Dr. Eben Alexander, NDE Science Wins Out |504|

That was a very interesting discussion, and it would obviously be great if Eben were to join us for a while for further discussion.

It is interesting that Eben seems to have taken the evidence for reincarnation on board. One puzzle I have is that supposedly we live lives here as a way to grow, and that part of that growth comes from doing the right thing while being cut off from the larger reality (A bit like taking an exam without access to the internet). If that is the case, why is Eben so keen on making more and more people aware of the larger reality? Does it suggest that somehow this planet wasn't meant to look like it does right now?

Another issue for me, is that I honestly do not believe in the concept of (dangerous) global warming from CO2. The fact that Eben mentions this several times worries me, because it makes me wonder if he really is in touch with a greater reality. We don't want to have the CAGW debate again right here, but it is buried in the Skeptiko website somewhere, and I know that Alex himself did not believe in that idea - at least when I last heard him discuss it! I mean, it isn't as if the Earth isn't in danger - there are a lot of real environmental issues that are incredibly dangerous:

Loss of animal habitats

General pollution issues with plastics and possibly other chemicals (but not that plant food that is used to make fizzy drinks).

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Overpopulation

etc.

Why focus on the one fake issue?

David
 
Er... no, idealists don't think "everything is alive" - that's nearer the constitutive panpsychist viewpoint if one substitutes "conscious" for "alive". I wonder if you've fully understood idealism, but if not, I can thoroughly recommend Bernardo Kastrup's recent video course on the Essentia foundation and also on Youtube. This is the first of the seven videos:


There's nuanced variations of idealism, but my main point is that idealism emphasizes the subjective while materialism emphasizes the objective. By saying the fundamental monistic substance is PATTERN we unite the subject and object in one thing. By saying everything is pattern, I am sort of objectifying consciousness and subjectifying material and so with this kind of head fake I hope to bring materialists and idealists together in peace and harmony. :)

And if we examine the concept of pattern we find that, while it is ONE word it implies THREE things: subject/object/choice. So this Trinity is the fundamental pattern from which all other patterns arise, so by meditating on the nature of this Triune pattern everything else makes perfect sense. On the other hand if you try to take one leg of this stool (either subject or object) and make it the ONE thing, then you tie yourself into a pretzel trying to explain everything. I've heard plenty of Kastrup and I still feel like he ties himself into the same linguistic pretzel. ...a pretzel coincidentally is ONE thing twisted together in such a way as to make THREE spaces. There you have it!
 
I use Cosmic Womb from Sacred Acoustics regularly, or I did until I got lazy, so now I'm back to an hour of Falun Dafa med. music until I get back into the habit. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to sell it to you, but I get very, very relaxed in a much shorter time listening to Cosmic Womb. What takes thirty minutes at least w/ FD music takes 10 minutes w/ CW. Also, I was getting these wonderful brief visions of many different kinds for a while & then they settled down into people's faces appearing only inches from mine. Then I got to a period where I found it extremely difficult to experience anything except a deep sense of peacefulness, so I got out of the daily habit for a while.
One other thing that's fascinating is that I realized that the brief visions & glimpses of the other side I got (I had a very awesome 'visit' from my late mother) were exactly like the REM dreams I remember off & on! I could go on & on, but that's probably enough.
I use Cosmic Womb from Sacred Acoustics regularly, or I did until I got lazy, so now I'm back to an hour of Falun Dafa med. music until I get back into the habit. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to sell it to you, but I get very, very relaxed in a much shorter time listening to Cosmic Womb. What takes thirty minutes at least w/ FD music takes 10 minutes w/ CW. Also, I was getting these wonderful brief visions of many different kinds for a while & then they settled down into people's faces appearing only inches from mine. Then I got to a period where I found it extremely difficult to experience anything except a deep sense of peacefulness, so I got out of the daily habit for a while.
One other thing that's fascinating is that I realized that the brief visions & glimpses of the other side I got (I had a very awesome 'visit' from my late mother) were exactly like the REM dreams I remember off & on! I could go on & on, but that's probably enough.
The subjects fascinating. I get into some hipnogogic states but its very hit or miss...perhaps just a case of laziness on my part. Nevertheless that sounds worth a little more investigation, very promising.
Occasionally faces, people , cities , land scrapes - known of which i know and occasionally music. If i could get into it easier i would definitely jump.. it just so pleasant - for lack of a better word.
 
