Reports of NDEs have common elements, the tunnel, the moving into light, the above-body floating sensations, an extreme sense of well-being and the meeting with Jesus or family. A very few have been excusions into hell. (See Elizabeth Kubler-Ross)
Looking at the majority experience, Freud would say that these are narratives based on the experience of being expelled from the womb through the vaginal tunnel into the light of the external world. In order for the Freudian interpretation to be considered, one would have to believe that memories can be retrieved from our fetal state, from a point in our development in which brains had little effect on thought processes.
Yet there are indications of womb-comfort regression seen in extreme mental-illness during which the patient clings to a fetal position. There are also indications of womb-comfort as one delights in a warm bath. The entire human sexual drive may illustrate a desire to return to the womb.
Questions: Is there such a thing as pre-brain developmental memory? Do you remember what it was like to be a fetus, totally nourished without strife on your part? Do NDEs reflect fetal consciousness?
I think the imagination can be a powerful tool, and although I may not be able to remember what it was like coming out of the womb, I can easily imagine it, and reconstruct a convincing episode in my mind.
I don’t think it’s possible to remember the experience simply because the mind doesn’t have a good enough system to organize the facts flowing into our senses at that time, let alone enough practice with memory.
I have been both shot and stabbed. These moments are hard to forget and I still have flashbacks about it.
On both occasions I saw what used to be called “stars” from the pain. Really, it’s bright fuzzy lights that cause a narrowing of the vision, thus creating a tunnel effect. When you’ve been shot the connection makes sense, but I conclude that when lying on a medical table the experience has a more mysterious flavor.
Mr. P.,
Do you think, then, that the Freudian interpretation of NDEs is off base? I’ve been shot, but only in a dream. The result was that everything in my consciousness turned white. Current scientific studies of NDEs seem to indicate that our brains are capable of producing all such phenomena from electro-chemical changes, such as those we would experience when dying. Do these images have a psycho-physical source other than just being sparks thrown off failing physical equipment?
I don’t see a reasonable connection between what Freud thought and your brain getting overwhelmed by pain. Being shot, or what have you, is a traumatic experience “in the now†so why would the mind have to recall a past traumatic experience of a different nature to define its current traumatic experience.
Also, pain is pain and it exists in the body for a reason. It’s a signal from the body to the mind to do something to avoid damage. Minor pain seems to be handled the best by the entire system, and major pain clearly creates disorientation. So, near death should do what?
In the mid-eighties my wife experienced third degree burns over a fifth of her body when a chicken fryer at the place where she worked exploded. Immediately after the explosion, she claimed she experienced no pain. Her mind was in some strange(?) place of denial. In the hospital I found that another person who had also been burned in the same explosion was in the same state. It was as if some protective, security frame of mind immediately overwhelmed these victims of disaster. If many experience flashbacks of traumatic experiences (I know some Vietnam vets who do.), can one also experience flashbacks of well-being, such as womb comfort in which all needs are met? And can such flashbacks account for the anesthesia that relieves pains of wounds or of dying?
I occasionally have flashbacks about different events. To get a handle on these distubing thoughts I’ve done a good amount of reading on the topic.
The type of traumatic image in a flashback is usually triggered by association. A sound or thought can trigger a “movie” that starts playing past also always puzzling past events.
They aren’t memories of pain but memories of events. Usually they are memories of events that ask the question, why did that happen.
It’s more complicated than I fell down and broke my leg. PTSD is about “mind-blowing” events.
That’s why everyone doesn’t get PTSD from every single trauma. You can even kill someone and it won’t bother you as long as you have a well thought out motive for doing so. From what I’ve learned PTSD is about ideas related to experiences.
That’s seperate from the function of pain.
We know so little about brain function and what stimuli can generate certain associative mind functions, that very little can be said past conjecture. NDE’s have a commonality of experience, but whether that is a “vision”, shock, low oxygen levels to the brain… (shrug) It’s going to be a long while before we know enough to have a clue to what might be behind the NDE.
Mr. P.,
Are positive flashbacks possible? What made the victims of the chicken fryer explosion go into a state of almost euphoria?
Tentative,
I agree. But still historical ideas (Gaia, Eden, The Golden Age) appear to reflect on womb comfort as Freud considered. Mind may reveal body if we can translate its symbolic, metaphoric, allegoric and narrative translations of physical states.
Good point about the positive flasbacks. I have them all the time and it seems that they act as a boost. It PTSD is about a desire to answer a question, then maybe positive flashbacks supply an answer.
I believe the scientific explanation for the pain/euphoria effect. The body releases natural opium to stop extreme pain. Humans have evolved this response so that they can have the ability to move away from pain. If pain laid a person out flat, then an enemy would have a perfect target.
