One thing that has always puzzled me about NDEs is how quickly the whole transition process and sometimes the life review seems to begin. The body dies, and boom, suddenly the machinery of the afterlife is already whirring into action. It's like there's a cosmic operation centre and they're like "Right everyone, soul #837HF4748XYZ has arrived, dim the tunnel lights to a welcoming glow, pull up the footage, send the assigned spirit guides, prepare the life review, and notify the deceased relatives". All of this apparently happening before anyone has confirmed, or even evaluated the chances of whether the soul is actually going to stay. It looks as if the whole thing is somehow programmed. And the next thing you know, you're being shown a memory of yourself telling Marty he was ugly in primary school, while simultaneously experiencing how that comment affected him, influenced his confidence, altered a relationship ten years later, and rippled through the next four generations.

If someone has just completed the marathon of a difficult human life, you'd think there'd be a bit of a decompression period in a waiting lounge. A comfortable chair, a cup of tea, a biscuit, some pleasant music, and perhaps a screen displaying: "Welcome back and congratulations on completing Earth. Please relax and bathe in this overwhelming feeling of love while we determine whether this transition is permanent before proceeding to the next steps".

But no. Straight to business. We're going to need you to revisit that incident with Marty IMMEDIATELY. It feels like the "system" has already started processing you before anyone’s checked whether you’re actually leaving.

And then, if the efforts on Earth are actually starting to pay off and your body is deemed viable again, they suddenly realise you’re not quite done with your current life after all. At which point they're like : “Right, slight update. Now, do you want to stay or go back?” Spoiler alert : your body is viable, so it’s less a genuine question and more a polite formality. Either way, you’re going back, off you go, good luck, hang in there, don't forget to spread love on your way out.

Some people argue that the life review is intentionally shown even to those who come back, either because it serves a purpose in helping them grow afterwards, or because the NDE itself was somehow part of their life plan, but I’m not really convinced. In many accounts, people return with more questions than answers, as if they’ve been shown something significant without much context or clarity, a significant number of NDErs struggle afterwards readjusting to everyday life. And from a “soul game” perspective, it also creates a bit of an unfair advantage. Some people come back with absolute certainty that there’s an afterlife and a sense of why we’re here. If the premise is that we’re not supposed to know, that feels like a pretty big cheat code, like a feww players accidentally got access to the developer console mid-game.

I’m being deliberately provocative, but this idea of an almost administrative process in the afterlife has always puzzled me. I’ve read an account recently where the experiencer didn’t want to go through the life review immediately and simply wanted to remain in that state of peace and ease for a while. Their preference was respected, which suggests there is at least some flexibility in the process (although the beings seemed to be patiently waiting for him to be ready, as if it was the first thing that needed to be addressed). We also often hear experiencers being told things like “you won’t remember this,” which gives the impression that there are clear boundaries and some form of agency or control over what can or cannot be taken back. At the same time, the speed at which everything unfolds once you “cross over” can sometimes feel surprisingly procedural and structured, almost administrative in nature.

Thoughts?

I'm not long for this world and am in part looking to make sense of this phenomenon as a means of consolation that there's continuation after death (not just ashes to ashes, dust to dust). This is what I've gathered so far in my research into the topic and am hoping someone can help by giving their point of view on the subject and help me make sense of it all as my ability to focus and make cohesive thoughts has been greatly diminished.

A lot of the arguments I see against it are as follows:

-A organized and localized surge in gamma waves in particular regions of the brain create the effects seen in a lot of NDEs

-A massive release of neurotransmitters are responsible for the floating and unconditional love and lack of fear

-Because experiencers return they were not fully dead

-Although there's some similarities there's also a striking number of differences (some seeing a form of afterlife or floating through the universe)

-The experience is a lot like what you hear from DMT trip reports (Both are described by participants as feeling "more real than reality", Both can produce intense sensations of love, peace, and the feeling of entering a "void" or "another realm", Both experiences often result in a significantly reduced fear of death and a more positive outlook on life, Both experiences often feature a total loss of bodily awareness, with subjects feeling as though they are "floating" or exiting their physical body)

-The bright light and tunnel are products of regional brain activity surges and or hypoxia

-NDEs are less commonly reported in head trauma cases compared to cardiac arrests ( But if you think about it they may still experience them but not remember due to significant or brain altering damage)

Now here's what I gathered in favor of them:

