What is "real", what is "not real", and what is "more real"?

It is a big puzzle why near death experiencers stated that their experiences are "definitely real, more real than our physical reality and mundane world", but at the same time they provided far far less information amount than our physical reality. I don't understand this, because they seem to have no reason to lie.

I had that precise question and was going to ask any NDEr's that happened to be online.

Basically, one hypothesis that I have is that are viewing reality from a higher dimension which intuitively would contain more information. Raymond Moody has attempted to study nonsense in order to unpack rational clues to the nature of the world after bodily death. I am pretty sure he is writing a new book based upon his research on nonsense which includes a comparison sample of NDEs both before and after being taught a method of categorizing nonsense.

The point is to figure out what kind of nonsense this information is -- what category it belongs too. I find this brilliant but other's do not and why they don't remains a mystery to me. Perhaps because it reminds them that on the empirical evidence alone one cannot believe in an afterlife. It requires a rational leap since we do not understand consciousness.

My guess is that many scientists in NDE studies want to believe rather than want to know. But that is ok. The world is a harsh place sometimes.
 
I had that precise question and was going to ask any NDEr's that happened to be online.

It is dandy to know that it is not only me alone in this world who notice this question.

There were some Chinese netizens who shared their near death experiences in a Chinese posting forum, I also asked them some further questions. Note that I always ignore what I feel like baloneys and prefer paying attention to something I feel at least trustworthy to some degree. I don't make a certainty judgment, just a priority strategy. I have grasped not sufficient information to make a proof judgment on that any account is genuine or false. I remind myself to always be prudent, open minded, should always refrain from making assured judgments, that is, to always be a true skeptic, towards both sides.

I have "MORE SUBTLE SENSE" for the judgment on Chinese people's mood, temperament, purpose, honesty, manner, attitude, etc. when they say something, than those from people of other countries.
Sorry I don't know how to express this meaning properly, I say this same meaning with another expression:
When Chinese people say something, I can get more subtle sense to judge whether they are purposefully lying or self boasting or honestly making some true meaningful narrations about what they experienced. This is because I understand Chinese language very deeply, very subtly, with no perplexing foggy corner aspect I do not know exactly.
On the opposite, when I see narrations in a language which is not my mother tongue, and narrations from people who are not my nationals, I do not have that comprehensive and deep subtle feeling, which are important to judge the speakers' mood, temperament, purpose, honesty, manner, attitude, etc.

In other words, when I see a narration written in Chinese language by a Chinese people, I know more quickly and precisely if he or she is lying, by my feeling on the sentences, words he or she uses and the way of narration, and some more subtle aspects. And if I feel he or she is honestly trying to convey something to audiences, I put more weight on believing what he or she is saying.

This is by no means certainty, rather, it is just a difference in degree gauge compared to my sense on narrations written in a language other than Chinese by people other than Chinese. I know I should always be prudent and open minded, should always refrain from making assured judgments.

OK, based on this, I will say several nde narrations from Chinese people which I think moderately(not scarcely or highly) worthy to trust, so far as on the point that I can sense that they honestly tried to convey at least something they really experienced. I will say some common characteristics these Chinese nde narrations share firstly, especially the differences when compared with nde accounts of westerners, before going details about each one, and my further asking for more information as well as their responses.

Note what I'm going to say are not the differences between Chinese ndes and western ndes in an overall sense, I'm going to say some common outstanding aspects shared amongst the several trustworthy nde narrations I encountered in a Chinese posting forum.

One major difference of those several nde narrations I encountered from Chinese people compared with those we often see written in English language (by the people whose mother tongue is English or at least they are very familiar with the culture of English speaking countries), is that those several nde narrations I encountered from Chinese people contain less or no information about "unconditional love" whereas they contain relatively more information about "life review". I did encounter some other Chinese nde narrations which mentioned 七仙女(fictitious figures in traditional ancient Chinese mythological legends which are similar to "seven fairies" in meaning, daughters of a heavenly emperor in myth), 孟婆(a fictitious figure in traditional ancient Chinese mythological legends who is a woman waiting dead soul on a bridge called 奈何桥 and enforce the dead passing people to drink a bowl of soup which serves to erase the people's memories about the previous life), etc. I always completely ignore such a kind of account upon seeing they mention any fictitous figure, because China is in some sense a traditionally superstitious country, there are many atheists(especially more so in modern times) but also many people more or less influenced by superstition which once manipulated long period time span of Chinese history.

