Is there an afterlife? Here’s what he saw while he was ‘dead’ | Bruce Greyson for Big Think

40 Comments

1. Do you believe in an afterlife?

2. Still believer

3. No. If someone is telling you about what happened after they died, they didn't die. Memory can't be recorded in dead neurons. You can't tell a story about what happened to you without accessing living neurons. We can't even recall what happens during deep sleep, or under anesthesia, so consciousness does actually rely on a living, intact, functioning brain. A dead brain does not support consciousness, and there is zero evidence to support the idea of consciousness apart from a physical substrate.

4. If the accounts presented in this story occurred as described, it’s hard to dispute or discount the existence of an after life.

   Given how physicists are perplexed and say that technically, we shouldn’t exist also suggests we’re part of something much bigger.

   I also think the things we as humans think matters, really doesn’t matter one bit to the creator.

   Be kind, treat people how you want to be treated, don’t be evil and avoid stupid religious nonsense.

   All probably good things.

   Materialism, objects, How many times you pray, your evangelical fundamentalism, probably doesn’t matter one bit.

5. I’ve never had an NDE nor do I personally know anyone who has. I read a lot about them, the testimonies of those who claim to have experienced them. Many of these accounts are from articulate, well educated people who relay what they have been through clearly and with specificity. Others sound like the rantings of zealots trying to make a point but nevertheless come off as incredible and unbelievable. The vast majority of the accounts I have read describe their journeys as positive and life-affirming, others are of the “15 minutes in Hell” variety. Unfortunately I have yet to see any evidence of their claims; what would such evidence even look like? So, who are we to believe? If you have had a near-death experience, can you describe it to us here in a convincing way? Can you show evidence to help us determine for ourselves the veracity of your claim? I’m curious. I mean, who’s not, right?

6. I am a Gnostic. God is absolutely real. > All atheists, agnostic atheists, agnostics, are ignorant, and unknowing. Everyone is delusional. The religious are delusional. Yet, everyone, has had a go at trying to understand on some level or to some degree. > I had 2 NDE's in the last 12 to 18 months, and went to the godhead itself. > I KNOW GOD IS REAL. > I am not religious, I do not "believe" in god. I know god is real.

7. Yes praise Jesus and Allah and Zeus and Santa. My mom was floating over me….blah blah ghost. Ppl will believe anything on no evidence whatsoever

8. Nice to know when I tell my depressed/suicidal brothers and sisters around the world that we're all not alone it's true.

9. Its only our Physical Body will die, but our soul will live forever,.. Physical body is come from dust,. Soul is come from the Breath of the Creature(GOD) so the Soul will return to GOD.. In His Kingdom..We must be born again to see the Kingdom of GOD.,

10. Maybe there is quantum mind or something more scientific but not materailstic explanation out there before trying to explain it with spiritual treachings. Maybe the so called heaven is just dimensions above the 3 dimensions + time dimension and the soul is just a quantum remaining part of the mind. Just we can not explaining those phonemas just by pourly materialistic explanations and the current level of particle physics.

11. I’m not sure I got the message. It seemed incoherent or understated

12. The number of people coming back via NDE's is proportional to the advancement of modern medicine being able to put patients onto life support and stasis.
    
    God and Jesus must be thinking with all this return product, Hey! These human beans are really getting the hang of this miracle work schtick!

    Brain and body cell mitochondria may well be the hidden component to the NDE OBE experience. The beneficial cell relationship that has lasted more than a billion years. Trillions of these bacterial descendants live within our bodies, churning out ATP, the molecular energy source that sustains our cells. And mitochondria have their own DNA. Under stress, this could enhance other chemical release via mitochondria Hyperoxia that activate this (heroin like) angelic feeling of golden warmth and comfort NDE'rs experience. I've heard heroin addicts talk about this very golden comfort, it is why the drug becomes addictive, and similarly like the religious experience becomes addictive with feelings of ecstatic feelings of joy, and also through group singing that release brain chemicals etc.

