Sam Parnia on NDE's

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Talk by Sam Parnia a doctor at New York Langone medical centre and also works at Southampton university UK. He works with intensive care patients and also does research on Near Death Experiences. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHcZc-JJEFw

Interview with Sam Parnia....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhMJHIYgPJs

I think the video repeats after some time. Ignore that.

Cheers.

Sriram

[Walter]

Hi everyone,

Talk by Sam Parnia a doctor at New York Langone medical centre and also works at Southampton university UK. He works with intensive care patients and also does research on Near Death Experiences. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHcZc-JJEFw

Interview with Sam Parnia....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhMJHIYgPJs

I think the video repeats after some time. Ignore that.

Cheers.

Sriram

hi Sriram
I know the subject of NDE fascinates you, it does me too but we've done this before on at least two occasions  and both times you ignored my  information about my own  NDE because it didn't fit with what you already have fixed in your head . So what's the point?

[Sriram]

What is there for me to say about your experience? You should explain it and say what you think about it.

[Sriram]

Very nice interview with Dr.Peter Fenwick of Kings college about consciousness and dying. He is a neurophysiologist who has studied the dying process.

Somewhat longish (about 50 minutes) but he speaks very softly and very clearly. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6kDMl6N3C4

[Walter]

What is there for me to say about your experience? You should explain it and say what you think about it.

I did , some time ago and you more or less ignored what I had to say

[Walter]

Very nice interview with Dr.Peter Fenwick of Kings college about consciousness and dying. He is a neurophysiologist who has studied the dying process.

Somewhat longish (about 50 minutes) but he speaks very softly and very clearly. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6kDMl6N3C4

sriram

Why not go the whole hog and cite Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ?
It could save us all a lot of time ! 👽👍

[Enki]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM1IEobgw0Y

[Walter]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM1IEobgw0Y

enki

Can you sumerise it for me , in not able to view it at the moment!

[Enki]

enki

Can you sumerise it for me , in not able to view it at the moment!

Briefly it is a 27 minute interview with Dr Susan Blackmore on her take on the nature of NDEs and especially in relation to neuroscience. She emphasises that the idea of the non local reality of NDEs(that is that they are not simply a product of the brain) has no evidence whatever that we can scientifically examine, whereas the insights that neuroscience in particular give us, increasingly fit the idea that NDEs are a product of the brain under extreme pressure.  She discusses how some of the effects of an NDE can be explained(e.g. the tunnel and light effect). She makes the salient point that we have no idea when, in the process of the near death event, the NDE occurs.
She talks about why the idea that some sort of other wordly event is appealing to many people(e.g. life after death). She then talks about the effects(both good and bad) that NDEs can have on people who experience them, and finally discusses the idea that a sense of spirituality, secular in nature, is no bad thing. Something, by the way, that I very much agree with.

Hope that helps. 

[Walter]

Enki
Thanks very much that was  excellent

[ekim]

and finally discusses the idea that a sense of spirituality, secular in nature, is no bad thing.

Yes, probably because it focuses more upon NLE, near life experiences, rather than NDE.  It seems to have changed Susan Blackmore from what I remember of her in the past.

[Enki]

Ekim,

Perhaps you need to watch the last ten minutes or so to see how she describes the effects of NDEs on people's lives. She did change, you're quite correct. She had an OBE experience, which in her case was not connected to an NDE, but was the catalyst to explore and research the whole area. The change was from  starting as some sort of believer to realise that science can give explanations for NDEs. Hence she became a sceptic of some of the rather wild ideas which were, and are, still out there.

[ekim]

Enki

Yes, I did listen to it all the way through.  She did seem to see the benefits of 'spiritual' practices like meditation but without all the doctrine which goes with it.  To me, the key word in this topic is 'experience' (i.e. inner experience) rather than an interpretive doctrine, no matter whether religious or secular.  She mentioned where the experience transformed one person by diminishing his egotism so that he became more universal loving which is perhaps what mystics of the past had experienced and empowered them to share a method for others to attain the same.  I suspect that there were others who did not share the experience but saw it as a means to control and manipulate others.  There are a variety of mystics who use various expressions to advocate 'die before you die' i.e. die to self/ego, perhaps that is what happens in some NDEs, the ego is diminished and whatever remains is expressed.  'Unless you become as (an ego-less) child again you will not experience heaven'.

[Sriram]

Enki

Yes, I did listen to it all the way through.  She did seem to see the benefits of 'spiritual' practices like meditation but without all the doctrine which goes with it.  To me, the key word in this topic is 'experience' (i.e. inner experience) rather than an interpretive doctrine, no matter whether religious or secular.  She mentioned where the experience transformed one person by diminishing his egotism so that he became more universal loving which is perhaps what mystics of the past had experienced and empowered them to share a method for others to attain the same.  I suspect that there were others who did not share the experience but saw it as a means to control and manipulate others.  There are a variety of mystics who use various expressions to advocate 'die before you die' i.e. die to self/ego, perhaps that is what happens in some NDEs, the ego is diminished and whatever remains is expressed.  'Unless you become as (an ego-less) child again you will not experience heaven'.

Yes...that is correct. But it still assumes an after-life. Without some sort of a permanent change to the Self that survives death, achieving an egoless state doesn't make sense.

I mean to say that, if death is the end for everyone equally...why at all bother to become egoless? Is it just for social purposes?   

[Enki]

Ekim,

I have no problem with anything you say here. The point I take away from it is that she emphasises that there is no need for any of the trappings of religion etc. to be able to have a much greater empathy and compassion towards others after such an experience, that you can have spiritual experiences which do not have to relate to some sort of supernatural ideas, just as one can achieve the same by a host of other experiences, especially when one has been close to death or by meditation techniques, as you say. I think it is quite appropriate, using her words, to call it as being a 'secular spirituality' based upon 'a scientific inquiring understanding of what it means to be human'.

[ekim]

Yes...that is correct. But it still assumes an after-life. Without some sort of a permanent change to the Self that survives death, achieving an egoless state doesn't make sense.

I mean to say that, if death is the end for everyone equally...why at all bother to become egoless? Is it just for social purposes?

Yes it does assume an after-life according to many religious doctrines but to me the only assumption is the importance of 'life' here and now, which you can call Self with a capital 'S' or spirit or conscious being.  What the 'spiritual' practices like meditation and devotion do is to facilitate an enlivening or love or empowerment, and a switch of identity from the confining self centred forces of the ego to whatever you are in essence, which, to some, are described as blissful, expansive and unconfined.  Isn't the doctrine of Karma and Samsara about escaping rebirth by detaching from the worldly?  If so, isn't it better to focus on life now rather than be concerned about after lives?

[Walter]

What my NDE  experience (finally) showed me was this ;
We have two lives , the second one begins when we realise we only have one !