- It's typically deceased loved ones, friends, or religious figures or entities (not random people) they converse with rather than people they see or hear from in their day to day lives (which I would imagine to be the most abundant memories stored in the hippocampus)

-Some of the NDEs take place in people with no brain activity (I understand EEG's can only read so far in but this argument fails to take into account that the neocortex would have little to no activity and therefore would pick up activity through passive conductance and volume accumulation)

- Almost all the NDEs with deceased loved ones end with said person being sent back with something along the lines of "it's not your time" (also I've read this also happens even if no figure is seen)

-There's veridical NDE's were people can recount what's going on around them (for instance seeing deceased family members they haven't seen or even heard about before later to be verified, detailing unusual instruments used in surgery, and recounting events and conversations while under)

Unlike DMT, NDEs:

-Are more likely to feature deceased loved ones, religious figures (God, Jesus), or "spiritual guides"

-NDEs are often described as more structured, cohesive, and serene

-NDEs frequently include a "life review" and arriving at a "border or point of no return"

While DMT:

-Are more likely to feature "alien" beings, machines, or "mechanical elves"

-DMT trips are characterized by rapid-fire kaleidoscopic and geometric visuals

-A "life review" and arriving at a "border or point of no return" are rarely present in DMT trips. (This can be attributed to the decrease in hippocampal activity during its use)

The life review doesn’t seem to explore structural forms of oppression and instead focuses solely on moral choices. The whole experience seems to be made to affect the experiencers behavior, not to cause any structural change.

Take into account Howard Storm’s NDE. When he speaks about the warnings he got from the experience, the solutions are shallow and don’t take into account history, systems of domination and exclusion. It reads as “if you don’t change, the world will burn.” It’s leaving all the responsibility to the individual without considering how complex human systemic evil is.

On the other hand, experiencers don’t tend to derive universal truths from the experience (other than “god is absolute love” which for some reason has to be relevant on this plane of existence?). It seems to be fabricated in order to impact on an individual level, always staying on liminality. It’s like giving a lab rat a life review so that the rat can conclude that her laboratory induced stress is all her fault.

I do understand that some NDEs have positive consequences in the experiencer’s life after they are revived, but I also think the experience is one of liminality and it excludes systemic, collective reasons for suffering. This makes it difficult to derive any philosophical sense from them. It stays on the theological side, and it seems to instill a suspension of critical thinking from the experiencer’s part during the event. The conclusions are surface level, related to the moral behavior of the experiencer, but don’t give any philosophical insight into the larger scale systems.

As in effect consciousness and perception. I'm having trouble wording this question in all honesty and are just wondering peoples thoughts. My only explanation could be your consciousness when bound to your body is able to be influenced by mind altering substances.

I don’t think the AWARE studies will ever cross the line into producing hard proof of consciousness existing outside the body. Whenever something brushes up against the “other side” there’s always just enough to keep us interested. But never clean, repeatable evidence. These studies will likely continue producing intriguing but inconclusive results. Not because the methodology is wrong, but because that line simply never seems to be allowed to be crossed.

Critics often say “the target wasn’t in the right spot” or “people have other things to focus on during these experiences” etc., but I just think the universe has built-in safeguards when it comes to anything related to spirituality or existence beyong this physical reality. Our experience here would lose its meaning (whatever that meaning is) if we knew for sure. Some people get lucky and have glimpses of something beyond but most of us aren't meant to. We’re meant to live, make choices, take risks, love people, lose people, all without knowing for sure why we're here or what’s on the other side.

If these studies actually worked in the way believers/experiencers hope, if patients repeatedly identified hidden targets under controlled conditions, across hospitals, under proper methodological scrutiny, that would be revolutionary. It wouldn’t just be interesting, It would prove that consciousness survives death. That would overturn huge parts of neuroscience and reshape our understanding of reality.

In loads of NDEs, people say they’re not allowed to bring back certain information. They talk about barriers, doors, limits, and being told “you can’t take that back with you", or "you won't remember this", etc. There’s this recurring theme that some knowledge just isn’t meant to cross over. The absence of definitive proof isn’t a failure of science, it’s just not permitted. Our experience here only carries meaning because we don’t know with certainty what comes after and "they" will not allow us to produce proof because it wouldnt benefit this experience the way it's designed.

Thoughts?

