NDEs

[Dom]

On a similar topic to NDE, what do you guys think about end of life visioning which most hospice nurses will attest to? 

I am not surprised that dying people dream about dying.

I dream of dead people periodically, and I am not even dying. (At least I don't think so.) Some of those dreams are very vivid, and I dream of doing things with them we never did in real life. I think it's just the brain mopping up unfinished business.

Also, like you said, no surprise in the brain recalling dead people when it knows it's nearing death itself. It's the brain's job to recall related experiences.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

Brains under stress do all kinds of weird shit. Testimonies from nurses mean nothing, especially when they're only attesting to their own (probably biased) observations of others' experiences.

[adey67]

On a similar topic to NDE, what do you guys think about end of life visioning which most hospice nurses will attest to? 

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As a retired RN who has seen literally hundreds of deaths including in a hospice setting, I can catagorically tell you that it's all bullshit, in 30+ years of nursing  I never experienced anything that couldn't be explained logically and that colleagues who claimed they did were nearly always subject to confirmation bias as a result of an underlying belief system or ignorant of such things as the function of DMT and other neurochemicals released during NDE's as well as hypoxia. So while the experiences are very real to those experiencing them they should not be taken seriously and certainly not just because someone with a couple of letters after their name says so.

[Huggy Bear]

On a similar topic to NDE, what do you guys think about end of life visioning which most hospice nurses will attest to? 

I am not surprised that dying people dream about dying.

These aren't dreams, they are visions, the differenc being you see dreams while you're asleep and visions occur while you're wide awake.

As a retired RN who has seen literally hundreds of deaths including in a hospice setting, I can catagorically tell you that it's all bullshit, in 30+ years of nursing  I never experienced anything that couldn't be explained logically and that colleagues who claimed they did were nearly always subject to confirmation bias as a result of an underlying belief system or ignorant of such things as the function of DMT and other neurochemicals released during NDE's as well as hypoxia. So while the experiences are very real to those experiencing them they should not be taken seriously and certainly not just because someone with a couple of letters after their name says so.

This is taken from a random hospice website.
https://www.crossroadshospice.com/hospic...e-visions/

Experiencing end-of-life visions. 

“I’ve been with many patients who see loved ones,” Crossroads Hospice & Palliative Care Chaplain Ann O’Shea shares. “Recently, a patient sat up and said ‘hello’ to someone I couldn’t see and began talking to them.”

Many nurses, hospice aides, and family caregivers providing end-of-life care to patients and family members share similar experiences of visions before death.

“Sometimes patients don’t see a loved one, but they say they see spirits they don’t know popping in to visit. Sometimes, it is many people. They’ll say the room is crowded,”Crossroads Nurse Carolyn Quach-Huynh adds. “It’s also not always a vision. It can be a deceased spouse or parent appearing in dreams. Or a familiar smell – like cigars or a certain perfume.”

The terminally ill patient may also share that they are getting ready to go on a journey or that they recently visited places with a deceased parent or spouse.
All of these situations are very common, not just in the final hours of person’s life, but often in the days and weeks leading up to it.

What to do if your loved one is experiencing visions at end of life. 

These visions are not hallucinations or a reaction to medication. The most important thing to do if your loved one is seeing visions or having visitation dreams is to acknowledge and support them. Do not argue with your loved one about the experience, correct them, or try to explain the vision. Do not panic as that can upset your loved one. Instead, take them at their word and encourage them to share the experience with you.

“As a caregiver, it is not our job to prove, disprove, or do experiments,” says Carolyn. “We are there to provide support and comfort.

In most cases, these end-of-life visions are indeed a source of great comfort to the person experiencing them.

 
Emphasis on "These visions are not hallucinations or a reaction to medication."...

Link to a study done in India.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4843550/

Background:
End-of-life dreams and visions (ELDVs) are not uncommon and are experienced by many near the time of death. These visions can occur months, weeks, days or hours before death. We wanted to document ELDVs, if any, in rural and urban settings in India, where talking about death is usually considered a taboo and also to compare its incidence with the urban population.

Results:

63.3% cases reported experiencing ELDVs. 55.5% of the rural patients reported ELDVs while 66.6% of the urban patients did the same.

