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| To see infinity in a wild flower |
When you are teaching A level psychology you find "Near Death Experience" in the chapter on anomalies in psychology.
An old fashioned behaviourist would just dismiss such things as irrelevant, since they go beyond their understanding of what can be considered as science and unworthy of consideration. They like to use Occam's razor even on their brains.
However, more modern cognitive scientists are trying to rise to the challenge. The article below from Scientific American explores the theme, while still trying to assess it within the framework of "science", without considering that their idea of science is over 100 years out of date.
Physics has abandoned Newtonian billiard balls, while neuro-psychologists are still trying to explain things mechanistically in terms of electric impulses along nerve cells in the brain.
A long and not uninteresting read of this SA article will just leave you unsatisfied.
New Scientist offers something different.
"Near-death experiences, or NDEs, are triggered during singular life-threatening episodes when the body is injured by blunt trauma, a heart attack, asphyxia, shock, and so on. About one in 10 patients with cardiac arrest in a hospital setting undergoes such an episode. Thousands of survivors of these harrowing touch-and-go situations tell of leaving their damaged bodies behind and encountering a realm beyond everyday existence, unconstrained by the usual boundaries of space and time. These powerful, mystical experiences can lead to permanent transformation of their lives."
It accepts that such experiences often have transformative effects on people's lives, but provides no explanation from within their "science" why this should be so.
New Scientist, on the other hand, makes it clear that this kind of science is inadequate
"Medical explanations cannot account for near death experiences (NDEs), according to the results of the biggest prospective study to date of patients who were resuscitated after clinical death. However, patients who reported an NDE were more likely to die soon afterwards."
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1693-no-medical-explanation-for-near-death-experiences/#ixzz6N5H38dXR
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1693-no-medical-explanation-for-near-death-experiences/#ixzz6N5H38dXR
"If researchers could prove that clinically dead patients, with no electrical activity in their cortex, can be aware of events around them and form memories, this would suggest that the brain does not generate consciousness, French and Van Lommel think."
Journal reference: The Lancet (vol 358, p 2039)
Such research is indeed being attempted.“This was the surprising thing,” van Lommel says. “It’s always said that NDEs are just a phenomenon relating to the dying brain and the lack of oxygen to the brain cells. But that’s not true. If there was a physiological cause, all the patients should have had an NDE.”
The article is short and does not acknowledge Penny Sortori's work on NDE's at Cardiff hospital, which covers a whole PhD thesis on 10 years of experiences and how they transcend any medical assessments of brain states.
Back to teaching A level psychology.
There you teach about paradigm shifts in science. We shifted from Newton to Enstein. We shifted from theology to behavioural science.
What we need to do now is to make a shift in psychology to a quantum science from logical positivism circa 1920.
There is a lot of research going on at present around models of the mind that have consciousness as central rather than an irrelevant epiphenomenon.
We are going to need to go with one of these models if we are to come up with an understanding of the NDE.
I have looked at a number of these ideas and written about them elsewhere. I am not qualified to judge which model has most merits. Explore for yourself.
I am instead turning to Depak Chopra and his series on everyday immortality. In the lesson below he writes about non-duality and the illusions we have about death.
His universe is centred on consciousness. He does relate his ideas to science, atoms, molecules, etc, but he considers them as just ideas, concepts, things that we created with our minds.
There is much more about all this in my Deeper Mindfulness course.
In the same way he shows that our minds are no more than the operation of our consciousness. Ultimately, science, the physical universe and our minds are illusions created by universal consciousness, out of which our ego identities and our minds emerge.
I enjoy Chopra. He has his own western version of an outlining of eastern philosophy.
He has his own refreshingly different account of what I have studied as Kashmir Shaivism, or Siddha Yoga.
He says the fear of death of the body is based on the illusory idea that you are a body. Watch him, he is convincing.
Your body is just a home where your memories thoughts and feelings hang out.
Muktananda talks about what is a doctrine of recognition. We just need to wake up and recognize that we are not an ego or a body, we are indeed the Self, consciousness, Shiva. We think we are an ego, a person, a Jiva. But that is just an illusion.
Chopra tells it to us in a very gentle avuncular laid back way.
For my own part, listening to him has helped me let go of more of my attachment to my own thoughts and feelings.
I have spent a long career in psychotherapy helping myself and others experience more of their thoughts and feelings. I helped people discover they had feelings, and how to tell false feelings from real authentic ones.
So now I want to do less of it. Odd indeed.
I prefer to meditate on the perfection of a flower than on my anger at the way politicians fail to tackle the issues we all face.
Gazing into the flower I am infinite.
Gazing at Boris Johnson or Donald Trump I am diminished to something small and unpleasant.
See God in each other says Siddha Yoga. I guess more than a few made Gods out of these bits of stardust
It is not my karma to be a politician. My anger changes no one but me.
Enough from me today. Have a chew on these articles and videos.
