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Stories of ‘near death experiences’ (NDEs) are legion, affecting all cultures and peoples. NDEs have similarities—white lights, tunnels, spirit beings, feelings of unity, comfort, love. Do NDEs ‘prove’ that ‘Heaven is for real’? Or are they mere by-products of shocks to the brain during times of physiological trauma and insults? Is there a science of NDEs?
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Susan Jane Blackmore is an English freelance writer, lecturer, and broadcaster on psychology and the paranormal, perhaps best known for her book The Meme Machine.
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If there is "another place" we go to after death then surely everyone's NDE would be the same, seeing the same things and having the same feelings. There is too much variation in people's accounts for it to be believed.
Let’s hope she’s wrong
In science research itself, the different fields are completely fragmented and often dismissive of areas of scientific research, which are not congruent with their conclusions from their field. And here is an example in Susan Blackmore when she previously refers to near death experiences, it’s all anecdotal and in one way or another can be dismissed out of hand because it’s completely subjective. It is enough for her to conclude them as brain states, even though neuroscience is still in its infancy.
There’s multiple other areas of scientific research, which are dismissed out of hand.
One is the recounting of past lives by children, and there’s literally thousands of eyewitness accounts.
There’s medium research that’s been done for over 20 years by a Ph.D research design scientist, Dr. Julie Bischel. She has triple and quadruple blinded her studies and its still not good enough from the materialist point of view.
The breath and depth, and the sheer volume of near death experience narratives seem to indicate that consciousness exists on more than one dimension of time and space.
That Susan Blackmore herself seems to contradict herself on one hand saying she doesn’t know what consciousness is and on the other hand and oh it’s definitely an epi-phenomenon of the brain.
I have had GAD for years and had the worst case of depersonalization and derealization psychiaters in my country had ever seen. Sometimes it went on for days. I also 'left' my body on numerous occasions but I do realize it's my brain playing tricks on me. NDE's are our bodies last way of helping us die by releasing DMT. Nothing supernatural about it at all.
Bad choice of a person to interview on NDE. There are many American neurologists who would be far better and interesting.
I have always been fascinated by NDEs for 50 years, since I was a boy. Where there is a disconnect for me is that they are all different with some similarities..but that’s all they are: similarities, not the same. Some sound genuine, some sound like dreams, and some sound too polished and rehearsed with each retelling.
8:30 She says this story is not sufficient to "overthrow all of science"… yet she knowingly omits all the other cases of the same nature. I have professionally studied NDEs and I find Blackmore to be radically reductionist in her assessment of this issue.
I've left my body and been the other side. Seen the devil in mirror. I have a professional job and I'm sane.
You're too factual. Hopefully, you'll experience it one day.
Returns after anesthesia still unconscious via anesthesia. Only when the heart stopped does the experience of conscious state begin even under general anesthesia.
Some of these experiences are not related to family or past events but to known present and ongoing events.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JL1oDuvQR08&si=AKn7ThYAWUv2YOVE
Just want to share this thought, but I don’t think that the man-to-god connection is nothing more than an alternate name for a more tangible route to one’s own subconscious
How do you account for people who were born blind seeing shapes and colours for the first time when they have an NDE? How do you account for the well documented veridical reports? Consciousness is not a by-product of brain function. The mind is not in your head; your head is in your mind.
Typical materialists
The interesting thing is, is that a NDE would essentially usually change anyone’s perspective on the world. I mean that, I would assume, would happen with ANY kind of spiritual experience that felt real to the observer. Just imagine going your whole life not believing in a religion because you never saw any real evidence of either of them, only to have a NDE and feel EXACTLY what is said to happen during the afterlife. Regardless of if it was just in your mind and you tricked yourself into seeing it, it would completely change your perception. You would believe it was being shown to you, especially if you never really had those types of dreams or hallucinations due to you not being “near death” during most of your life.