I’ve noticed that it takes about two to three minutes to feel a medium injury. That’s a good amount of time to run for your life.
The womb:
A baby’s brain is almost a jelly and I wonder how much visual and general memory that they could have.
Mr. P.,
Check out cirp.org/library/psych/hepper1/ or Google fetal consciousness or fetal memory. A National Geographic special I watched last night concerned fetal development. It is surprising what a fetus can do and “think”. There was no mush brain concept given out. The fetal brain had already begun to regulate heartbeat and organ development. as soon as it was formed. Its activities were not restricted to motor developments.
It certainly is possible, but where are the amazingly good memories?
I’ve seen some very happy babies in my day. Mom shows up or it’s meal time, and it looks like the kid just won the lottery! Yet, I’ve never met or read about one person that reports remembering these great baby times.
Really, I think that Freud and company made up a lot of complex explantions for here-and-now events that have nothing to do with anything, except the here-and-now.
Additionally, I don’t think that the brain is half as good a storage device that some people think it is. I’ve always had a good memory, but most people that I’ve met can’t remember events clearly from a week ago.
I’ve met lots of women like this, but that’s another trauma.
Mr. P.,
If Freud upsets you, skip him and read the current research. Prebrain memory may have something to do with DNA information and nerve development. If DNA forgets to transmit the proper information, it does not construct a viable (capable of adaptions) organism or it makes one with severe handicaps. Is the proper retention of DNA information memory? That fits the bill with more parsimony than the search for the “grandmother” neuron or the lost engram. Historical writings about humans existing in beginning lands of comfort are metaphors, not analogies. These abound in ancient writings. Did you look at any of the sites I recommended?
Yes, I looked at the sites that you mentioned.
What I’m not understanding is the focus that you place on having birth memories. What is the matter?
As I’ve mentioned we can’t remember the happy site of our mother’s face that we first saw as a baby, so what have we to conclude that DNA memory, or any such thing exists?
I’m starting to think that these fantasies are means by which some people find closure in the randomness.
If DNA retention of workable information did not exist, we would not be here now to discuss it. This is the root source of all memory. What most forget is that what we consider “mind” is comprised of three working ingredients–genetic information, environmental feedback from senses and brain supervision. Recognizing this is not an attempt to place what is viably human in developmental stages so as to side with a right to life controversy.
It is an attempt to show how we evolve. In that evolving, womb security has a place in preparatory psychological senses of well-being. Without these positive flashbacks, we could not endure the traumas of birth, personal loss and death.
I think it’s presumptuous to classify these flashbacks as “positive.” I can understand what you mean, compared to what a “negative” experience in the womb might be; however, death has always been a part of the evolutionary cycle, I don’t think it takes a positive experience to help us “endure” death. Death is a part of life, and evolution is very familiar with the concept.
The DNA is just a bunch of chemicals and to imagine that it has a goal is mystical in nature. I think that’s the real message here and I don’t think it’s practical.
It’s not impossible though.
It’s also possible that the trauma of “the big bang” is picked up like an antenna on the quantum level by our DNA and transmitted to our minds to communicate our “wholeness†with the universe.
My book and inspirational tapes will be for sale on Amazon later next month.
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I think it is possible to remember what it was like to be expelled as a baby from the birth canal. I don’t know if it’s like NDE. I think not because in NDE, you know you are you, one does not lose the self, you are aware of the “action” and your “environment” the dark tunnel, the light at the end of the tunnel, you are aware of your “guide”. In NDE one is going to the unknown(immaterial), the birth process is going to the known (material) earth.
Mr. P,
There is no imagination of a goal for DNA talked about here. There is discussion of DNA information being translated into brain and mind information. Nothing mystic or surreal here, just common biological facts of dispositions in motion. To bifurcate our physical heritage from our mental capacity is to neglect most current neurobiological and genetic homological discoveries. Science, since the late 1980s has contributed much to our understanding of the physical precursors of mental content. Bifurcations of the two amount mostly to human hubris, not to actual experience. DNA apparently has a goal of attempting to produce an organism that can adapt to environments, if any progress in adaptability can be seen from a teleological perspective. Memory is as old as life. Otherwise, we would not be here. It takes substantial structures on which to build in order to produce a structure that can persist. Most objrctions I have met to a developmental concept of evolution amount to disbelief that physical information can translate into mental information. If it cannot, we are genetic and evolutionary flukes who might as well believe in divine interventions into our history as organisms.
Saying that DNA translates into mental life seems like a veiled form of racism to me. By racism I mean class/ethnic/sexism as well.