WEBVTT - How Near-Death Experiences Work 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.040 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:07.480 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:16.320 from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.239 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:23.800 Charles W. Bryant. Josh call him Chuck to Josh. Insert 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:27.440 with the intro. I don't have one, okay, so we 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:30.360 should we talk about in your death experience? Yeah, I've 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:34.000 got one for you. Actually, Um. In there was a 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:37.199 woman named Pam Reynolds who is a song stress from 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.280 what I can gather, a blues song stress, possibly country 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:45.200 cross over here there. She's in Atlanta, resident really yeah, um, 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:50.760 And she underwent a procedure to repair a brain and aneurism, 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:54.720 right okay, And this brain and yoursm apparently was in 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.280 a really difficult place. And um, she got in touch 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:00.920 with a specialist who's like, you know what, Um, I 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:03.440 know a procedure we can do on you, because we're 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:06.199 gonna have to drain all the blood from your brain 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.720 to operate on this thing. That's not good now. Basically, 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.640 the doctor said, Pam, we're gonna have to kill you. 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:14.320 For about forty five minutes. I was just about to 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:16.280 say that would probably mean she's dead. Huh. So the 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:20.720 procedure that she underwent was a hypothermic cardiac arrest, and 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:25.320 she was intentionally cardiac arrested, Um, by lowering your body 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.360 temperature to I think sixty degrees fahrenheit for for good 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:32.440 forty five minutes. Right, looks like flatlanders. It's very much 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:37.240 like talk. She'll see yes. Um, So Pam Reynolds is 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:40.280 dead for forty five minutes, and not like accidentally dead, 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:44.440 like she was purposefully killed by her physicians. Um. They 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.800 cut the top of her her head off, repaired the 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:50.840 brain aneurysm, so they're butchering her as well. Right, Yeah, 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:53.600 she's dead, what does she care? Uh? And then they 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.720 successfully bring her back and Pam Reynolds sits up after 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.440 she's recovering and says, hey, God, breath. Pretty crazy. I 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.840 saw my grandmother and my uncle, and there was a 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:07.440 tunnel with white light and all of these things that 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.760 have come to be recognized as aspects of a near 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:16.280 death experience. That's weird for one reason. One reason is 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:18.240 that there was no blood to her brain, therefore she 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:22.360 should not have had any sensory input reaction whatsoever. But 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.480 maybe it happened as it was draining. Now, who knows. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.480 Maybe weird thing number two. Weird thing number two. When 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:31.880 she came to she could describe the bon saw that 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:34.760 she never saw while she was alive that cut her 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.440 head open. She said that she she was surprised by 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:39.600 it because it looked more like an electric toothbrush than 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:44.040 what she was expecting. She never saw it at any point, um. 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.880 And she could also describe things like, oh, I don't know, 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.160 the surgeons shirt that he was wearing beneath his scrubs, 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.040 things like that that she should not have ever been 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:55.760 able to see. Um. She was not, as far as 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.080 I know, much of a believer in that kind of 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:03.840 thing until afterward. And her case is widely pointed to 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.799 as one of the best pieces of evidence that there 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.200 is such a thing as life after death. She had 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:13.840 like a classic near death experience. We could end it 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.640 right now, and I think people would be satisfied. Okay, 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:18.320 that was such a good story. Well I'm hungry, so 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.520 why don't we Okay, let's get a twinkie. Wow, that's 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:25.440 awesome and cool. Thanks, And that really happened. Oh yeah, 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.000 it definitely happens. She's still Pam Reynolds. She's very much 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.360 alive and UM apparently likes her experience. She had a 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.800 great experience. Um. She has at least one album she 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.720 released called The Side Effects of Death. Are you serious? Yeah? Yeah, 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.680 she's She seems like a pretty cool lady. Is she 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.160 still at Lantay now? I don't know. That would be 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:47.520 cool if we you know, I've had lunch with her something. Well, 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.000 if if she is and she's listening to an email, 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:51.480 we'll go have lunch because I would love to hear 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.720 that firsthand. That would be awesome. As a matter of fact, 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:55.680 I will pay for lunch out of my own pocket 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:59.880 for that one, which is really saying something that I know. 