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Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

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Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
...so, I gotta ask... did you win your match?

Ha! Yes, I pinned him.

Outstanding! That makes your story that much better.

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I don't know tonight's guests or their reputations

Dr. Raymond Moody is the established leader in this field, and in fact coined the phrase "Near-Death Experience".

^^^^
I was just checking out their bio listed on C2C. Thanks for the Wiki link info. Sounds like tonight's guests might just be worth listening to... if I can keep my eyes open.

I've talked to several people that have had NDE's. I have always believed they were telling the truth as they saw it. One thing they had in common was they were disappointed that they came back. I myself have had an out of body experience, where I saw the scene from a distance.I was actually thrown by a cable tightening up and went about ten feet through the air. I watched it occur and thought it looked pretty funny. I was laughing when co workers got to me.

On a different but related subject, my wife was a speech therapist. The job entails much more than most people think. She would work with stroke victims, not only to regain speech but teach them how to think again. Anyway, every so often she would come home and tell me a client was about to die. She new this because for a day or two they would have all of their senses back, as if the stroke never happened. The brain is a powerful thing.


Jim

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And in regards to Modern Day Savage relating his father’s NDE, I have no doubt what he said is the truth. I experienced a similar incident during a cardiac incident during a stress test. I had a sensation of seeing the ceiling in the room coming closer and suddenly it wasn’t.

I should have elaborated. I was pulled off the treadmill and onto an exam table in the room, flat on my back. They guy running the test was shoving multiple Nitros under my tongue while calling for assistance. At that point is when the
Ceiling was getting closer then abruptly changed and got farther away.

My NDE was nothing one minute I was there then nothing, then they brought me back.

It was a dreamless sleep for me.

They asked me if I remember anything, I said no, they seemed disappointed.

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Originally posted by Modern Day Savage: I wasn't aware that the sense of hearing was the last to shut down, so it's good to know.

With regards to oxygen deprivation to the brain, I can confirm this. On a handful of occasions instructing from the back seat of a Hornet, I've had students slam on the G's when I wasn't ready and maintain them. My vision went from narrowing, to gray with stars, to completely black, but I could still hear and understand the radio and intercom from the student. That said, I have never completely blacked out in an airplane - front seat or back.

Besides the last sense to shut down, Hearing is also the first sense to return during a full blackout episode. I will admit that during my first ride in the spin trainer I just couldn't finish the 9Gs-for-30-seconds event no matter how hard I tried. Video tape proved to me that after going unconscious and the Gs dropping to normal, it took almost 25 seconds to fully recover enough to press the large red flashing button. But long before finally seeing that button, I heard the loud alarm in my headset, so hearing is also the first to return when oxygenated blood flow returns to the brain. During the recovery, I did the "funky chicken" in which the body goes through involuntary spasms as the synapses start firing up again (apologies to the medical community, but that's what pilots call it).

Armed with that knowledge and experience, I always talk to my fur kids when we have to send them over the Bridge. And I keep talking for awhile after the vet nods her head that the heart has stopped. I've discussed why I do this with her and she understands and agrees.

My MIL had been ill with cancer for several years when she finally passed. At that time, she was in the ER. My oldest BIL got there first and found her non responsive but still breathing. He started talking to her to let her know he was there and everyone was coming. He said it felt like she fighting to stay so he grabbed her hand and told her it was OK and that the family would be alright and he would watch over everyone. He said that as soon as he said that, she gave a little breath and was gone.

I do think you can hear things at the end, as mentioned, because it takes less effort to listen than it does to open your eyes or speak. I personally believe that when someone passes, knowing that loved ones are there, is comforting to them.

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Originally posted by sig2392:
My NDE was nothing one minute I was there then nothing, then they brought me back.
It was a dreamless sleep for me.
They asked me if I remember anything, I said no, they seemed disappointed.

I ALWAYS asked the patients I resuscitated if they remember seeing/hearing anything, sadly none did.

There was a guy that one of the other shifts worked on. He came by the station to thank them and to say “Thanks for putting on a show”.
One of the medics came in, saw a patient that had been down longer than he thought was survivable and said “Well, lets put on a show for the family.”
He said he had the view of sitting on top of the entertainment center and told them “You started the IV, you put the tube down my throat, etc., etc.
They were speechless!

When my Dad passed he was “talking to angels”.
He actually had a conversation with someone we couldn’t see. We asked him who was holding his hand and he answered (rather brusquely) my stepmother’s name as if to say “I’m not an idiot.”
Then he said “I gotta go” and his heart and respiration stopped.
I never really feared death and after that I sure as shit don’t fear it now.

My experiences.

In late August 2018, I contracted a nearly fatal bacterial infection of Clostridium difficile. I spent ten days profoundly comatose, and another twenty-one coming out of the coma in late August and all of September 2018. I then spent almost five month is a physical rehab center while I resolved the damage to my body that was due to the infection, coma, and treatment of the infection.

From the period when I was in the deep end of the coma, I have one memory. I do not know if it is a manufactured memory, or something that I experienced.

