new illuminati: immortality

Showing posts with label immortality. Show all posts

Friday, 29 July 2016

7 Mind-Blowing Discoveries That Would Touch All Aspects of Humanity and Change the World Forever

What does it mean to be human? It’s a difficult question to answer. There are so many things which set us apart from one another, yet more still which bind us together, and I think we could all benefit from focusing more on what we share than what we do not. Our differences are important, as they allow each of us to bring something unique to the whole, but it becomes problematic when we use those differences as the basis for judgment, hate, and violence.

We are like a race with amnesia; we seem to know next to nothing about ourselves — our origins, our purpose, or even how we got here in the first place. We still have so many questions that need answering, and while we have created many theories (all with gaping holes), new discoveries are constantly emerging that challenge what we thought we previously knew. And so every now and then, we come to paradigm shifting realizations that alter our perception of what it means to be human, what we are capable of, and what the true nature of reality is.

So it seems we do have one thing in common: Curiosity. We are constantly searching for ‘what is,’ and as the centuries pass, we seem to inch a little closer to understanding it — to understanding ourselves, our world, and what awaits us beyond it.

1. What If We Are Not Alone?

The Kepler Space Telescope has shown us that our galaxy alone could hold as many as 30 billion planets similar to Earth. That means there are at least 30 billion planets just in this galaxy which could host lifeforms like the ones we know. Yet we don’t even know with certainty that a planet must be ‘Earth-like’ to host extraterrestrial life. Who knows what other biological organisms are out there and what type of planetary environment they need to survive?

One thing is certain, however: Our discovery of extraterrestrial life is right around the corner. It wasn’t long ago when NASA’s chief scientist, Ellen Stofan, predicted that we would have “strong indications of life” on other planets by 2025. And just a couple of years ago, two top astronomers from the SETI Institute (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) appeared in front of the Congressional House Science and Technology Committee for a hearing regarding the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. They told the committee that extraterrestrial life most certainly exists, without question; one of those scientists is Seth Shostak, a well-known senior scientist at the SETI Institute. They said that the chance of discovering life on other planets is inevitable and will most likely occur within the next 20 years.

Their main argument relates to the sheer size of the universe, emphasizing that there are trillions of stars out there, with one in every five most likely harboring an Earth-like planet. Seth explains:

“In the last 50 years, evidence has steadily mounted that the components and conditions we believe necessary for life are common and perhaps ubiquitous in our galaxy,” he said. “The possibility that life has arisen elsewhere, and perhaps evolved intelligence, is plausible and warrants scientific inquiry. . . . If you extrapolate on the planets they discovered, there are a trillion planets in the galaxy. That’s a lot of places for life. We know that the majority of stars have planets . . . [but what] fraction of stars has planets that are more like the earth? It might be one in five.” (source)

(Keep in mind that a planet does not necessarily have to be Earth-like to harbour life.)

But what about the other possibility….

“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered . . . We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time.”

– Dr. Edgar Mitchell, ScD, 6th man to walk on the Moon (source) (source)

The other possibility — we’ve already been visited…

“There is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by people from outer space, from other civilizations [and] it behooves us, in case some of these people in the future or now should turn hostile, to find out who they are, where they come from, and what they want. This should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not the subject of ‘rubishing’ by tabloid newspapers.” (source)

– Lord Admiral Hill-Norton, Former Chief of Defence Staff, 5 Star Admiral of the Royal Navy, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee

Just as scientists are certain that the discovery of extraterrestrial life will occur within the next couple of decades, others are certain that we have already been visited by intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms, and this is ‘mainstream’ knowledge. John Podesta, for example, the former Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton, Councillor to Barrack Obama, and the current head of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, has gone on record stating that it’s time to “pull the curtain back on this subject” and that “we have statements from the most credible sources – those in a position to know – about a fascinating phenomenon, the nature of which is yet to be determined.” You can read more about that here. Even Hillary Clinton stated earlier this year that we have have already been visited. You can read more about that here.

“There is another way, whether it’s wormholes or warping space, there’s got to be a way to generate energy so that you can pull it out of the vacuum, and the fact that they’re here shows us that they found a way.” (source)

– Jack Kasher, Ph.D, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Nebraska.

Where is this evidence that Dr. O’Leary speaks of?

“An extraterrestrial influence is investigating our planet. Something is monitoring the planet and they are monitoring it very cautiously.”

— 2008 Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel (source)(source)

We’ve written extensively on this subject, and it is backed by many credible sources. You can read some of these heavily sourced articles to learn more:

This is What Happens when a “UFO” is Tracked on Military Radar

Canadian Air Force Pilot Snaps a Pic of a UFO During Flight

2nd Director of Lockheed Skunkwork’s Shocking Comments About UFO Technology

Shocking Insinuation About Carl Sagan & Extraterrestrials Made By X-NASA Astronaut

More Than 60 School Children Witness Non-Human Beings & A Large Craft Landing

NASA Brings Scientists & Theologians Together To Prepare The World For Extraterrestrial Contact

“Intelligent beings from other star systems have been and are visiting our planet Earth. They are variously referred to as Visitors, Others, Star People, ETs, etc. . . . They are visiting Earth NOW; this is not a matter of conjecture or wistful thinking.”