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.600 I O Jerry thirty five bucks first. Yeah, He's like, 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:06.120 pay me, then go eat your hot dog. Uh so, Josh. 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:10.280 The term near death experience coined in nineteen by Dr 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:14.360 Raymond Moody in his book Life After Life, very clever title, 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.320 it is very clever, Um and actually Moody you will 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.479 notice the doctor um, which makes him less of a 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:24.200 crack pot. Uh. And we'll find throughout this podcast that 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:28.800 there are some very smart, very educated, very um skeptical 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:33.280 people who are researching this. Yeah, this is not just 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:38.800 some fringe scientific idea or even just a fringe religious idea. 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:42.440 It's pretty much where religion and science converge. Yeah, I mean, 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:44.960 there's no doubt that there are near death experience is 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.600 what they are interpreted as and explained away as is 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.360 what differs. They definitely happened. The earliest description we have 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.599 of a near death experience comes from Plato's Republic, written 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:00.559 in A three sixty B c UM, which is BC 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:02.760 for those of you who are not hip to the 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.240 new abbreviation R. Do you know what BC stands for? 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:12.560 Before Christ existed, before Chuck existed, Before Chuck, I don't know. 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.760 Um No, before before the Common era, the Common era 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:18.760 Judaism and Christians. What's the other one, because you said 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:22.680 that one the end of the day, the Common Era CE, B, C, E, 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.520 and C. Right, Yeah, so with that out of the way, Yeah, 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:30.960 it's still Judeo Christian though, and it's uh oh it is, well, yeah, 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.159 before the Common era of Judaism and Christianity. Oh I 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.000 just thought they meant before Chuck existed. Okay, so anyway, 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.200 Plato describes the soldier named Er who was killed in 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.840 battle uh, and came back to life, but apparently left 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:47.159 his body and was judged before a panel of souls 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:50.279 and saw heaven, which will sound kind of familiar to 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:54.800 any fan of Albert Brooks. Yeah, was Defending Your Life 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:58.839 In Your Life arguably the greatest movie about the afterlife ever. Yeah. 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:00.599 I'm a big Albert Brooks fan. All Right, I'm not 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:02.920 a big fan, but that's what probably my top five 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.320 favorite movies. I like him. I think I'm down with 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.719 the neurotic uh, Woody Allen Albert Brooks types. I like 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:13.360 him more than Woody Allen. I'm a Woody not so Chuck. 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.839 Do you think we should talk about near death experiences? 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.440 Maybe we should talk about what is typical of an indie? Yeah. 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:22.480 And the thing that strikes me is, you know, it's 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:24.960 not that Um Grabanowski, who you know, is like the 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.919 sign of quality for an article. You see him byline, 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:31.039 you know it's worth reading, right, Um, Which is not 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:32.839 to say that there's an article on the site that's 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:34.800 not worth reading, now that I think about that, good point, 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:39.160 kiss up. Yeah, Um. But I think just anybody living 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.520 in the twenty one century has been so exposed to 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.159 the concept of near death experiences that like, all of 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.560 this will sound very familiar, but Chuck, yes, take it. 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.679 We'll go through these fairly quickly because there's a little list. 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:55.760 Feeling of calmness is one um intense pure bright light. 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.840 You always hear about the light go into the light. Uh, 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:04.719 and out of body experience. Ants. That's good. I think 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:09.000 it actually makes that sound upon re entry um entering 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:15.560 another realm or dimension. Spirit beings knees are beings of 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:20.000 light or other representations of spiritual entities. Already said, Okay, 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.920 the tunnel, which we always talk about, and the light 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:27.360 is typically at the end of the tunnel. Uh. Communication 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:34.600 with spirits it's usually a strong male voice, which is interesting. Uh. 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.920 And life review, which is also called a panoramic life 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:41.400 review check. And that is when you see your you 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:43.800 know you've heard of your life flash before your eyes. Right. 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:48.040 That's that. So those are the common hallmarks of an indie. 