This case is similar to India which is another country severely influenced by superstition. So, if I see an nde account from Chinese or Indian people mentioning fictitous figures(e.g. Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, 七仙女, 孟婆, etc.) I usually immediately tag it with "highly baloney suspicious" judgment. It is a reason why I consider precious for some accounts from Chinese or Indian people which don't mention fictitious figures or any other superstitious suspicious elements. The life review is not governed by a person's superstitious mindset or thinking habit, so you can see why I trust more to detailed narrated "life review" part in nde accounts from Chinese or Indian cultural background.

One of those several nde narrations I encountered in a Chinese posting forum and I feel are honestly told, is like this:
The narrator said he once worked as a cook apprentice, in a fight with his master - perhaps a chef - he was throttled by his master for some seconds, during which time his nde occurred. I don't know whether that was a fierce malicious fight or a friendly prank going wrong.
During his nde, he watched his life review, presented as many static pictures one by one flashed before his observation, he said that was very detailed and astounding, showing many details he had forgotten. Like, he took an example, he saw a picture in which he could see clearly the things holded in people's hands.

I did have many questions when reading his narration, life review presented as many static pictures? Let us talk about a picture, a picture in a printed photo or in a computer screen has diverse visual parameters, like, degree of clearness(pixel resolutions, color range, etc.), saturation, brightness, contrast, printed or projected on what kind of surface as a pedestal or floating in the air like a hologram optical image, or is the picture 3 dimensional, etc.

But, for some reasons hard for me to explain clearly, perhaps partially because I feel it could be impolite or too troublesome both to ask and to answer, anyway I didn't ask him any of the above questions, instead, I asked him this question: I myself had once walked almost shoulder by shoulder along side a classmate girl I like very much when I was a junior middle school student in a sunny day on the street, if I were you who were having that nde and watching my life review, would I see clearly what dress that girl wore that day, which details I now can't recall? Like a fluffy hairball on the shoulder of her sweater - if she were wearing a sweater that day?

The narrator said something like: yes, definitely, you would see clearly the very details in her clothes.

The second nde narration is from a female narrator, as I now remember, she didn't talk about a life review, or perhaps just mentioned with very few words. The impressive part of her narration I remember, is about her encounter with her deceased sister who had died of suicide. She said her sister showed up in her nde as a lighting figure, but she COULDN'T SEE HER FACE CLEARLY, this is one of the very sentences which are very very frequently seen in western nde accounts. Let me change this sentence into another with the same meaning but different expressing way: She couldn't get sufficient amount of information to determine it was really her sister showed up as that lighting figure in her nde.

So naturally I asked her: if you couldn't see her face clearly, how could you know that was your sister? She answered something like this: I sensed that was my sister.

See, another sentence with insufficient amount of information. I don't know how to ask further with a more thought provoking and also polite finesse so I didn't ask more questions, remaining myself in the bewilderment. But I don't sense that she was lying, I have a sense that she is more credulous, more emotionally reckless, more muddled, less vigilant, less rational, more or less because of her female gender, especially a typical characteristic of a Chinese female.

The third nde narration, shared in the mid of 2017, is from a male narrator, who I sense is a relatively rational, calmly thinking man. He said his nde was caused by a traffic accident several years ago, his head was heavily damaged. About one hour after being sent into ICU, his heart stopped beating, meantime, he heard a sound like a "dee" with high frequency, then he saw a light beam showered from the sky, he felt his body started floating up, he saw "another him lying in the rescue bed without consciousness". Then he was lead by a beam of light flying into the universe space, with a very fast speed like the speed of light, at some time he swiftly passed a tunnel with dazzling light. In his narration, he emphasized his impression about that dazzling light, which was spiral shaped formed by numerous chromatic light ribbon. He mentioned that he sensed no time elapse during his traveling in that tunnel.

Hey, let me have a pause, see this immediate foregoing sentence, he said he sensed no time elapse during his traveling in that tunnel, does this imply that, he still could sense time elapse prior to entering this tunnel? One question, of many many questions.