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There's nuanced variations of idealism, but my main point is that idealism emphasizes the subjective while materialism emphasizes the objective. By saying the fundamental monistic substance is PATTERN we unite the subject and object in one thing. By saying everything is pattern, I am sort of objectifying consciousness and subjectifying material and so with this kind of head fake I hope to bring materialists and idealists together in peace and harmony. :)

And if we examine the concept of pattern we find that, while it is ONE word it implies THREE things: subject/object/choice. So this Trinity is the fundamental pattern from which all other patterns arise, so by meditating on the nature of this Triune pattern everything else makes perfect sense. On the other hand if you try to take one leg of this stool (either subject or object) and make it the ONE thing, then you tie yourself into a pretzel trying to explain everything. I've heard plenty of Kastrup and I still feel like he ties himself into the same linguistic pretzel. ...a pretzel coincidentally is ONE thing twisted together in such a way as to make THREE spaces. There you have it!

No nuanced version of idealism, so far as I'm aware, espouses the idea that "everything is alive". There are versions of panspsychism, however, that approach idealism, as BK says. The principal problem seems to be that people confuse consciousness with metaconsciousness. If one believes one's God is metaconscious, then one's notion of that God becomes Abrahamic, and dualism likely becomes the order of the day.

OTOH, if, as Bernardo hypothesises, M@L isn't metaconscious, but only its dissociated alters (living beings) have the potential to be so, one can see how everything might be in universal consciousness rather than being (meta)conscious.

Idealism doesn't always emphasise the subjective. There are in fact both subjective and objective versions of it. Bernardo himself, whilst tailoring his version more towards objective idealism (which particularly appeals to the modern analytical mind), claims to be simultaneously both a subjective and an objective idealist. There are things outside our seemingly localised metaconsciousnesses (i.e. "things-in-themselves" that objectively exist) but at the same time we can't help but experience them subjectively.

There is, for example, something that we call the moon that exists even when we aren't looking. But when we do look, what we see can only be how it appears to our perception. In most circumstances, we see what everybody else sees, which accounts for the consistency of perceived reality, but at the quantum level, according to recent experiments, it seems perfectly possible for different observers to perceive the same event differently.

Unfortunately, and if it's because I'm dense, apologies, but I don't really understand your trinitarian idea of pattern. Subject and object mean something to me, but how does choice come into it? The choice between what and what? Object and subject? I don't get it.

To me, the standard trinity comprises 1. Father - 2. Son - 3. Holy Spirit (to use Christian terminology). In idealistic terms, one might posit the trinity as being:

1. M@L (the instinctive, first-person perspective of the universe, or what it's like to be the universe).

2. Life (the potential for awareness of awareness, "self refectivity", or "metaconsciousness" that has become so well developed in the alters we perceive as human beings).

3. Communication (for want of a better word) between 1 and 2, possibly down to the degree of permeability of the interface between them.

This interface, in a way, I see as what creates perception of an apparently external world. In some circumstances, e.g. those that occur in NDEs, the interface may partially collapse, allowing perceptions to enter the awareness of the alter that it doesn't ordinarily possess. Such perceptions I see as being self-reflectively interpreted by the affected alter, and that's what brings in how it is described by the NDEer. S(he) has no other way of describing it except by using language, which is always limited by prior lived, metaconscious experience -- which in turn has fair degrees of similarity from person to person. Hence, for the most part, the perception of similar kinds of events, albeit dressed in somewhat different clothing.

Although an NDE is a fairly rare phenomenon, in the normal living state I suspect the interface (or boundary) isn't completely impermeable even in ordinary circumstances. It could be partially permeable, to differing degrees amongst apparently separate individuals.

