Found this, very interesting ..thought others might enjoy..


Has Science Explained Life After Death?
by Josh Clark
source;howstuffworks.com

In 1991, Atlanta, Ga. resident Pam Reynolds had a near-death experience (NDE). Reynolds underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm, and the procedure required doctors to drain all the blood from her brain. Reynolds was kept literally brain-dead by the surgical team for a full 45 minutes. Despite being clinically dead, when Reynolds was resuscitated, she described some amazing things. She recounted experiences she had while dead -- like interacting with deceased relatives. Even more amazing is that Reynolds was able to describe aspects of the surgical procedure, down to the bone saw that was used to remove part of her skull [source: Parker].
Near-death experiences
­Courtesy StockXchng­
It is estimated that as many as 18 percent of people who have been resuscitated after cardiac arrest have reported a near-death experience.

What's remarkable (although not unique) about Reynolds' experience is that it is the combination of an NDE and an out-of-body-experience (OBE). HowStuffWorks has braved this territory on the edge of reality, explaining how near-death experiences work and how a person can have an out-of-body experience. Science, too, has made its own headway toward explaining these weird phenomena. Two studies on the separate aspects of Reynolds' experience were conducted in 2007. Each seems to explain how a person can have an OBE or a NDE, but do they hold up in explaining experiences like Reynolds'? ­­

As many as 18 percent of people brought back from death after a heart attack said they'd had a NDE [source: Time]. While many religious adherents might not be surprised by these accounts, the idea that human consciousness and the body exist distinctly from each other flies in the face of science. A brain-dead person should not be able to form new memories -- he shouldn't have any consciousness at all, really. So how can anything but a metaphysical explanation cover NDEs?

A study from the University of Kentucky has quickly gained ground among scientists as possibly the best explanation for NDEs. Researchers there theorize that the mysterious phenomenon is really an instance of the sleep disorder rapid eye movement (REM) intrusion. In this disorder, a person's mind can wake up before his body, and hallucinations and the feeling of being physically detached from his body can occur.

The Kentucky researchers believe that NDEs are actually REM intrusions triggered in the brain by traumatic events like cardiac arrest. If this is true, then this means the experiences of some people following near-death are confusion from suddenly and unexpectedly entering a dream-like state.

This theory helps explain what has always been a tantalizing aspect of the mystery of NDEs: how people can experience sights and sounds after confirmed brain death. The area where REM intrusion is triggered is found in the brain stem -- the region that controls the most basic functions of the body -- and it can operate virtually independent from the higher brain. So even after the higher regions of the brain are dead, the brain stem can conceivably continue to function, and REM intrusion could still occur [source: BBC].

This sounds like a good explanation for NDEs, but what about OBEs? Are they the same thing?

NDEs and OBEs: Distinct or the Same?
While the REM intrusion theory for near-death experiences explains the apparent hallucinations that accompany NDEs, another aspect remains a mystery. How can a person watch his body after he dies? Though out-of-body experiences are sometimes reported as part of the near-death experience, they can also stand alone, indicating that they are a different animal than NDEs.

Research shows that different parts of the brain are most likely responsible for out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences.
This is supported by a bit of accidental research. To find the cause of a 43-year-old epileptic patient's seizures, Swiss neurologist Dr. Olaf Blanke conducted a brain mapping test using electrodes planted on the brain to determine which area controls what function. As one region was being stimulated, the woman had a sudden out-of-body experience. She told Blanke that she could see herself from above [source: New York Times].

Blanke determined that by electrically stimulating the woman's angular gyrus, a part of the temporal parietal junction, he could induce her OBEs. What's remarkable is that the patient experienced an OBE each time her angular gyrus was arbitrarily stimulated.

At any given time, the brain is assaulted with information. As a result, we become desensitized to the sights and sounds around us, such as the buzz of a fluorescent light. The temporal parietal junction (TPJ) is responsible for sorting through this disparate information and putting it together into a coherent package.