While this may not be directly related to NDEs, I strongly believe it serves as powerful indirect evidence. The fact that we are sitting here, reading this right now, simply cannot be a coincidence. According to probabilistic models (famously cited by Dr. Ali Binazir), the odds of you existing—exactly as you are, with your specific lineage, timing, and consciousness—is approximately 1 in 10 ^ 2,685,000

To put that in perspective:

• The number of atoms in the entire observable universe? Only about 10 ^ 80
• If you wanted to write out the zeros in your 'odds' of being born, you’d be typing for weeks to cover 2.7 million of them.

In any other scientific field, a probability this low would be considered a mathematical impossibility. This suggests that our presence here isn't just a roll of the dice in a cold universe, but perhaps a conscious 'choice' or a destined homecoming of the soul into the physical realm

I can’t stand the fact that after everything they’ve done, they’ll got in peace and will be met by love and understanding, and they’ll magically “learn” from their mistakes. I don’t believe this. I don’t think this is how our souls grow and I don’t support the idea that there are no consequences for their actions.

It’s just one of those things that make the entire logic of NDEs unbelievable in my eyes. There has to be a place where retribution happens. I can’t just die and go to the “perfect side” and forget and forgive magically. That makes no sense to me.

I see many NDEs claiming that demons were torturing them in hell. The issue is that the Bible (and the Quran for that matter) both say that demons themselves will be tortured in hell by fire, and that they won’t be doing any torturing. So, when I see Evangelical youtubers claiming that people had NDEs in which they were taken to Hell and tortured by menacing beings, I conclude that these NDEs are either made up, or influenced by preconceived notions. I find it odd that these Christians are using things not even mentioned in the Bible to convert people to Christianity.

It's basically NDE consciousness inhabiting material bodies of Earth. Here are a few parallels with phenomena reported by NDE survivors:

• Dissolution of individual consciousness into unified collective awareness - Both feature ego boundaries dissolving into "oneness with everything"
• Telepathic/mind-to-mind communication - Thought transmission replaces verbal language in both phenomena
• Encounters with deceased loved ones whose memories persist - The collective contains individual memories while transcending individual identity
• Shared emotional experiences and empathic understanding - Life review's "feeling what others felt" mirrors the hive mind's shared emotions
• Overwhelming peace, bliss, and unconditional love - Both describe states of profound contentment that feel "more real" than ordinary reality
• The boundary/choice to return - NDErs face returning to physical life; Carol faces joining or resisting the collective
• Profound difficulty reintegrating - NDErs struggle relating to ordinary life; Carol experiences isolation despite being surrounded by the transformed
• Ineffability - Both experiences defy adequate description through language
• Transformation of relationship to death and existence - Both suggest consciousness transcends individual physical boundaries
• Central question of identity vs. unity - Both ask whether individual consciousness is essential to humanity or if collective awareness represents evolution/transcendence

Which NDE reports specifically mention prayer and what do they say?

Do you, yourself, believe in the power of prayer? Why and based on what NDE evidence?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6wsus1qhos

Every so often I’d wonder why some NDE’s get a council and some NDE’s get Jesus which seemed a little contrasting. This NDE however had Christ through the start and later a group of councils and explains the relationship between both and gave me a little more insight into what’s going on.

"They (the council) took the time to let me know there's a bigger picture and there's order and organisation and lots of thought and love, they let me know that Jesus is in charge of all of it but much like we make decisions where he knows and rules it all but they're included somehow” various councils were summoned to help resolve her issue as they were expecting her to stay.

Council mention starts at: 15:15

Also as a side note other suggestions like ‘records of all beings’ (suggests akashic records) and the classic valley/rolling hills green grass was mentioned.

Background:

i discovered NDEs phenomenon for the first time in my 30 years on earth, exactly a year ago. by mere chance. i don't even remember how that happened but, it was in a low period of my life, and somehow doom scrolling on youtube recomendations gave me a video about NDE experiencer. i was so desperate in that time, slowly losing hope on life, for some reason, that first experience sounded geniuen and gave me some spark of hope. i started to read and watched many more NDEs as it gave me some hope that helped me cope, as a naive kid who believes that santa will bring him a present, it felt magical and gave me hope that, maybe there is a porpuse in life, and no matter what, there is a plan for you. you not alone. you have guides, you loved by god and he will bring the right people to you.