Many of us have verifiable intuitions, i.e. the ability, occasionally at least, to have verifiable knowledge without knowing how we know. And, some people may be naturally more intuitive than others, or be able to develop their intuitiveness through what we might term spiritual practices, such as meditation. So in one way or another, to one degree or another, we all have the potential to experience the "Holy Spirit" in action in our lives.

It may be that the boundary is permeable in the other direction, too, viz. that M@L can become dimly aware of what's going on in the minds of alters. I'd analogise this with human beings sometimes being aware of the states of their internal organs. Most often, this seems to be by localised pain sensations. When the pain goes, the organ reverts to effective invisibility. When M@L "gets a pain", so to speak, it does whatever it needs to get rid of it.

Since M@L is One, maybe this equates to a constant tendency to equilibrise -- what one might think of as the tendency to evolve. IOW, M@L may not be unchanging, but itself be evolving with at least some degree of help from its dissociated alters. The sensation of "love" that many of us occasionally feel could be just the recognition of what it feels like to return to Oneness. Most of the time, we may be in tension, some distance away from Oneness, which might account for our pain and suffering.
 
Another issue for me, is that I honestly do not believe in the concept of (dangerous) global warming from CO2. The fact that Eben mentions this several times worries me, because it makes me wonder if he really is in touch with a greater reality. We don't want to have the CAGW debate again right here, but it is buried in the Skeptiko website somewhere, and I know that Alex himself did not believe in that idea - at least when I last heard him discuss it! I mean, it isn't as if the Earth isn't in danger - there are a lot of real environmental issues that are incredibly dangerous:David

I concur, but alas, Eben's not the only one. Both Rupert Sheldrake and Bernardo Kastrup, for instance, buy into this and a number of other popular notions that I disagree with. That said, I try to concentrate on the worth of the ideas of theirs that I do agree with, and not let it sour my perception of them. Not saying you do, mind, only that it'd be a rare person indeed who agreed with everything one opines about the world!
 
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Sounds like the BS that I got from this guy on HuffPost. He actually was trying to say that the truth of the Capitol Siege depends on which side you're on. I think he QAnon-ed his brain into D. Trump gravy.
Doesn't that just drive you completely nuts! Don't get me started on all that or we'll be here for days :eek:
 
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J Randal Murphy, you seem pretty sure of yourself.
Yup ... pretty sure, but open to adapting if a better version comes along. I always try to upgrade as opposed to the opposite. With that being said, I once believed in God, reincarnation, and as a consequence, afterlives. I don't think my perspective has deteriorated because I think very differently about those things now. In fact, everything seems much more clear.
But if you haven't had an NDE, you don't really know how you would react. Also, deductive logic has its limitations - it all depends, as you intimate, on what one's assumptions are. I wonder, have you good reasons to assume that your assumptions are any better than anyone else's?
Yes I have good reasons. I don't claim to have any insider knowledge, but I do believe that some opinions carry more weight than others depending on how well they hold together. Also I have a pretty good idea about how I would react in an NDE situation. I've had some really "out there" experiences already. Before I ever saw a UFO I had read about them, and when I saw one, I reacted exactly as I'd imagined. I knew instantly what I was looking at.
Take it a step further, and you may realise that every individual, including you, operates within his or her own interpretative framework, and to that extent could be considered to create their own reality, just as the constructivists say, although not in a literal sense.
Yup. I got that a long time ago. I'm in my 60s now. Lots of time to reflect on those considerations and install modules for dealing with them.
There may be, in a sense, an objective reality of "things-in-themselves", as Kant put it, but just because that may be so doesn't mean that you or I, or anyone else, can perceive or understand that reality. I don't believe you are any more different or special than anyone else -- you are just as confined within the boundaries of your own interpretative framework as anyone else.
I'd say that's making too much of a generalization. Some people are so immersed in their paradigm or limited in comprehension that they don't have the adaptability or the insight or the intellectual capacity to grasp some things. I know. I just don't grasp some things as well as other people do. Other things come easily. Others take work. Some people are really more well informed and in tune than others. It's just a fact of life. Knowing our own limitations is important. Otherwise we can overreach into the realm of preaching without knowing.
When a person emerges from an NDE, (s)he comes back into the milieu of interpretative frameworks, and once again has to think in ordinary language terms. All s(he) has to rely on is the memory, however vivid, of the NDE experience, and the only way s(he) can express that is using ordinary language. This may force interpretations that rely on elements of prior personal and societal conditioning, either to some extent by the NDEer or the person listening to what the NDEer has to say.
That all makes perfect sense. The one thing I should emphasize however is that it's still an assumption that the experiencer is actually "remembering" an event that actually happened. I think all they're doing is accessing a part of their memory that was formed as a result of their situation, not as a result of a perceptual experience of an external reality, except perhaps some unconscious perceptions of the immediate external reality that are then translated into a memory engram ( for lack of a better term ).
I have no doubt that something profound happens in NDEs, but when Alex asks about the role of NDEs in our personal spiritual journeys, I'm by no means sure NDEs have any purposive role to play -- in the sense that some "higher power" might utilise NDEs to influence the NDEer. NDEs happen, they are profound, and often can't help but influence those who have experienced them, but I do wonder whether that's what they're meant to do as opposed to their simpy happening to have that effect.
Could be a combination of both. I don't know. The latter is the safer speculation. But there might be more to it than that.
We are beings who crave to be able to make some sense out of the world as we perceive it. NDE perceptions are often reported as being real -- nay, hyperreal. It seems inevitable that these particularly striking experiences, like many more mundane ones, come to be interpreted by experiencers as pivotal, if not life-changing. They only seem so very special in the first place because they run counter to long-inculcated societal expectations, viz. these days, the materialistic metaphysical worldview of many people that is in general often so nihilistic and "soul destroying".