    Could NDE's be, an unusual evolutionary biological counter-survival adaptation, that is; when the NDE'r does not want to go back to their earthly body. So that the terminally sick and injured do actually die off quickly, freeing up resources, which would be beneficial for the survival of the group. Biological life has its defined finite cycle, the critically injured may be naturally sedated so that consciousness becomes a binary situation and decision to give up or fight to live becomes the choice. Someone whose body has triggered this sedation response would be in a critical downward life cycle and in the shutdown of brain default mode, naturally sedated and feeling satisfied with the situation. Happy to engage in the regurgitation of memories from the hippocampus (similarly with drowning victims experiencing Hypoxia), simply give up the ghost and submit to die.
    
    The group then can move on, and go forward to repeat the life cycle through new breeding.

    Experiences of reincarnation might be simply the onset of human genetic memory in the early stages of evolutionary brain development. This might be the next stage of human evolution, and the next stage of post H.Sapien brain unfolding. What might be happening in this age of human evolution is the mapping out and testing of potential beneficial probabilistic outcomes to determine the optimal outcome of human life in this space-time gravitational pocket of low entropy.

    p.s. I like the way scientists and medical people talk rationally about things that non-science people find very shocking, unexplainable and respond to very emotionally.
    
    Personally, I am of the opinion that when you die you just stop living, the end.
    What you have to consider with 'most' of the NDE narratives, come from those with books and merch for click sale or 'Patreon' or 'buy me a coffee' links. Monetized YT Channels… remunerated from view counts into the hundreds of thousands. Because people will pay top dollar for the sanctuary of Hope.

13. As a person who many family members that were born with the Caul and from the Celtic tradition and faithful Christians. No matter how terrible the world looks right now and how so many say we are in the end times and will be judged. I just hear that he loves us all and he has a much more wonderful plan for mankind no matter how bad it looks. It's a transformation of our present existence to a peaceful time for us that will last a thousand years

14. Life is the consubstantiality of matter and spirit, or energy. When death occurs, the body dies and spirit and matter separate. The spirit part of us never dies.

15. Life is the consubstantiality of matter and spirit, or energy. Upon death, spirit and matter separate. The body is just a vessel, or a carrier of the energy.

16. I started having bad anxiety abt what happens when i die and this helped a lot thank you for sharing this story

17. Just Cant wait to see my dad again

18. Although I'm very interested in NDE's and possible life after death, has it been confirmed that there was noone in or near Jack's room discussing the death of nurse Anita shortly before or during his NDE? Unless all other options are excluded you can't really say with certainty that he "couldn't possibly have known nurse Anita died and how she died". It would be amazing if this story could really function as evidence of life after death, but there is this one gap that needs to be closed first

19. I hope there’s an afterlife if there ain’t and I just go brain dead no more thoughts then oh well can’t do anything but I hope there’s a place out there for the dead where they just hang out even animals and what not I’m not scared of what’s next not as much anymore I just don’t want there to be nothing because it’d be boring

20. No one I know currently has had a NDE, but my mama did tell me her story about her uncle when he passed. She didn't tell me much so I'll recount what I remember.

    She has always had dreams about the future. I've always talked to her about them because of curiosity, so even if I'm currently going though an existential crisis about life after death I do, for a fact, know that there is some sort of energy out there that causes her to have dreams about the future. She has had too many dreams that have happened for me (or anyone) to deny them. It's a first hand experience I never thought I'd ever had, but if you reading this don't believe that's fine. For those with an open mind, I can say without a doubt that her dreams can see the future. I'm not trolling or making stuff up, this is real.

    A couple of weeks before her uncle's death, she had a dream where he died. She didn't tell me exactly what she dreamed, only that he died in her dream. She was worried then because she knew her dreams show her the future, so she told her father about her dream. It was just a warning of course, because her uncle still passed away.

    When he laid on his death bed, my mama went up to him to tell him goodbye. But he grabbed her hands and looked at her in the eyes and told her (translated from spanish): "Those f**kers killed me."

    My family has always believed in black/white magic, so my mama concluded that a family took his life just so they could take his property because soon afterwards people came to claim his land.

21. Have pity on the scoffers and all who are still strangers to spiritual life. Do not be angry with them when they become sarcastic; for they are only to be pitied. They stand before the great Work of Creation, which offers us so much, like drunkards, like sick people. Like blind men who grope their way through life on earth without seeing all the splendor around them!

