Notes - a variety of thoughts on reality and fiction /

         You are over Ohio heading to Chicago at thirty thousand feet. Breakfast early, no problems to or in the airport. You listed the analogy problem on FB and have several results that you can comment on later.

         0906 hours. Honey roasted peanuts and Coke zero for snack. I want to work on Dead 17.

         Let's go to it. - Amorella

         0915 hours. I don't know where to begin.

         Just go to the document, boy. - Amorella

         You are sitting at Midway next to where you will leave for Austin. Carol is on search of food and drink (at least snacks).

         1009 hours. I hardly got started when the announcement was we were a hundred miles out and had to put away electronics. This next flight is two and a half hours. The last time we flew it was the Southwest flight from San Francisco to Chicago.

         Let's go to Dead 17. - Amorella

         Mid-afternoon. You spent time researching during the flight and are now settled at the Holiday Express near the airport. You had very good flights, plus the flight to Austin was completely full, however the lady at the desk gave you a pre-boarding pass so you sat in the front seat, which you have never done before.

         You had an early dinner at El Jacalito Taco Bar, a Mexican restaurant about a quarter mile from the motel. Very good food (as it was recommended by two locals), you had chicken chimichanga and Carol had a fajita dinner and a mango moose dessert, surprisingly cool, good and homemade.

         1747 hours local time. I need a nap but I am afraid that if I take one I won't wake up until morning.

         Unless you wake up dead, boy. - Amorella

         Such nasty humor, I love it.

         Later, dude. - Amorella

         2010 hours. Had a shower and feel much better. I just finished an article from Huffington Post on 'near death experiences'. I find it interesting because I can relate to the concepts in real life but through hypnotic trance. I agree completely that 'in trance' one can feel that the event is more real than reality and it is this point more than any other that gives me doubts as to its reality. However, by the same token the experience allows me to accept the concept of life after death having enough viability that I can accept the Merlyn novel experiences as being as plausible as any others people have come up with without my denying any truth to any of it. The 'experiences' presented are subjective but it is good to see that I am not alone in similar experiences others have had on other levels or the same as mine.

         Drop in the article for immediate reference to your points. You have a lot of material you added to The Dead 17. We will work through it tomorrow before Craig and Alta arrive.

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Near-Death Experiences More Vivid Than Real Life, Memory Study Shows

Posted: 04/05/2013 2:59 pm EDT

By: Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer

Published: 04/05/2013 02:18 PM EDT on LiveScience

Long after a near-death experience, people recall the incident more vividly and emotionally than real and false memories, new research suggests.

"It's really something that stays in the mind of people as a clear trace, and it's even more clear than a real memory," said Vanessa Charland-Verville, a neuropsychologist in the Coma Science Group at the University of Liege in Belgium. She, along with colleagues, detailed the study online March 27 in the journal PLOS ONE.

Mysterious phenomenon

Roughly 5 percent of the general population and 10 percent of cardiac-arrest victims report near-death experiences, yet no one really knows what they are, Charland-Verville told LiveScience.

Across cultures and religions, people describe similar themes: being out of body; passing through a tunnel, river or door toward warm, glowing light; seeing dead loved ones greet them; and being called back to their bodies or told it's not time to go yet.

Some think near-death experiences show the spirit and body can be separated. Others say oxygen deprivation or a cascade of chemicals in the failing brain are to blame. Some believe near-death experiences reveal the existence of God or heaven.

But what makes finding an explanation even more complicated is that healthy people in meditative trances and those taking hallucinogens, such as ketamine, describe very similar experiences, Charland-Verville told LiveScience. 

Life-changing events

Because it's impossible to monitor these events in real time, Charland-Verville and her colleagues spoke with those who had gone through these trancelike states, sometimes years earlier.

"People are transformed forever by the experience," she said. "People say they're more empathic, they changed jobs, they're giving, they want to help the planet."

The team gave memory questionnaires to eight coma survivors who had near-death experiences, six who had coma memories but no memory of near-death experiences, seven who had no memories of their coma, and 18 people who had not had any of these experiences.

The questions assessed people's memories of imagined events as well as memories of near-death events, comas and emotional events from real life.

Even years later, the near-death experiences seemed hyperreal. In fact, they were remembered more clearly and emotionally than all other types of memories.

Charland-Verville speculates that these experiences have shaped religious symbols across cultures since the dawn of time. Now, the researchers want to study the brain activity of these individuals.

"If it changed people's lives, there must be something different in their brain functioning," she said.

Unanswered questions

The findings, though fascinating, can't answer whether the mind and body can be separated, said Christian Agrillo, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Padova in Italy who was not involved in the study.

"But it seems to suggest that what people recall in that moment is particularly genuine," Agrillo told LiveScience. "It's not a false memory that occurs after the event."

In addition, the study was small and asked people after the fact, making it tricky to draw firm conclusions, Zalika Klemenc-Ketiš, a physician at the University of Maribor in Slovenia, wrote in an email.

In addition, "the study does not answer the question of whether [near-death experiences] really happened to patients or are only hallucinations, (which can be also perceived as real)," Zalika Klemenc-Ketiš wrote.

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/near-death-experiences-memory-

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         2035 hours. In the stories I am beginning to see that being born marsupial humanoid puts their species at an advantage over primates in building civilization. For one the-hand-in-the-pouch is a unique modifier of behavior naturally built in. It is a natural 'relaxer' without any negatives as one would find in the 'relaxers' in this world - alcohol being a major example.

         Good. We can use this in a discussion among the primates. Then this can lead to issues such a justice and injustice and basic fairness in that the playing (evolutionary) fields are and were not the same from the very beginning as far as making comparisons between marsupial-humanoid and Homo sapiens. Post. - Amorella