Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, has published a book “Proof of Heaven” that purports to show his personal view of the afterlife. Alexander says that he was a skeptic until he fell into a coma in 2008 with meningitis. He then claims to have experienced consciousness after death. He describes how he found himself greeted by a beautiful blue-eyed woman in a “place of clouds, big fluffy pink-white ones” and “shimmering beings.” He then came out of the coma . . . and eventually wrote a book.
Alexander insists that it was only later that he considered the beings that he saw might be angels but such “words do justice to the beings themselves, which were quite simply different from anything I have known on this planet. They were more advanced. Higher forms.” He also describes a “huge and booming like a glorious chant, came down from above, and I wondered if the winged beings were producing it. the sound was palpable and almost material, like a rain that you can feel on your skin but doesn’t get you wet.”
What is most striking about this account is the acceptance of the memory as real as opposed to his own generated images during his coma. The fact that the images are so stereotypical would seem to raise this possibility. Experts like Dr. Bruce Greyson have found that electrical stimulation of angular gyrus in the brain creates the same (though not necessary all) of the visions described in out of body or near death experiences including a light in the distance and even out of body visions. The suggestion is that these images are the result of the brain misfiring under stress.
Likewise, Swiss researchers were able to trigger (through electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe) a patient seeing herself lying in bed from from above and experience a sense of floating near the ceiling. Of course, the ability to reproduce such sensations does not conclusively disprove accounts like Alexander’s book.
Alexander gave his account on this PBS “Wormhole” segment where he describes the realization that he was a spot on a butterfly wing in his out of body experience:
What do you think about these accounts?
Source: Telegraph
JCTBTree,
Thanks and for others who doubt that savages have anything to teach us.
“Indigenous Amazonian Amerindian cultures consume DMT as the primary psychoactive in ayahuasca, a shamanistic brew used for divinatory and healing purposes. Pharmacologically, ayahuasca combines DMT with an MAOI, an enzyme inhibitor that allows DMT to be orally active.[9]”
Wikipedia.
Well, I swore off of MJ after a mild trip which left me realizing that there was another life than the one that I conventionally pursued like many others do. Make your choice.
Your experience sounds a lot deeper. But oddly related to CBT which has the goal of helping you experience that “thoughts” are just thought, not reality as you think they are and are guided by them.
Where can one find a guide for such a trip?
They say that all trips of whatever cause should be guided. Be it buddhism or drug based.
NancyParris,
Galileo would be glad to hear your words. His laughter would brighten up his day in solitary papal confinement.
BTW, what brand are you smoking today?
Now I know why it is called pipe dreaming.
“nick spinelli
1, October 11, 2012 at 10:30 am
James in LA, I’m a big believer in energy, I can sense energy in people. For a long time I thought it was just my reading people’s body language. But, as I got older I realized I could feel as much as I could see.”
==============================================
Of course you can. We all can, if we just tune in.
It is a hangover from when it made a difference between life and death in eat or be eaten trials. Developed by the first animals.
My assumption for years is we are all already dead & this is hell. I don’t know what I did to deserve this fate but I can guess why a lot of my fellow inhabitants are here
James in LA,
That is the second time you win my comment of the week award.
Your t-shirt will come by mail after you send me only 50 bucks, special price to you.
Sincerly, it is a good one.
OT OT OT Sort of…..
Speaking of flaky, this years Nobel laureates in Physics have shown that quantum theories basis may be ignored.
Ie you can look at some quantum particles without their sticking out their tongues at you.
It all started with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Theorem, which has reigned since.
The theory is the product of a summer vacation on a Friesian island. Bad choice.
It and its related developments have reigned quantum science since. Einstein did not like that God played dice but everybody said he was old and ignored him.
Now these guys have done it and most of the media and who else don’t even realize what they have done. Wow.
Commenting without reading comments.
This guy is a novice dreamer. I can manipulate mine. Re-start them, change themes or jump to other plots. Say, now you are back again, basta. Reset and give me another.
Skit, that he did not come home humming the tune,and did not interviews?
I am so damn annoyed with Newsweek for putting this nonsense on the cover of the magazine that I am going to recommend the publisher change the name from Newsweek to Junkscienceweek.
Nick, we are limited by our evolution, we may have access to more than our 5 senses but no longer need those that have atrophied. OTOH, we may occasionally have access to more than our conventional three dimensions and time. Either or both. I call it ‘majik’, majik happens.
‘What do you think about these accounts?’
——————————-
I have no doubt….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sxFyu_U2go&feature=related
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sxFyu_U2go&w=420&h=315%5D
“My point was that the doctor hadn’t died. Maybe a coma experience is different from a real death experience???” (Elaine)
Or maybe not. The initial idea of religion (unexplained phenomenon requiring resignation of control) came from somewhere …
Bob Esq.,
It would though, in my opinion, the message has been floating around for eons and denial has always been the best defense.
JT’s post brings to the fore the two greatest questions of life:
For younger folk: “After sex, then what?”
For older folk: “After death, then what?”
Some are so closed minded that it becomes like trying to move dried Missouri mud.
Bob Esq:
Locke would agree with you.
JCTheBigTree
1, October 11, 2012 at 11:08 am
Elaine…according to the story the Dr’s neocortext was shutdown during his 7 day coma. This, apparently, indicates that any conciousness had to be shut down as the neocortex is where science understands conciousness to come from.
******
From the article:
During his illness Dr Alexander says that the part of his brain which controls human thought and emotion “shut down” and that he then experienced “something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death.”
*****
My point was that the doctor hadn’t died. Maybe a coma experience is different from a real death experience???
Bob,
You’re going way out of your way to ruin a perfectly good Armageddon joke.
But Blouise, you can’t deny that the existence of the message itself, verified inter-subjectively, would indeed end the world as we know it.
Blouise,
Like “Why is a duck?”
I see what you mean.