    These poor people are confused, they are asleep; for how can anyone still affirm, for instance, that only what he can see exists? That where his eyes perceive nothing, there is no life? That with his physical death he himself also ceases to exist, all because in his blindness he could not, up till now, convince himself to the contrary through his eyes? Does he not already know from many things how very limited is the capacity of the eye? Does he not yet know that it is related to the capacity of his brain, which is bound to time and space? That because of this he cannot recognize with his eyes anything rising above time and space? Has this logical, intellectual reasoning not yet become clear to any of these scoffers?

    Spiritual life, let us also call it the beyond, is after all merely something that stands completely above the earthly division of time and space, and therefore requires a similar nature in order to be recognized.

    Yet our eyes do not even see all that can be classified within time and space. Think of a drop of water, which appears immaculately pure to every eye, but which on examination under the microscope is shown to contain millions of living organisms mercilessly fighting and destroying each other. Are there not sometimes bacteria in both water and air that have the power to destroy human bodies, and that are imperceptible to the human eye? But they become visible by means of powerful instruments. Who then will still dare to maintain that there is nothing new and as yet unknown to be seen when the power of these instruments is further increased? Increase their power a thousand fold, a million fold, and there will be no end to what may be seen, but ever new worlds which previously you could neither see nor feel, yet which nevertheless existed, will unfold before you.

    Logical thinking also leads to the same conclusions about everything the sciences have hitherto been able to collect. There is a prospect of continuous progress and development, but never of an end.

    What, then, is the beyond? The word confuses many. The beyond is simply all that cannot be perceived by earthly means. And earthly means are the eyes, the brain and all other parts of the body, also the instruments that help them to do their work still more accurately and precisely, and to extend its scope. Therefore one could say: the beyond embraces all that is beyond the perceptive capacity of our physical eyes. But there is no division between this world and the beyond! Nor any gulf! All is united, as is the whole of Creation. One power streams through this world and the beyond, everything lives and works from this one life stream, and is thus quite inseparably linked.

    For this reason change your attitude. There is no such thing as this world and the beyond, but only one united existence! The idea of a division has been invented solely by man, because he is unable to see everything, and imagines himself to be the center and focal point of the surroundings visible to him. Yet his sphere of action is greater. With the erroneous idea of a division, however, he forcibly limits himself, hinders his progress, and allows his imagination to run riot and conjure up grotesque pictures. Is it surprising then, if as a consequence many only smile incredulously, while others adopt an unwholesome form of worship that becomes servile or degenerates into fanaticism? Who can then still be astonished if some people develop a nervous fear, even terror and consternation? Away with all this! Why these torments?

    Break down this barrier which human error sought to erect, but which never existed! Your past wrong attitude also gives you a false foundation, on which you vainly endeavor continually to build up the true belief, that is, inner conviction. You consequently encounter points, obstacles, which must make you waver and doubt, or compel you to tear down the whole structure, perhaps abandoning everything out of despair or resentment. The loss is then yours alone, because this is not progress for you, but standstill or retrogression. The road which in any case you must follow one day will only be lengthened thereby.

    – Grail Message by Abdrushin

22. There is only one possibility…… the story is a lie.

23. Yes, there is an afterlife but everything we see or read must line up with the Word of GOD, the Bible, if it doesn't it is not from GOD! Born again Christians will go to heaven to be with our Lord and Savior JESUS CHRIST; unsaved people will go to hell. Please get saved: Thank JESUS for paying for your sins on the cross and HIS resurrection on the 3rd day!!! It must come form the bottom of your heart and don't forget, JESUS is GOD, see John 1! Listen to real theologians like Dr. John Ankerberg on NDE's and reincarnation.

24. Hearing this story and all the story’s in the comments is wild! But I’m here comparing DMT trips and near death experiences or technically death experiences and there’s always that similar tunnel and light at the end that people talk about when experiencing a certain level of high with DMT and when experiencing death. It’s mind blowing to think that just possibly that’s the “high” you get when blasting off from Dmt is almost like experiencing death but then again I’ve heard other crazy story’s of trippin on DMT. Just a crazy thought.

