Top neurosurgeon 'spent six days in heaven' during a coma

Originally posted by karen61057
The feeling of leaving your body behind is the extreme relaxation from the meditation. No one leaves their body. ( be real here please. )

What make you think you are in your body to begin with? You are typing and I am reading what you type but I don't assume you are in my computer. With discoveries concerning non-locality on a very physical basis, it's only natural to assume that the nonphysical could share some non-local traits.

There is no reason to believe that your consciousness is actually in your body at any given time. Perspective just makes you assume so.

Originally posted by moniesisfun
As someone who has "astral projected", and had "out of body" experiences, plus vivid lucid dreams since I can remember, I'm 99% sure that it's in no way, shape, or form a barometer for an afterlife.

I have also had astral projected before and at very young age.

As for his claims it could be a realm world that looks like heaven but isn't.

I had a lot of astral experiences before in the past. I had once traveled to this strange world where the cites where surprisingly lined as a box.

Thanks for posting thread.

Thanks also to the poster who linked the video. Its worth watching as you can hear the man himself talking. Take the time to watch this. ( i dont think the article does the story justice. watch the video and you will realise the news article takes its own slant.)

The guy is pretty much bang on. Been there and bought the t-shirt.

Like he says you don't need to nearly die.

Overcome your fear, let go and just ask to be shown.

reply to post by NorEaster


So what your saying is that we shouldn't take Stephen Hawking serious either, considering i've read quite a few of his articles and interviews, only to come across one of his newest boos also being promoted.

By this logic, anyone who is promoting or has written a book shouldn't be taken seriously. Good job!

Originally posted by Cuervo

Originally posted by karen61057
The feeling of leaving your body behind is the extreme relaxation from the meditation. No one leaves their body. ( be real here please. )

What make you think you are in your body to begin with? You are typing and I am reading what you type but I don't assume you are in my computer. With discoveries concerning non-locality on a very physical basis, it's only natural to assume that the nonphysical could share some non-local traits.

There is no reason to believe that your consciousness is actually in your body at any given time. Perspective just makes you assume so.

What makes you in any way even fathom the possibility that consciousness is actually outside the body at any given time? There's no reason to believe consciousness exists outside of the body. There's insurmountable evidence to the contrary.

reply to post by hellbjorn012


Well that's different, He is a Neurosurgeon, he knows about that, he doesn't really know about his alleged NDE.
Plus, unless you're actually interest in Neuroscience, that book would be boring as hell to the average person. Now life after death would interest A LOT more people, from the educated to the uneducated. I think he just feels that since he's a "scientist", it for some reason gives him more credibility so people will assume he can't be lying. I, myself, don't believe he's deliberately lying, I think he's just misinterpreting what actually happened. I believe what others here have stated, that he is just recalling the last thing his brain through out at him before he actually "slipped away"

I find it impressive how so many people with such outspoken opinions have managed to read so little of the DR's story.

Many of the things that most of you are suggesting as explanations are impossible and stupid, considering the constant surveillance of his biological and psychological function.

I will maintain my skepticism, and keep my mind open. Will probably also buy the book before passing final judgement.

Oh the internet, where uninformed morons think their opinion is even remotely valid...

If you're attached to a brain in a body in any way, any experience you have is produced from that connection - you cannot experience anything that isnt due to this connection.

Even everyday waking life is a form of hallucination, an end result of information processing, with attendent errors in compression, metaphorically.

Anyone who's ever said they've had an out of body experience, has been attached to a body - that is what produced the experience, otherwise they couldn't have had it or reported on it.

You wont 'find out the truth when you die', because what makes you capable of even having the idea of 'truth' will have ceased to exist.

This is all there is for us. Embrace it. You have nothing to lose except an illusion you waste energy on, which can be better put to making life more rewarding for the living. The dead know nothing.

"Brain shutdown" - what is that exactly?

Either the doctor exhibited brain function contrary to what every piece of equipment hooked up to him said, or, he really did leave his body and experience what he said.

Either way, it puts into serious question where memory comes from and our current knowledge of mental states.
If his brain was scientifically non functional, it should not have been able to store or recall memory, let alone form the experience that the doctor said he had.

So, what mechanism allowed him to have this experience and remember it?

Perhaps memory is not stored within the brain but the brain just acts as a receiver for memory.
In this case, when the doctor recovered, his brain was able to pull the memory that he had while out of body.

This is the only explanation that I have for him to be able to have his experience, AND recall that experience during a time where our current medical science says should be impossible.

In any event, we have a long way to go before we even start to grasp what is really going on.

reply to post by Agit8dChop

Exactly.

It's amazing how quickly the scientific method goes out the window, even for a Harvard prof.

Pretty cool story.

Who knows, maybe what we subconsciously believe happens at the moment of death becomes our new conscious reality when it happens.

You believe in reincarnation? BAM! You are reincarnated.

Believe in heaven? You further your existence in what one would call heaven.

Believe in hell? Maybe you go to a place where hardship and lack are the norm.

You believe in nothing? Well, maybe your essence becomes nothing or is somehow redistributed into everything else. (Not my cup of tea hehe)

The mind is capable of seeing pretty much anything it can imagine, what he saw was just that, another aspect of his mind. In many ways heaven is not a place one goes to, it is a place one arrives at. Hell to in many ways is the same way.

