Of course there's the very negative Near Death Experience of listening to Al Gore drone on about Global Warming and the many other things he pretends to be an expert on.
Damn Shoe, I love the topic but you are really unfairly getting jumped on by a lot of people in here. Sadly, I think it is because a lot of people believe you are trying to "prove" NDE's exist, but I read your post as more of a fascination with the subject that warrants further research. I agree. Now, onto some interesting observations from my end. Here are just a few things that have either happened to me personally, or have happened to a good friend. I'll start with OBE's, since I have never had a NDE. I've had many OBE's since my mid-teens. I'm not exactly sure what is taking place or if a "soul" is actually leaving the body, but I do know that the experience is unlike any other I've had -- including hallucinations while on drugs in the same family as Ketamine (K-holes, etc). On average, I get them about once every other month. What happens is that I will wake up after sleeping for a few hours to get something done and then decide to sleep a few more hours. At that point, as I am falling asleep, I hear a very loud "ringing" noise that is a cross between buzzing bee's, metalic sounds and oscillations. The sound is very foreign -- it isn't something you would hear in everyday life. At this point, my body will go into paralysis and I feel as if I'm on a boat swaying back and forth. From here, one of two things will happen. I will either immediately go into a lucid dream that is incredibly real, or I will open my eyes out of slight fear and see with a very foggy vision. Usually I'm staring at my alarm clock unable to move, but on one occasion I noticed that time was moving fast on the alarm clock because 4 minutes had past when only a few seconds should have. Again, this isn't evidence for anything except evidence that very weird things can happen. Now, here is something particularly interesting to note. On one occasion I had entered a lucid dream where I was in NYC. I walked inside of this alley that had buildings on both sides, yet I was enclosed in a building itself. There were people drinking and eatting at tables and people shopping in stores. Lo' and behold, a few months later while I was visiting a friend in NYC, she took me to one of her favorite places that happened to be the Chelsea Market. There really aren't words to describe the feeling I had while I was walking around and seeing things that pretty much exactly matched the lucid dream I had several months earlier. I stopped to sit down on a bench and just shook my head because it was just one of those profound little experiences that I have in life that are hard to relate with another person. Some people believe in this type of stuff while others will call you crazy. I could care less, because I know the thoughts, feelings and emotions that are taking place inside me and regardless of the "cause" for such things, it doesn't detract from how amazing it is to have those experiences occasionally.
Well, whatever the cause, it isn't a daily experience -- so it makes one stop and think just what the hell is going on.
LOL ! "spontaneous human combustion- no big deal---happens all the time" line from REPO MAN--the movie. surfer
profound is when you are wide awake you encounter something unseen that make the hair on back of your neck standing up, no matter how your mind try to rationalize it your body just want to run away.
Like the chick you were hitting on at the bar last night with those thick beer goggles, only to wake up the next morning and roll over to see Godzilla in your bed?
Just noticed that the NDE thread went on for awhile. Thx for the post and the comments. And you're right - I never intended to offer it as a proof in any way. I like to post stuff for the sake of dialogue and hopefully to make us all think, but I don't see what's wrong with that... And I appreciate your going on record: that's three people on the thread who believe they have had things happen to them that possibly cannot be explained by simple materialism...