Scientists proves Near Death Experiences same as WILD transitions.

**moonshine** · 06-27-2009 10:29 AM

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0305202657.htm

ScienceDaily (Mar. 6, 2007) — Having an out-of-body experience may seem far-fetched to some, but for those with arousal system disturbances in their brains, it may not be a far off idea that they could sense they were really outside their own body watching themselves. In previous studies of more than 13,000 Europeans, almost 6 percent said they have had such an out-of-body experience.

Dr. Kevin Nelson and a research team at the University of Kentucky have studied the link between out-of-body experiences, the sleep-wake transition and near death experiences, and published their findings today in the March 6 issue of the journal Neurology in their case report, "Out-of-body experience and arousal."

The results are intriguing, and show that some people's brains already may be predisposed to these sorts of experiences. They found that an out-of-body experience is statistically as likely to occur during a near death experience as it is to occur during the transition between wakefulness and sleep. Nelson suggests that phenomena in the brain's arousal system, which regulates different states of consciousness including REM sleep and wakefulness, may be the cause for these types of out-of-body displays.

"We found it surprising that out-of-body experience with sleep transition seemed very much like out-of-body experience during near death," Nelson said.

For their study, the team conducted structured interviews with 55 people who have had a near death experience. They found those who had an out-of-body experience along with near death were more likely to also have had some sort of REM intrusion in their lifetime, where instead of passing directly between the REM sleep state and wakefulness, the brain switch blends these states into one another.

To survey out-of-body experiences that occurred during sleep transition, patients were asked, "Just before falling asleep or just after awakening, have you had the sense that you are outside of your body and watching yourself?" A similar question was posed to survey out-of-body experiences during near death, which asked subjects if during their experience they had "clearly left the body and existed outside it."

Because the arousal system controls or influences sleep-wake states, alertness and attention, Nelson and the research team questioned whether people with near death experiences may already have an arousal system predisposed to allowing intrusion of REM sleep elements during the transition between wakefulness and sleep.

Sleep paralysis is a common form of REM intrusion, which can cause a condition of temporary paralysis along with visual or auditory hallucinations immediately after waking up or before falling asleep due to an ill-timed disconnection between the brain and the body. Although it was once considered very rare, about 25 percent of all people have probably experienced sleep paralysis sometime during their life.

During a medical crisis, Nelson said muscle paralysis combined with an out-of-body experience could show many of the same prominent features of a near death experience. Near death experiences are responses to a life-threatening crisis, and are characterized by a combination of disassociation from the physical body, euphoria and transcendental or mystical elements.

This investigation supports the notion of out-of-body experiences as an expression of arousal in near death experiences and sleep paralysis. Almost all of the near death subjects having sleep paralysis, 96 percent, also had an out-of-body experience either during sleep transition or near death.

"The strong association of sleep paralysis with out-of-body experiences in the near death experience subject is curious and unexplained," Nelson said. "However, persons with near death experiences appear to have an arousal system predisposed to both REM intrusion and out-of-body experiences."

Another clue as to the true nature of OBE's?

**Desert Claw** · 06-27-2009 12:18 PM

paralysis, hallucinations, yup, sounds like WILD to me. whats this about arousal and its relation to OBEs? haven't heard that one before...

**Xetrov** · 06-27-2009 03:17 PM

This is an interesting article. But you state it is proven to be the same, whereas the researchers only found that people who reported NDE's also tend to more often have had SP and OBE's from sleep. As the researchers themselves also say, "The strong association of sleep paralysis with out-of-body experiences in the near death experience subject is curious and unexplained". Also note the title of the research "Out-of-body Experiences May Be Caused By Arousal System Disturbances In Brain" Did you notice "May be"? This means, it is still unexplained, which means, unlike you claim, nothing is proven as yet. Besides this, there remains the fact that some NDE-ers have had accurate vivid experiences while they had no brain activity at all, and the researchers did not say anything about this, because all they did is interview people and compared experiences. Similarities between experiences doesnt prove they are the same.

They found that an out-of-body experience is statistically as likely to occur during a near death experience as it is to occur during the transition between wakefulness and sleep.

This means, during an NDE, there is the same chance on an out-of-body experience as during this sleep transition, but again it doesnt nececarrily mean that they are the same.

**moonshine** · 06-27-2009 04:35 PM

I'm sorry, but you're dismissing this because someones used the term "may be" when explaining a theory. Thats a bit tenuous. How does the fact that they admit that they are constructing a theory based on the salient evidence negate that same evidence.
Sigh. And some people call skeptics close-minded.

Yeah. Sure, the 96% correlation proves nothing.

**juroara** · 06-27-2009 08:40 PM

this doesn't prove or disprove anything

dreaming is considered an out of body experience by many. saying that the transition of the NDE and dreaming is the same, doesn't prove that NDE's aren't real.

the research would actually work for both sides of the argument

**LucidFlanders** · 06-27-2009 08:59 PM

Originally Posted by juroara

dreaming is considered an out of body experience by many. saying that the transition of the NDE and dreaming is the same, doesn't prove that NDE's aren't real.