Conclusions:

The results of our study suggest that ELDVs are not uncommon in India and the incidence does not differ significantly between rural and urban population. Our subjects found them to be distressing initially, but felt better after discussing it with our team. There was a direct correlation between severity of symptoms and occurrence and frequency of ELDVs. Another finding exclusive to our study was that the persons visualized in ELDVs did not threaten or scare the patient and the known persons visualized were seen as they were in their prime of health.

*To be clear his is not the full study, just focused on some of the relevant sections to avoid TLDR, for full context go to link.*

Emphasis on the "known persons visualized were seen as they were in their prime of health.". If these patients are merely experiencing dreams or hallucinations, that doesn't explain why they see people that they knew in life as young people, especially someone like a grandparent who you most likely would have never never seen as a young person, so how would the brain know how to visualize them as such?

To categorically label this as BS at this point would be denying peer reviewed research.

[Minimalist]

These aren't dreams, they are visions, the differenc being you see dreams while you're asleep and visions occur while you're wide awake.

And thus are indistinguishable from hallucinations.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

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I am not surprised that dying people dream about dying.

These aren't dreams, they are visions, the differenc being you see dreams while you're asleep and visions occur while you're wide awake.

As a retired RN who has seen literally hundreds of deaths including in a hospice setting, I can catagorically tell you that it's all bullshit, in 30+ years of nursing  I never experienced anything that couldn't be explained logically and that colleagues who claimed they did were nearly always subject to confirmation bias as a result of an underlying belief system or ignorant of such things as the function of DMT and other neurochemicals released during NDE's as well as hypoxia. So while the experiences are very real to those experiencing them they should not be taken seriously and certainly not just because someone with a couple of letters after their name says so.

This is taken from a random hospice website.
https://www.crossroadshospice.com/hospic...e-visions/

Experiencing end-of-life visions. 

“I’ve been with many patients who see loved ones,” Crossroads Hospice & Palliative Care Chaplain Ann O’Shea shares. “Recently, a patient sat up and said ‘hello’ to someone I couldn’t see and began talking to them.”

Many nurses, hospice aides, and family caregivers providing end-of-life care to patients and family members share similar experiences of visions before death.

“Sometimes patients don’t see a loved one, but they say they see spirits they don’t know popping in to visit. Sometimes, it is many people. They’ll say the room is crowded,”Crossroads Nurse Carolyn Quach-Huynh adds. “It’s also not always a vision. It can be a deceased spouse or parent appearing in dreams. Or a familiar smell – like cigars or a certain perfume.”

The terminally ill patient may also share that they are getting ready to go on a journey or that they recently visited places with a deceased parent or spouse.
All of these situations are very common, not just in the final hours of person’s life, but often in the days and weeks leading up to it.

What to do if your loved one is experiencing visions at end of life. 

These visions are not hallucinations or a reaction to medication. The most important thing to do if your loved one is seeing visions or having visitation dreams is to acknowledge and support them. Do not argue with your loved one about the experience, correct them, or try to explain the vision. Do not panic as that can upset your loved one. Instead, take them at their word and encourage them to share the experience with you.

“As a caregiver, it is not our job to prove, disprove, or do experiments,” says Carolyn. “We are there to provide support and comfort.

In most cases, these end-of-life visions are indeed a source of great comfort to the person experiencing them.

 
Emphasis on "These visions are not hallucinations or a reaction to medication."...

Link to a study done in India.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4843550/

Background:
End-of-life dreams and visions (ELDVs) are not uncommon and are experienced by many near the time of death. These visions can occur months, weeks, days or hours before death. We wanted to document ELDVs, if any, in rural and urban settings in India, where talking about death is usually considered a taboo and also to compare its incidence with the urban population.

Results:

63.3% cases reported experiencing ELDVs. 55.5% of the rural patients reported ELDVs while 66.6% of the urban patients did the same.

Conclusions:

The results of our study suggest that ELDVs are not uncommon in India and the incidence does not differ significantly between rural and urban population. Our subjects found them to be distressing initially, but felt better after discussing it with our team. There was a direct correlation between severity of symptoms and occurrence and frequency of ELDVs. Another finding exclusive to our study was that the persons visualized in ELDVs did not threaten or scare the patient and the known persons visualized were seen as they were in their prime of health. 

