Near Death Experiences and other related phenomena

[William]

A thread dedicated to the discussion of NDEs, OOBEs and other related evidential phenomena.

[William]

Line of Evidence #3
Near-death experiences with vision in the blind and supernormal vision There have been a few case reports of near-death experiences in the blind. The largest study of this was by Dr. Kenneth Ring.
This Investigation included 31 blind or substantially visually impaired individuals who had NDEs or out-of-body experiences. Of the 31 individuals in the study, 10 were not facing life-threatening events at the time of their experiences, and thus their experiences were not NDEs. There were 14 individuals who were blind from birth in this study, and nine of them described vision during their experiences. This investigation presented case reports of those born totally blind that described in NDEs that were highly visual with content consistent with typical NDEs.
The NDERF website has received additional case reports of near-death experiences among those legally blind. For illustration, the following NDE happened to Marta, a five-year-old blind girl who walked into a lake:

“I slowly breathed in the water and became unconscious. A beautiful lady dressed in bright white light pulled me out. The lady looked into my eyes asked me what I wanted. I was unable to think of anything until it occurred to me to travel around the lake. As I did so, I saw detail that I would not have seen in “real” life. I could go anywhere, even to the tops of trees, simply by my intending to go there. I was legally blind. For the first time I was able to see leaves on trees, bird’s feathers, bird’s eyes, details on telephone poles and what was in people’s back yards. I was seeing far better than 20/20 vision.

I can also report that an 'out of body' experience enhances one's vision. One starry night, while floating through the ceiling of my home in the country, I experienced a heightened perception. I was familiar with constellations, but in this state, I saw many more stars than usual. The 'floating' provided a unique perspective, enhancing my view of both my surroundings and the starscape.


So I can at least confirm that I "know" what Marta is saying about vision and am not surprised that someone born blind report being able to "see", However, I do wonder how Marta knew her vision was 'far better than 20/20', given she had no prior experience with 20/20 vision. I believe her answer might be that 'the knowledge just seems to accompany this type of experience – one just knows.



I can vouch for having felt that 'just knowing' sensation in another experience. During a hypnagogic state, I found myself in an out-of-body state without realizing it at the time. It felt like a 'twilight zone' where I was between worlds.

In this state, I briefly interacted with an entity with human-like features. Although no words were spoken, I understood something projected from the entity to my awareness. I just knew without a doubt that I was receiving a message that the entity loved me unconditionally. In that moment, I experienced unconditional love not just as a philosophical concept but as a profound experience.

I want to emphasize that, although I use terms generally associated with supernatural thinking, I consider these experiences perfectly natural. I understand why people equate such phenomena with the supernatural, but I don't think it has ever been necessary to draw that conclusion. Rather, it's just something people have done and still do.

[William]

New abilities from NDE


Alex. Now, you say that people when they come back, they're changed. My experiences are that not only are they changed, but sometimes
they come back with new abilities. And this is where we're gonna get slightly woowoo, but I'd like to hear what yousay in your research, where that sometimes they come back with psychic ability sometimes to have a extrasensory perception
of some saw the ability to… there's just multiple different abilities that connection to the other side, some come back as mediums - are able to speak to the other side. Have you found that in your research as well?

Dr. Jeffrey Long. Well, I've investigated that. In a most recent survey of 834 near
death experiencers, we asked the survey question very directly,

“Did you receive any psychic or paranormal gifts as a result of your experience? “

So moderate, non trivial percentage say yes and then we encourage a narrative response. So again, I've analyzed literally hundreds and hundreds of narrative responses to that question, looking at a very special way and sequentially shared near death experiences - what exactly they're talking about.

So when they when they come back with special abilities, certainly there seem to be more psychic in the sense that they're intuitive. They can understand people better, they can read emotions, they can be aware of those nonverbal clues.

But I think a lot of that is because they're way, way more compassionate, loving, they're focused on people, they're paying attention, they value their interactions with other people, so they can, basically out of that attentiveness, sort of pick up more than they could have before, then perhaps most other people can. So, that seems to be the major part of psychic phenomena.

There are certainly people that come back that believe they have mediumistic abilities, and they'll often spend the rest of their life being a medium and will work with other people on that.

There's, there's a whole sort of variety of other paranormal psychic gifts that they believe that they've had, and that again, it's fascinating study to read that.

I really wish we could study that more formally, there's been relatively little literal, good formal research on that.
But that's it's sort of an exciting field in terms of the abilities that they bring back that they didn't have before that certainly suggests some non ordinary ongoing functioning of their mind and consciousness.


Alex. What's fun what I do in the show, I'm very non judgmental with the people that come on the show. And I'm very practical, very grounded person as a general statement.