Interesting that his mind would conceptualize big puffy white pink clouds, and flocks of transparent, shimmering beings arced across the sky, leaving long, streamer-like lines behind them. When in fact it is so much more, but suppose once again we see what we wanna see, which is still better then seeing what we dont want to see. But both are nowhere near what actually is.

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
He's a neurosurgeon, which means he studies extensively the mind and its affects and coma's and so forth.
Id say he's studied it so much it was the first thing his brain thought of when it went into default!
Heaven?... its a mental thing. His mind just went to its own interpretation of heaven!

That could be true only you fail to understand that the section of the brain responsible for dreaming and/or whatever happens when your sleeping or in coma is part of the cerebral cortex, which was completely shutdown and was scrutinized by hundreds of machines and recorded minutes to minutes, perhaps had part of it still be active I would consider maybe the brain could of relocated some of its functions to alternate part of the brain in some weird superhuman survival mode/function... But it was completely shut down, hence no dreaming, thought processing, imaging or memory based souvenirs could of been process or formed anyhow...

Its like saying you drove your car from coast to coast without gas...

Sorry, don't see even a hint of proof in the article. I'm not surprised that his brain attempted to piece together some information for him. It does this in pretty much any scenario that it's confused by.

reply to post by _R4t_


Should we assume that the cortex was shut down until the very moment he opened his eyes and was awake? Or is it possible he dreamt while the cortex was regaining function?

Originally posted by NiNjABackflip

Originally posted by Cuervo

Originally posted by karen61057
The feeling of leaving your body behind is the extreme relaxation from the meditation. No one leaves their body. ( be real here please. )

What make you think you are in your body to begin with? You are typing and I am reading what you type but I don't assume you are in my computer. With discoveries concerning non-locality on a very physical basis, it's only natural to assume that the nonphysical could share some non-local traits.

There is no reason to believe that your consciousness is actually in your body at any given time. Perspective just makes you assume so.

What makes you in any way even fathom the possibility that consciousness is actually outside the body at any given time? There's no reason to believe consciousness exists outside of the body. There's insurmountable evidence to the contrary.

There's insurmountable evidence that there is a consciousness and that it is housed inside your body? So the philosophical debate that has lasted for centuries is now solved?

What is this insurmountable evidence?

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
His mind just went to its own interpretation of heaven!

that's right and the memories which may have seemed like they were happening the whole time could have come within the first seconds of consciousness like how your entire life can flash before your eyes

Originally posted by CaptainBeno


Ok?? I guess It's time to believe?

I gotta say I am quite taken back by his claims and to be honest quite scared?

Not a religious kinda guy, this has given me the creeps. Could the dudes who knock on my door be right after all, or did this guy have a sudden rush of blood to the head?

High Cap!

It's time to believe, now? I never realized it was ever time to not believe!!

I am not sure if it is the constant persuasion of life after death, delivered to us from many different sources, or if we have an deeply seeded understanding that there is more to life than what we know in the current reality.

Personally, I have gone through a couple changes in my beliefs to arrive at my current idea. As a yute (youth), I generally trusted what I was told through the religion I was raised around.

Eventually, I became more open minded and understood that there are many religions, all a little different. Some of this new information led me to think there is no afterlife what-so-ever... all there is in reality exists here and now and can only be perceived through this conciousness.

I thought that way for a while, but never let go of the belief of something bigger than the Universe - I just couldn't identify it. While I am still unable to identify it, my idea has changed once again.

I can't say my belief or understanding has come full circle, because I don't know how big the circle is and maybe I am just starting out. There was something that changed me and it may have come from my deep desire to know more about life and death.

It came in the form of dreams... not only dreams, but Lucid Dreaming and more specifically, Out-of-Body-Experience. Being aware of straining to stand up and out of my body - while still partially awake and partially asleep at the same time - shook me like a rag doll the first time and left me questioning what I really know.

Since then I have had many OBEs and continue to have them today. Their frequency has enlightened me of their origins and shown me that reality as I once understood it is completely different. An OBE is not the same thing as actually dying and reaching some other realm or dimension - atleast I think it's not- but it has shown me that each of us are capable of things we do not even realize exist.

Lying down for bed and the next thing you know you are standing in your room, failing to grasp a door knob because your hand keeps going right through it, realizing something isn't normal, and then turning to see your seemingly lifeless body on the bed can really be an eye-opener!

There have been a couple of these experiences that have made me believe there is an afterlife of sorts. If they didn't mean so much to me, I would detail them for you, though you may find the events don't move you as they have me.

Sorry for the long post and making it all about me. I just meant to reveal the fact that there are so many things we are capable of, but don't know it or don't believe it's possible. Death is scary and I hope everyone has their own experience that takes away the fear of dying or the pain of losing loved ones by having an idea of what's on the other side.

Originally posted by moniesisfun
Perhaps he has bias. The fact that he's a neurosurgeon, means he must believe in the reliability of the equipment he uses to demonstrate that various parts of the brain are entirely inactive when performing certain procedures.

I would posit that his bias has blinded him to the possibility that the equipment which is used to determine this inactivity isn't actually sensitive enough to make such a distinction for every individual. Everyone has different brain activity for the same stimuli under normal conditions. The same could be assumed for being in a coma. Perhaps some are still active, when it would appear inactive, as it would be the same registering from the equipments reading.

edit on 8-10-2012 by moniesisfun because: (no reason given)

Or perhaps you have a bias that is blinding you from seeing that maybe there is more to the body and to the mind and the soul than any equipment could ever measure?