I was a disembodied spark, for lack of a better word, floating in a vast, utterly black space. The space had boundaries, though I sensed, rather than saw them. As I floated, I became increasingly afraid until I began a panic spiral. I once did self-rescue training where the instructors tried to induce a panic spiral, so you would know what it was like and how to stop it. Well, I am deep in the downward spiral when out of everywhere came a voice, neither male nor female, but one infinitely kind with a message for me:

“Know you are safe.”

That was all. "Know you are safe."

My fear and blossoming panic disappeared in an instant, and after some interval of time, the memory fades.

One friend, whom I will leave nameless gave me the best answer as to what I experienced.

He said I stood in the doorway between this world and the next, unable to decide which path to take. So, the Infinite Self, God, Odin, whoever told me either path would see me safe, back here amongst you hairless apes (SIGmonkey aside) or in the next world, with whatever lies there. So, either a Power other than me chose here or I did. I have no clue as to which or why.

I have another experience of strangeness in my reality. In 1966 as a lad of six, my parents chose to visit friends in Las Vegas, where we just move from, going to LA. This house had these huge picture windows and sliding doors that the wife kept absolutely spotless. That evening after dinner, I was playing and running headlong into the house through what I thought was an open door instead crashed into a non-safety glass, plate glass sliding door. A two-foot long shard fell slicing my chest open from the top of my sternum to the bottom, and that then broke off to impale me in the abdomen. Falling glass fell all over me, cutting me all over. Over three hundred stiches were required. I still have a finger-wide seven-inch long ugly scar on my chest.

The glass that sliced my chest up should have gone through my head or back had I not stopped in the thickness of the pane of glass. Mother swore to her death that she saw my Guardian Angel grab me, and kept me from worse harm.

Father did not waste an instant, carrying my blood soaked body to the car, tossing me into Mother’s arms, before heading to the hospital, speed limits, traffic lights ,and stop signs mostly ignored. But I have a memory, looking down on my parents and me. I am soaked in blood, as is my mother, as we blew through a stop sign. I stayed disembodied for ten minutes (I guess), and recall re-entering my body as I was wheeled into the operating room.

These and some other experiences prompt me to believe there is something else for us after the spark that we are leaves our body for good.

I've had two "NDEs" and both times I've had the exact same experience, which to me is more than anectdotal.

The first one was when I was 16 and rafting on the Upper Gauley river in West Virginia. I got tossed out of the boat and held under water at the base of you guessed it, pillow rock. I struggled and fought to get to the surface and eventually gave up. I remember accepting it and trying to hold my breath. A few moments later I popped out and found myself on the surface, disoriented and gsping for air. It's family legend to this day, my Dad's story of pulling me into the boat and saying that my normally blue eyes were grey and "as big as tea saucers".

The second time was when I contracted a bacterial infection from slicing my foot on an oyster bed. I was hospitalized with a fever of 103+. I had sepsis. They had to pack my armpits and groin with ice bags. It was touch and go. I had a temporary central line in my groin. I was 23 years old, it sucked. I remember what others have stated, and having the same feeling as my rafting trip. Immense calm, almost euphoria. Total acceptance of the situation.

YMMV

[QUOTE]Originally posted by shovelhead:
Just two things I can share here.

In the 1980’s in my EMT class we were taught the last sense to shut down was the sense of hearing and to remember this at all times while attending the newly deceased.


When my mom passed in the hospital, quietly, a nurse ran in to most likely try to revive her, even though she had a DNR. I shushed her quickly, and as the charge nurse was in the room with me it worked. I didn't want my mom to hear anything but peace and quiet as she passed.

My Father(89) was suffering from Dementia. He had been hospitalized for a couple weeks when I decided that upon his release he would come live with my family.
I set things up at home to care for him and all seemed to be going fine. His Doctor would come to check on him.
My Dad was a HUGE Cubs fan. The Cubs were in the playoffs and one game away from making the World Series.He was watching the game until about the 8th inning. He asked me if I could put him in bed. He required a lift to raise him from a chair and place him in his bed.
During the last few innings of the game he would ask me "who are those people sitting by your fireplace?" He was completely relaxed while asking. He then said "those are my parents".
I wheeled him in the Hoya lift to his room and maneuvered next to his bed in order to lower him on his mattress. He started telling me in a loud but calm voice, to turn the lights out. I said I need them on because I have to clean you up before bed and I need to see. He then told me he was going to die. I told him he was fine and not about to die.
He suddenly with out a sound went completely limp. I called out for my Wife to call 911,she did, they arrived, tried to revive him, but he was gone.
I will never forget that. His complete unemotional claim that he was dying and then just died.

I also remember finding my Grandmother (90) who had collapsed in the bathtub. I don't know how long she laid in the tub till I found her ( she lived alone), perhaps a day.
When I found her and was waiting on the ambulance she constantly asked me about the "Beautiful music", she went on and on about how it was the most beautiful music she had ever heard. She eventually died a few days later in the hospital.