– Theodore C. Loder III, Phd, Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences, University of New Hampshire (source)

2. What If Most Of Reality Is Hidden Or An Illusion?

This quote from R.C. Henry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at John Hopkins University, sums up best what many scientists feel:

A fundamental conclusion of the new physics also acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality. Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. Get over it, and accept the inarguable conclusion. The universe is immaterial-mental and spiritual.

– (“The Mental Universe” ; Nature 436:29,2005)

Our universe may be nothing but a mental construction, one that doesn’t even exist until we look at it or ‘measure’ it. The quantum double slit experiment is a great experiment that demonstrates this, showing us how factors associated with consciousness play an imperative role in the creation of our reality. (source)

Australian associate professor Dr. Andrew Truscott recently published a paper in the journal Nature Physics which concluded that “at the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it.” (source)

There are several other things to consider here, like dark matter, for example — a substance we can’t see or know that makes up the majority of what we call reality. What about other dimensions that we can’t see? What about other universes? Perhaps one day we will be able to experience these other worlds.

3. What If We Discover That We Can See The Future?

It’s no secret that computers are already producing accurate simulations of future realities. Even quantum physics has shown us that an atom can exist in a state of multiple probabilities until it is observed or measured. Perhaps there are multiple probable timelines for what will happen? Perhaps we will develop machines that will be able to accurately predict the future?

Few people are aware that a number of scholarly articles examining precognition and presentiment that have been published in reputable peer-reviewed journals. For example, a recently published study (meta analysis) in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience titled “Predicting the unpredictable: critical analysis and practical implications of predictive anticipatory activity” examined a number of experiments regarding this phenomenon which had been conducted by several different laboratories.

These experiments indicate that the human body can actually detect randomly delivered stimuli that occur 1-10 seconds in advance. In other words, the human body seems to know of an event and can react before it occurs, as evinced by physiological changes in the skin and the cardiopulmonary and nervous systems prior to the event. (source)

It’s important to note that these physiological responses to future events happen on an unconscious level, meaning that the subject (human) is not aware they are taking place. So it is a form of precognition, but not full blown conscious premonitions.

A meta-analysis of forced-choice precognition experiments conducted from 1935-1987 and published in The Journal of Parapsychology makes a strong case for the validity of human precognition.

For a selected list of downloadable peer-reviewed journal articles reporting studies of psychic phenomena, mostly published in the 21st century, you can click HERE. There is a section specifically for precognition and presentiment.

It’s also noteworthy to mention that in 1999 a statistics professor at UC Irvine published a paper showing that parapsychological experiments have produced much stronger results than the those showing a daily dose of aspirin helps prevent a heart attack. She also showed that these results are much stronger than the research behind various drugs like antiplatelets, for example. This begs the question, why are psi experiments only marginally acknowledged or even known of by the mainstream scientific community if the evidence for ESP (for example) is stronger than that of the effectiveness for the administration of popular drugs?

Cassandra Vieten, PhD and President/CEO at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, provides some insight into why this might be the case:

There seems to be a deep concern that the whole field will be tarnished by studying a phenomenon that is tainted by its association with superstition, spiritualism and magic. Protecting against this possibility sometimes seems more important than encouraging scientific exploration or protecting academic freedom. But this may be changing.

4. What If We Came From Space?

This is a theory which remains on the fringe of mainstream science. A number of scientists believe that human life actually originated in outer space, and one of them is leading British scientist Chandra Wickramasinghe. Wickramasinghe is the director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham in the U.K.

This astrobiologist believes that the ‘seeds of life’ were brought here from some outside sources, like a comet, and supports this theory with evidence he discovered a couple of years ago with a team of researchers at the School of Mathematics at Cardiff University and from the Medical Research Institute in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

They found “a microstructure and morphology characteristic of a wide class of terrestrial diatoms.” The group concluded that “the presence of structures of this kind in any extraterrestrial setting could be constructed as unequivocal proof of biology.” Cardiff University was asked to proof-check and analyze the findings, which it did, concluding that the samples were “unequivocally meteorites” and that the analysis of the material structure showed that algae-like fossils were native to it.

This is the first-ever evidence of extraterrestrial life found in a celestial body. The researchers used sophisticated methods like X-ray diffraction, triple oxygen isotope analysis, and scanning electron microscopy.

English astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, along with Wickramasinghe, co-developed a theory known as “panspermia,” which suggests that life exists throughout the universe and is distributed by meteoroids and asteroids. It’s a wonderful example of synchronicity that this meteorite happened to fall into their laps, potentially proving their theory correct.

You can read the study here.