*To be clear his is not the full study, just focused on some of the relevant sections to avoid TLDR, for full context go to link.*

Emphasis on the "known persons visualized were seen as they were in their prime of health.". If these patients are merely experiencing dreams or hallucinations, that doesn't explain why they see people that they knew in life as young people, especially someone like a grandparent who you most likely would have never never seen as a young person, so how would the brain know how to visualize them as such?

To categorically label this as BS at this point would be denying peer reviewed research.

You are far too credulous of many things that likely have simpler, more likely, causes.

[Huggy Bear]

Show ContentSpoiler:

These aren't dreams, they are visions, the differenc being you see dreams while you're asleep and visions occur while you're wide awake.


This is taken from a random hospice website.
https://www.crossroadshospice.com/hospic...e-visions/


 
Emphasis on "These visions are not hallucinations or a reaction to medication."...

Link to a study done in India.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4843550/

*To be clear his is not the full study, just focused on some of the relevant sections to avoid TLDR, for full context go to link.*

Emphasis on the "known persons visualized were seen as they were in their prime of health.". If these patients are merely experiencing dreams or hallucinations, that doesn't explain why they see people that they knew in life as young people, especially someone like a grandparent who you most likely would have never never seen as a young person, so how would the brain know how to visualize them as such?

To categorically label this as BS at this point would be denying peer reviewed research.

You are far too credulous of many things that likely have simpler, more likely, causes.

Is peer reviewed research no longer credible? If the causes were simple, they would have been stated.

[Huggy Bear]

These aren't dreams, they are visions, the differenc being you see dreams while you're asleep and visions occur while you're wide awake.

And thus are indistinguishable from hallucinations.

Except these "hallucinations" foreshadow imminent death even though the person is showing no signs of actively dying, like the example the doctor gave from one of the videos, he thought his patient would get better with IV fluids but a nurse stated the patient was dying because they saw their deceased mother.

[Minimalist]

If you believe the stories.

If not?  Well, there you have it.

[airportkid]

why they see people that they knew in life as young people, especially someone like a grandparent who you most likely would have never never seen as a young person, so how would the brain know how to visualize them as such?

They would recall photos or other pictures of their grandparents as young, and thereby know.  But if the apparition seen identified itself as a grandparent, it doesn't matter what their appearance was.  I'm sure there are many "NDE" experiences that involve seeing or conversing with relatives who'd never been seen, either living or in pictures, who would turn out to look like some celebrity whose appearance is remembered.

[Huggy Bear]

why they see people that they knew in life as young people, especially someone like a grandparent who you most likely would have never never seen as a young person, so how would the brain know how to visualize them as such?

They would recall photos or other pictures of their grandparents as young, and thereby know.  But if the apparition seen identified itself as a grandparent, it doesn't matter what their appearance was.  I'm sure there are many "NDE" experiences that involve seeing or conversing with relatives who'd never been seen, either living or in pictures, who would turn out to look like some celebrity whose appearance is remembered.

A lot of speculation...

Remember, the study was done in India, how do you know photos of relatives are commonplace?

[Cavebear]

I am not surprised that dying people dream about dying.

I dream of dead people periodically, and I am not even dying. (At least I don't think so.) Some of those dreams are very vivid, and I dream of doing things with them we never did in real life. I think it's just the brain mopping up unfinished business.

Also, like you said, no surprise in the brain recalling dead people when it knows it's nearing death itself. It's the brain's job to recall related experiences.

Dreams involve current events a lot. And as we grow older, we hear about more deaths of people our generaL age. Not that I expect to die soon, but the more people my age or slightly younger who are announced dead does get my mind on the subject.

My dreams are usually frustrations. No monsters or falling, just "nothing works no matter how hard I try". I'm kind of project-oriented and never had monster-fears even as a kid, so I suppose that makes sense.

[Chas]

They would recall photos or other pictures of their grandparents as young, and thereby know.  But if the apparition seen identified itself as a grandparent, it doesn't matter what their appearance was.  I'm sure there are many "NDE" experiences that involve seeing or conversing with relatives who'd never been seen, either living or in pictures, who would turn out to look like some celebrity whose appearance is remembered.

A lot of speculation...1
Remember, the study was done in India, how do you know photos of relatives are commonplace?

The study was done in India, how do you know the reviewers?