OK, continue retelling his narration. Then suddenly he saw a light ball at the end of that tunnel, he was approaching that light ball and finally reached it.

Hey, let me have a pause, he mentioned he couldn't sense time elapse in that tunnel, so???? How could he later say something like "he was flying towards that light ball at the end of the tunnel and FINALLY arrived at that light ball"? Isn't it contradicting and confusing?

OK, back to his narration, he then found that light ball was a beautiful meadow or grass plain with many unrecoginized plants and animals. At that time, there was a thing in the front of him, resembling a 3-dimensional image, which was playing.

Hey, let me take a remarkable note here, he said: it was later when he woke up, he started to recall and get to know what that "3-dimensional image"(his original choice of word) was playing. So, did he imply that, when he was experiencing his nde, he had no idea what that "3-dimensional image" was playing, despite the fact that it was playing just in the front of "his eyes"? Isn't this strange?

What that "3-dimensional image" was playing, as he said, is his life review. More specifically, that was many IMPORTANT EVENTS in his life: entered primary school, middle school, got married, all the big events each of which is his "hard to forget".

Eventually in his nde, he saw many unrecognized persons who said his time wasn't ready and he must to return back, then by a flash, he returned back from that place.

Hey, this part is very typical, very frequently seen in western nde, isn't it? All lack many many reasonable information, like how those persons told him? In which language? How those persons looked like? Does the narrator have some thought about their identity even if the narrator could have no firm clue? Why they never said anything else? If I were to ask questions, the question list would be too long and I would need to keep writing without a sleep till tomorrow morning when I will need to go to work and doze in jobtime and be fired by my boss. With so many questions, I don't know which one should be asked at first.

Tonight I have run out of my time but I still have more thought to say, wish see you all next time. In summary, if we were to regard these nde accounts as reasonable, many gaps of information must firstly be stuffed, these are all the accounts I feel have something honestly narrated, picked up by me from many other obviously nonsense accounts.

I did ask the third nde narrator something which I can't remember or find now. But one thing I feel a bit important. After interacting with many askers in that forum, this narrator said this:
He started to think a new hypothesis, he said, that this physical world we all humans are experiencing, and the world he experienced in that nde, are both dreams experienced by "two virtual us" created by some hyper mechanism. That is to say, neither our mundane world, nor the spiritual world many nders think as where we go when we die, is real. These two worlds are two dreams experienced by two similar but different individuals' self separately, for each of us, and, well, how could I say, each pair of these "two us" has some correlated connections rather than being the same "self".

Added: Perhaps I should replace the word "connection" with "tether", the latter of which is more expressive? Like, the "one" who was experiencing nde in another realm of virtual existence, is not the "one" which is us, instead is a tether peer or master of us. The narrator mentioned that is a terrible hypothesis. I feel that hypothesis is no less terrible than how that narrator mentioned. That hypothesis implies that, not only our physical world is not real, nor is that spiritual world about which nders glimpsed partial but irrationally scarce amount of information.
 
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He started to think a new hypothesis, he said, that this physical world we all humans are experiencing, and the world he experienced in that nde, are both dreams experienced by "two virtual us" created by some hyper mechanism. .

Yes. The simplest answer to time and space and memory acting in weird ways is that its all mental in some sense.

Furthermore, I understand what you mean by using intuition to try to grasp who is being honest. I don't disagree with this idea because given your situation it is all we have. But there are many other ways to notice someone else on the 'other side' is telling the truth.

One example would be embarrassing information. I can give an example from a youtube video.

A medium reports that she is in contact with a deceased man. Before she goes any further into the reading, she tells the sister that she is about to reveal something private. The sister wants the reading to continue apparently and the medium reports that the brother has been watching his sister a lot. Something that he enjoys doing is watching his sister brush her teeth in the morning.

This information might seem pretty innocent until you realize because of the advanced warning of embarrassing information its clearly a kind of sexual innuendo between the siblings. This of course doesn't prove anything other than telepathy, but still its quite intriguing!

In contrast to what I stated, your examples are interesting in their cross cultural context. However, I wouldn't fully deny the experiences involving superstitious figures. My current hypothesis is that powerful beings are shaping our consciousness here and part of that play includes actual violence against us for us to change our ways.

One example of torture being inflicted is the experience of howard storm. But its not god that does the deed but instead it occurs because of the kind of person howard is or has become.