He explores this topic in an earlier paper that he co-authored in 2012 titled “Non-terrestrial origin of life: a transformative research paradigm shift” as well. Below is the abstract:

Theories and hypotheses in science are continually subject to verification, critical re-evaluation, revision and indeed evolution, in response to new observations and discoveries. Theories of the origin of life have been more constrained than other scientific theories and hypotheses in this regard, through the force of social and cultural pressures. There has been a tendency to adhere too rigidly to a class of theory that demands a purely terrestrial origin of life. For nearly five decades evidence in favour of a non-terrestrial origin of life and panspermia has accumulated which has not been properly assessed. A point has now been reached that demands the serious attention of biologists to a possibly transformative paradigm shift of the question of the origin of life, with profound implications across many disciplines. (source)

This would be quite the shocker. If we were to determine that we came from space or that we are not alone in the universe, the resulting implications for all fields, from science and technology to religion and philosophy, would be immeasurable.

5. What If We Learn To Talk To Animals

The way we treat animals on this planet is heartbreaking, to say the least. Apart from destroying their world for the sake of economic growth, we also raise billions of animals every single year for the purpose of slaughter. We are now starting to see the dramatic consequences of our actions, but more empathy towards animals is still desperately needed. This isn’t just our planet; we share it with others, and all beings deserve an equal chance to live life and thrive.

There are many efforts underway to change things, and consumers are making a difference by voting with their dollars. SeaWorld has seen profits decline dramatically, as multiple areas in North America have now banned whale captivity. And not long ago, a New York court entertained the idea of granting chimpanzees the legal right to personhood. All thought the lawsuit was a failure, but the judge admitted that “efforts to extend legal rights to chimpanzees . . . are understandable; some day they may even succeed.

If this were to happen, I think we would quickly need to reevaluate our stance on the status of other animals. Why should only chimpanzees be granted rights? If animals were ever granted rights and personhood, we would not be able to keep them captive, or use them for testing.

In the August 2015 edition of New Scientist, Joshua Howgego offers his view on the issue:

If chimps were given rights, we might expect other intelligent species, such as killer whales and elephants, to follow. But why stop there? Our ideas about the inner lives of other animals – their capacity for suffering, autonomy and self-awareness – are based largely on analogy with ourselves; how would we like it in their place?

But what if those animals could tell us? What if a dog or dairy cow could let us know how it felt about its lot in life? The idea may not be as far-fetched as it seems. There are many examples of communication between apes and their human keepers. Researchers are busy decoding dolphin. And cognitive scientists are beginning to study emotional states in animals, It may only be a matter of time before more meaningful communication between species is possible.

If we could converse with animals, would we still eat them? What if we discovered that their intellectual ability to communicate, to show empathy, or to feel emotions were equal to ours? What would happen? What would you do? Would you eat something you could have an intellectual conversation with? I have a difficult time believing many people would.

6. What If We Found Out That ‘Life’ Goes On After ‘Death’

Below is a video of Dr. Bruce Greyson speaking at a conference held by the United Nations. Considered to be one of the fathers of near death studies, he is currently a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Science at the University of Virginia.

In the video he describes documented cases of individuals who were clinically dead (showing no brain activity), but observing everything that was happening to them on the medical table below at the same time. He describes how there have been many instances of this – where individuals are able to describe things that should have been impossible to describe. Another significant statement by Dr Greyson posits that doing this type of research has been discouraged due to our tendency to view science as completely materialistic. Seeing is believing, so to speak, in the scientific community. It’s unfortunate that just because we cannot explain something through materialistic means, it must be instantly discredited.

In 2001, international medical journal The Lancet published a 13 year study on Near Death Experiences (NDEs):

Our results show that medical factors cannot account for the occurrence of NDE. All patients had a cardiac arrest, and were clinically dead with unconsciousness resulting from insufficient blood supply to the brain. In those circumstances, the EEG (a measure of brain electrical activity) becomes flat, and if CPR is not started within 5-10 minutes, irreparable damage is done to the brain and the patient will die. (source)(source)

A total of 344 patients was monitored by the team of researchers, and an astounding 18 percent of them had some sort of memory from when they were either dead or unconscious (no brain activity), and 12 percent (1 out of every 8) had a very strong and “deep” experience. Keep in mind that these experiences have occurred when there is no electrical activity in the brain following cardiac arrest.

Another study comes out of the University of Southampton, where scientists found evidence that awareness can continue for at least several minutes after death. In the scientific world this was thought to be impossible. Published in the journal Resuscitation, it is the world’s largest near death experiences study: (source)

In 2008, a large-scale study involving 2060 patients from 15 hospitals in the United Kingdom, United States and Austria was launched. The AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) study, sponsored by the University of Southampton in the UK, examined the broad range of mental experiences in relation to death. Researchers also tested the validity of conscious experiences using objective markers for the first time in a large study to determine whether claims of awareness compatible with out-of-body experiences correspond with real or hallucinatory events. (source)(source)

Another great example comes from University of Virginia psychiatrist Jim Tucker, who in 2008 published a review of cases suggestive of reincarnation in the journal Explore. (source)

In the article, he describes a typical reincarnation case, where subjects start reporting a past life experience. One common denominator of these cases is that they all involve children, with the average age being 35 months when subjects begin to report their experiences. The experiences reported are often detailed and extensive, and Tucker points out that many of these children show strong emotional involvement when speaking about their claims, with some crying and begging to be taken to what they say is their previous family. Others show intense anger. But as children age, these memories generally disappear. He explains:

The subjects usually stop making their past-life statements by the age of six to seven, and most seem to lose the purported memories. That is the age when children start school and begin having more experiences in the current life, as well as when they tend to lose their early childhood memories. (source)

Some truly mind altering things to think about..

