SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Indeed. According to the doctor's own account of it, the supposed NDE apparently began BEFORE deep hypothermic circulatory arrest had been induced.
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Near Death experiences to atheist
- Thread starter Devillif311
- Start date
Have you said that to the mirror also?
The story must come up differently on my laptop than you guys'
I guess that mystery won't be solved either.
I guess that mystery won't be solved either.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
"By 8:40 A.M., Pam's entire body except for her head and groin had been blanketed with sterile drapes. Over 20 doctors,nurses, and technicians had scrubbed in (see Figure 1). Surrounding Pam's head was the neurosurgical team, including Spetzler, who sat in a specialized chair controlled by foot pedals, leaving both hands free to operate. To the right of her legs stood the cardiac surgical team. At her feet sat the heart-pump technicians with their giant chrome-headed pump oxygenator and cardiopulmonary bypass equipment. And to her left were the neuroanesthesiologists, who were monitoring her vital signs and brain function. Perfect coordination among these four medical teams would be critical if the aneurysm were to be successfully removed and Pam retrieved from her journey to the edge of death. Spetzler began the surgery by carefully marking the incision lines on Pam's shaved head and quickly opening the scalp with acurved surgical blade. The scalp flap was folded back, exposing aglistening gray skull. A surgical nurse handed Spetzler thepneumatically-powered Midas Rex, attached by a long green hose tocompressed air tanks in the corner of the room. A loud buzzing noisethen filled the OR as the powerful, thumb-sized motor hidden in thebrass head of the bone saw revved up. The cutting tool began to carveout a large section of Pam's skull.Pam's near-death experience began to unfold. She relates the story with remarkable detail:
The next thing I recall was the sound: It was a natural D. As I
listened to the sound, I felt it was pulling me out of the top of my
head. The further out of my body I got, the more clear the tone
became. I had the impression it was like a road, a frequency that
you go on.... I remember seeing several things in the operating room
when I was looking down. It was the most aware that I think that I
have ever been in my entire life.... I was metaphorically sitting on
Dr. Spetzler's shoulder. It was not like normal vision. It was brighter
and more focused and clearer than normal vision.... There was so
much in the operating room that I didn't recognize, and so many
people. I thought the way they had my head shaved was very peculiar. I
expected them to take all of the hair, but they did not....
The saw thing that I hated the sound of looked like an electric
toothbrush and it had a dent in it, a groove at the top where
the saw appeared to go into the handle, but it didn't _____ And the
saw had interchangeable blades, too, but these blades were in
what looked like a socket wrench case ___ I heard the saw crank
up. I didn't see them use it on my head, but I think I heard it being
used on something. It was humming at a relatively high pitch and
then all of a sudden it went Brrrrrrrrrr! like that.
Spetzler removed the bone flap from Pam's skull, exposing the outermost membrane of her brain—the dura mater.This tough, fibrous covering was opened with special dural scissors.The operating microscope was then draped and swung into position.The remainder of the intracranial portion of the proceduretook place under this microscope controlled by a lever held inSpetzler's mouth.While Spetzler was opening Pam's head, a female cardiac surgeonlocated the femoral artery and vein in Pam's right groin.These vessels turned out to be too small to handle the large flowof blood needed to feed the cardiopulmonary bypass machine.Thus, the left femoral artery and vein were prepared for use. Pamlater recalled this point in the surgery:
Someone said something about my veins and arteries being
very small. I believe it was a female voice and that it was Dr.
Murray, but I'm not sure. She was the cardiologist [sic]. I
remember thinking that I should have told her about that __ I
remember the heart-lung machine. I didn't like the respirator.
... I remember a lot of tools and instruments that I did not
readily recognize.
Attention then shifted to large color television monitors mounted on the OR walls, which began to televise Pam's brain as seen through the operating microscope. The OR team followed Spetzler on the TV screen as he journeyed underneath the base of the temporal lobe, around the vein of Labbe, between the third and
fourth cranial nerves, and to the neck of a giant basilar artery aneurysm. As feared, the aneurysm turned out to be, as Spetzler noted in his medical records, "extremely large and extended up into the brain." Hypothermic cardiac arrest would definitely be needed."
From: Light & Death: One Doctor's Fascinating Account of Near-Death Experiences, by Michael Sabom, M.D.
Note how the supposed NDE began BEFORE the hypothermic cardiac arrest was induced.
Yes which is why I became a physicalist along with an occultist. Just because these experiences aren't objectively real doesn't mean they can't be helpful (go back and read that placebo study).
I never looked at the source listed above and don't know how to get there. I'll have to grant you that point then,..... I'll humbly admit to not knowing everything .......
