http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=222x71400#Oh my.
n2doc (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 08:24 PM
Original message
Brain Waves Surge Moments Before Death
Oct. 6, 2009 -- A study of seven terminally ill patients found identical surges in brain activity moments before death, providing what may be physiological evidence of "out of body" experiences reported by people who survive near-death ordeals.
Doctors at George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates recorded brain activity of people dying from critical illnesses, such as cancer or heart attacks.
Moments before death, the patients experienced a burst in brain wave activity, with the spikes occurring at the same time before death and at comparable intensity and duration.
Writing in the October issue of the Journal of Palliative Medicine, the doctors theorize that the brain surges may be tied to widely reported near-death experiences which typically involve spiritual or religious attributes.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/10/06/near-death-bra...
hedgehog (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 08:28 PM
Response to Original message
1. Or maybe they're downloading their memories to wherever they're going next......
By definition, no scientist will ever drag something into the day light and declare he's discovered a human soul. So, is absence of evidence evidence of absence?
havocmom (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 08:35 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Yeah, maybe just moving from material girl to electrical girl.
MrModerate (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 08:44 PM
Response to Reply #1
6. If a human soul is measurable and its existence verifiable . . .
And that verification repeatable, I'm sure scientists would be happy to write it up for the next issue of Science. And yes, absence of evidence is suggestive (i.e., evidence) of absence. Just not conclusive evidence.
hedgehog (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 08:57 PM
Response to Reply #6
9. I think that if it were measurable, it wouldn't be a human soul.
The skumbag primitive comments, but never mind.
hedgehog (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:03 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. If something can't be measured, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it means it doesn't exist here.
If a physicist talks about other dimensions, he's brilliant. If a religious person talks about other places, he's a nut.
hedgehog (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:07 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. I think the great Captain James T. Kirk encapsulted this concept best when he asked "What does God need with a star ship?"
sam sarrha (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:55 PM
Response to Reply #15
26. ..but a Demi-God would know exactly what to do with it.. WAR.!!! Demi's..the Jealous Gods
The skumbag primitive comments again, but never mind again.
HuckleB (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:54 PM
Response to Reply #13
24. Sometimes you feel like a..., sometimes you don't.
Yeah, I know. Crass commercialism.
I couldn't help it.
MrModerate (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:31 PM
Response to Reply #9
18. And then it wouldn't be "real" as that term is commonly understood.
roguevalley (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-08-09 03:04 AM
Response to Reply #6
32. people have weighed people at their deaths and there is an tiny difference in weight after.
MrModerate (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-08-09 03:48 AM
Response to Reply #32
35. I've read about that, and maybe that's a step toward some sort of . . .
quantifiable result.
I happen to think the likelihood is about zero, but that's just me. And as I'm neither a scientist nor a religious person, my opinion doesn't matter.
The skumbag primitive blathers a third time, but ho-hum.
izquierdista (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:36 PM
Response to Reply #1
19. I am NOT spending the afterlife in some snotty kid's iPod!!
MineralMan (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 08:35 PM
Response to Original message
3. If you actually read the article, there's a simple explanation of why this would happen.
hedgehog (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 08:40 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. We can only explain what we can see and measure on this side.
(Cue theme from Twilight Zone)
sam sarrha (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:53 PM
Response to Reply #4
23. that sorta seems cynical and myopic..
HuckleB (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:54 PM
Response to Reply #23
25. Well, at least cynical.
The Sahara Sam primitive tries to make a funny, and flops:
sam sarrha (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:57 PM
Response to Reply #25
27. you haven't had a NDE ore OBE..? they are 'Expansive'.. going places no Freeper has ever gone..!!
hedgehog (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 11:45 PM
Response to Reply #23
28. Actaully, I meant that as the opposite of cynical - to indicate that if something is supernatural, of course you can't measure it. If you could measure it , it would be natural. Shakespeare knew all about this centuries ago.
sam sarrha (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:52 PM
Response to Reply #3
22. yea..., but thats only for people who haven't had the experience..
The River (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 08:50 PM
Response to Original message
7. How to Explain someone stopping nearly all brainwave activity just through
meditation? It's more than just chemical interactions when you can be conscious even when sleeping.
Oh my. That explains Pedro Picasso, allegedly a "Buddhist."
His brainwave activity is constantly stopped.
hedgehog (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:01 PM
Response to Reply #7
12. If you believe that there is something "out there" that people can touch or perceive sometimes, there should be some evidence of a physical change or signal at the interface, the human brain. But since we're talking about something "out there", I don't think there is any possible way to differentiate between the brain waves induced by a vision and those from a seizure. Put it another way; if an angel was physical enough to be seen with a camera, there would be no difference between the light waves reflected off the angel and those reflected off anything else. A photon is a photon. It's basically a parlor game, pay your money and take your pick.
roguevalley (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-08-09 03:08 AM
Response to Reply #12
33. I remember a NDE of a woman getting surgery who had her eyes covered and ears as well, sealed without a chance of peeking. They brought her body down to nothingness through cold I believe and she still floated around and told them what they did after is was all over. They thought, yeah, right. Then a nurse found a shoe out on a ledge that no one could peer down to just where the woman told them she saw it when she was floating around. That one has never been debunked.
sam sarrha (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:49 PM
Response to Reply #7
21. Tibetan monks meditate in their dreams, Meditation is a process of training th brain, it essentially resets the dominate regions of your Organic Brain back to "Default Settings" after your 'Conscious' brain has ****ed up everything.
that is my personal evaluation based on my own experience. after 4 years of training by a Tibetan monk in Meditation.. i was sitting in a group meditation at the Group Center.. i had the realization that Buddhism was a lot like an A.A 8 step program for people addicted to Conventional Thought.
The skumbag primitive chatters a fourth time, but never mind.
hedgehog (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:04 PM
Response to Reply #10
14. It could be all systems going on red alert, so to speak.
hedgehog (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 11:48 PM
Response to Reply #20
29. There's nothing to say that it isn't both the physical body in crisis mode and a person's non-physical identity encountering something.
sam sarrha (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 09:21 PM
Response to Original message
17. so does it prove they're real or not real..i think the researchers should 'Flat Line for Science'...
how else can they know what they are talking about.. i have had an NDE, i have also had numerous OBE's.. very similar.
one OBE involved meeting and communicating with a 'Being of Light'... seemed similar to be the voice that said "No,..Not yet" during the gas leak as i was rocketing thu the tunnel after waking up not breathing. , i understand how early goat herders could mistake them for a Burning Bush that is not consumed... you cant walk away from that without being really changed.. i am not religious, i didn't think i met god, but i can see how some old testament folks did. the White Light streams thru you, you're a transparent crystal shell in a non positional space.. it must be something like Plasma, it is a lot like being electrocuted. this happened after an intense 1 1/2 hr Pranayama session.
hedgehog (1000+ posts) Wed Oct-07-09 11:52 PM
Response to Reply #17
30. I have no idea what it would prove or disprove, but I wonder if people who are brain dead such as that poor lady down in Florida would show the same burst of signals.
All of this strikes me as the high tech equivalent of that doctor who placed dying people on a scale, bed and all, then tried to determine the weight of the human soul by comparing before and after.
roguevalley (1000+ posts) Thu Oct-08-09 03:12 AM
Response to Reply #17
34. there is a behavior change from this that is almost universal. people become incredibly loving and ZERO fear of death. My pa had two NDE's when he had strokes. (I remember sleeping on the floor by his bed for two weeks after he came home because he was so touch and go) My papa became even sweeter, if that was possible, and loving and kinder than he already was. He also had ZERO fear of death. He was terrified, absolutely petrified of death before it.