7. What If We All Have ‘Super Human Potential?’

It’s fascinating to consider just how many ancient teachings tell us that humans have the capacity to gain extraordinary powers through various techniques. In Buddhism, for example, the existence of advanced powers is readily acknowledged; in fact, Buddha expected his disciples to be able to attain these abilities, but also to not become distracted by them.

Is there any scientific evidence that human beings have extraordinary potential beyond what’s commonly known? There definitely is.

During a visit to remote monasteries in the 1980s, Harvard Professor of Medicine Herbert Benson and his team of researchers studied monks living in the Himalayan Mountains who could, by g Tum-mo (a yoga technique), raise the temperatures of their fingers and toes by as much as 17 degrees. It is still unknown how the monks are able to generate such heat. (source)

And it doesn’t stop there — the researchers also studied advanced meditators in Sikkim, India, where they were astonished to find that these monks could lower their metabolism by 64 percent. (source)

What about Wim Hoff? He has demonstrated to scientists that factors associated with consciousness can influence our autonomic nervous system. You can read more about that here.

A study published in the American Journal of Chinese Medicine, as seen in the the US National Library of Medicine, demonstrated that a woman with special abilities was and is able to accelerate the germination of specific seeds for the purposes of developing a more robust seed stock. This is one example of many; you can find the study and read more about it here.

A paper published in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in September 1981, in the journal Ziran Zazhi (Nature Journal) tilted “Some Experiments on the Transfer of Objects Performed by Unusual Abilities of the Human Body” (Shuhuang et al., 1981), reported that ‘gifted children’ were able to cause the teleportation of small physical objects from one place to another.

There are also some extraordinary claims from a publication titled “Exceptional Functions of the Human Body.” This study reports of highly accurate parapsychological effects, including clairvoyance, psychokinetic effects, and more. (source)

A report published in 2010 by retired research chemist Dong Shen describes an experiment involving mental teleportation of bits of paper out of a sealed plastic film container. What’s even more fascinating is that these methods were taught to others with a success rate of 40 percent.

“It became known to myself, along with several colleagues both inside and outside of government, that anomalous teleportation has been scientifically investigated and separately documented by the Department of Defense.” (source)

I just wanted to illustrate that the idea of ‘superpowers’ is not as farfetched as some may think it is. Who knows, some day we might all be able to do these things.

From Collective Evolution @ http://www.collective-evolution.com/2016/07/06/7-mind-blowing-discoveries-that-would-touch-all-aspects-of-humanity-change-the-world-forever/

For more information about extraterrestrial life see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/extraterrestrial%20life

For more information about near death experiences see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/ndes

For more information about animal consciousness see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/animal%20consciousness

- Scroll down through ‘Older Posts’ at the end of each section

Do you LIKE this uniquely informative site?

Hours of effort by a genuinely incapacitated invalid are required every day to maintain, write, edit, research, illustrate, moderate and publish this website from a tiny cabin in a remote forest.

Now that most people use ad blockers and view these posts on phones and other mobile devices, sites like this earn an ever shrinking pittance from advertising sponsorship.

This site needs your help.

Like what you see? Please give anything you can -

Contribute any amount and receive at least one New Illuminati eBook!

(You can use a card securely if you don’t use Paypal)

Please click below -

And it costs nothing to share this post on Social Media!

Dare to care and share - YOU are our only advertisement!

Videos - https://youtu.be/yO0T05kQkbs

https://youtu.be/J_qBIw7qyHU

For further enlightening information enter a word or phrase into the random synchronistic search box @ the top left of http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com

And see

New Illuminati – http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com

New Illuminati on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/the.new.illuminati

New Illuminati Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/newilluminati/playlists

New Illuminati’s OWN Youtube Videos -

https://www.youtube.com/user/new1lluminati/videos

New Illuminati on Google+ @ For New Illuminati posts - https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RamAyana0/posts

and see https://plus.google.com/115562482213600937809/posts

and google.com/+newilluminati-channel

New Illuminati on Twitter @ www.twitter.com/new_illuminati

New Illuminati on Google Follow - http://www.google.com/friendconnect/settings/edit?smpl=true&st=e%3DAOG8GaCFDeBRZ1yDY2DjCaq61tFDiwO07s%252Fwv3x8%252B%252FJgZJTLx5igbMomJIu3796Ja6n05WaS8qnJ0DLyeGk1q49tLD8m%252FhV1K%252Bq%252BQIOGOwLeWznnm5IGhzjfWzVnq5I4UJr3fw8yk%252B8W2OqwlCbL7BNsW32uouSc79Br%252BkOZQ1Fpzg6J3KMIZkzmg0%252FcPHsWUPqZv845VKS31S%252FbCm8NpINhlK1kDxUdRmcCkT37dIc4RB6PNurjCcd2%252BVkNBveCm4kAgeb8A3Q5hNj6%252FHplvQxKFI%252BW1TYBJVYqHHTKsnBPGcL6wlZdxTUwtfxWU2ZvANJQ%252F%252FUrolBwP7ovb92SZqSWMFJRnN2rsQ%253D%253D%26c%3Dpeoplesense

New Illuminations –Art(icles) by R. Ayana @ http://newilluminations.blogspot.com

The Her(m)etic Hermit - http://hermetic.blog.com

DISGRUNTLED SITE ADMINS PLEASE NOTE –

We provide a live link to your original material on your site (and links via social networking services) - which raises your ranking on search engines and helps spread your info further!