The TPJ also happens to be the region that controls our comprehension of our own body and its situation in space. Blanke believes that a misfiring of this region is responsible for OBEs. If any of the information being sorted by the temporal parietal junction becomes crossed, like where we are in space, then we could seemingly be released from the confines of our body -- even if only for a moment.

Both Blanke's and the University of Kentucky theories explain OBEs and NDEs. But what about when you put the two together as an explanation for experiences like that of Pam Reynolds? This still does not resolve how Pam Reynolds and others like her view themselves outside of their bodies while they were brain-dead.

NDEs may be a result of REM intrusion, triggered in the brain stem. But OBEs are controlled by a region of the higher brain, which is clinically dead when NDEs occur. What's more, it seems logical to believe that the higher brain must still function in order to interpret the sensations produced by the REM intrusion triggered in the brain stem.

Even though combining the University of Kentucky and Blanke theories does not produce an explanation for NDEs, it does not mean that either theory is wrong. Research in one area often leads to a breakthrough in another. Perhaps we will find out that an organic function is indeed behind NDEs.

If neurology does come up with the definitive explanation for NDEs, the mystery may still remain. Science could explain the "how," while leaving the "why" unanswered. Discovering an explanation for NDEs may reveal a door to the metaphysical world, which could possibly be unlocked -- and explored -- by science.

As physician Dr. Melvin Morse wrote, "Simply because religious experiences are brain-based does not automatically lessen or demean their spiritual significance. Indeed, the findings of neurological substrates to religious experiences can be argued to provide evidence for their objective reality"


<I apoligize for the lenth of this article, if it is too much I will delete...
I think you have to be a member to enter site.. or the Link will not take you there >

Neat article lol, The brain's the most amazing part of the human body and it's so advanced we barely even understand it operate on it, If we knew how brains worked fully then psychiatrists and psychologists would have solutions to nearly all our problems and most of the time all they do is just give us ideas but we create the solutions, and that thing that said that the brain woke up before the body.. Hmmm.. didn't they say they had to drain the blood out? of the brain? Hmm.. and the body fell asleep? for 45 mins? that's like killing a person and reviving him-her like in themovie "flat-liners" .. kinda confusing stuff but I'm no doctor yet =D

I believe when this person was put out for 45 minutes she did go through a death like experience and as such her spirit got out of her body the way others have said who had a near death experience and they interact with the Spirits of their dead relatives then at some pointin time the Spirit goes back and reenters the body.

I am commenting also because its much like what I have been writing about when a Spirit Dies the Spirit with all its intelligence, feelings and memories gets out of the body and goes to live in the Spirit World and at that point time their spirit cannot reenter the body because the body is so badly damaged from an accident or its made too unhealthy to renter the body due to old age and disease and the Spirit has to then accept its death and go to the Spirit World.

I know these things because I too have had a near death out of body experience back in the seventies and now I also know more because the Spirits I am in communication with in the Spirit World have told me these things hoping I can use the Knowledge I have to not only teach others who read my writing but perhaps I can help scientests figure out some of these things that they are still searching for the answers to.

These are things I know and I am here to share my knowledge and hopefully help everyone who has an interest in furthering Paranormal Research and also to help them find more scientific answers to these questions.

the reasoning in relation to NDE seems logical and i tend to agree with the theory that there is a certain scientific explanation of the phenomenon...well, REM is a fascinating stage of sleep itself and its function is still not well understood, but both issues oscillate around the same matter of a vivid dream and can be reduced to a common denominator
still the explanation of OBE is far from reaching the gist of the matter...in my opinion our brain doesn't need such invasive stimulation in order to trigger out-of-body experience, there must be a more subtle impulse that makes one undergo OBE in the state of being half-awake, half-asleep, or that lets a Yogi induce it on request during a meditation

I believe what some call out of body experiences is what I call Astral Projection.