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.120 Right and UM. Most of the time, when you hear 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:55.160 somebody coming back to life after death, whether your physician 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.280 did it to you on purpose or accidentally, or somebody 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:02.040 hit you in the head with a ball peene hammer, Um, 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.680 most people say it was awesome, Like Jesus was there, 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:09.480 and so was my aunt and my dog and and everything. Yeah, 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:13.480 Elvis was there and it wasn't fat anymore. It was wonderful. Um. 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.520 But there is actually a segment of the population that 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:21.160 has experienced a near death experience that says, yeah, that 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.640 didn't happen to me. Actually, I had the exact opposite experience. 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:28.200 I went to Hell. Up up to one of people 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:29.720 in a poll that we're going to talk about, said 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.800 it's what I like to call a bad trip. Bad trip, indeed, 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.160 probably the worst trip of all time. We're talking biblical 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:41.319 descriptions of hell, lakes of fire, tormented souls, and oppressive heat. 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:45.400 And actually this was surprising to me. There was there 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.480 some people come back from experiences like that or even 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.840 good ones, with the prophetic vision a lot of times 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:54.640 that the world is going to end. And there was 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:56.840 a group of people who were unknown to each other 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.520 that came back, Um, I guess during the eighties and 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.880 said the world's gonna end in And they didn't know 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.280 one another, and they all had the same experience, which 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.400 is weird. The world obviously didn't end in night, but 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.040 so that means it's bunk. Not necessarily, what if a 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.480 portion of the world ended, a portion that we're not 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:18.640 really familiar with, or that we just didn't realize, Like 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.040 maybe humanity lost a little bit of its humanenus in 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.240 nineteen eighty eight and we just didn't recognize it as 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.199 the world ending. Or the aliens living inside the hollow 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.520 Earth maybe they all died or have you read um 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.679 what was it Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agents, never heard 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.120 of it. Douglas Adams, the guy who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.080 to the Galaxy. That he writes about this, uh, this 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:43.079 other dimensional group that are coming to take over Earth. 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:46.440 But somebody forgot to uh to carry like a zero 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:50.440 or something, and they when they teleported themselves to our dimension, 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.400 they showed up as very very tiny and we're inhaled 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.000 by a dog immediately. Really. Yeah, that dude's got a 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.000 great sense of humor. He's got a great one. I 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.960 always did what he lays down well said. So let's 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.160 get back to that pole that I referenced. Yeah, because 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:04.840 this is pretty interesting. This is one of the people 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.040 I was talking about. It's very smart and very educated 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.880 and very well known to George Gallop Jr. Right of 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:15.080 the pole. Gallops the gallop pole of the Coney Island Gallops. 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:20.079 He Uh and author William Proctor released a book called 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:24.280 Adventures and Immortality in two and that's pretty much the 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:28.440 most exhaustive polling research that's ever been done on indies. Yeah, 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:30.280 we have a rule of thumb here at how stuff 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.880 works dot com where if it studies a decade old 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.600 or more and a lot of us actually fudged towards 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:41.160 the other side eight nine years, it's probably out of date. 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:46.840 This this book is still cited. It was just like, 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.960 it's so exhaustive, it's so authority, it's the standard. Yeah, 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:52.960 very cool. I got some stats then from this pole. 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:57.319 Josh Chuck loves stats. They know that, Oh, somebody is 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:01.880 drinking right now in Korea, Richard go chuckers Hey Jerry. 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.679 Of all Americans who had been in near death situations 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.360 reported having a near death experience, and it's a lot. 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.840 That is a lot. Nine percent included the classic out 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:17.360 of body experience, and h eleven percent included entering a 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:20.680 realm or dimension a different one. An eight percent featured 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:25.240 the presence of spiritual beings. Pretty cool, and well yeah, 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:29.240 one percent reported bad trip. Basically that was the Gaol 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.680 but other smaller studies have reported up to a quarter 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.360 of people who have indes have, as Chuck puts it, 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.880 bad trips. Yeah. The other cool thing Josh about this 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:45.160 UH study is they indicated that one hundred near death 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:49.960 experience subjects revealed that prior religious belief and knowledge of 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.160 the near death experience did not really have any kind 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.920 of effect. So it wasn't like, oh, I'm really, um 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.920 super Christian and so I saw God right in St. Jr. 