[Huggy Bear]

A lot of speculation...1
Remember, the study was done in India, how do you know photos of relatives are commonplace?

The study was done in India, how do you know the reviewers?

https://jpalliativecare.com/about-us/

The Indian Journal of Palliative Care (IJPC) is an open-access peer-reviewed journal committed to publishing high-quality articles in the field of Palliative Care. The journal is owned by the  Indian Association of Palliative Care, India and published by the Scientific Scholar

[url=https://scientificscholar.com/][/url].

[Alan V]

I am not surprised that dying people dream about dying.

These aren't dreams, they are visions, the difference being you see dreams while you're asleep and visions occur while you're wide awake.

Dream researchers understand that dreaming can sometimes intrude into and overlap with waking.  Dr. Allan Hobson especially proposed his AIM model to encompass all possible conscious states within the three variables of Activation, Information gating, and Modulation.  Sometimes those complex processes get out of sync.  So for instance, if your brain is reactivated for waking, but your aminergic neuromodulation is still sleeping, you can see "visions."  You are projecting your internal information into your external perceptions.

Since my aging mother-in-law had problems sleeping normally for most of her life, she was especially prone to seeing nonexistent people and animals in her bedroom, even long before she died.

Except these "hallucinations" foreshadow imminent death even though the person is showing no signs of actively dying, like the example the doctor gave from one of the videos, he thought his patient would get better with IV fluids but a nurse stated the patient was dying because they saw their deceased mother.

Very possibly, dying people's neuromodulation is failing to work properly just before they die. The reports of such experiences are the likely source of many people's supernatural beliefs, absent more information about how the brain works.

Yes, people experience such things, but subjective experiences are not dependable, especially when people are lying in bed.

[Chas]

The study was done in India, how do you know the reviewers?

https://jpalliativecare.com/about-us/

The Indian Journal of Palliative Care (IJPC) is an open-access peer-reviewed journal committed to publishing high-quality articles in the field of Palliative Care. The journal is owned by the  Indian Association of Palliative Care, India and published by the Scientific Scholar

[url=https://scientificscholar.com/][/url].

Thanks. As can be seen, it is a group of practitioners, not researchers.  Their peer review is of questionable value as there is no actual evidence of anything.

[Alan V]

My dreams are usually frustrations.  No monsters or falling, just "nothing works no matter how hard I try". 

In general, people experience a lot of anxiety and frustration in their dreams.  This has been confirmed by quantitative content analysis.  The proportion of negative to positive emotions is somewhere between 2 to 1 and 3 to 1, depending on the studies -- if I remember correctly.  Dreaming emotions in general are somewhat mitigated by the fact that not all of the emotional centers of the brain are turned on, and the fact that we usually accept whatever is happening to us without thinking.  If we experienced many of the same things in waking as we do in dreaming, we would freak out altogether.

Due to the changed neuromodulation and activation of our brains, we can't actually learn about our dreams in our dreams.  The result is that we apply many of our waking assumptions to our dreams when they don't really fit.  When you say, "nothing works" you are implying "as it does in waking."  This is correct, because in dreams there is no there there, no steady realities to rely on to make things work like they do in waking.  No wonder dreams are so frustrating and annoying.

[Dom]

My dreams are usually frustrations.  No monsters or falling, just "nothing works no matter how hard I try". 

In general, people experience a lot of anxiety and frustration in their dreams.  This has been confirmed by quantitative content analysis.  The proportion of negative to positive emotions is somewhere between 2 to 1 and 3 to 1, depending on the studies -- if I remember correctly.  Dreaming emotions in general are somewhat mitigated by the fact that not all of the emotional centers of the brain are turned on, and the fact that we usually accept whatever is happening to us without thinking.  If we experienced many of the same things in waking as we do in dreaming, we would freak out altogether.

Due to the changed neuromodulation and activation of our brains when we dream, we can't actually learn about our dreams in our dreams.  The result is that we apply many of our waking assumptions to our dreams when they don't really fit.  When you say, "nothing works" you are implying "as it does in waking."  This is correct, because in dreams there is no there there, no steady realities to rely on to make things work like they do in waking.  No wonder dreams are so frustrating and annoying.

When I was younger, I had unsettling dreams. Nowadays, my dreams are uplifting. I haven't had an unsettling dream in years. Now I mostly travel in pleasant places with harmonious people.