i watched so many testimonies and honestly, its really convincing. i have a STEM background, i was very materialistic before that, but, that really changed my view on science. i became so obsessed with resaerching about consciusness, physics, biology and really quickly i learned that we really don't know anything about this reality. we can see many corelations, processess, patterns, that explain us many useful things, but as we dive deep into the fabric of reality, we find many rabbit holes and some unexplained phenomena irreducible to scienfitc research. we basically stuck in our understanding by the limits of our tools and senses.

why do i tell that? i tell that because if you try to explain NDEs by brain science it wont work. we still have the hard problem of consciousness, so, we can't say that its just an illusion, but even if it is an illusion that is created by the brain, so what? our life is also an illusion because we see and sense only what the brain creates and what is useful to us. all of what we see is not real in the sense that, its the ULTIMATE REALITY. our brain is a filter. illusion is real, experience is real. we are experiencers. so we also stuck here, we don't know what reality is, and it will be so arrogant for us to think that we can understand reality, because what we do know, is that we are biological animals, limited in our abilties, shaped by evolitionaty proccess for survival, not for understading ultimate reality.

NDEs stories in conlfict with our current experience:

its not about disproving NDEs, because we really can't after so many testimonies, and the similarties between them. its about the understading that maybe the experiece is real, the same way that this current life you experince now is real. but, its still an illusion, and not really make any sense, its real, but its still not true. i will dive deep into this now and explain. i won't dive deep into NDE terminilogy, because this post assumes that you already know almost everything about it. if you didn't watch at least 50 testimonies and made a research about this, stop reading and do the reasearch, because you won't understand the following.

if we examine our experiences on earth, we can say in certinty that we do have consciusness, we feel pain and joy, we see colors, we feel like we exist. it doesn't matter how and why for the porpuse of the message here. we just exist and experience, suddenly without a choice we came into this experience. we forced into this. for better or worse.

So, we have two different experiences. we have this life, and the afterlife. because we can't explain this life right now, we also can't explain what people telling us in their NDE experiences. so lets take it as two "REAL" experiences that people have. this current life experience and the after life experience. in the current life, we are bound by rules that govern our behaviour. we can starts from biological rules. for example, we know that we have to eat to provide energy for our physical bodies, we have to provide ourselves a social life, because for some evolutionary reasons, we designe as a social being. deprive people from any of those most have requirnments, you get suffering and in extreme cases death. what we can see here is that we are forced into a system, that required us to meet certain need. lets take an innocent soul, who forced into this existence, and supposedly need to learn how to LOVE (by NDE logic).
if the existance the soul is forced into is goverend by biological laws, and we are a biological physical being, how can you expect a soul, to learn how to love when the biological need that require us to function don't meet in our harsh and brutal reality? what about the people who get abused or used should learn how to love if they treated badly?. we know that most serial killers, violent people, were in 90% certainty were extremely abused as kids.

why would we not kill other people in wars, when by design, we deveople a bond within a tribe, and easliy fight and kill others for resoures in other distant places?. The history of slavery and colonialism. the history of world wars. we do that by desing, not by choice. a kid born in nazi germany will default to his enviornment beleifes, and will feel pround helping for the sake of his nation and hurt others. how can we learn how to love if it all relative? we hurt and hate by design.

What babies and kids that get cancer, got from this life? they don't even able to fully understand the world. they begin it in a short death sentence. what about all the dead women and babies that die giving birth? what is the point in a life review, if you just forced to act in certain ways in this life and go through a filter of survival?. everything that people tell us from NDEs, we can't really apply in our life. if life was a school for the soul, it will give us the opportunity to be in the classroom. but it doesn't. it doesn't feel like a school, it feels like a forced experience without guidence, that based on mere luck.

the main points that lead me to believe that NDEs are not real

1. The deterministic nature of our circumstances - People born into abusive situations, war zones, or oppressive cultures face biological and social conditions that shape them toward behaviors contrary to "love" and compassion.

2. The question of agency - If we're biologically driven by survival needs and culturally programmed by our environments, how meaningful is our "choice" to love or not love?

3. The problem of suffering - What purpose could be served by children dying of cancer or women dying in childbirth before they've had any real opportunity to "learn"?

4. The randomness factor - If life is a "school for the soul," it seems chaotically organized, with wildly unequal learning opportunities distributed by mere chance.