So we should take their word for it because they say it? there is nothing to even back this up. Dreaming is all in your head. We don't yet understand WHY we dream, why it's important for 8 hours a day, but it's all from your head. You don't go anywhere.

**juroara** · 06-27-2009 09:46 PM

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

So we should take their word for it because they say it? there is nothing to even back this up. Dreaming is all in your head. We don't yet understand WHY we dream, why it's important for 8 hours a day, but it's all from your head. You don't go anywhere.

why take their word for it?

who said you had to believe in anything?

the point that I am making is, if you are going to make an argument against something, you first need to understand that which you are arguing against

if you are going to argue against the NDE as a spiritual experience, then you first need to freshen yourself up on the most advanced spiritual understandings of the NDE, and all that is involved in it.

for example...heaven is NOT a place. nor do you have to go any 'where' for an experience to be out of body.

all too often do skeptics try to use science to disprove spirituality. but science has yet to disprove spirituality because spiritual people do not deny science, but see it as how the physical nature of reality works. and how the physical nature of reality works with the spiritual nature.

to suggest that understanding how something works physically as meaning there is no longer a spiritual side to it, isn't an argument. its just a lack of understanding of what spirituality is. the spiritual person would just say "this is the how the physical nature works with the spiritual nature"

it needs to be understood that researchers who do believe in NDEs as a genuine spiritual experience are already expecting from science some sort of brain activity to be involved. both before and after.

so what ever that brain activity is, its not against the spiritual understanding of the NDE

what I would like to know is, why are there people absolutely against the spiritual understanding of the NDE? why do they work so hard to disprove that anything meaningful is taking place?

what are they afraid of?

**moonshine** · 06-28-2009 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by juroara

this doesn't prove or disprove anything

Conclusively. Probably not.
But that doesn't make supernatural OBE's a 50:50 proposition.
The correlation is compelling and there is a very high probability that they are indeed associated.

Hiding in the tiny margin of doubt, well I'd say that was disingenious and close-minded.

**DeathCell** · 07-02-2009 05:49 PM

Sigh their is no margin for some people, they have their own answers and if you don't believe them you are automatically wrong.

**LucidFlanders** · 06-27-2009 09:01 PM

Originally Posted by moonshine

I'm sorry, but you're dismissing this because someones used the term "may be" when explaining a theory. Thats a bit tenuous. How does the fact that they admit that they are constructing a theory based on the salient evidence negate that same evidence.
Sigh. And some people call skeptics close-minded.

Yeah. Sure, the 96% correlation proves nothing.

I think because "proves" and "may be" are in the same sentence.

**Xetrov** · 06-27-2009 10:14 PM

Originally Posted by moonshine

I'm sorry, but you're dismissing this because someones used the term "may be" when explaining a theory. Thats a bit tenuous. How does the fact that they admit that they are constructing a theory based on the salient evidence negate that same evidence.
Sigh. And some people call skeptics close-minded.

Yeah. Sure, the 96% correlation proves nothing.

You call me close minded? To you, an alternative explanation to NDE's is just 100% not possible because your mind is set on the very fact that it isnt. Tell me that you are open minded enough to admit that there might be a possible alternative explanation to NDE's, like an open minded individual would. And Im not saying the explanation must be some mumbo jumbo unexplainable crap, just that current science might not have found it yet, and more research might be needed to get to the bottom of it.

Also, I did not say I am dismissing this whole paper, nor their evidencde. I am just pointing out that the correlation they found by interviewing a few people who had NDE's does not prove anything and they even admit it themselves by saying that it is "curious and unexplained". For sure they build a possible theory ("may be") on their research, but it leaves a lot of possibilities open. Sure, maybe NDE's are the same as OBE's, and sure, maybe they can be explained by reducing it all to brain functions. I have not denied that have I? I just said that this seems unlikely since (and I repeat) there have been NDE's where people have had lucid experiences while their brain was fully non-functional. How does that fit into the picture then? It seems that everything is pretty much still open, and we will have to await further studies to be sure.

One more thing, it is not needed to make your point stronger by expressing tiredness ("sigh") over the fact that there are some people willing to argue on your post. If you do not wish to debate, please state so and I will leave you alone. If you do wish to debate, expect some counter arguments to arise. If our discussion only arouses your frustration, maybe we should just leave it at that, which is fine for me.

**Dannon Oneironaut** · 04-19-2010 11:08 PM

Well, I've had what I thought were OBEs while dreaming, and I've had WILDs. My conclusion was that OBEs are a kind of dream and that dreams are a kind of OBE.

But then I had a spontaneous OBE that changed the whole thing. This WAS an OBE. The only way I can describe it is this: if you ask a woman if she had an orgasm and she says "I think so" you know that she never had one and she doesn't know what it is like. She thinks that she may have had one because she was feeling good and has an idea of what orgasms feel like, but she doesn't know that she never had an orgasm.

So.... my experience left me confused, because what about my theory that I believed to be true? So now I believe that dreams and OBEs are very related, different effects of the same phenomenon. Like dreams are InnerBEs or IMindEs.