I have been reminded of this recently whilst reading "Virus Mania" (a 580-page book very reasonably priced as a Kindle edition) recently. The depth of the depravity of Western society is no better exemplified than by the influence of the Pharmaceutical industry, which one way or another has negatively effected the lives of many millions of people. So many believe the claptrap about vaccinations these days, and whilst I'm sure many are sincere in their beliefs, I think they're being preyed on by an industry whose soul was long ago destroyed through the greed of a few very powerful individuals. I certainly wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of their life-reviews!
Excellent post. Thank you for sharing your perspective. Same goes for the others I haven't had time to directly respond to. So far I like this place. Seems like a good bunch. :)
 
Listened 2x, and weighing in before reviewing the discussion..

I want to push hard on this:

Trick Question: When does the NDE happen?

Answer: Well..... according to to the NDE'rs, Time is not a factor. Therefore, the assertion "while I was dead" is a fallacy, per their own account. Furthermore, using Time as the framework, would qualify as anthropomorphization.

Forum member Chester Hunter calls the brain a transducer. I think he's right.


With all that considered, I'm not under the impression that the NDE "happens" while the persons body is dead.
With respect to materialist science, I would argue most likely probability is that the NDE'r (either upon death, or upon rebirth) establish a connection with the infinite, and then they proceed to Translate it into time (aka anthropromorphize).

If that's true, then the materialist scientist guests could be correct when they say they don't see sufficient evidence of "out of body experience". That is because: If the NDE'r is opening up a connection to the infinite, there's no reason to assume that any of it "happened" while they were dead.

Mic Drop
 
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Let's be clear, I don't belong to any religion - I left Christianity at age 20. However, I can't see how it is possible to listen to a number of NDE's and not come to the conclusion that something interesting happens when we die. The sheer number of NDE reports is too great to believe that these are somehow made up or come from confusion. I say this because many of these reports contain verifiable information (such as what went on in the resuscitation room) so they aren't analogous to a dream.

People are frequently told that it is not their time, or they are given a choice to stay or go back to their body.

Do you believe that when people actually die (possibly as a result of their choice) they snuff it, or that there is some brief continuation, or that something longer term happens?

I don't see what you mean by "any afterworld can only be a copy" - a copy of what?

David
Welcome back, David. I haven't noticed any comments lately. I think he means that the afterworld is a copy of things we have known in our physical life. w/ some alterations that make it seem superior, like in heaven, there's floating around on clouds while wearing a halo & playing a harp. I'm only guessing, though.
Eben made a reference to the quantum mechanics physicists who initiated some of the new thinking on consciousness. That made me remember that you kindly told me that superposition is a complicated mathematical concept that didn't lend itself well to the discussion that was going on.