I want to point out the strange hypocrisy of the situation: its totally possible to gun down innocent children in vietnam, rape them, etc, but if you are not a lover of christ you will be punished by having your flesh being ripped off. It appears our ideas of morality are totally unimportant and irrelevant. And its not christ that does the flesh ripping but instead the quality of your own mind that attracts these demons.

I don't know howard storm personally, but it seems quite odd that he would attract such people. His crime appears to be callousness towards others which is the common position of nearly everyone in management currently in westernized countries. Seriously! Not a joke or understatement. Of course its a cycle fed by entitled customer mindset. A mindset I would love to break...but that is a different discussion.

As for experiencing hell, surely this is far more common than recognized. One can find them by their suicides or their diagnosis of PTSD.
 
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The second nde narration is from a female narrator, as I now remember, she didn't talk about a life review, or perhaps just mentioned with very few words. The impressive part of her narration I remember, is about her encounter with her deceased sister who had died of suicide. She said her sister showed up in her nde as a lighting figure, but she COULDN'T SEE HER FACE CLEARLY, this is one of the very sentences which are very very frequently seen in western nde accounts. Let me change this sentence into another with the same meaning but different expressing way: She couldn't get sufficient amount of information to determine it was really her sister showed up as that lighting figure in her nde.

So naturally I asked her: if you couldn't see her face clearly, how could you know that was your sister? She answered something like this: I sensed that was my sister.

See, another sentence with insufficient amount of information. I don't know how to ask further with a more thought provoking and also polite finesse so I didn't ask more questions, remaining myself in the bewilderment. But I don't sense that she was lying, I have a sense that she is more credulous, more emotionally reckless, more muddled, less vigilant, less rational, more or less because of her female gender, especially a typical characteristic of a Chinese female.
Thank you for a very interesting and well-written post which shares some interesting things not accessible to those of us who don't understand Chinese.

All of it is interesting, but I just picked out one part for comment.

I've often read or heard in NDE accounts of people seeing a figure, a person, wearing a hooded garment, but the person was either unable to even look at the face (perhaps being humble in the presence of someone more important) or when they did look, there was no face. Also, sometimes there is a kind of conversation or discussion, but by some telepathy, mind-to-mind communication. The beings don't usually give any name. I think there was one case where someone asked, "what is your name?" and the reply was something like "we don't use names here" or "we don't need names".

My thought here is that maybe instead of insufficient information for proper identification, maybe the opposite is true. No names, no face, all these things are only surface appearance. But still, the identification is perfectly understood, because with mind-to-mind communication, things are more direct, instead of just a surface appearance, there is the heart of the matter, the inner depth.


Now, briefly I will describe a personal experience. This is many years ago now. About a month or two months after my father had died, one night as I lay in my bed, I was awakened. The room was dark, my eyes were closed. I felt a touch on my arm. I knew it was my father placing his hand on my arm. Of course the room was empty, I was alone. But I took this very seriously.

Now you may call me foolish or gullible. In any case, in a dark room with my eyes closed, how could I say who touched my arm? This question is impossible to answer. I just knew.

There have been other experiences. When I retell them to someone else, they are just stories, something to pass over casually. But these things are so real, there are different kinds of real.

The one thing which definitely makes these experiences stand out, makes me pay attention, is that they are rare. I don't have encounters like this every day, not even every year. Just very rarely, a small number of events in many, many years.
 
I also wanted to comment on the life review. In Western NDE accounts, I've seen this described in many different ways. For example it may have been like the pages of a book, or the frames on a movie film. Or like a set of images shown on the walls of a room, or even a sphere, so that the life-review is showing different events in every direction. Also, sometimes it is described as flashing past very fast, or even as everything happening simultaneously. But even when everything happens at the same time, it is still possible to focus on each event separately. It is as though time goes very fast and very slow, both are true.

Perhaps it just isn't possible to use our words to describe these things properly, because our words and concepts are based on our experiences in this life, we don't have words for things not of this life. So instead the descriptions are crude and clumsy attempts, but not meant to be taken quite literally.
 
Thank you for a very interesting and well-written post which shares some interesting things not accessible to those of us who don't understand Chinese.

All of it is interesting, but I just picked out one part for comment.