This site is published under Creative Commons (Attribution) CopyRIGHT (unless an individual article or other item is declared otherwise by the copyright holder). Reproduction for non-profit use is permitted & encouraged - if you give attribution to the work & author and include all links in the original (along with this or a similar notice).

Feel free to make non-commercial hard (printed) or software copies or mirror sites - you never know how long something will stay glued to the web – but remember attribution!

If you like what you see, please send a donation (no amount is too small or too large) or leave a comment – and thanks for reading this far…

Live long and prosper! Together we can create the best of all possible worlds…

From the New Illuminati – http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com

Wednesday, 20 July 2016

Deathnauts: Strange Scientific Journeys Into the Afterlife

One of the great frontiers of human experience and the unknown is that of what happens to us when we inevitably die. It is perhaps the final frontier we face, and certainly the most mysterious. What happens to us when we pass on? Do we simply blink out of existence? Are we reborn into new bodies? Does our soul transfer to another plane of existence? Do we even have a “soul” as we like to think of it at all? These are some of the many questions concerning the afterlife which mankind has pondered since time unremembered.

The realm of death is a complete cipher to us, a place into which we can only make a one way journey and which lies in an obscured, unexplored territory more inaccessible than the highest mountain or deepest undersea abyss, indeed more remote than the furthest edges of the solar system and even the edge of the universe as we know it. What becomes of us after death remains a complete mystery to us which we have long been frustratingly unable to explore to any appreciable degree without making that one way journey for ourselves.

Yet, with the advent of science and technology, and our increasing abilities to explore the outer fringes of our understanding, there has arisen a new question: can we scientifically prove and verify what happens to us after death? Can we use our advanced knowledge and technology to settle the age old debate of scientists, philosophers, and lay men alike once and for all? In this era of discovery, where we are ever relentlessly unlocking the secrets to our planet and the universe, pushing out into the boundaries past all that was known before, there have indeed been attempts to scientifically study what lies beyond our demise. These are the efforts of those who would penetrate that last frontier and come back with the answers we seek.

Those who would scientifically attempt to delve into the afterlife have long been plagued by dogma, ridicule, and misunderstanding. In one 1982 poll, it was found that a mere 16% of top scientists from various fields questioned believed that there was an afterlife at all, and only 4% thought we would ever be able to conclusively prove it. This general dismissive attitude and air of disinterest by the scientific community has hampered efforts for those who would seriously try to study the afterlife, as funding is rarely granted for such projects and those who pursue this avenue of research risk ridicule and derisive scorn from their peers. Interestingly, the rate of belief in an afterlife among medical doctors is significantly higher, with a 2005 poll showing that 59% of American medical doctors believed in an afterlife, which is a dramatically higher percentage than any other scientific profession.

Perhaps this stronger belief in something going on beyond the domain of life has to do with medical doctors’ experiences dealing with those who have experienced what are called near death experiences, or NDEs. These are reports by people who have claimed that after clinical death they have retained some form of awareness, no matter how tenuous, and have often reported similar phenomena in this state, regardless of religion or whether they believe in any kind of afterlife or not. These experiences are reported by a staggering number of people, around an estimated 200,000 people per year in the United States alone and untold millions worldwide. Commonly reported NDE experiences include leaving one’s body to observe the room and their own form, seeing a bright light, a feeling of peace or love, or even meeting long dead friends or relatives.

Although reports of NDEs may seem to be wholly subjective and the result of mere hallucinations, the remarkable similarities between them, as well as the sheer number of people who report them hint at an underlying phenomena with elements that may be possible to be objectively and scientifically measured and quantified. One serious study conducted by a team of scientists led by a Dr Berthold Ackermann collected reports of NDEs from hundreds of patients and came to the conclusion that the uncanny parallels between a vast number of accounts from people of all walks of life claiming to have retained consciousness after death suggested that the phenomenon was worth further study. Ackerman said of these similarities:

"Most common memories include a feeling of detachment from the body, feelings of levitation, total serenity, security, warmth, the experience of absolute dissolution, and the presence of an overwhelming light."

The presence of these visions in people who were clinically dead, and which remained fairly consistent across faiths and ideals, has convinced some groups of researchers that there is something going on beyond current paradigms, and that it could possibly even point to the existence of some currently unknown duality between the physical brain and consciousness itself, or at the very least some physical process which we have yet to understand. This points squarely at a scientifically provable answer that merely lies beyond our grasp and current tools to fully quantify.