25. I believe that there is no life after death because only the soul will exist, we will not have a body or anything. I believe that after death he will simply sleep forever

26. I honestly don’t care. Whatever it is, even if it is total non existence and non consciousness, it still has to be better than this bull ish

27. My mum has 3 months to live so I hope there is an afterlife.

28. Thank you 🌌

29. Chemicals in our brain thats all

30. I’ve been going down a rabbit hole thinking about this a lot lately and I appreciate this 🙂

31. how come it's always middle-class suburban-type people who have these experiences? it's never criminals or gang members who claim to have these kinds of near-death experiences that cause them to change for the better. i never hear stories about stone-cold psychopaths who nearly die or who are declared dead who then come back to life with claims of having had some kind of profound experience that some how changes them and causes them to be better people.

32. 📌Friends, I hope this helps someone who needs to hear it💜
    According to many Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), we come here to learn about love experientially and to apply what we learn.
    A soul cannot do that in the ethereal realm because everything is perfect there. To understand the light (love), one must experience darkness; one cannot truly know what a thing is until it has been contrasted with its opposite. I believe we choose to come here, and sometimes not just to learn, but to help others (to teach).

    Heaven is home, but once we've enjoyed basking for eons in perfect heavenly bliss, we might look forward to a new challenge/adventure in this amazing universe. I think the soul takes on these 'lives' just as we opt to read books or watch movies — sometimes a comedy, other times a drama or thriller etc., — but all for the sole purpose of learning to love. So please don't fear the process; God knows what He's doing. Don't be a backseat driver! ☺️

    However, I do believe that it's imperative that we learn to love (mercy, compassion, forgiveness, kindness, fortitude, equanimity, etc.), otherwise, experiences and even lives may repeat until we do so! Understandably, God always gives precedence to the soul over the body. Once we've overcome all our challenges, I doubt we'll come here too often, if at all.

    I believe that an important thing to remember is the 'golden thread' that seems to run through most NDEs; namely, we are a part of God (His children), we're eternal, we're loved beyond measure, and we come here to learn to love. Thank goodness it's designed in such a way as to always feel like the first time!

    Strive to be the best version of yourself in thought, word, and deed, and you may be surprised by the abundance of blessings that come your way. Give it a try and see for yourself!

    I wish you the very best in life! 💜

    "To find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better… To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson💜

33. Peace & Life Everlasting with Jesus ❤️

    HEAVEN is the dwelling place not only of God, but also of the angelic beings who worship Him. Through the grace of God, Heaven becomes also the eternal dwelling place of all those who through faith have become God’s children. For them, to be for ever in the presence of God is to be in Paradise.

    John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have Eternal Life.

    John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

    Deuteronomy 4:29 But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul ❤

34. We are god created beings having a human experience.

35. In 1970, at the age of 20, I suddenly developed double pneumonia. I was bedridden for 8 or 9 days. For that length of time I ate and drank nothing. I was extremely weak, and couldn't even raise my head off the pillow. Then suddenly I got up effortlessly out bed, and walked up the hallway to the dining room, where my family was eating dinner. They were watching Bewitched on TV. I could see everything so clearly, and was in a heightened state of alertness. Then I became aware of an unseen entity very close to me, and I was completely enveloped in a tremendous, overwhelming, love. A male voice spoke gently to me and said, "Malcolm, go back." I knew nothing further until I regained consciousness in the hospital I.C.U. I don't know how much time had lapsed, from the time I encountered the 'Being of Love', and waking up in the hospital. Hours? Days? I have no idea.

36. My best friend got diagnosed with cancer about two years ago. The immunotherapy went well, it seemed. But last week she had a seizure and was brought to the hospital. They told us that the cancer cells have gone to the brain and there is no hope. She is starting to forget things and gets seizures very frequently. I'm destroyed. Desperate. I'm seeking comfort in these videos. I hope in a miracle.

37. I’m sick to death of being here I lost my dear mum 5 years ago I find everything unbearable

38. Sorry BigThink, but this is nonsense what this guy is saying. We should not demotivate people from probing the life and afterlife phenomenon and not romanticizing it more and more.

39. oxigen starvation is a real buzz,nothing new about that

40. I dreamed I was being sexually asualted while sleep and it woke me up, and for a split second the spirit didn't know I was woke! Folks there's more to this univers than what our 5 senses can comprehend!

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