Near Death
Sir Robert Winston mentions in his book Human Instinct that studies have suggested people with frontal-lobe epilepsy are more prone to religious hallucinations. Interestingly, it now appears some people are more prone to "near death" experiences:
Researchers found that adults who said they had had such an experience were also likely to have a history of what is called REM intrusion - where aspects of the dream state of sleep spill over into wakefulness.
People may, for example, feel paralysed when they first wake up, or have visual or auditory hallucinations as they fall asleep or wake.
Of the 55 study participants who had had a near-death experience, 60 per cent had also experienced REM intrusion at some point in their lives. That compared with 24 per cent of 55 adults who served as a comparison group.
The findings suggest that the brain's arousal system predisposes some people to both REM intrusion and near-death experience, according to the study authors led by Kevin Nelson, a neurologist at the University of Kentucky.
Obviously, this is a hard area to collect data on - and even a harder area for performing experiments.
Researchers found that adults who said they had had such an experience were also likely to have a history of what is called REM intrusion - where aspects of the dream state of sleep spill over into wakefulness.
People may, for example, feel paralysed when they first wake up, or have visual or auditory hallucinations as they fall asleep or wake.
Of the 55 study participants who had had a near-death experience, 60 per cent had also experienced REM intrusion at some point in their lives. That compared with 24 per cent of 55 adults who served as a comparison group.
The findings suggest that the brain's arousal system predisposes some people to both REM intrusion and near-death experience, according to the study authors led by Kevin Nelson, a neurologist at the University of Kentucky.
Obviously, this is a hard area to collect data on - and even a harder area for performing experiments.
posted by Engels at 9:32 am
20 Comments:
It’s interesting that you've been reading about this as well. I've been doing some research lately about deja vu and other temporal lobe related phenomenon. Seizures in this region of the brain can cause all sorts of funky things to happen. These can be caused by brain tumours or temporal lobe epilepsy or - as it happens - anxiety brought on by both high stress and flashbacks to a particularly bad ego-death experience on mushrooms ;)
Ha, interesting. I take it this is the "new" part of the brain, which gives us humans all sorts of weird and wonderful conditions.
Amazing how some drugs leave their mark for years. I heard mushrooms literally re-wire your brain.
The trick is convincing someone they have a mental condition. A person would rather think they're "touching God" than to admit they have epilepsy.
Crazy Tom Crusie, who was going to be a priest in highschool, claims Scientology cured his dyslexica.
I mean dyslexia. Stupid irony.
(Trying to maintain random fan status)...
Raises some interesting questions about Jeanne d'Arc... (or have those questions already been raised? ;))
Who is Jeanne d'Arc? And how are they relevant?
Straight from Wiki... "Joan of Arc, or Jeanne d'Arc is a national heroine of France and a saint of the Catholic Church. She claimed to have had visions, which she believed came from God..."
Subsequently burnt at the stake, but interesting what she was able to achieve in the name of god.
Ah, old Joan of Arc...of course Jeanne is Joan in French. Silly Engels. Yes, she had something to do with St Catherine, I believe. Been a while since I read about her.
My flatmate recently did an assignment on witche-trials and mental illnesses for a psychology subject.
haha the baby belongs to Xenu!
Epilepsy and religiousity have always had a strong, interesting connection.
St Paul had a conversion to Christianity involving a "bright light" and a "voice" that only he could hear, that threw him to the ground where he writhed around in pain.
When Mohammed was allegedly hearing the words of God, he too was writhing around in agony and felt like his "heart was being squeezed" and that he was "without sight".
Both sound like pretty classic cases of epilepsy to me.
Casts a completely new light onto organised faith.
I was always dubious of Constantine's "vision" of a flaming cross.
All hail Xenu, where ever he may be...
i'm sure you've done it already but if not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu
Just in case you didn't know how crazy tomkat is/are
I actually belong to a rather large internet forum that may or may not be collectively hiring a plane trailing a banner to fly around the MI3 premier that says "The baby belongs to Xenu"
:) The power of the intraweb
Luke, Engels has the link to clambake, so I'm sure he's well versed in Xenu by now
(Or "Xemu" as it appears in Ron Hubbard's slurred drugged handwriting)
Well sorry for assuming someone might have a life outside the internets Aidan
(Oh yes, I went there...)
Haha, in honesty I only came across Xenu last year after seeing an episode of John Safran.
The banner idea is pretty cool.
And I don't have much of life outside of internet...stupid Melbourne and my lack of friends.
I found it hilarious that of all the cool designs a space ship could have, Xenu chose to use a bloody 50 year old jumbo jet for his.
Last week I saw a COS stand in the city. They had a stress-o-meter and were selling copies of "Dianetics". Scary.
Haha, I just realised you wrote Tomkat. I gotta stop commenting so much on my own blog...so very, very sad.
You're gonna love this... Arend sent me a link to the webpage of the comedian/deadshit who hosts Fear Factor... he's this yank, who apart from being largely annoying, also links to these articles/sites that claim that hallucinagenic mushrooms eaten by monkeys back in the day more or less switched their brains on and made them evolve into humans in our current form... so, like, if i start taking mushrooms, say, every other day, i should evolve into The Next Generation, within the year - right?
Fingers crossed for psychokinetic powers and an adamantium skeleton....
Interesting. I think that guy may suffer from a severe case of being a dickhead.
I could use the same argument for eating meat.
I've totally evolved on mushrooms! The problem is the evolution was pretty much confined to the duration of the trip, follow by a sharp regression to perhaps a more primative state. I swear I could communicate with these trees down by the thames the other week.
Just have to figure out how to make my evolution/superpowers last... the fucking monkeys aren't talking - or are they?
Haha...oh my gawd.
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