When you do Astral Projection you can project your thinking out of your body and be up in the Air looking down at Earth flying along the river and things like that and that is something I do all the time, but when I am doing this its not the same as what Researchers are calling OBS usually that takes place in near death situations where the body is near death and the Spirit gets out of the body and while in the Spirit World they can interact with the Spirits of deceased Relatives and others, but there is a Higher Power in the Universe who controls death situations like this and he knows when its not that Persons time to go so he directs them to get back into the body and they recover.

Now taking this one step further and the information I get from the Higher Power about Walk-in's if he directs the Spirit to get back into the Injured body and they refuse and he wants to keep the body alive he brings in a Spirit from the Higher Realms of the Spirit World and puts them back into the body and they remain on Earth to work with the Guides and I am told this is what happened to me in the Seventies when I had a near death experience and the spirit left the body and wouldn't come back and they sent a Spirit back to walk the Earth in this body and I had no memory of this until Jesus appeared to me in l986 and told me that I am a Walk-In and I am here to work with he and other Guides to help them believe in Life after Death.

Spiritual Writer Ruth Montgomery who writes with her guides Thomas and Lily has written about Walk-In's in a book she titled: "Strangers Among Us"

NDE. I never had one. I often have "sleep paralysis". It's a state in which I think I am awake but I'm still physically asleep. The mind is ready to start the day, the body isn't. Most of the time I am aware of being in bed and not being able to move with the feeling that something terrible is entering the room. But sometimes I am at ease and walk or fly around the house (always with my head close to the ceiling). I see everything as it is. Mind you I have never seen myself lying in bed (so not really an OBE). I try to turn on lights which doesn't work ofcourse.. The funny thing is, I want to turn on those lights to prove to myself that I am not dreaming... The difference with normal dreams is that the rooms look exactly the same. In a normal dream familiar places always look different. During my teens I saw a dark figure standing at the end of my bed. My bedroom was the same, the figure just didn't fit in. It often feels like a vivid mind with dream-images coming through. I never leave trhe house though. When I'm paralysed in bed I always struggle to get awake (for some reason falling asleep again is never an option), I try to scream and move and then slowly I wake up sometimes with the help of my friend who is wakened up by me moving. I am convinced that the neurons in my brain allow me to have these experiences. Maybe something goes wrong with my REM, according to science. Over the years I have accepted the event and I don't really feel it to be wrong now.

Sleep paralysis has been explained by science as far as I know. It occurs in many cultures and many times it comes with a feeling of fear. My own experiences with it have shown me that the mind can do so much more than modern day science knows and understands. Reading about it has reduced my feelings of fear somewhat and I am more able to react and enjoy in a relaxed state of mind when it happens.

The brain is very interesting and very complicated. I truly believe that a lot can be explained by science and that many "paranormal" things are a result of the workings of the neurons in our brain. But my own experiences with sleep paralysis made me believe that I am more than just a product of neurons and chemicals.

This is a wonderful article and I believe it should be read by anyone who is seeking information into the Paranormal and Life After Death.

Wont that contradict your beliefs, rosemary? If obes and ndes are just because of the brain getting spacially disoriented, doesnt it mean that those guys do not actually come back from a trip to 'spirit world'. ?

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying.

I personally know that Spirits live in the Spirit World and I also believe when people are injured they have out of body experiences and visit the spirit world then come back and get back into their bodies.

I am very interested in the Doctors studying these out of body experiences and also the psychiatrists who believe that Multiple Personalities are caused by multiple Spirits of the Dead inside that persons body causing he or she to display multiple personalties.

Those Psychiatrists who believe this are now dealing with their patients by performing exorcisms and trying to drive the possessing spirits out of the body.

I visited a website of such a psychiatrist but now don't recall his name but he says because of the things he believed some of his coworkers shunned him and thought he was practicing strange medicine but still he pursues these ideas and I believe he is on the right track and I believe in the future more doctors and Scientists will believe in these things.

[font="Comic Sans MS"][/font][color="#9932CC"][/color]I have not had a NDE, but i do believe that it is possible. I am a faithful Christian, but there are some things that cannot be explained. I will never believe in anything scientists say about anything. They always try to come up with a explanation for everything. Well sometimes there is no explanation.