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.200 Home and St. Pete, or I'm really into near death 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.760 experiences so I saw one that kind of thing. Yeah. Um. 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:09.640 There's a guy named Kenneth Ring who's also a very 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:14.120 prolific researcher and author on near death experiences UM, and 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:19.520 he did a h he started to quantify UM what 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.040 was going on among populations that have experienced in these 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:27.440 right and he found that most people, a small percentage 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:31.760 again feel like fear, depression, that kind of thing afterwards. 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.880 But most people who undergo a near death experience UM 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:40.440 have a new renewed appreciation for life and living. They 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:44.200 feel that they are not no longer afraid of death UM, 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.000 and a lot of them become a lot more extroverted 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.520 or I should say most of them become extroverted. They're 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.679 basically changed by their experience UM and they are much 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:58.040 more spiritual. But interestingly, that doesn't he didn't see an 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.960 increase a positive correlation between that increased spirituality and increased 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.280 UM religiousness or increased church attendance. Right, it was like 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.400 an inward spirituality. Right. Did you ever see the movie Fearless? 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.720 Is that the Jeff Bridges plane crushed? Yeah? I heard 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.000 the movie poster though, Oh that's you know what I had? 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:19.000 That movie poster were so we were there to be chuck. 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:21.360 That is odd. It's a great movie. They just check 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.040 it out here. Jeff Bridges survives and he uh, it's 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:26.680 the only movie I know of that it goes through 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.800 all the classic UM in a realistic way. It goes 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:34.360 through the classic post near death experience UM trials and tribulations. See. 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.600 Knowing me, I would have just crippling survivors guilt for 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:39.319 the rest of my life the way he had that. 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.360 And he also had the invincibility that they talked about too, 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:47.840 like the shield of invincibility, cloak of invincibility literally, but yeah, 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.040 I felt like I can't die. Oh oh yeah, I 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.520 remember he's like on a ledge or something at one 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.520 point where I'm totally who cares? You noticed he didn't 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.160 jump though, of course anyone can stand on a ledge. 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:02.080 That's not gonna kill you. That's like the Bill routine. Okay, 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.920 So Bill Hicks is talking about people taking drugs like 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.800 PCP or whatever and flying on or you know, jumping 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.560 off a buildings thinking they can fly, And Bill Hicks 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:13.320 is like, if you think you can fly, why don't 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.439 you just try taking off from the ground, Right, that's 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:18.920 a good sharp guy. That's funny you mentioned that. Actually, 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:24.200 it's exactly, isn't it. This PCP and uh, what's that? Yeah, 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:30.120 that's right, are believed to give similar feelings as near 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.880 death experiences, Is that right? Uh? Yeah, Actually, supposedly you 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.880 can a lot of people feel like they're actually dying 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.440 when they're in the grips of a trip on PCP 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.880 or ketamine. And actually also, um, there's a lot of 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:47.400 similar near death experiences, like, uh, people have reported being 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.560 on ketamine and feeling like they're spinning around and attracting 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:55.120 light beings like we mentioned earlier. Yeah, um, and and 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.520 so there's some real similarities, especially with ketamine and near 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.080 death experiences, which is really really odd, but that kind 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:07.600 of undermines the spiritual theory of near death experiences and 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:10.720 in in supports the scientific theories about it. Right, let's 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.160 talk about those. Okay. What we're talking about with the 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.040 spiritual is more like a supernatural explanation, is that you're 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.200 talking about? Yeah, that you And I hate to put 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:21.120 it like this because I don't think that. I think 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:23.600 supernatural kind of undermines it. It makes it sound cookie, 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.200 but um, that I guess the supernatural explanation is that 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.760 