I got a drubbing recently from a young man on Quora who jumped all over my supposition that a large number of 1920 physicists were backing 'consciousness is fundamental.' Then he really got heated about my reference to the Heisenberg U.P., as a reflection of consciousness effecting scientific results. I have yet to look up the 'double slit' experiment which Alex refers to often in re: to evidence of mind's over-arching reach. I do know that there was a famous slitted screen experiment that proved that light is both a wave & a particle, but I never have actually gotten the details on the 'double slit' experiment. If you have a link handy for that, please let me know what that is. If it's a chore or you're really busy right now, don't bother; I'll get to it later.
 
Trick Question: When does the NDE happen?

Answer: Well..... according to to the NDE'rs, Time is not a factor. Therefore, the assertion "while I was dead" is a fallacy, per their own account. Furthermore, using Time as the framework, would qualify as anthropomorphization.

Perhaps a little bit of sophistry and wordplay is at work here? NDEers may say that within their NDE experience, time appeared not to exist. But they say that only when they return, when obviously they are back in the milieu where time is an apparent reality again. As I see it, there's no contradiction here: just different angles of perception in different current moments. I'd recommend watching BK's Idealism course on Essentia, where time, space and matter are analogised to "dials" on a "dashboard".

The dials and what they measure (time, space and matter) are ignored at one's peril, but even so, they needn't be taken literally. The whole problem of materialism hinges on the idea of mistaking the dashboard and its dials for actual reality rather than just being a useful representation allowing us to survive from day to day in the apparent world we live in.
 
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Yup ... pretty sure, but open to adapting if a better version comes along. I always try to upgrade as opposed to the opposite. With that being said, I once believed in God, reincarnation, and as a consequence, afterlives. I don't think my perspective has deteriorated because I think very differently about those things now. In fact, everything seems much more clear.

Yes I have good reasons. I don't claim to have any insider knowledge, but I do believe that some opinions carry more weight than others depending on how well they hold together. Also I have a pretty good idea about how I would react in an NDE situation. I've had some really "out there" experiences already. Before I ever saw a UFO I had read about them, and when I saw one, I reacted exactly as I'd imagined. I knew instantly what I was looking at.

Yup. I got that a long time ago. I'm in my 60s now. Lots of time to reflect on those considerations and install modules for dealing with them.

I'd say that's making too much of a generalization. Some people are so immersed in their paradigm or limited in comprehension that they don't have the adaptability or the insight or the intellectual capacity to grasp some things. I know. I just don't grasp some things as well as other people do. Other things come easily. Others take work. Some people are really more well informed and in tune than others. It's just a fact of life. Knowing our own limitations is important. Otherwise we can overreach into the realm of preaching without knowing.

That all makes perfect sense. The one thing I should emphasize however is that it's still an assumption that the experiencer is actually "remembering" an event that actually happened. I think all they're doing is accessing a part of their memory that was formed as a result of their situation, not as a result of a perceptual experience of an external reality, except perhaps some unconscious perceptions of the immediate external reality that are then translated into a memory engram ( for lack of a better term ).

Could be a combination of both. I don't know. The latter is the safer speculation. But there might be more to it than that.