But and I talked to psychics, I talked to mediums I talked to quantum physicist, I talked to doctors like yourself, I talked to all spectrums of people. and the phenomenon that is the psychics and mediums and channelers, and things like that. It's quite remarkable.
And I also have spoken to hundreds - hundreds - of them as well.
It's really interesting how a lot of this information is becoming more and more accepted. And there is more people like yourself, we're doing real research in it.

I mean, I mean, the government had a program, it's not a tin hat, controversy or conspiracy, but they actually did have a CIA had some sort of remote viewing, and psychic, basically psychic spies. So the government was doing it back in the 80s and 90s.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CI ... 0005-5.pdf

So there's something there. But you're right. It hasn't been delved into very deeply, because I guess there's still some taboo attached to that. Would you agree?

Dr. Jeffrey Long. Yeah, I think so.
And I think the problem is the taboo is from organizations that could fund this that could really be the driving force economically to say, “hey, this is teaching us through these people with psychic ability, medium abilities, channeling abilities. Heck, we can learn from these people. And it's not just about them we can learn from, we can learn about something that informs impacts all of us in the world, about that kind of extra sensory perception abilities that we may all have, we may all have the ability to develop”.

So, it's a real tragedy. There isn't from all this research, and from all the people you've talked to, it's real tragedy, there isn't more funding from people that would have the ability to fund this so that we can really learn about this, learn the strengths and weaknesses of these paranormal abilities. And I think, in my opinion, help inform us significantly, about aspects of consciousness that we all have that it's just simply understudied, and yet absolutely fascinating.

Alex. So when people come back, I've heard it being said that when they're on the other side, a feel like a giant coat has been/layers of clothes have been taken off of them, they feel lighter.
But when you come back, I in love to hear what you think of this analogy. And their sensitivities and possibly abilities that they bring back is that the layers of of clothing that we all carry around with, which allows us to kind of function in this dimension, in this 3d reality that we're in those layers gets stripped away a little bit, and they leave a couple of those layers behind in the closet on the other side, if you will, and they come back a little bit more raw, not as protected with or heavy, so they're a little bit kind of like taking - taking those layers off and that's why the sensitivities are there. That's why the abilities that we all apparently have ability to access to but we can't get to them because we have so much muck on top of us that right He's kind of taken away a little bit. Would you agree with that?

Dr. Jeffrey Long. Oh, absolutely. And just to give one example out of many, it's typically communication in these unearthly heavenly realms is what's called telepathic. In other words, they're sharing and I know you've heard this a zillion times. It's true, hey, it's real. We've seen this literally, I'd have say, like, over 1000 times, but in these unearthly heavenly realms, communication with other beings that are fairly common, typically other beings there is the best English word we have is telepathic.

But it's actually beyond that. Communication is an instantaneous sharing of all information, the emotion behind that information in the context of the information quickly, clearly and unambiguously with no possibility of error. So that's, I guess, telepathy on steroids.

[William]

[Replying to William in post #22]

So when they when they come back with special abilities, certainly there seem to be more psychic in the sense that they're intuitive. They can understand people better, they can read emotions, they can be aware of those nonverbal clues.

But I think a lot of that is because they're way, way more compassionate, loving, they're focused on people, they're paying attention, they value their interactions with other people, so they can, basically out of that attentiveness, sort of pick up more than they could have before, then perhaps most other people can. So, that seems to be the major part of psychic phenomena.

I think Dr, Jeffrey Long makes a good point about what is generally referred to as "psychic" whereas the better explanation (re the data of evidence) is that folk who have such type experiences become more observant - even "mission-orientated" with a message to spread into the world of human existence.

These may well equate with "ESP"-related thinking, but I think it has more to do with the heighten senses which such experience brings to the table of individual human experience.

We looking at the evidence, cannot so easily write these experiences off as all just types of hallucination caused by brain activity.

Even so, nor do we have to go to the extreme of proclaiming consciousness = supernaturalism.

I prefer to explore the middle-ground as it is the most promising and provides us with the most reported-evidence - a resource best not ignored.

Nature may well be more than we currently realize with our "real-eyes".

[Purple Knight]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #4]

God's existence does not matter.

I think if it didn't matter, it wouldn't be in the headlights of human experience.

People think it matters like they think money is everything. They've been tricked.

[William]

What do you mean "they've been tricked"?

[William]

Universal knowledge from NDE


Alex. It's like it's instant, there is no space or time. So, it's all instant from what I understand as well as that - and this is some more of the more detailed near-death experiences - near death experiences, generally are short. There's not a tremendous amount of detail. A lot of the things you said, but some of these other ones that have gone deeper, they say a couple things. One, that they're able to access, basically the knowledge of the universe.

So, if they're like, “hey, what is quantum physics?” And you're like, “oh, no, I understand quantum physics”. They generally don't bring that information back with them. But they remember understanding it on the other side, would you? Is that what you found as well?