[Alan V]

When I was younger, I had unsettling dreams. Nowadays, my dreams are uplifting. I haven't had an unsettling dream in years. Now I mostly travel in pleasant places with harmonious people.

In general, older people experience less aggression and more positive emotions in their dreams per the same kind of quantitative content analysis. 

Perhaps we can habituate to our dreams as we age, I don't know.

[rocinantexyz]

Except these "hallucinations" foreshadow imminent death even though the person is showing no signs of actively dying, like the example the doctor gave from one of the videos, he thought his patient would get better with IV fluids but a nurse stated the patient was dying because they saw their deceased mother.

This all sounds like testimonials. Those are great from selling soap on daytime television. Can the person who experiences the NDE bring back information from these visions/hallucinations/whatever that can be shown to alter probability distributions? I'll assume the answer to my question is no.

[Dancefortwo]

Except these "hallucinations" foreshadow imminent death even though the person is showing no signs of actively dying, like the example the doctor gave from one of the videos, he thought his patient would get better with IV fluids but a nurse stated the patient was dying because they saw their deceased mother.

This all sounds like testimonials. Those are great from selling soap on daytime television. Can the person who experiences the NDE bring back information from these visions/hallucinations/whatever that can be shown to alter probability distributions? I'll assume the answer to my question is no.

What's missing in these testimonials is the time frame the hallucinations happen in.  There is no way the exact time of a hallucination can be pinpointed.  When someone is claiming they're had an NDE hallucination during, say, an operation - there may be moniters monitering their vital signs so many people claim these hallucinations happen when they've flatlined, but how do they know.  The NDE may have happened as they were going into  a crisis situation or  coming out of it.    But people just assume they've had the NDE when there were no vital signs because basically that's what they want to believe.  Confirmation bias.

[adey67]

Where's Bucky? He'd be the one to ask, I believe his job involves neuroscience in a hospital, if so his insights would be invaluable.

[Minimalist]

Speaking of NDE's..... they got her the second time, though.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-ame...gn=KARANGA

Woman who knocked on coffin at her funeral dies after week in hospital

An Ecuadorean woman has died days after mourners at her funeral were shocked to find her alive in her coffin.
Bella Montoya, 76, was first declared dead by a doctor at a hospital in the city of Babahoyo last week.
But when mourners attending her wake heard her knocking on her coffin, she was immediately rushed back to the same hospital for treatment.
After seven days in intensive care, Ecuador's health ministry confirmed she died on Friday from an ischemic stroke.

I wonder if some pervert priest will invent all sorts of stories about her?

[Rhythmcs]

I am not surprised that dying people dream about dying.

I dream of dead people periodically, and I am not even dying. (At least I don't think so.) Some of those dreams are very vivid, and I dream of doing things with them we never did in real life. I think it's just the brain mopping up unfinished business.

Also, like you said, no surprise in the brain recalling dead people when it knows it's nearing death itself. It's the brain's job to recall related experiences.

Something like this is generally pointed to as the compelling factor in the assumption of ritual burial - the earliest indicator of religiosity in our species.  The connection between dreaming and otherworldism has never been lost on anyone whos ever written on the subject - most especially and informatively it's never been lost on those who believe in other worlds themselves.  

I think it's intuitive for us to imagine other worlds, and to fill those other worlds with people and things.  If it's not a dream, if it's not a religion, it's a cheap paperback.  It's the belief that there are canals on mars.  We often turn our actual waking lives into an effective otherworld.  Hidden messages in tweets and shadowy cabals operating behind every scene.  The reason your taxes go up and your sandwich order was wrong in equal measure.  Understanding that we're capable...on a good day - stress free....of inventing worlds that consume our realities - I'm also not surprised to hear that some people...either near death or more often believing themselves to be (the most hilarious stat in all of nde research) can scrape together the barest impressions of some other place.  

I'm more surprised that it's not been my own experience in the same sorts of situations.  I've been put under for a couple of reconstructions, and I was in a coma for a week after a nasty head injury.  Didn't see a fucking thing.  Feel like I got shafted...you only have those opportunities a couple of times and I don't have any cool stories to tell about it.

[Dom]

The imagination of "other worlds" is the mother of invention. And science. ETC.