you possess a soul that lives on after your your 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:34.240 body dies and your passion, it goes onto another dimension 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:39.400 and just things that science can't or possibly can't yet explain, 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:44.880 which makes them supernatural rather than natural. Supernatural actually should 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:50.200 be a good word. Yeah, it's a great word as Um. Yeah, 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:52.400 I mean essentially passing on to the afterlife, or in 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.880 the case of reincarnation, may be passing from one life 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:58.200 to another, that kind of thing. Right, So that's the 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:05.440 spiritual supernatural reasoning. And then there's science. Are we there yet? Yeah, 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:10.320 we were there a while back. Science, there's a few 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.120 theories going on that. Um, it's really a lot of 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.560 stuff happening in the brain. Well, you can't say theories. 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:18.920 These are hypotheses, because Chuck, why does it say scientific theories? 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:25.040 Then the grapster was himself overworked that week. But um no, 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.880 these are hypotheses because you can't test them. You can't 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.840 kill somebody to see what happens to him, like flatliners exactly. 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:34.520 I mean you can, but then you end up as 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:37.880 Kevin Bacon found in Big Trouble. Yeah, what did he had? 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:39.960 The kids that he teased were after him or something? 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:43.960 Or was that the mouth breather, No, the mouth breather, 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:46.280 I don't remember what happened. He had the little girl 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:49.320 in the subway train that was after him, the mouth 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:53.120 breather and Kevin Bacon. No, no no, no, Kevin Bacon had 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.560 the girl in the subway, and the mouth breather was 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:57.120 the one who teased the kid up in the tree 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:00.680 that fell, that's right. And Julia Roberts had cookie Dad 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:04.480 and William Baldwin, Oh yeah, she not the cookie dad, 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.080 the junkie the junkie dad. And then I don't think 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.560 Oliver Platte everyone under Diddy he was kind of with. 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.320 And then William Baldwin's all involved ex Girl Friends, which 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.200 I thought was pretty silly. Yeah, that's a good movie though. 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:21.000 Yeah it hasn't aged well, oh no, I haven't seen it. Uh, 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.199 not bad though. So medical science, Yeah, they say that 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:29.439 the brain is um perhaps getting the senses confused, and 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:33.000 your brain starts malfunctioning to the point where you see 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.639 these uh see the lights as your brain is shutting 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.359 down that kind of thing. Your visual cortex creates that 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.200 image and it's it's all easily explained. Right. So I'm 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.639 looking at you right now, Chuck, and you are really 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:46.439 just a cluster of light and shadows that forms of 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:50.960 shape which I'm receiving through my retinas, that are basically 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.240 being transformed into electrical impulses that go to the visual 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.919 cortex in my brain, which takes them compiles them into 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:02.359 what I'm seeing as you, Chuck sitting there right What 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.480 happens if that part of my brain is malfunctioning. I 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:09.720 still am getting uh, sensory input through my eyes, but 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:11.760 my brain is no longer making sense of it. So 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:16.520 maybe it turns into what's called neural noise. My brain 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:18.840 still is struggling to make sense of it, Like that's 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:22.240 what our brains do. Remember the podcast on dreaming, there's 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.240 a dreaming that we um our brains want to make 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:27.840 sense of things no matter what, and that's possibly what 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.400 dreams are. Right. It's almost like the brain is still 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:33.720 just struggling. It's like a fish flopping in a boat 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.200 at this point. It's it's, you know, not really doing 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.439 what it wants to, but it it's still wants to 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:44.760 do what it needs to write, wasn't it. Uh So, 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.440 so the brain is taking all this information, but it's 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:50.040 miscategorizing it whatever. So all of a sudden, there's a 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.240 bright white light, or there's a tunnel, or there's a 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:56.680 being there. Um. And it's also possible that it takes 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:59.040 all this information and it's jumbled, but it's not until 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.360 after we wake up and our conscious memory is active 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.399 that it's sorting it into those memories, these false memories 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.159 or whatever. And the other thing too, your brain, uh, 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.240 your your spatial sense is prone to malfunction when you 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.359 have in your death experience