Excellent post. Thank you for sharing your perspective. Same goes for the others I haven't had time to directly respond to. So far I like this place. Seems like a good bunch. :)
One of the reasons I enjoyed Eben's interview so much was he reminded me of him waking up w/ no idea who he was & who these people were standing around his ICU bed. This is a perplexing perspective: if his brain was a mush of bacteria-laden pus, how did he remember his NDE if he couldn't recall his family? He & Karen addressed memory & cosciousness in "Thirty-Three Day Journey..." (I've never read any of Eben's books), so I have a basic understanding that memory is not entirely dependent on the brain. My science fanatic brother even told me long ago about a professor at Texas Tech who was in a car wreck & lost 70% of his cerebral matter, yet he soon regained his memory of all of his education, learned to walk again, etc. I learned in college that memory is redundantly recorded through out the brain, but that extensive a case of damage must have ruined his hippocampus & other crucial structures.
All that being said, I have to agree w/ Eben that much more needs to be known about the truth or BS of "Filter Theory." I think the evidence is over-whelming that our brain's limited day-to-day focus is necessary for learning to survive & thrive on the physical plane. People like Eckhart Tolle & Sadguru had no interest in doing anything but blissing out. Tolle ended up 'sleeping rough' for a while after his friends got fed up w/ his mooching. Yet many people report developing abilities & accessing 'realms' while doing quite well at taking care of themselves.
The key to me is this reported sense of 'realer than real' or 'a clearer sense of color, sounds, smells, etc.' Like Eben recounted, some doc told him that the brain plays tricks which he accepted at first, but he then told his son that that was no hallucination or toxic biochemical dream state. What function of Eben's personality or soul, whatever, asserted itself to insist 'brain tricks' was hogwash? Maybe it's related to the bible's idea of a "peace that passeth all understanding," so there is 'truth that passeth all understanding."
 
I wrote a short story about a spirit of an adept who bypasses the line of souls waiting to get a drink of the 'water of forgetfulness,' which is supposedly required before being reborn. He is reborn fully aware, even as a fetus, he's trapped awake in his mom's womb & calls to her until finally one day she hears her in-utero son's voice. Not too long ago, I watched a YouTube video of an IANDS conference & one of the speakers, who claimed many NDEs, said he told his psychic mom he could remember being born.
I learned from Robert Thurman (Uma Thurman's dad, BTW) on another UT video that the Tibetan Buddhists have a lot of info. on the bardos (the states in between incarnations) from adepts that learned how to be aware during the whole process of dying, bardo, then reincarnation. They reported their memories to the Dali Lama or whomever, I suppose. You might want to check out www.AfterlifeConference.com if you want to hear more from people who are really into afterlife issues. Their 2021 Conference is coming soon, so don't wait too long to look into it.
I certainly think 'afterlife' is a misnomer. Returning Home would be a better description from an NDE standpoint. However, I took it as significant that Eben said 'it was more likely than not' that the afterlife is a reality. A true Skeptiko teacher he is if there ever was one.

Kim, I would love to read the story you wrote!
 
There's nuanced variations of idealism, but my main point is that idealism emphasizes the subjective while materialism emphasizes the objective. By saying the fundamental monistic substance is PATTERN we unite the subject and object in one thing. By saying everything is pattern, I am sort of objectifying consciousness and subjectifying material and so with this kind of head fake I hope to bring materialists and idealists together in peace and harmony. :)

And if we examine the concept of pattern we find that, while it is ONE word it implies THREE things: subject/object/choice. So this Trinity is the fundamental pattern from which all other patterns arise, so by meditating on the nature of this Triune pattern everything else makes perfect sense. On the other hand if you try to take one leg of this stool (either subject or object) and make it the ONE thing, then you tie yourself into a pretzel trying to explain everything. I've heard plenty of Kastrup and I still feel like he ties himself into the same linguistic pretzel. ...a pretzel coincidentally is ONE thing twisted together in such a way as to make THREE spaces. There you have it!

I remember, as a child in grade school, when we were being taught the "mathematics" of language: subject, object, noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, etc. For me, it was the equivalent of a molecular physicist telling Bob Ross how to paint a forest, because the physicist understands the periodic table that makes up every element touching the brush far better than Bob Ross does.

I think that life, like God, is beyond categorical imperatives. Also, I don't think that God is hidden from us, but rather intricately woven into all of us. I only know this because I could be an idiot, and be absolutely wrong. Also, I still may be an idiot, but absolutely right!
 
Kim, I would love to read the story you wrote!
I left all the copies of that in Texas when I moved to China to teach English, so I'd have to re-write it. I have been meaning to b/c it's one of my best that I did in a burst of creativity went poof w/ the move to China. So, I will start on that ASAP. Thanks for your interest & encouragement!
 