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Oh crap! I'm sorry. I forgot the link:
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/...0-113848-01-2131-B-100/sabom-pam-reynolds.pdf
Thanks for the link. I read the whole thing. I still believe she had a super-physical experience but the story here is now not as impressive for the point you mentioned. She was already in the spiritual realm (with relatives) rather than above the body in the operating room for the deepest stages of her 'temporary death'. So she couldn't provide verifiable physical facts during that time.
Again you all but straight up say you simply believe this against evidence simply because you want to.
Monk Of Reason
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
As you die its not uncommon for your brain to be flooded with endorphins. A brain that is in trauma is subjective to hallucinations. Hallucinations mixed with excessivly high amounts of endorphins creates a psudo spiritual experience of the highest degree.
Its like a mega acid trip. Though Endorphins can affect you negativly and give you the worst nightmare of your life and this also accounts for the ones that feel like they have gone to hell. But if your talking about "out of body" experiences then there is no shortage of people who have this in surgery dreams because of the stress they have experienced in waiting for the surgery. Its no different than you having a nightmare that your teacher is actually a werewolf and eats your brains in a dream the night before the first day of school .
Its like a mega acid trip. Though Endorphins can affect you negativly and give you the worst nightmare of your life and this also accounts for the ones that feel like they have gone to hell. But if your talking about "out of body" experiences then there is no shortage of people who have this in surgery dreams because of the stress they have experienced in waiting for the surgery. Its no different than you having a nightmare that your teacher is actually a werewolf and eats your brains in a dream the night before the first day of school .
apophenia
Well-Known Member
I know you'll just point out that I can't prove it (which I can't), but my friend drew a detailed and accurate picture of the room I was in when she 'visited' me.
If it weren't for numerous such experiences, I would probably think like you.
One other memorable moment ( one of hundreds) -
I was riding a motorcycle on a highway in the country, going down a steep hill in a long curve, no traffic, beautiful day and then ... The Voice says " Slow right down, NOW !"
I slowed down. Just around the bend was a jacknifed truck across the whole highway. Had I not slowed down right then I was surely going to be horribly injured or killed.
This kind of warning has happened numerous times.
So you can be as intellectually rigorous as you like, but I promise you, you still don't know what's happening if you are certain that such events are 'just subjective'
You absolutely got it wrong again.
I think the seeing people from an out of body perspective, knowing conversations and events that took place, tools used, meeting relatives, etc., etc. all have a super-physical cause.
And of course I'm aware of your alternate explanation that purports to cover the whole experience. I think it's too beyond reason and contrived for a pre-determined conclusion.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
I'm pretty sure we're not going to come to an agreement on the bigger picture here, but that's fair enough.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
I don't know ... she really didn't describe the tools all that specifically. You really don't think she could have heard the conversations while she was slipping into unconsciousness?
My friend could do this as well, easily.
How can you be sure that this was not a detail added after the fact? We are too quick to believe such things rather than add them. Just think of memories, those exact paths in the brain will not be mapped perfectly again so we lose or change details, not to mention we simply make things up and add them to our memories.
So you can be as intellectually rigorous as you like, but I promise you, you still don't know what's happening if you are certain that such events are 'just subjective'
Well when we give up being intellectually rigorous we end up believing in magic, as has been proving here in this thread. I, however, prefer not to (unless we mean the psychological kind
)As said, the tools were not described well. I can also describe the room, my body, etc from probably all my surgeries because it is not that hard to do. You never addressed if you have had surgeries or not, but as I said I have had many, most within about a year of each other. I can tell you what happened in that room, what went wrong, what it looked like, not because of my spidey senses but because it is explained to you. Who would be stupid enough to go under the knife having no idea what is going on. Besides that, most people will research the surgery, I (and my mother) sure did our homework and, if this was back in high school we could probably even guess what instruments were used. Again, if you just put your bias aside this is all actually annoyingly easy to explain away.
No no, you're describing your position. See, I'm the one who switched sides based on the overwhelming evidence. I believed in all sorts of hocus pocus that some simple college education easily cured.
Before we go any further, just answer one thing: when has this ever happened?
Normally, when doctors find someone who's near death, they try to save their life, not stop to hook them up to the equipment needed to measure their brain activity.
I'm pretty sure we're not going to come to an agreement on the bigger picture here, but that's fair enough.
Fair enough........we'll probably go around and around again on another thread
You're way better than most so-called Skeptics
I and Dr. Sabom were impressed. But as I pointed out before, my threshold for being impressed is lower than your 'never been reached yet' threshold.
That's because I start with the premise that Consciousness/Brahman/God is fundamental and no collection of physical atoms and electrical current can have a unified self-consciousness. The patient's normal waking consciousness is just as super-physical to me.
Sha'irullah
رسول الآلهة
I have always thought that when Atheists die they will see Christopher Hitchens lift them our of their grave then cast them into nothingness. Perhaps I am wrong
Gjallarhorn
N'yog-Sothep
I always thought we'd see Nietzsche sitting on a orbiting teacup as we sink into the Abyss.
