Present! – Pim van Lommel (part one) Consciousness Beyond Life
Mel Van Dusen interviews renowned cardiologist Pim van Lommel about his research into the near-death experience and it’s implications for a radically new paradigm for living in the 21st century.
16 Responses to “Present! – Pim van Lommel (part one) Consciousness Beyond Life”
So interesting.
He Should Kill Himself To Try With The Reality Of Death, When You’re Dead You’re Dead Nature Recycle……………. Nothing Survived From Nobody……………
When You Pass By Near A Cemetery You Don’t See Too Much Consciousness and Activity………………
The Only Way To Know and To Prove It’s To Die, Then You Can Pretend…………… Too Bad Dead Peoples Don’t Talk………………..
i think there is no hallucination on ECM…
People who experiment this, can ONLY see death people,… they DONT experiment this with people that is alive…
In many cases, death peoples seem to “return” to the ECM experimenter and tell him that he is not ready to get the afterlife and must to return to material life… and Voila!!.. the ECM experimenter has return to life, is miracle ?…
One day before that my uncle died… he said us that at him side was his death brother Osvaldo, my uncle could see Osvaldo, we did not see anything there!
Ich finde und, völlig unabhängig, was manch` andere (es seien hier die typischen unobjektiven Skeptiker) gemeint, davon halten mögen, das Hr. Dr. Pim van Lommel ein in dieser Richtung jedenfalls vorbildlicher Wissenschaftler ist. Das ist doch toll. Amit Goswami, Rupert Sheldrake, Milan Ryzl (Parapsychologe) und viele andere auch, wie u.a. James Lovelock und Bruce Lipton seien hier des weiteren dazu genannt, setzen sich für eine – sagen wir – mutige alternative Sichtweise ein, die auf jeden Fall wesentlich mehr Raum ermöglicht als es der bisherig- vorherrschende wissenschaftliche Ansatz verspricht. Hr. Dr.van lommel hat mit betreffend seiner Forschung in seinem Buch auf S. 18 alles richtig eingeordnet, indem er schrieb, ich zitiere: “Wahre Wissenschaft beschränkt sich nicht auf materialistische, also einengende Annahmen, sondern ist neuen, anfangs bisweilen unerklärlichen Phänomenen gegenüber aufgeschlossen und betrachtet es als Herausforderung, auch für sie Erklärungsansätze zu finden. Maso spricht von einer “umfassenden Wissesnchaft”. Sie schaft Raum für Ideen, die besser zu unseren Versuchen passen, Informationen über subjektive Aspekte der Welt und uns selbst zu gewinnen, als es mittels der gegenwärtigen dominierenden materialistischen Grenzziehung möglich ist. herzliches Namaste
YAY more pseudoscience kids! Let all put on our tin foil hats and bow down to this nonsense of authority driven flight of wishful thinking!
“consciousness is an unproven hypothesis” AND YET watch me write a book about how this “unproven” concept continues on after we die!!! ya!!!!!
Guys please understand….this is not some already rich doctor trying to make more retirement money with a book like the millions of others. This is some serious stuff that im sure vishnu, allah, and the leprechauns will all want you to know.
Van Lommel’s conclusions have been criticized by various authors, one of them being Jason Braithwaite, a Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience in the Behavioral Brain Sciences Centre, University of Birmingham. He issued an in-depth analysis and critique of van Lommel’s prospective study published in the medical journal The Lancet, concluding that while van Lommel’s et al. study makes a useful contribution, it contains several factual and logical errors. Among these errors are van Lommel’s misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the dying-brain hypothesis, misunderstandings over the role of anoxia, misplaced confidence in EEG measurements (a flat electroencephalogram (EEG) reading is not evidence of total brain inactivity), etc. Braithwaite concluded with, “it is difficult to see what one could learn from the paranormal survivalist position which sets out assuming the truth of that which it seeks to establish, makes additional and unnecessary assumptions, misrepresents the current state of knowledge from mainstream science, and appears less than comprehensive in its analysis of the available facts.”
These arguments raised by several researchers have been criticized by some scientific skeptics and scientists on several grounds. Chris French (2005, 2009) noted that, “it is clear that the argument that recent findings present a major challenge to modern neuroscience hinges upon the claim that the NDE is actually experienced “during a period of clinical death with flat EEG” as claimed”. With respect to the former point he pointed out that it is not at all clear that NDEs actually do occur during a period of flat EEG. Assuming that the patients in question entered a period of flat EEG, French argued that the NDE may have occurred as they entered that state or as they slowly recovered from it. Parnia and Fenwick (2001) had rejected the idea that the NDE may have occurred as the patient is becoming unconscious because they argued that this happens too quickly. But French points out that it is unclear how much time would be required to experience an NDE and that a common feature of altered states of consciousness is time distortion. He argued that this is well illustrated by the life review component of the NDE itself which, although involving a review of a person’s entire life, only seems to last a very brief time. And that therefore, “who can say, therefore, that the few seconds of remaining consciousness as an individual enters the state of clinical death is insufficient for the experiences that form the basis of the NDE?”.