Dr. Jeffrey Long. This kind of funny, Alex, but when I started my research over 25 years ago, over and over, I heard that exact concept. It's called “universal knowledge” that they get when they're in these have unearthly/heavenly realms and they often describe it, as I'm sure you've heard, like, like a down dump a dump of all the information, all that there is to know and it kind of irritates me. They say, Oh, it's so easy. It's so obvious.

Alex. Right!

Dr. Jeffrey Long. So yeah, you've heard that too.
So, for very early in my research, I kept waiting, okay, come on, come on, bring something back, do something you know, that you can acknowledge, share something and we can prove to the world, you know, from knowledge you couldn't possibly have had the Near Death Experiences are real. And wouldn't that be exciting. So, the years went by, and I kept hearing this universal knowledge and how they had it, and were aware of it and how important it was and interesting to them during the time, but they couldn't bring it back.

And finally, I was educated by one person who had a near death experience, who says Dr. Long, that universal knowledge when you use come back to your earthly body, it's like trying to fit an ocean of knowledge into the tea cup of your physical brain. It just doesn't work. It can't fit.

And so it was like an aha moment for me. But yeah, it's fascinating that there is the bigger picture of overwhelming knowledge is very beautiful, wonderful, inspiring to people having near death experiences. But bottom line here, after I've been hearing about this for over 25 years, people aren't allowed/able to, if you will - bring back that
knowledge in a way that we can use it in Earthly physical life. Unfortunately,

Alex. Well, yes, let's try to play a video game from today in 1980s,
you know, the first Mac that showed up, or the first, you know, laptop that showed up is impossible. If the hardware is not able to process that information, you need a higher processor. And our processors here are pretty basic. And it's hard for us to grab on to…

Dr. Jeffrey Long. I like that, that is a great analogy. The nail on the head there Yeah, I love it.

[William]

How do you define God or Source?

Alex. Yeah, I'm assuming that you had to kind of overcome your own programming and own bias by walking into this.

Dr. Jeffery Long. Oh, absolutely. I mean, here I am, as a doctor, and I'm talking about these incredibly unworldly things, you know, things that are far outside of the experience of most people.
I mean, yeah, that's, that's tough.
I mean, it took me a long - in fact - I wrote my first book “Evidence of the Afterlife” and it was literally, only then that I crunched the numbers and did the research and it was like, wow! I kind of was pretty sure I was right. But my gosh, look at this. I mean, you know, this is hardcore science.

This is reality and the near death experiences and all these messages.

So that was, obviously my personal sentinel moment where I really convinced myself with the most stringent scientific methods possible, that what I was thought I saw, what I certainly hoped I saw to be true, was indeed, near death experiences expressing that greater reality,

Alex. How do you define God or Source?

Dr. Jeffery Long. God or Source we talked about that earlier briefly, that the
you have to be aware that God is a human word. And I think you have to embrace the concept that this God or Supreme Being or All, or One has been variably described, but these are all very appropriate apt words for this being The Consciousness,
The Creator, God is such a big thing that it transcends anything that we can put in English words, or in any language words, that is something so all embracing, and
yet you know that we all seem to be connected in a very to in a very real way, that it simply defines – defies - I should say, any single word or description, but it's all sort of that compilation of all those concepts in one and a lot more.

[Waterfall]

How do you define God or Source?

Alex. Yeah, I'm assuming that you had to kind of overcome your own programming and own bias by walking into this.

Dr. Jeffery Long. Oh, absolutely. I mean, here I am, as a doctor, and I'm talking about these incredibly unworldly things, you know, things that are far outside of the experience of most people.
I mean, yeah, that's, that's tough.
I mean, it took me a long - in fact - I wrote my first book “Evidence of the Afterlife” and it was literally, only then that I crunched the numbers and did the research and it was like, wow! I kind of was pretty sure I was right. But my gosh, look at this. I mean, you know, this is hardcore science.

This is reality and the near death experiences and all these messages.

So that was, obviously my personal sentinel moment where I really convinced myself with the most stringent scientific methods possible, that what I was thought I saw, what I certainly hoped I saw to be true, was indeed, near death experiences expressing that greater reality,

Alex. How do you define God or Source?

Dr. Jeffery Long. God or Source we talked about that earlier briefly, that the
you have to be aware that God is a human word. And I think you have to embrace the concept that this God or Supreme Being or All, or One has been variably described, but these are all very appropriate apt words for this being The Consciousness,
The Creator, God is such a big thing that it transcends anything that we can put in English words, or in any language words, that is something so all embracing, and
yet you know that we all seem to be connected in a very to in a very real way, that it simply defines – defies - I should say, any single word or description, but it's all sort of that compilation of all those concepts in one and a lot more.

Namaskaram William

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Waterfall