Trina

I am trying to handle my writing in more of a scientific and exploring the Universe kind of way and not actually take on anyones religious beliefs but just write about what I am learning by communicating with the various minds I am dealing with in the Universe.

I have googled some sites on the Internet and I see there are many trained Medical Doctors and even Psychiatrists who are dealing with their patients and some of the things they tell them about dreams, and multiple personalities and out of body experiences and they are now more open to the possiblities of proving life after death and the Spirits Worlds ability to interact with humans back on Earth.

I know from my experiences that I am interacting with realtives and others I knew when they walked the earth and I am dealing with their behavior both good and bad and I am dealing with a source in the Spirit World who can look into the past and the future and he shows how people behave through reincarnation in many lifetimes, and he shows me how their behavior in the spirit world affects who they are in another lifetime and what kind of life they will have by putting them back in various families to try to work things out.

This source I know as the Akaskic Records I am also told is the Soul Records and he has shown me many peoples various lifetimes in a technicolor like movie and he says on that record is everything both good and bad that any of us has done in each lifetime from birth til death.

Now this has brought me to all the things I and others have been taught in school and church and by our parents and others and I can tell you I now have a few problems with believing everything that I have been taught and that is simply because the scribes who wrote the bible were humans who lived in that lifetime and they were channelling for Spirits in the After Life just as I and Jesus and Joan of Arc and other Psychics too numerous to mention have done and we all know that God did not have the power to save his channels like Joan of Arc and Jesus and the other psychics who have been killed by nonbelievers down through the ages but I know he does have great power and a vast reservoir of knowledge which he is channelling through me and others which I in turn am writing about.

The source I speak of can predict earthquakes and tidal waves and even death and these things always come to pass and I am trying to use the knowledge I am receiving about everything from anyone in the Universe to help further paranormal research.

I personally believe everyone should keep all the good things they believe and if they are interested in learning more the way I and others are trying to do then they can develop their own Psychic abilities which I believe all have and seek out the truths on their own which can be share with the world.

I have for example talked to preachers who believe that people die and are buried and one day Jesus is going to return to earth and go to their graves and say rise my children and they are going to rise up out of the grave and follow him.

I know personally that isn't true because when the human body dies from natural causes or an accident the spirit leaves the human body and takes with it to the Spirit World all its intelligence, and memories and the body goes to the grave and that dead empty body is like a discarded soda pop bottle which in recycled and if its not encased in those cement boxes they put into graves now the body would decompose and return to dust as the bible teaches and return to the soil and be plowed under and nourish the soil just as all chemical substances does that we plow back under.

We encase the dead body in cement to keep down disease and one day as world weather clamities come about and the ground upheaves we are going to in the future be having a problem with all those cement vaults that are cluttering the landscape and that could become a major problem when explorers of the future open up some of those cement vaults and carry the skeletins around like they have poor King Tutt where they now have him on display in museums.
This is why I have personally decided to be creamated so I don't have to look down from the Spirit World one day and see myself displayed in a Museum where they are charging people to come and take a look at my bones and hear people commenting on how well I have or have not been Preserved.

What I meant is, this particular article gives a possible scientific explanation of
NDEs and OBEs. If true, it will disprove all theories about people going to any spirit
world and communicating with dead relatives. Your theories...in other words.

And yes Trina, there may be some things that don't have an explanation, in the conventional
sense, at least. But it wont hurt to keep an open mind on any possible theories that
scientists may come up with, would it?

One really has nothing to do with the other.
We can have OBEs and NDES and return and live until we die then upon death the Spirit again leaves the dead body and goes to live in the Spirit World.
When it leaves the dead body it leaves much like it does during the NDEs and OBEs experiences but this time there is no body to return to live in.

i think you should all read up on the string theory as this is a scientific theory which compliments a spiritual one. But yet again at the moment this is all just theories.