Many of the studies that have delved into observing and objectifying NDEs, and therefore understanding more about life after death, have relied on investigating victims of cardiac arrest. After all, these are people who are at the mercy of a fully controllable environment, and stand a chance of being pulled from the clutches of death. One such study conducted by lead researcher Pim van Lommel, of the Hospital Rijnstate in the Netherlands, in 2001 and published in the British medical journal Lancet, focused on 344 patients who had suffered heart attacks to the point of being clinically dead, and then being successfully resuscitated.

The study meticulously and methodically questioned patients within a week of dying and being brought back to life, and found that 18% of these patients were able to describe some form of awareness from the time when they were declared clinically dead, meaning that their brain had completely shut down due to lack of blood flow and therefore making it technically not physically possible for them to be conscious of anything. 12 percent of those in the study reported classical NDE experiences such as tunnels of light or seeing dead friends and relatives. The extremely sharp, lucid, vivid, and detailed recall of these events seemed to point at factors other than that they were some sort of hallucination or false memories.

Although the study did not make any concrete proclamations of the existence of an actual soul or an afterlife, nor does it lay out a precise way to measure the existence of a life after death, it does suggest that something very strange is going on. The people in the study had been technically brain dead, meaning that they should not have had any memories of anything at all, and if the phenomena had been caused by a purely physical effect, such as cerebral hypoxia, also called anoxia, which is damage to the brain caused by prolonged lack of oxygen, then it should have been reported by a higher percentage of patients in the study, if not all of them. This convinced van Lommel that there was perhaps something more going on than a purely physical or cellular effect, saying of these NDEs in a Washington Post interview:

"Compare it with a TV program. If you open the TV set you will not find the program. The TV set is a receiver. When you turn off your TV set, the program is still there but you can’t see it. When you put off your brain, your consciousness is still there but you can’t feel it in your body."

Another similar study was carried out in 2003 by a Dr Peter Fenwick, a neuro-psychiatrist and senior lecturer at at King’s College, London, who investigated the experiences of cardiac arrest patients in England with the Institute of Psychiatry. During the study, over 60 cardiac arrest patients at Southampton General Hospital’s coronary care unit were interviewed about what they had experienced while technically temporarily brain dead. Of these patients, 7 of them recalled having classic NDE experiences, such as out of body experiences, entering a realm of peace and love, meeting lost loved ones, or journeying through a mysterious tunnel of light. In these cases, the patients had been clinically dead for up to several minutes, which hints that these sensations were not the result of mere normal physical processes or tricks of the brain. Fenwick explained the significance of this thus:

"After a cardiac arrest you lose consciousness within eight seconds; within 11 seconds the brain’s rhythms become flat, and within 18 seconds there is no possibility of the brain creating a model of the world – so the brain is down.Yet whenever we asked people when their near-death experiences occurred, they said it was during unconsciousness. If that’s true, their experience was occurring when there was no blood flowing through the brain – and consciousness would appear to exist outside the brain."

Fenwick came to the conclusion that there was something unusual going on that went well beyond a purely physical explanation, and even suggested that it could be potential evidence that the mind in some form operates outside of and independent of the physical brain. He likened this connection to a TV playing programs transmitted over airwaves. He said of his findings:

"There is now convincing evidence to challenge the current theory that consciousness can only exist inside the brain – and if you can have consciousness without associated brain function, that is enormously important for our understanding of the mind."

Another extremely ambitious scientific study was launched in 2008, and called the AWARE study (“AWAreness during REsuscitation”). Led by Sam Parnia, an assistant professor of medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and frequent collaborator with Dr. Fenwick, the study was aimed at trying to use the unique perspective of those who had stepped over to the other side and come back to tell the tale in order to peak through the window of the unknown to determine the existence of some form of life after death, or at least clues to the true connection between body and mind. The largest study of its kind ever attempted, 2,060 people who had suffered from major cardiac arrest were examined over a period of 4 years at 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Austria. Throughout the whole study, strict scientific methodology was observed as much as was reasonably possible in order to weed out claims that were based merely on impressions and thus insufficient for use as evidence, and to maintain as much objectivity as was possible.

Of the victims surveyed, 40% of those who had been resuscitated and had survived the cardiac arrest reliably reported some form of consciousness after they had been declared technically dead and had ceased to display any clinical signs of being conscious. Despite this complete lack of any measurable brain activity, these patients were reporting a lingering awareness and consciousness, which should have been impossible. The form this consciousness took varied somewhat from individual to individual, with some describing a sense of awareness but no specific memory, while others reported bright lights, the sensation of floating or conversely sinking, or the feeling of being dragged through water, as well as heightened senses and the sense of time slowing down or speeding up. Many of the patients described an overall sense of peacefulness throughout the ordeal. In the more dramatic accounts, patients described the images of animals, family members, or some form of “mystical being.” There appeared to be little measurable difference between ages or genders when it came to these experiences.

