of death. DMT is a compound found in numerous plant mixtures used by indigenous cultures to contact the "spirit world." DMT has been associated with dream states, lucid dreaming, OBEs and NDEs.

"Heaven", the "afterlife" and "spirit world" may be nothing more than the powerful effects of DMT flooding the brain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine

[Left Behind]

[quote=LIFE]Right, but you don't actually have to come near-to-death to have a similar, if not identical, experience.

Many people have reported having such experiences under the influence of certain psychedelic drugs. Intense bliss, feeling of infinite love, a tunnel of light, out-of-body viewpoints, etc.

Since a chemical compound can generate a similar experience, and since drugs work on receptors in the brain, it seems likely that a similar effect may be happening with NDEs.

For instance, there is evidence that the brain releases massive amounts of endogenous dimethyltrytamine around the time of death. DMT is a compound found in numerous plant mixtures used by indigenous cultures to contact the "spirit world." DMT has been associated with dream states, lucid dreaming, OBEs and NDEs.

"Heaven", the "afterlife" and "spirit world" may be nothing more than the powerful effects of DMT flooding the brain


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People the world over, since time began, have been dreaming dreams, having hallucinations, and getting high on one thing or another.

DMT is yet another explanation - along with low blood oxygen, high blood oxygen, anaesthesia, dreams, the influence of religious teaching, whatever - that is used in an attempt to explain-away the fact that in many well-documented studies since 1975, people the world over, of all ages, races, colors, cultures, religious beliefs and the lack thereof, who have come close to dying, have told us of a common experience.

That experience involves elements such as leaving their physical bodies: observing same and what's going around them: being able to later precisely recount scenes that their physical eyes could not have seen, and conversations that they physically could not have heard: traveling through darkness: meeting a being of light: undergoing a non-judgmental review of their lives: meeting with deceased relatives they hadn't thought about in years, decades, or ever: being told they had to return to their bodies: often coming back with a different value system or enhanced abilities. . .

The evidence is there. Either it convinces you, or it doesn't.

Jim

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?

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

Mine was definitely not a dream. I was out of my body watching all the action. After I was brought back I told my husband about what I could see, about the nurses talking in the hall (which he could hear). These are things I couldn't have known since I was coding. I knew of everything they were doing as I watched from the ceiling. So, I'd have to say no. NDEs are not dreams.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by LIFE

Right, but you don't actually have to come near-to-death to have a similar, if not identical, experience.

Many people have reported having such experiences under the influence of certain psychedelic drugs. Intense bliss, feeling of infinite love, a tunnel of light, out-of-body viewpoints, etc.

Since a chemical compound can generate a similar experience, and since drugs work on receptors in the brain, it seems likely that a similar effect may be happening with NDEs.

For instance, there is evidence that the brain releases massive amounts of endogenous dimethyltrytamine around the time of death. DMT is a compound found in numerous plant mixtures used by indigenous cultures to contact the "spirit world." DMT has been associated with dream states, lucid dreaming, OBEs and NDEs.

"Heaven", the "afterlife" and "spirit world" may be nothing more than the powerful effects of DMT flooding the brain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine

That was very kind of you to put that link in your post.
Thank you so much.
Miss Hepburn

Originally Posted by LIFE

Since a chemical compound can generate a similar experience, and since drugs work on receptors in the brain, it seems likely that a similar effect may be happening with NDEs.

Or might it not be the case that the drug unlocks certain mental inhibitors that prevent us from crossing the psychic barrier prematurely?

My friend Dannion Brinkley (experiencer, author and lecturer on the ND experience) came back from the other side with a whole host of predictions, most of which have come to pass. If that was just something working on brain receptors, how do you explain the accuracy of what he was shown?

I think NDE's are something more than "mere" brain activity or lack of oxygen. They are a real phenomenon that ushers us from the physical world to the spirit realms.

Just my opinion, of course