I'd like to read a description about one of these NDEs that people get from fainting. I'd just be curous how closely they match up to someone that died.
Nderf (
http://www.nderf.org/) has around 1000 NDE accounts, (written by the claimants) some of which include people that state they had NDE's after merely fainting and being under no threat of losing their life. It's a starting point if nothing else.
Fine, so what evidence exactly suggests heavenly realms etc?
people are capable of coming up with hypothesis that could account for it. As far as I know there is as of yet no testable hypotheses, and therefore no actual scientific evidence(which requires a test that supports the hypothesis).
This is incorrect as I have shown a few times now on this thread. Tests have been conducted to reproduce some of the claimed occurrences of NDE's in perfectly healthy volunteers by deliberately scrambling certain senses. Further than that you have tests that show that oxygen starvation cause 'tunnel' experiences:
"Oxygen starvation can cause both tunnel and darkness experiences. The reason for this lies in the structure and functioning of the blood supply of the retina. The macula is the optical center of the retina; it has the greatest blood supply, while the flow of blood to the retina decreases with distance from the macula according to the inverse square law. Yet the oxygen consumption of each part of the retina is much the same, so oxygen starvation will cause failure of peripheral vision before causing total visual failure. Indeed, experiments with oxygen starvation in human volunteers prove this fact. This is why tunnel experiences occur only in NDEs caused by oxygen starvation, while toxins and poisons cause a “pit experience” before causing failure of vision. So oxygen starvation explains why not everyone has a tunnel experience during an NDE. Oxygen starvation also explains why the tunnel experience is not a true component of the NDE, but is instead a manifestation of the cause of the NDE (Greyson 1983). "
It is this same thing, (oxygen starvation), that causes the sense of motion or flying:
"Oxygen starvation is a common cause of brain malfunction, as well as the cause of the terminal loss of consciousness of more than nine in ten dying persons (Murray 1997). And oxygen starvation causes malfunction of muscle spindles, the sense organs that provide the brain with most of its information about body position and movement. Muscle spindles are special muscle structures sandwiched between the fibers of every muscle. There is about one muscle spindle per 1,000 ordinary muscle fibers. Muscle spindles are both sense organs and muscle fibers, sensing and transmitting to the brain sensations of weight, of movement, of falling, of floating, and of flying. Moreover, the tensing and relaxing of muscle spindles relative to the surrounding muscle fibers also generates similar sensations.
Severe oxygen starvation causes convulsions. Muscle spindles sense these movements and transmit the sensations to the brain."
(DR G M Woerlee)
There are many tests that show that NDE's are completely brain related, and yet people would rather ignore the science in preference of the emotional appeal of mystical mumbo jumbo.
I would go on to say that
if NDE's
only occurred to people that had died then it would be vastly more interesting. That it happens to healthy volunteers, those that have fainted and those that have drunk too many alcopops somewhat negates the value of the claims.
There is nothing from looking the physical properties of a brain that would lead one to believe that it produces conscious experience. If consciousness is simply a physical phenomenon like other physical phenomeon why is it not subject to scientific scrutiny in the same way other physical phenomenon are.
I would beg to differ.
http://consc.net/online3.html is just a starting point, but it should show that it
is subject to intense scientific scrutiny.