The subjects fascinating. I get into some hipnogogic states but its very hit or miss...perhaps just a case of laziness on my part. Nevertheless that sounds worth a little more investigation, very promising.
Occasionally faces, people , cities , land scrapes - known of which i know and occasionally music. If i could get into it easier i would definitely jump.. it just so pleasant - for lack of a better word.
You might want to check out Jennifer Dumpert at liminaldreaming.com or urbandreamscape.com
She was a presenter at an online Sound & Healing Conference that included Karen Newell & Jeffrey Martin. Foxy lady w/ an IQ! She's very big into onierogens: herbs, food, smells, sounds, psychedelics that reportedly aid dreaming. Her big thing is hypnogogia & hypnopompia work for fun & exploration. I don't Twitter, but she's on there, too.
What's funny is the host or moderator, David Gibson, mentioned that Alice Bailey said that being aware at the moment you fall asleep is the best practice for conscious dying. Makes perfect sense: you 'die' to the world, so to speak, when you're unconscious. Jennifer then said that people about to pass on are in hypnogogia.
One more thing & I'll quit bending your ear: I use a very, very reliable way to be aware while the body is asleep. I stumbled on it by accident. I had been doing very heavy manual labor, loading gravel into a barrow & pushing it about. I went in my bdrm., exhausted & lay down on the floor. I don't think it took 2 or 3 minutes, if that long, but the next thing I knew I could hear my body snoring very gently. It was just like I had walked quietly in on someone else sleeping. It was actually kind of scary, but then I went to sleep. Every time I have used that method, I have been rewarded w/ an ecstatic sense that the body is not me. Only thing is sometimes I go to sleep so quickly I miss it.
You might end up looking like Arnold S. if you use it too much. I've also read that it's risky business working out very hard often b/c you can get hooked on exercise endorphins & extreme fitness shortens your life. Supposedly most career athletes aren't known for living long. Who knows?
 
Perhaps a little bit of sophistry and wordplay is at work here? NDEers may say that within their NDE experience, time appeared not to exist. But they say that only when they return, when obviously they are back in the milieu where time is an apparent reality again. As I see it, there's no contradiction here: just different angles of perception in different current moments. I'd recommend watching BK's Idealism course on Essentia, where time, space and matter are analogised to "dials" on a "dashboard".

The dials and what they measure (time, space and matter) are ignored at one's peril, but even so, they needn't be taken literally. The whole problem of materialism hinges on the idea of mistaking the dashboard and its dials for actual reality rather than just being a useful representation allowing us to survive from day to day in the apparent world we live in.
Sophistry to assume that Time works differently outside of this realm?
 
I concur, but alas, Eben's not the only one. Both Rupert Sheldrake and Bernardo Kastrup, for instance, buy into this and a number of other popular notions that I disagree with. That said, I try to concentrate on the worth of the ideas of theirs that I do agree with, and not let it sour my perception of them. Not saying you do, mind, only that it'd be a rare person indeed who agreed with everything one opines about the world!
What worries me, is that they don't seem to receive a 'correct revelation' - which lowers their credibility a bit. I would make an exception for Rupert Sheldrake because he doesn't claim to have accessed non-local information, nor I think has he explored the CO2 issue much.

I suppose that for people like RS, they respect the general idea of preserving nature, and feel an aversion to poking into the one area that mankind seems to take as being supremely important!

Maybe Eben just uses the warming argument as a handle to refer to environmental degradation - I don't know.

David
 
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That was a very interesting discussion, and it would obviously be great if Eben were to join us for a while for further discussion.

It is interesting that Eben seems to have taken the evidence for reincarnation on board. One puzzle I have is that supposedly we live lives here as a way to grow, and that part of that growth comes from doing the right thing while being cut off from the larger reality (A bit like taking an exam without access to the internet). If that is the case, why is Eben so keen on making more and more people aware of the larger reality? Does it suggest that somehow this planet wasn't meant to look like it does right now?