I've often read or heard in NDE accounts of people seeing a figure, a person, wearing a hooded garment, but the person was either unable to even look at the face (perhaps being humble in the presence of someone more important) or when they did look, there was no face. Also, sometimes there is a kind of conversation or discussion, but by some telepathy, mind-to-mind communication. The beings don't usually give any name. I think there was one case where someone asked, "what is your name?" and the reply was something like "we don't use names here" or "we don't need names".

My thought here is that maybe instead of insufficient information for proper identification, maybe the opposite is true. No names, no face, all these things are only surface appearance. But still, the identification is perfectly understood, because with mind-to-mind communication, things are more direct, instead of just a surface appearance, there is the heart of the matter, the inner depth.


Now, briefly I will describe a personal experience. This is many years ago now. About a month or two months after my father had died, one night as I lay in my bed, I was awakened. The room was dark, my eyes were closed. I felt a touch on my arm. I knew it was my father placing his hand on my arm. Of course the room was empty, I was alone. But I took this very seriously.

Now you may call me foolish or gullible. In any case, in a dark room with my eyes closed, how could I say who touched my arm? This question is impossible to answer. I just knew.

There have been other experiences. When I retell them to someone else, they are just stories, something to pass over casually. But these things are so real, there are different kinds of real.

The one thing which definitely makes these experiences stand out, makes me pay attention, is that they are rare. I don't have encounters like this every day, not even every year. Just very rarely, a small number of events in many, many years.
Thanks for sharing.
 
I also wanted to comment on the life review. In Western NDE accounts, I've seen this described in many different ways. For example it may have been like the pages of a book, or the frames on a movie film. Or like a set of images shown on the walls of a room, or even a sphere, so that the life-review is showing different events in every direction. Also, sometimes it is described as flashing past very fast, or even as everything happening simultaneously. But even when everything happens at the same time, it is still possible to focus on each event separately. It is as though time goes very fast and very slow, both are true.

Perhaps it just isn't possible to use our words to describe these things properly, because our words and concepts are based on our experiences in this life, we don't have words for things not of this life. So instead the descriptions are crude and clumsy attempts, but not meant to be taken quite literally.
It might seem like a huge leap of faith, but for purely informational purposes, Tom Campbell claims he can use 'the larger consciousness system" like a database to get answers to questions. This person claims to be able to astral project while talking at the same time. He works for nasa, or did at one time.
 
instead of just a surface appearance, there is the heart of the matter, the inner depth.

I agree there is inner depth.

Perhaps the inner depth has something to do with "our forgotten memories", meaning they are once in our memory, but we don't remember them now (like when I'm writing here), but they are recorded somewhere so some force can show these memories to nders as their life review.

Perhaps the inner depth also has something to do with more understanding and interpretation to all the details of all the things happening in our lives.

My thought here is that maybe instead of insufficient information for proper identification, maybe the opposite is true. No names, no face, all these things are only surface appearance. But still, the identification is perfectly understood, because with mind-to-mind communication, things are more direct, instead of just a surface appearance, there is the heart of the matter, the inner depth.


Now, briefly I will describe a personal experience. This is many years ago now. About a month or two months after my father had died, one night as I lay in my bed, I was awakened. The room was dark, my eyes were closed. I felt a touch on my arm. I knew it was my father placing his hand on my arm. Of course the room was empty, I was alone. But I took this very seriously.

Now you may call me foolish or gullible. In any case, in a dark room with my eyes closed, how could I say who touched my arm? This question is impossible to answer. I just knew.

There have been other experiences. When I retell them to someone else, they are just stories, something to pass over casually. But these things are so real, there are different kinds of real.

The one thing which definitely makes these experiences stand out, makes me pay attention, is that they are rare. I don't have encounters like this every day, not even every year. Just very rarely, a small number of events in many, many years.

Dear Typoz, I believe you.

I also believe people both from our world and "the other side" will feel delighted to see that we remember them and can recognize them.

It is our remembrance and recognition to all the beloved ones appeared in our lives which guarantees and reflects the very importance of all the existences.

Perhaps our deceased beloved ones come to us to verify that we are OK and remember them well, which delights them greatly.

So sincerely wish you take care and be happy, dear Typoz, you are very important to people who are granted the pleasure to know you in our lives.
 
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