Parnia and Fenwick (2001) also claimed that the NDE could not occur as a person slowly regains consciousness as this period is characterized by delirium and not by the lucid consciousness reported by NDErs. French again argued that the attribution of confusion is typically made by an outside observer. The subjects themselves may not subjectively feel confused at all. He quoted from an article by Liere and Stickney where they noted that, “Hypoxia quickly affects the higher centers, causing a blunting of the finer sensibilities and a loss of sense of judgment and of self-criticism. The subject feels, however, that his mind is not only quite clear, but unusually keen”,and that the subjective claim of great clarity of thought may therefore well be an illusion. French (2005) also noted that “it should be borne in mind that we are always dealing with reports of experiences rather than with the experiences themselves. Memory is a reconstructive process. It is highly likely the final narrative will be much more coherent after the individual has reflected upon it before telling it to others, given the inherently ineffable nature of the experience itself”.
And with respect to the latter point, the survivalists have also been criticized by scientists like French and Braithwaite of placing undue confidence in EEG measures. French (2005, 2009) and Braithwaite (2008) claimed that survivalists generally appear to assume that a flat EEG is indicative of total brain inactivity and that therefore the experience of an NDE during such a flatline period would completely undermine the core assumption of modern neuroscience that any complex experience must be based upon a functioning neural substrate.
Even assuming that NDEs actually occur during such periods, the assumption that isoelectric surface EEG recordings are always indicative of total brain inactivity is according to Braithwaite and French wrong. Braithwaite noted that “unless surgically implanted into the brain directly, the EEG principally measures surface cortical activity. The waveforms seen in cortical EEG are largely regarded to come from the synchronistic firing of cortical pyramidal neurons. As such, it is entirely conceivable that deep sub-cortical brain structures could be firing, and even in seizure, in the absence of any cortical signs of this activity.”Braithwaite also noted that Gloor (1986) reviewed evidence indicating that inter-ictal discharges in the hippocampus or amygdala can produce complex meaningful hallucinations without the involvement of the cerebral cortex.[134]
Another argument which, according to Braithwaite (2008), relies upon misplaced confidence in surface EEG measurement was put forward by Fenwick P. and Fenwick E. (1995).They argued that, in cases where the surface EEG recording was not flat, if the NDE was a hallucinatory experience based upon disinhibition, evidence of this disinhibition should be visible in the surface EEG recorded at the time. However, Braithwaite argued that data from a recent study comparing EEG recorded at the scalp with EEG recorded from electrodes surgically implanted in deep sub-cortical regions show conclusively that high-amplitude seizure activity can be occurring in deep brain regions and yet be completely undetectable in the surface EEG.Even more so, a study comparing surface EEG recordings with the fMRI blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) response showed that the surface EEG could fail to detect seizure activity at the level of the cortex that was detected by the BOLD response.
Another argument made by several NDE researchers such as Parnia and Fenwick (2001) for the transcendental model is that the occurrence of anecdotal reports of patients being able to see and recall detailed events occurring during the cardiac arrest that are afterwards verified by hospital staff supports the argument that such perception sometimes do occur during periods of clinical death. NDE researcher Janice Miner Holden found 107 such anecdotal reports in the NDE literature as of 2009, out of which approximately 91% were accurate.
According to French (2005) and Blackmore (1993), when serious attempts at corroboration are attempted, the evidence often turns out to be nowhere near as impressive as it initially appeared. And such cases can possibly (since they had not been ruled out) be accounted for in terms of non-paranormal factors including, “information available at the time, prior knowledge, fantasy or dreams, lucky guesses, and information from the remaining senses. Then there is selective memory for correct details, incorporation of details learned between the end of the NDE and giving an account of it, and the tendency to tell a good story.”
According to French (2005) a similar claim to the argument from veridical perceptions are the cases of blind people that during NDEs are able to see even though, in some cases, they may have been blind from birth. According to French (2005), “initial readings of such accounts often give the impression that the experience involves seeing events and surroundings in the same way that sighted people do, but closer reflection upon these cases suggests otherwise.” French quoted from an article by NDE researcher Ring where he noted that, “as this kind of testimony builds, it seems more and more difficult to claim that the blind simply see what they report. Rather, it is beginning to appear it is more a matter of their knowing, through a still poorly understood mode of generalized awareness, based on a variety of sensory impressions, especially tactile ones, what is happening around them.”French (2005) concluded that, “NDEs in the blind are certainly worthy of study but do not merit any special status in terms of evidential support for spiritual explanations of the phenomenon.”
Nevertheless, according to French (2005) future research in the near-death experience should focus on devising ways to distinguish between the two main hypotheses relating to when the NDE is occurring. If it really is occurring when some NDE researchers claim that it is, during a period of flat EEG with no cortical activity, then modern neuroscience would require serious revision. This would also be the case if the OBE, either within the NDE or not, could be shown to be veridical. Attempts to test the veridicality of OBEs using hidden targets (e.g., Parnia and Fenwick (2001) should be welcomed.[62]
I see no inconsistency beteen Pin van Lommel’s postions and quantum mechanics
Wonderful…to know what is said is also to discriminate the content from the language itself and to see would be to have experience of space and light, relative forms, and even time if movement is involved!
Anyone know when this interview took place?
i subscribed. I want to have NDE-i want to be happy again. I feel so bad.