[lit-ideas] Re: Bears, oh my!

  • From: "Judith Evans" <judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:25:02 +0100

>Suddenly, he seemed to come back to life, as it were.  
>His color got better, he was alert, and so on.  That 
>sounded like consciousness to me.  I'll 

my mother 'came back' twice in her last six weeks, the second time, when she
was officially dying (i.e. undertaker hired, medicines stopped).  She 
sat up straight in bed, she talked clearly and
lucidly, she understood everything.  For some while before that
she hadn't even known what eating meant (she had advanced
dementia).  Each time, the next day, she'd returned to her coma-type
state.  It seems this is not uncommon, and it seems there's a
lot doctors don't know about memory and so on (if you like, about
'consciousness').

(When she 'came back', she didn't even know she was ill, she knew nothing of
what had happened; I tried one careful test question, when her lack of
knowledge became clear, I probed no further.)

But importantly, these were not true "near-'death'" experiences



From: Andy 
  To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 4:05 PM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Bears, oh my!


  I'm really running late, but real quick, apparently when John Ashcroft was 
sick in the hospital he was doing very poorly.  He was very ashen, weak.  
Suddenly, he seemed to come back to life, as it were.  His color got better, he 
was alert, and so on.  That sounded like consciousness to me.  I'll get the 
source for you later if you're interested.  Maybe it was just an instanteous 
'remission' or something like that.  But maybe remissions are consciousness 
too.  There's so much we don't know.  



  Andy <min.erva@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
    Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: 
      >>And, since the near death experiences are so consistent, <<  

      Consistent across all cultures?  


      Andy:  Those that are reported, yes.  Even pre-cultural children.


      Mike:  During a particularly nasty episode, my father had to be 'Harvey 
teamed' 13 times before the doctors could decide what was going on.  He said he 
never saw a light, never heard anyone calling him into the light, never felt 
bliss just a tightness in his chest and then good night, Irene, just empty 
darkness.

      Andy:  I do believe it.  Was he actually declared dead for a few minutes, 
as in no life activity at all?  But I do believe that people have had the 
experience as well.  That's why I wonder if it's not something in the brain, 
like a talent, that not everyone has.  That's what Dr. Parnia is studying, to 
determine what and when.  I wonder too, if people who have Alzheimer's for 
example, what happens to them?  It does sound all airy fairy, but there's a 
part of me that says there's really something in it.


      >>if the mind is the brain, and the brain is stopped and 
neurotransmitters aren't flowing, where is the consciousness coming from?<<

      Mike:  Brain activity doesn't stop instantaneously -- not unless you blow 
your brains out.  


      Andy:  But it probably doesn't go on for minutes at a time.  If it does, 
people are still reporting similar experiences across the board.  That says 
something.


      Mike:  I'll bet no one who's blown their brains out has returned to 
recount a 'near death experience.'  


      Andy:  To recount a death experience.


      Mike:  And how would anyone presume to know at what moment a 'near death 
experience' occurred?  Perhaps it occurred in the transitional moment between 
unconsciousness and consciousness and not while out there floating in the ether 
looking for the road to heaven. 



      Andy:  He's not presuming to know.  He's studying people who have been 
declared dead and returned.  This isn't a religious inquiry.


      >>Is there a separate "consciousness energy", in addition to kinetic or 
electrical or potential, that inhabits each living thing?<<

      Mike:  No.  There's only energy.  

      Andy:  Yes, and maybe it's a subclass not yet discovered.


      Mike:  There's no real definition of energy, it's a garbage word.  It 
means, "whatever it is that makes happen the world as we experience it"  


      Andy:  Exactly.  So why not consciousness energy?


      Mike:  Maybe it's all just God.  Move your finger -- there is God.  Every 
heartbeat is God's doing.  Every fart, belch, sneeze, wretching, shitting, 
pissing -- all is God.  Fucking too, especially fucking, that takes a lot of 
God.


      Andy:  If it is, it's no God who's interested in this earth or anything 
on it.  Maybe God is just another way of saying energy.


      >>Regarding the actual near death scenario of the light and the bliss and 
all the rest of it, since it's so universal and even children as young as two 
describe it, I wonder if it's not something that's not programmed into our 
brains.<<

      Could be.  Or it could be flood of glutamate, overactivating NMDA 
receptors resulting in neuro ('excito') toxicity.  Who knows besides the Shadow?

      Andy:  Except brain activity was ceased when these experiences that the 
people saw were recounted.  Gotta go.  Talk to you later.


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