A Christian's out-of-body experience

Sure - it's very common to be aware of things around you during a NDE.

However, research has also made it clear that the type of NDE experienced is culturally defined.

That a Christian would experience a NDE with Jesus as a feature is entirely expected.

D. Scot Rogo covered this well in his writings - I think it's Susan Blackmore who may have carried on research into this area.
 
Brian,

A very good psychic once told me that when we die, if we expect to see Jesus we will fantasize and see Jesus, if we expect to see Buddha we will fantasize and see Buddha, etc. (She also said a lot of it will be a fantasy, so make it a good one!)

The thing about the young boy in this video is that he may have seen actual events along with illusions that he expected to see. The difficult part is to separate out the two, and I think the young boy did not do that.
 
Think of it this way, Nick - the mind is comfortable with with every day experiences. It's spent a lifetime making sense of them.

So if a part of your consciousness starts to leave your body, of course the ordinary will make sense.

The extraordinary will not. We're dealing with scales of reality far too complex for our minds to understand. So it necessarily uses analogy and metaphor to make sense of what it experiences.

If that involves experiencing a state of great joy and love, a Christian might interpret it as Heaven with all its Christian trappings, a Buddhist might think it Nirvana.

Either way, it's consciousness still acting as a filter - it's re-interpretating this new degree of reality so you can try and make some sense of it.

That's why I figure we have such an established body of research showing that NDE's are inherently culturally driven.

That's why I find my own NDE so fascinating. It was entirely abstract. And somehow it made far more sense that anything cloaked by man-made religious symbolism.
 
I wouldn't say fantasy, as much as it starts with acceptable reality, and then deals with a completely new and different level of reality that the mind is completely unable to deal with, hence interpreting with cultural symbols.

I would argue that normal spiritual experience often does exactly the same thing, hence why we live in a world of many religions, which were developed within specific cultural frameworks.

After all, how do you limit infinite God enough to describe?

At proper death, the mind is released from this burden - your mind, your personality, your sense of self you created to adapt to "reality" are shorn away - the superficial boundaries you used are dropped away, and instead the True Self - the part of you always connected to The Source, to God, the Universal Mind, becomes revealed proper, in a state of existence in direct contact and harmony with all other True Selfs, beyond the limitations of space and time.

2c. :)
 
Nick the Pilot said:
Today, Access Hollywood, Wendy Williams Recap - Yahoo! TV

A young Christian boy has an out-of-body experience and 'sees Jesus.' The important thing is that he can describe things he 'saw' while outside his body, which cannot be explained any other way.
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Near Death Experiences (NDE)

In my work as a neurologist I have primarily treated epilepsy. And as a hospital staff physician I see post-cardiac resuscitation patients in consultation. I have interviewed patients and studied their NDEs. The background is three possible precipitants, blunt or penetrating head trauma, decreased blood flow and/or low pO2 in the brain (Hypoxaemia), and temporal lobe epilepsy (partial complex seizures.)

NDE experiences are largely stereotyped no matter which of the above is the cause. The person is observationally unconscious or in a confusion like state. In the remembered event the patient often perceives an out of body experience (OOBE) which has two forms. One is standing next to one’s own body or more often floating above their body, seeming to see people around the bedside such as nurses and doctors. The other is a feeling of limitlessness, expanding and merging with the universe. The OBE is followed by going through a bright tunnel in a dark background. In this phase one might see images of dead relatives, angels, Jesus, or Brahma, or saints. This is followed by a smaller but brighter light. Usually at that point they either come out of it or come out of it (sometimes in reverse.) During the tunnel phase they may hear the voice of a dead parent or God/Jesus/Virgin Mary/Muhammad/Brahma.

On recovery, the patients often feel disappointed, cheated out of Heaven or bliss. They do have often have permanent or transient neurobehavioural changes mainly in short term memory, attention span, and emotional regulation with loss of some inhibition, loss of rational skills, loss of some problem solving efficiency, and changes in efficiency of task specific shifts. Depending on the degree of hypoxia or hypoxaemia, the post-episode impairment varies.


NDE’s are only sometimes near (risk of) death. Many occur with cardiac arrests which indeed are life threatening. In such a case, there is a marked decrease or stop in blood flow to the brain temporarily in “watershed regions.” Watershed areas are the tissue between two different arterial trees and perfusion there is more tenuous. During shock or cardiac arrest blood perfusion to the border zone between the territories of two arteries decreases.