Another issue for me, is that I honestly do not believe in the concept of (dangerous) global warming from CO2. The fact that Eben mentions this several times worries me, because it makes me wonder if he really is in touch with a greater reality. We don't want to have the CAGW debate again right here, but it is buried in the Skeptiko website somewhere, and I know that Alex himself did not believe in that idea - at least when I last heard him discuss it! I mean, it isn't as if the Earth isn't in danger - there are a lot of real environmental issues that are incredibly dangerous:

Loss of animal habitats

General pollution issues with plastics and possibly other chemicals (but not that plant food that is used to make fizzy drinks).

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Overpopulation

etc.

Why focus on the one fake issue?

David
I have to agree w/ Eben's concern about CO2 b/c it's a great way to get people to think about the connection between burning fossil fuels & the poisonous gases that are created. It's not just a CO2 problem, but a CO problem, soot, used motor oil (reportedly one of the deadliest substances in the world), fossil fuel exploration, extraction, transportation, disposal, etc., obesity, road kill (India is having a terrible time dealing w/ expanding road systems ruining habitats & killing rare wildlife). I think it's undeniable that the world's addiction to oil & gas is killing us & the planet off in so many ways.
I agree, however, that the alternatives appear so very dangerous as well. I'm stumped on the whole issue. What plagues me is that reincarnation is a fact, but it's not true, according to Krishnamurti. However, what is worrisome is what kind of mess will we be faced w/ when we reincarnate? On Quora, one medium claims you reincarnate in the general area in which you pass away. Sounds like you better die in Hawaii or Switzerland.
 
That all makes perfect sense. The one thing I should emphasize however is that it's still an assumption that the experiencer is actually "remembering" an event that actually happened. I think all they're doing is accessing a part of their memory that was formed as a result of their situation, not as a result of a perceptual experience of an external reality, except perhaps some unconscious perceptions of the immediate external reality that are then translated into a memory engram ( for lack of a better term ).
There are a huge number of NDE accounts, and while inevitably many don't provide any hard evidence, others definitely do. For example:

There are NDE's in which someone becomes aware that someone they thought was well is dead. They report that when they come back, and it turns out to be true.

There are NDE's in which a person's consciousness drifts around a bit (spatially). In one case that drift allowed the person to become aware of a discussion about them being held in another part of the hospital (in fact I think there has been more than one such incident).

Anita Moorjani reported an NDE that happened as she was in the final stages of dying of cancer - in hospital and so the details were fully documented. In the NDE, she was offered the chance to return to earth as a well person. She was subsequently found to be free of cancer. I suppose Eben's case is a bit similar, in that he not only avoided death, he also regained all his faculties.

At a more trivial level, one woman found that her consciousness drifted out of (or maybe through) the hospital window, and she observed a soft shoe that had somehow ended up on a ledge outside. She told a nurse, and the shoe was recovered.

Someone had an NDE in which he saw his false teeth being removed as part of the resuscitation process, and in the rush they were misplaced. When he recovered, he recognised the nurse who had removed his teeth, and told her where she had put them - so he got his teeth back!

If you took the time to trawl the NDERF site, I am pretty sure you could find a large number of such reports - a small fraction of the immense number of recorded NDE's, each of which is inconsistent with your assumption.

David
 
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I have to agree w/ Eben's concern about CO2 b/c it's a great way to get people to think about the connection between burning fossil fuels & the poisonous gases that are created. It's not just a CO2 problem, but a CO problem, soot, used motor oil (reportedly one of the deadliest substances in the world), fossil fuel exploration, extraction, transportation, disposal, etc., obesity, road kill (India is having a terrible time dealing w/ expanding road systems ruining habitats & killing rare wildlife). I think it's undeniable that the world's addiction to oil & gas is killing us & the planet off in so many ways.

The saga that it is fossil carbon that is responsible has lead environmentalists badly astray. For example, in Britain we have a large power station, called DRAX, which used to burn coal but now burns 'biofuel'. This biofuel is obtained by felling trees in North America, converting them to wood pellets, which are shipped across the Atlantic and fed into the furnaces at DRAX. IMHO it is never good to pander to a false scientific argument because of some ancillary reason.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/carb...ail&utm_term=0_fe4b2f45ef-3e1bb88511-20174325

David
 
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