I respect Blackmore, but I feel she undervalues the anecdotal evidence for NDEs, especially corroborative cases. She didn’t seem to know that the actual shoe in the Maria’s shoe case was used in a reenactment by the BBC, so there is physical evidence on video. And Kim Clark-Sharp seems like a honest person from interviews, I trust her account of events. I don’t blame Blackmore for her position, given her confusing NDE-like experience. But this whole NDE phenomenon is complex, and there are some cases that just can’t be explained away. I hope we have experimental evidence someday for them, but it is going to be very difficult to capture, as Dr. Sam Parnia will attest. Controlling the uncontrollable is a difficult thing indeed. Until such time though, I don’t think the ever growing corroborative evidence should be ignored. If we do, we won’t get any… Closer to Truth. 😂
She totally confused a dream she had, on weed, to a real nde. It doesn’t make any sense. Is so “teen”
wtf does this woman know
Thanks to Robert Lawrence Kuhn and his incredible effort on this channel.
■■■ Susan Blackmore is a NOTORIOUSLY UNSCIENTIFIC OUTLIER.
🌎 See "RETHINKING DEATH" by Dr.Sam Parnia MD.PhD — Research Director (YouTube)
FAKE FAKE FAKE
A friend of mine had a heart attack a few months ago and had no pulse for two to three minutes before he was resuscitated. He said there was nothing.
People of religion see their beliefs? sorry but that's false. People see different things, it's not always their beliefs.
More than 80% of people who are revived after they died in hospital don't remember anything!
She's so knowledgable. Kinda wish she wasn't so melodramatic though..🙈 there's something very dismissive and fixed about her perspective
What about Pam Reynolds case then ?
I am enjoying seeing the comments rightly calling her out and the host for just agreeing with her constantly while he challenges anyone with a more mystical outlook like crazy.
Some times better to say I DON'T KNOW😅
It’s striking that Susan Blackmore herself acknowledges how near-death experiences are universal, transformative, and often lead to a non-dual sense of unity and dissolution of the self. That’s not something one can dismiss lightly.
The problem is that instead of taking them as hints of something deeper, she feels compelled to reduce them to “illusions of a struggling brain.” But saying that unity or profound peace are just “neural collapses” does not explain why the brain should generate precisely that kind of experience and not any random hallucination.
Here lies the paradox: the lived experience is there, real, powerful, life-changing. And yet it is labeled an “illusion.” But who is it that experiences this illusion? And why does this “illusion” have such a consistent and universal transformative impact?
In the end, the stance is more philosophical than scientific: materialism is chosen first, and everything else is bent to fit it. Which means, ironically, that it’s an act of faith, no less than believing that NDEs might open a window into what consciousness really is.
“This one specific story about a shoe had unreliable sources, so any NDE that included learning things impossible in a material world are all false” is a crazy logical jump
ANOTHER MATERIALIST REDUCTIONIST. 😂😂
Miss Susan, you obviously have not spent enough time researching NDEs. There’s not just one story like the red shoe. There’s several. There is a cardiologist who has an interview on YouTube and he talks about a patient who was flatlined the entire time he was in his operating room and described every single detail that happened while he was clinically dead. It turned the doctor into a believer. Also, search Pam Reynolds. Evidence is there
How do you explain ..when someone has a NDE in a hospital and they are able to tell the doctors what they where doing when they where trying to save them ,in detail!…ive heard from Atheists …its because they watch to many ER Tv shows..
It seems like people have all these things to bring them comfort because they’re in a traumatic state and the brain is preparing the body to end.
It's refreshing to see a hardcore agnostic noticing the valuable lessons from the East without any mambo-jambo. RAW would enjoy!
Greg Stone, author of "Under the Tree" debunked Blackmore long ago.
She is way too biased.
I've had a spiritual experience that saved me from committing suicide so I do believe we have an immaterial soul.
I don’t understand how “oneness” is closer to truth from a materialist point of view.
Science can't describe everything in existence.
My experience wasn’t religious it was simple – I don’t understand it either as anaesthetic I was totally off – where as when clinically dead I was pure light returning to the Universal bowl of soup that simple
I mean you’re talking about a woman with blue and pink hair. That has a hatred for religion. So her opinion on NDE is shaped to support her world view. Just like Dawkins. lmao