near to death episodes (Endings)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Thursday, February 28, 2008, 23:05 (5902 days ago) @ dhw

For some reason I'm not able to access the Pim van Lommel page at the moment, though I looked it over briefly earlier. As I recall it, most of it was highly speculative, bringing in quantum theory and ideas about consciousness. These are ideas that the physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose considered in his book "The Emperor's New Mind" which I read a few years ago and found unconvincing. Nevertheless the speculations, like those of the string theorists, are certainly interesting and might have something in them, but so far lack definite results. - The only 'OBE' anecdote that I noted in my quick read-through of the Pim van Lommel article was the one about the coma patient who recalled the nurse taking out his false teeth and putting them somewhere. Two explanations for this come to mind. The first is that he was in fact able to see what the nurse was doing at the time; but I discount this since the nurse's testimony on his comatose state seems reliable. The second is that after he recovered from his coma, and while the nurse was away, he asked one of her colleagues "where's me teeth?" and got the reply "oh yes, the nurse on duty took them out and put them in her trolley, I'm not sure where that is now, you will have to ask her when she comes back". When she comes back the coma patient relates the story he has been told, but has forgotten who told it to him, so it appears as if he has recalled seeing the incident himself. Van Lommel himself says that memory of such patients is unreliable.