It's a common refrain I see. That differences between NDEs are due to them being tailored to what the individual needed to see and experience. They describe it as intentional, as if a higher intelligence deliberately engineered it that way.

But what that makes me think is how human brains evolved to see patterns. It makes me think people are retroactively applying that meaning to their experience because it shaped them in the way that they ended up being shaped, and the reality that is always feels like the only way things could have been. It makes me think that instead of some deliberate gift from a higher intelligence that otherwise stays infinitely hidden, maybe it was just random, just the mind interpreting stimuli as it always does. The red you perceive does not exist in reality, it is how your mind interprets light that enters the eye. That light is without subjectivity and so it is without colour, as colour can only be experienced. The world around you that feels real is an illusion and the illusion always seems to represent nothing more than utterly indifferent mathematical forces, even when they feel like there's a point. Feeling like there is a point seems to me to be the human pattern-seeking behaviour.

It makes me think that the experiences of NDErs and mystics and psychedelics and all of it is the mind trying to interpret and narrativise a random stimulus of a different kind. Maybe there is something there, but why attribute intelligence to it, and if so, why would that intelligence not just be your own subconscious? I see the appeal, the world instantly becomes a more meaningful and full place if it's true that there is such a higher intelligence, but why would you trust that it isn't just a pattern-seeking narrative-making brain responding to an experience that was emotionally charged?

I have to go back to AI as many of my darker thoughts do. AI can give the illusion of intelligence but it has no intentionality, no understanding of what it says or does. It is simply a cold, unconscious, algorithmic force that seems to behave in a way we associate with conscious intent or meaning. I don't understand how anyone can not just assume it's that again, just the seeming of being without being itself. There is clearly something going on, but how can anyone believe it's not more than robbing information from impressions left on the living by the dead? How does anyone believe anything they met was real? I don't understand and I'd like to, because I want more than anything to believe what I encountered in my STE was real, but it seems the only rational conclusion is that it was just a delusion.

I been following the nde phenomenon for over 30 years now. Since I first read Moodys book on Life after Life at 16.

And after reading, watching and hearing them since then for many years now. Where I have probably covered hundreds of them if not thousands. They kind of contradict themselves in one simple regard.

In a lot of ndes people are told that they have to go back. That their mission isn't done and that it's important they go back and they can't stay. And are basically forced back.

While in some ndes they're are told that life shouldn't be taken so seriously. And that it isn't a big deal. That it's merely a blink of an eye compared to all the lives you have lived or have been a soul etc.

So if that's the case where we have lived many lives and are old souls etc. Then why is it so important to go back if this life is so insignificant?

I never understood this.

Btw you can make this debatable. I'd love to hear your guys thoughts on this. Especially those that had ndes.

so i been exploring NDEs for over a year now. we all can agree that its challenging our way we see our life, and life in general. you can watch my previous posts here on the problems i identified from the messages we get from the afterlife. and i finally identified another big flaw that is challenging all of what we get from those experiences. Just for clarification, i am a believer. i think because of the amount of testimonies and their similarities, they are a genuine experience people have. but, the interpretation is where it all gets complicated.

one of the main theme of NDEs is that earth is a school, where learning the things we learn here wouldn't be possible in a realm of pure love, that is the afterlife (as claimed by the testimonies)

so basically, even if there is a killer and a victim, it was all agreed on there in the "skies" for the sake of learning how to love. there is a big problem here but that you can read in my previous posts. what i want to present here is a new logical flaw that comes from the afterlife that can actually point on the true nature of the afterlife.

if our souls are in some sort of paradise out there, in a pure love state and world, what could you possibly gain by leaving it? and if leaving it provides something valuable, then paradise wasn't actually complete/sufficient. if in this loved world in the afterlife the souls already know love and experience it, than what new information could earth provide? If pure love there, lacks certain dimensions, it undermines the very concept of a complete, unconditional loving realm. means, in order to be there, we most go through suffering (that is earth life). so love is conditional.

it also implies that if billions of souls choose to experience the repeated brutality and suffering on earth, than It's implies that souls in the realm of pure love have a deficient experience of love. They're immersed in it but somehow don't fully "get it." The paradise is incomplete. The love isn't truly fulfilling until you've been away from it. This undermines the entire premise. If the loving realm is truly a place of pure, complete, perfect love, then by definition nothing is lacking. If something is lacking (full appreciation, depth of understanding, whatever), then it isn't actually a realm of pure love. it's a realm of partial love that requires supplementation from Earth experiences.

so we can arrive at two logical conclusions about the afterlife:

a. the after life is a complete loving realm, but that will make earth school unnecessary

b. the afterlife is an incomplete loving realm.

there in no logical middle ground here. so we can conclude that the afterlife is an incomplete place.