Arteries branch into more and smaller arteries and arterioles. At the peripheral end of an arterial “tree”, the capillaries merge with those of the neighbouring artery producing the Watershed Area. When blood flow decreases, the area getting the worst deprivation is this watershed area. It is the area suffering any neuronal loss (there is likely always some neuronal loss, varying with the severity of hypoxaemia).

Watershed areas are found all over the body. However, in the inferior medial temporal lobes are arteries named the posterior cerebral and middle cerebral. The sudden hypoxaemia can precipitate temporal lobe like seizures. This Temporal Lobe watershed is the anatomical focus of the Near Death Experience.

Other watershed areas are in the upper parasagittal areas of frontal lobe (rational, inhibitory, analytical), calcarine occipital lobe (visual), and cerebellar (balance, coordination (arteries are Superior Cerebellar, Anterior Inferior Cerebellar, and Posterior Inferior Cerebellar.)

Temporal lobe seizures are epileptic discharges that begin in the mesial inferior temporal lobe spreading to the amygdala and on to multiple cortical association areas generating the event. They can also occur in pure brain hypoxia, in hypoxaemia (deoxygenated blood and poor flow or shock) and in deoxygenated but normal volume blood perfusion.

Complex Partial Epilepsy can and generally is non-hypoxic and non-ischemic. In Epileptics, they have many causes. Some are due to temporal sclerosis (scarring), head trauma, brain tumours, arterio-venous malformations, small haemorrhages, small infarcts/strokes, metabolic imbalances (↓Na+, Renal Failure, ↓Mg++, ↓ or ↑Ca++, ↓blood osmolality, and ↓pH.) They can also occur from a number of different drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamines or drug/alcohol withdrawal.

The electrical discharge begins in the neurons in the region of Ammon’s Horn in the temporal lobe. The discharge is transmitted to memory association areas of the nearby temporal lobe for visual and auditory memories and odd smell memories. Some go to the superior parietal lobe (body orientation/localization areas) to give the primary OOBE (Out of body experience) phase.

In this situation discharges have an inhibitory effect. Some go to cingulate gyrus as well for the affective component (happiness, mystical, frightened, or angry.) In some cases frontal lobe discharges are recorded.

Amergin
 
Out of Body Experiences

When blood flow stops or reduces to the brain, the very first areas that are made deficient in blood flow (ischaemic) and droping Oxygen levels (Hypoxia). The combination of low blood flow and dropped Oxygen is called Hypoxaemia. The neurons in the water shed respond to hypoxaemia by shifts in ions through inactivated ion channels and electrical instability. Many neurons actually fire spontaneous pulses, which can precipitate seizures or seizure like disorganised firing.

The most important Watershed Zone is that between the Middle Cerebral and Posterior cerebral in the in the inner or mesial temporal lobe and hippocampus. This same region is also the most common focus in Complex Partial and Simple Partial seizures and the occasional spread of the partial seizure into a generalised (Tonic-clonic or Grand Mal) seizure.

Complex Partial Seizures can occur with sudden hypoxaemia to that electrically important zone. Trauma can also do irritate those finicky neurons. The electrical wave of desynchronised discharges may begin with a hallucination of smell (foul odour.) Then it spreads to the outer Temporal lobe where it can stimulate the Heschel's Gyrus and Angular Gyrus of the posterior inferior temporal gyrus. This can cause hallucinations of auditory content (voices, music, undefined sounds.) When the wave spreads to the nearby posterior inferior temporal gyrus, it produces hallucinations of visual nature (geometrical patterns, faces, people, gods, angels taken from visual memory circuits.)

Two regions of the brain are “inhibited“ by frontal impulses during a partial complex seizure causing the Out of Body Experience, Left and Right, Superior Parietal lobules that tell us our body boundaries (Right Parietal), our body location in space, (Left Parietal) and the intactness of our body (bilateral). I know it seems weird that we need brain segments to tell us where we are, i.e. inside of our bodies. Here is where it gets complicated. The electrical focus either spreads to the Frontal lobe watershed zone (Anterior and Middle Cerebral arteries) where it fires up an Inhibitory Complex. That frontal lobe inhibitory complex then suppresses activity in those body localisation and body boundary areas of the Parietal lobules. The result of this is variable. Some feel loss of body boundaries or merger with the cosmos or God (Right sided Parietal lobule). Others have the illusion of being out of their body, standing beside their body or floating over their bodies (Left Parietal). This explains the OBE.