Additionally, 13% of those examined claimed to have separated from their bodies during their deaths, with some of these accounts being rather striking. In one case, a 57-year-old social worker reported that he had floated around the room and witnessed hospital staff trying to bring him back to life. So vivid was his recollection of these events that he even keenly remembered the physical appearance of the doctors and nurses, as well as the distinct beeping and noises of the various different types of machines in the room. Interestingly, the man had been declared dead for 3 minutes at the time, which should have made any awareness completely impossible and rule out the possibility that it could have simply been hallucinations, yet during this time the man was apparently well aware of the scene around him from outside his body.

Parnia suspects that although only 40% of the patients reported any sort of after death consciousness, it is quite possible that the others had indeed experienced these phenomena, but were simply not able to remember them due to the effects of sedatives, drugs, or brain damage. Although the study is unable to unequivocally rule out the possibility that the reports were subjective, and not able to concretely prove that these things really happened or what actually caused them, Dr. Parnia believes that the sheer size of the sampling and the findings of the study are significant, have shed light on the phenomenon, and shown that it warrants a need for further investigation. Of the completed study, Dr. Parnia has proclaimed:

"The evidence thus far suggests that in the first few minutes after death, consciousness is not annihilated. Whether it fades away afterwards, we do not know, but right after death, consciousness is not lost. We know the brain can’t function when the heart has stopped beating. But in this case conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes into the period when the heart wasn’t beating, even though the brain typically shuts down within 20-30 seconds after the heart has stopped. This is significant, since it has often been assumed that experiences in relation to death are likely hallucinations or illusions, occurring either before the heart stops or after the heart has been successfully restarted, but not an experience corresponding with ‘real’ events when the heart isn’t beating."

The presence of a form of consciousness or awareness separate from the physical brain is a recurring theme of such experiments. In another study conducted by a Dr. Alexander Batthyany at the University of Vienna, it was found that in some cases patients with advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease briefly returned to a state of complete lucidity just before death, despite suffering symptoms so severe that their brains had been rendered more or less practically incapable of functioning at all. The study covered 227 patients, and in 10% of the cases, people who had up until that point been completely lacking any mental functionality at all had displayed briefly before death a sudden bright flash of awareness and memories from before, which should have been impossible if there was no “soul” that existed beyond simply the physical construct of the brain.

In the future, ever innovative technologies may allow us to not only observe these NDEs and other phenomena, but actually venture forth into the land of the dead, much as astronauts have journeyed into the far reaches of the cosmos. This is a theme that has been covered in popular culture before, most notably the 1990 film Flatliners, in which 5 medical students conduct secret experiments to induce death and explore what lies beyond, along with its mystical near death experiences. Such an outlandish idea is perhaps not so far from reality, and we are on the cusp of technology that may allow us to not only study NDEs, but to experience them for ourselves.

Researchers at the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have developed a revolutionary procedure to put animals in a state of limbo between life and death, a sort of state of suspended animation fluttering over the abyss on the edge of death. In the experiments, dogs are drained of all blood and their veins filled with a frigid saline solution. Their body temperatures lowered to around 7 degrees Celsius (37 F), the animals cease all biological activity and are for all purposes technically dead. After 3 hours in this state, the blood is replaced and a mild shock administered, which jolts them back to the land of the living. The process is not without its problems, as some of the dogs have been reanimated with serious physical or behavioral aberrations, which have caused some critics to accuse the team of creating soulless “zombie dogs.”

Nevertheless, the team has grand plans to one day test the procedure on humans, which could be groundbreaking in the field of putting victims of serious injuries, especially those incurring massive blood loss, into a type of stasis while they await treatment. Such a tool could be invaluable in places like faraway battlefields, or other situations where immediate medical care is not available. Regardless, there have been considerable moral questions raised, such as the idea that any humans subjected to the experiments may wake up without souls, with an essential, key part of them missing. However, the research has mostly been seen as hopeful, with one of the directors saying they are merely pushing back the boundaries of what is considered dead, stating:

"The definition of death depends on the technology you have to revive the subject. As medical technology gets better, the limits to being dead are pushed into more extreme physiological states. Death is really when a doctor says: ‘I can’t do any more."

One can most certainly see how such a procedure would be alluring for those who want to research what happens past the veil that separates us from death. Imagine what could be gleaned about the afterlife from someone who spent hours there or even more. We can only wait to see if there is ever a trial on human beings, but one team of psychologists and medical doctors associated with the Technische Universität of Berlin have claimed that they have already done something similar. The researchers have claimed that by using a sophisticated mixture of potent drugs such as epinephrine and dimethyltryptamine, they have managed to induce clinical death in patients for intervals of up to 20 minutes, after which they are revived with a specially designed CPR machine without any ill effects.

The process has already been allegedly tested on around 944 volunteers over 4 years, with some people reportedly dead for up to 40 minutes to an hour. It is unclear what sort of NDEs any of these people may have experienced, but it definitely offers an avenue of pursuit for anyone brave enough to try and find out. Are we on the cusp of having the know-how and abilities to allow adventurous souls to make this once one-way journey into realms unknown and allow them to come back, just as astronauts delve into space to plummet back to Earth with wondrous stories to tell? It is an intriguing notion to be sure.