and that could explain potentially 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.400 the outer body experience when you feel yourself floating around 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:20.680 the room looking down at your own body. That kind 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:24.399 of thing, right, and that um calm sensation and being 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:27.359 at peace. It's possible that um, these are it's the 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:31.000 result of endorphins flooding our brain, which has been shown 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.639 to they've been really they are released during times of 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.440 like trauma and extreme stress as a coping mechanism. Like apparently, 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.399 if you're drowning, right before you drown, you've just become 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.840 euphoric because your brain just floods itself with endorphins right 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.919 before you die. So we know that that's a pretty 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.560 good possibility to write. And uh, I think they've explained 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:54.840 or tried to explain the meeting with God that kind 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.359 of thing as basically a combination of a bunch of things, 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.280 maybe the sensory and put combined with a lack of 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.440 oxygen to your brain and the endorphins and they all 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:12.280 getting mixed up together to create a really realistic Yeah, So, Chuck, 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.440 this is um as far as near death experiences go. 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:20.800 There's so much evidence, and we have such a little 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:23.880 grasp on the brain. It seems like the scientific theories 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.720 are reasonable in some cases. And I'm like, there's a 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:30.240 line that grab Anowski throws out there. He's like, but 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.400 what about you know, people who like Pam Reynolds who 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.600 describe what's going on while they're actually dead. Sure, He's like, 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:41.160 it's possible the brain is still getting sensory input. He goes, 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.560 whether you think that that's more irrational of an explanation 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:48.000 than the person's soul actually left the body. As a 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.000 matter of opinion, I thought he did a good job 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.880 with that too, because there's no definite answer and there 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.480 probably won't be. Well, I can't say that, but who knows. Well. 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:57.119 I think a lot of scientists think that they have 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.359 found definitive answers that the brain is just screwed up 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:01.320 right there. But I think this is one of those cases. 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:03.800 And I don't think it's this is true in every case, 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:06.359 but this is one of those cases where science might 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:08.680 be able to explain the how, but not the why. 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:12.040 Like if we do undergo some sort of transformation or 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:15.880 transition after death, wouldn't it be based on the chemical 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.840 composition of our brains? Like, wouldn't that be the way 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.760 we were most easily manipulated? I think, so, yeah, that's 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:27.280 where I parked my car. Well, thanks for parking your Carlo, Chuck, 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:30.119 that's a good one. Maybe we should kill each other tonight, 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.520 like choke each other out until we're at the brink 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:35.359 and then like slap each other in the face and 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:38.359 see what happens. Um, why don't we not do it 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:40.840 at the same time. You go first, I'll put a 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:42.920 belt around your neck and tie you to a piece 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:46.000 of exercise equipment, and I'll just stand there because I 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:47.679 think one of us needs to be alive while the 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.160 other one's under Yes, and we are not condoning this 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:52.600 because that is very dangerous to do and you should 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:56.920 not try something like that. Agreed. Agreed, we're trained professionals. Agreed. 0:21:57.600 --> 0:21:59.720 If you want to learn more about near death experiences, 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:03.400 there's actually um some pretty good articles. There's a Grabbinowski's. 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.840 I wrote one on has science explained life after death? 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.600 And uh, the former writer Jacob Silverman wrote one on 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:14.520 out of body experiences. Uh. You can type in near 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:16.199 death and I think it should bring all three of 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:18.639 those up. Type those in the handy search bar at 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:21.520 how stuff works dot com, which means it's time for 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:27.480 a listener mail. I'm gonna call this, um a pretty 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.480 amazing medical story, more amazing than what we were just 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.119 talking about. Well, I don't know. And also check we 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:36.159 should probably give a shout out to that listener. Remember 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:38.800 he wrote in about his dad dying and he found 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:41.560 out there were those cards on on the high shelf 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:43.680 that you could only see if you were floating at 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:47.760