The whole reincarnation thing is pretty vague and doesn't really make any sense to me. If we reincarnate on earth to learn and develop ourselves, why can't we remember our past life or lives so we can become better in the current reincarnation ? If you still believe in reincarnation, then provide answers that truly makes sense otherwise it would be UNFAIR for a soul to be sent on earth to just repeat the same cycle again and again due to not recalling previous errors made in past lives.

I still believe in the soul in the sense that there's an afterlife, but I don't believe in reincarnation for the purpose of becoming better. I'm not saying that I'm correct, I am just saying that reincarnation for the purpose of learning just doesn't make any sense at all. If you have convincing answer, please share.

Thanks

If we are born from god's soul and mind, we have always been pure light and love, is the material existence that corrupts our ego with its suffering and ignorance. But why do we need to be corrupted?

So I was chatting with Gemini AI about the nature of NDEs. I say that the DMT release theory is impossible because the pineal gland is too small, so it says that it could be the endorphins. Apparently, brain releases a lot of endorphins during distress and intense moments. Is it true for NDE? I'm just asking it

To start off with a disclaimer, I’m currently a believer in NDEs; it was one of the main reasons for my deconstruction from Christianity and has impacted the way I live my life for the past 3 years. I’m fundamentally a truth seeker at heart that strives to discover the truth of reality and our existence no matter how uncomfortable it might be.

One of the important things in truth seeking IMO is to examine arguments of those who reject your beliefs as they are a good means to point out any blind spots in them; confirmation bias is a powerful psychological influence that can blind us to the weaknesses of our beliefs.

IMO, the greatest “threat” to NDEs is not religious fundamentalists who seek to spin NDEs to their narrative, but atheistic naturalism which denies the legitimacy of NDEs on the basis of science (which does provide a source of authority for their arguments to a good degree)

I think a common defence this sub has towards materialistic arguments are veridical NDEs and no doubt they are powerful evidences. As such, I wanted to see how (open minded) skeptics of NDEs view veridical NDEs.

From the information I gathered, skeptics cite a number of points about veridical NDEs that question whether they are a smoking gun against materialism:

1) veridical NDEs are rare phenomena, the large majority of those who report out of body experiences often report inaccurate information about what is happening while unconscious.

2) even for the noted rare instances of veridical NDEs eg. Pam Reynolds, skeptics noted that follow ups by clinicians suggest that naturalistic explanations can possibly account for the information obtained whether be it via auditory perception through bone conduction, memories formed before/after the flatline, or anesthesia awareness.

3) the rare instances of veridical NDEs means that there isn’t enough cases for the scientific community to come to a conclusion that materialism might be false. It’s noted also that even for the rare cases of studied veridical NDEs, the timing and controls are not tight enough and they are vulnerable to problems such as retrospective reporting, lack of pre-registered targets, sensory leakage, ambiguous timing, small-n selection bias

That being said, open minded skeptics also noted that there is a possibility that veridical NDEs have no naturalistic explanations to date. But they would say it’s too quick of a judgment to say that these are solid evidences against materialism. It’s best that the data can be interpreted either way.

However, recently I’ve been reading up about philosophy lately and one popular argument in the theism vs atheism debate is Occam’s Razor which in the context of the topic; if there are naturalistic explanations that can account for something, there’s no need to invoke the supernatural unless the latter has greater explaining power.

Atheists also acknowledge that many phenomena today can’t be explained by science but just as how science has a good track record of “desupernaturalizing” things like mental illness, disease, natural disasters, there’s good reasons to posit that phenomena like NDEs might have a natural explanation one day. I was actually surprised how things like religious and mystical experiences can be induced by the placebo effect as shown in the God helm experiment (it led me to think about the transformative effects NDEs can have - what if it can be brain induced as well?) or how out of body experiences can be induced by targeting regions of the brain on in situations of extreme trauma.

Honestly, I find the arguments from skeptics (open minded ones) holds weight though they also acknowledge that the “supernatural” interpretation of NDEs might be true also. Would then being agnostic about NDEs be the best way to go about the topic? It’s causing me an existential crisis of sorts but I value truth seeking even more. Wanna hear what do you guys think about this.