For all of the promising research done on NDEs so far, and all of the potential ways our technology may allow us to further and more deeply explore this mysterious phenomenon in the future, there is still a lot of skepticism aimed at this type of study. For many, the results found so far don’t count because they are adamant that any sort of awareness after death is indicative that the person was never really truly dead at all, despite any measurable amount of brain activity. Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society, has said of the matter:

"There’s a reason that these events are called ‘near’ death experiences. The people who have [near death experiences] are not actually dead. In that murky grey area between life and death, the brain is still functioning on some level and can therefore experience something."

Scientists-Claim-Evidence-of-Life-After-Death-in-New-Study

This sentiment has been shared by others, who say that there is very little concrete evidence to suggest that any of the NDEs actually occurred at a point when the brain was fully non-functional. Therefore, they say, the studies of NDEs thus far are deeply flawed. Dr Chris Freeman, consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Royal Edinburgh Hospital has said:

"We know that memories are extremely fallible. We are quite good at knowing that something happened, but we are very poor at knowing when it happened. It is quite possible that these experiences happened during the recovery, or just before the cardiac arrest. To say that they happened when the brain was shut down, I think there is little evidence for that at all."

The idea that these experiences are caused by merely a malfunctioning brain has been somewhat corroborated by the discovery in recent years of what has been deemed “The God Spot.” In 2000, Swiss researchers at at the Geneva University Hospital were presented with a 43-year-old woman who was admitted for surgery for profound epileptic seizures. An interesting effect was noticed when electrical stimulation was applied via electrodes to the area of the brain responsible for spatial cognition, called the angular gyrus, found in the right cortex. Neurologist Professor Olaf Blanke and colleagues accidentally found that by stimulating that area of the brain, the woman reported having vivid out of body experiences, in which she reported floating about the room above her own body. Blanke concluded that OBEs, and thereby NDEs in general, could be possibly explained by some malfunctioning of the brain rather than an actual soul leaving the body. It nevertheless shows that OBEs are a very real physical phenomenon that deserves further study, no matter what the cause.

A similar physical induction of classical NDE effects has been shown through the use of the drug ketamine, which affects receptors in the brain for the neurotransmitter glutamate. This uncontrolled, totally legal drug can, in the right doses, produce an altered state of consciousness and many of the reported experiences of NDEs, such as out of body experiences, communing with mystical beings, reliving of life events, and traveling through tunnels of light, to the point that one researcher has deemed the use of ketamine to be “experiments in voluntary death.” This has caused skeptics to conclude that all NDEs must be purely the result of misfrings of brain chemistry, but those who have experienced true NDEs are adamant that this is something more. Regardless of who is right, this is yet another case that shows that NDEs are a real phenomenon worthy of further scientific study and not a complete fabrication.

Skeptics remain convinced that these after life experiences are solely the realm of the physical, some last desperate firing of a dying mind. To them this is just psychedelic dreams and euphoria conjured up by chemicals in the brain during death, to which we give unreasonable spiritual weight if we survive the ordeal to return to life. This could describe all of the events of NDEs, including the ubiquitous tunnels of light, which skeptics say could be caused by frantically firing brain cells reacting to a lack of oxygen. Susan Blackmore, a psychology professor at the University of the West of England in Bristol and notable NDE skeptic says of the phenomenon:

"I think what’s happening is that people are trying to validate their experience by making these paranormal claims, but you don’t need to do that. They’re valid experiences in themselves, only they’re happening in the brain and not in the world out there."

Interestingly, some of these skeptics have come around once they experienced life after death for themselves. Cell biologist Joyce Hawkes was once just such a skeptic, and did not put much thought into the possibility of an afterlife, until one fateful accident changed her mind forever. Hawkes fell out of a window and sustained life threatening injuries that put her into a state of clinical death. During this time, she claims that she had an experience that did not fit any of her preconceived paradigms and which she remains at a loss to explain. Hawkes said of the incident:

"I think that part of me — that my spirit, my soul — left my body and went to another reality. It just was not part of the paradigm in which I lived as a scientist. It was a big surprise to me to have this sense of something different than the body — a consciousness different than the body — and to be in this wonderfully healing, peaceful, nurturing place."

So is there anything to these NDEs? Is this a peek into realms unknown or merely the physical effects of a gasping, dying brain; our last feverish dreams before slipping into nothingness? What lies beyond the curtain of the death that awaits us all, and will we ever be in a position to scientifically find out waits beyond? It seems in a world in which we are finding ways to detect ever more bizarre and weird phenomena such as quantum physics and the strange particles and inner working of our universe there may soon come a time when we may conquer the answers to the perplexing questions of the afterlife as well. Perhaps at some point we will delve out into these badlands just as we journey out into space or the farthest reaches of the deep blue seas, and embark on a journey that will bring with it wondrous discoveries of the unknown which lie on the fringes of our understanding. Until then, we are confined within these flesh prisons of ours, waiting for it to finally be revealed where that final journey will take us.

From Mysterious Universe @ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2016/06/deathnauts-strange-scientific-journeys-into-the-afterlife/