The visual cortex is supplied mainly by the posterior cerebral artery and partially by the Middle Cerebral Artery. Vision is so important that the calcarine cortex region for macular sight is the most richly supplied by two arteries, but only the macular area. This is the spot at the centre of our gaze. The periphery is only posterior cerebral. In posterior cerebral strokes there is blindness with odd preservation of the small area of central vision. This region produces the tunnel effect and bright light at the centre. Evolution favoured extra protection for this vital macular visual centre.

I think that this explains why during hypoxaemia (cardiac arrest) the first to occur is the Out of Body from suppression of the Parietal lobule, and then by positive stimulation of visual and auditory association and memory areas that cause hallucinations of dead relatives, God or Jesus, Mary, or Angels. Then as hypoxaemia continues the visual perception contracts from the peripheral areas of the calcarine cortex leaving only the macular spot of light, (the mystical tunnel that the person seems to approach after seeing loved ones.


Amergin
 
Amergin, that's all very interesting from a reductionist point of view - but if it's the case that there is no accepted scientific explanation or model of consciousness, isn't it more than premature to make authorative claims explaining extreme conscious experiences?
 
Amergin,

There are those of us who believe people who have NDE's actually do meet dead relatives during their NDE's, and we do not automatically dismiss such things as hallucinations.
 
I said:
Amergin, that's all very interesting from a reductionist point of view - but if it's the case that there is no accepted scientific explanation or model of consciousness, isn't it more than premature to make authorative claims explaining extreme conscious experiences?
Click to expand...

Our claims are not authoritative. That is not the method of science. Authority is religion. Science uses evidence, controlled double blind protocols, necropsy examinations of OOBE's and NDE's, fMRI imaging, Pet Scanning, Tensor Detrussor single fibre mapping, and fascinating transcortical magnetic stimulation of certain circuits followed by clinical observation (subjective and objective.)

There are quite a few explanations of consciousness formulated by neuroscientists like myself. We have made many terrific advances in the study, imaging, and electrical tracking of brain circuits in the various conscious acts. There is no "centre" of conscious in the brain. Many nerve or ganglia terminals are required to be in good working shape for healthy or normal consciousness. These have been very widely imaged and reported.

Can I say that we study every claim of NDE or OOB's? Of course not. Only a small number can be studied if they are willing to be scientifically studied. In those cases, such as partial complex seizures, I have found the focus of the experience 87% of the time. During the workups, we have found other causes such as arteriovenous malformations, tumours, gliotic scars from previous trauma, and only about 5% or less with no physical cause found. Our psychiatry consultant feels that those 5% had brain generated hallucinations with NDE's and OOB's, without physical brain pathology. In those cases, the Psychiatrist found strong evidence of thought disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, drug use, and some with mixed meme induced hyperreligiosity and psychosis.

As regards the last group, American neuroscientists such as Marcel Mesulam and Vil Ramachandran have discovered that after the onset of Partial Complex seizures in a previously normal person, repeated PCS's actually cause a high frequency of extreme and delusional religiosity. It seems that religion and the Limbic Lobe of the temporal region have a great many interconnections.

In one US Epilepsy Centre, they found hyperreligiosity in almost all Temporal lobe seizure patients (Partial Complex.) The more frequent the seizures, the greater the dedication to extreme religious belief, delusions of grandeur, ideas of reference, and a personal relationship with Jesus (in America) and with Brahma among Hindus, but with Muslims (it is with the voice but not image of Muhammad, the voice of the archangel, but only a few hallucinate Allah.

I believe that these events, the temporolimbic circuits, religion, and clear weaknesses of left-brain rational-sceptical circuits. Do not be offended. This is just my opinion. My good friend, American Dr. Newberg, offers an explanation that partial complex seizures and activation of the temporolimbic circuits could be God's way of communicating with his worshippers. I do not wish to offend those who suffer these events. Mary Baker Eddy, St. Paul, many nuns and priests, Jean D'Arc, Ellen G. White, many central African shamans, and some North American Native Shamans. I think they all share a similar brain hyperdevelopment of right temporolimbic circuits not balanced by the rational, logical, analytical, and sceptical vast networks of the left-brain.

I think people should at least understand the scientific side of this interesting phenomenon. Thanks for listening and giving it some thought. Note, many partial complex epileptic seizures (most of which have religious aspects) often refuse anticonvulsant therapy because they want to continue the experiences.

Amergin
 
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