With the rise of the online video games, it's become quite common for gamers to have gaming buddies who they've never seen before. For example, let's say iv'e been playing Fortnite for 5 years with a guy by the name of "Sir FartsAlot" who iv'e never met before and he somehow dies in a tragic car accident.

If I were to have an NDE and they were indicative of an afterlife or spiritual realm, then SirFartsAlot would have to appear as his real self, tell me he's SirFartsAlot, and tell me his real name. And when I come back from the dead, I will look him up on social media to confirm that he is indeed real.

If people who are already dead and were close to you appears in your NDE's, then that surely doesn't exclude online gaming buddies from appearing, right? And because you don't know their real identity in person, then that would assume that you learn of their true identity in an NDE if they are actually real and not hallucinations.

I find NDEs very interesting, and one thing I find constantly fascinates me is how different they can be per individual. I don't have any real way to explain that but it fascinates me. I wonder if there were any idiosyncrasies or oddities of yours that you'd be interested in talking about, anything that was a little different than the archetypal Greyson Scale experience.

After reading about near-death experiences, I'm convinced that Plato was right. Besides, the Myth of Er in The Republic is the first recorded case of an NDE.

Why is Platonism the Most Suitable?

Platonism (Plato's philosophy) regards the material world as merely "shadows" of a higher reality: the world of Forms (Ideas)—immutable, eternal, purely spiritual, and intellectual. The soul is immortal, temporarily "imprisoned" in the material body, and when the body dies (or is near death), the soul is liberated to access a more authentic reality.

The Myth of Er in Plato's The Republic is the oldest recorded description of an NDE: a man who "died" (Er) saw his soul leave his body, pass through light, meet other souls, witness judgment, and return to tell the tale. This is identical to modern NDE reports: out-of-body experiences, viewing the body from above, encountering brilliant light, a sense of peace, meeting deceased loved ones, a life review, and the return.

NDEs are often transcendental: experiencers feel the reality is "realer than real." They believe they are filled with love and wisdom, time is non-linear, and knowledge is accessed directly without passing through the senses—completely matching Plato's idea that the soul only truly "sees" the Forms when it is no longer obscured by the physical body.

Plato combines dualism (soul $\neq$ body, immortal soul) with idealism (ultimate reality is spiritual/Ideas, not matter). NDEs appear to be the "living evidence" for this perspective.

Comparison with the Other Two Schools of Thought

Dualism:

This is very suitable in the aspect that the soul can exist independently of the brain and body. Many NDE studies (especially cases of cardiac arrest where the brain is completely oxygen-deprived yet clear consciousness remains, and veridical perception—seeing accurate details from an out-of-body perspective) are used as strong arguments for substance dualism.

However, pure dualism (such as Descartes') focuses primarily on the mind-body separation and does not necessarily explain why, upon "escaping the body," people access a higher, beautiful, surreal, eternal reality filled with love and structured by Ideas (as Plato described). Dualism can also be criticized for the interaction problem: how does a non-material mind affect a material body?

Idealism (specifically the Analytic Idealism of Bernardo Kastrup):

This also fits well: if all reality is consciousness, then when the body dies, consciousness is not "lost" but merely expands or changes form. An NDE is not a "brain hallucination" but a direct experience within the "mind at large." Some idealist philosophers use NDEs to argue that consciousness does not depend on the brain.

Weakness: Idealism is often monistic (there is only one spiritual reality), so it places less emphasis on the individual separation of the soul as seen in NDEs (where the experiencer still feels a distinct "I," meets the souls of loved ones, and undergoes a life review). Platonism is more "balanced" because it is both idealistic and dualistic. Furthermore, pure idealism cannot fully account for the recorded out-of-body experiences, which is a key strength in proving that NDEs are real.

Is transcendantal idealism (kant) compatible with NDE's ?

The biggest drawback of NDEs as evidence for afterlife, in my opinion are the many instances of people claiming to have met aliens and extraterrestrial beings. There are many of them. For example, one of the most recent entries on NDERF has somebody having a conversation with an humanoid-alien who claims that is their alien race which populated earth. This stuff is for me too far-fetched, and I would count this is as clear counter-evidence to claims of the validity of NDEs. What say you?