Why do people report experiences after being revived from clinical death?

read Life after Life. it explains it very well. or the Bardo Thodol

When your body starts to shut down your brain is flooded with a chemical that produces a state similar to what happens when you take hallucinogenic drugs. The sensation of "going toward a light" is a result of the process of the nervous system shutting down.

Not everyone who is clinically dead has such an experience, and not everyone who has such an experience sees the same things. Any images come from your own mind. People aren't lying when they tell you what they experienced, but that doesn't mean that something real happened outside of their own brains, either.

The images may have flooded the brain before brain activity ceased. You're assuming that images came after cessation of electrical activity, but there's absolutely no reason to assume any such thing. When the person is revived, the images may still be in the neurons responsible for short-term memory.

They don't "consistently" report such experiences -- in fact, they're "reported" in less than 2% of such cases.

"Flatline" just means your heart has stopped beating. The cells in your brain can get along just fine without a fresh blood supply for anywhere between 4-8 minutes. After 1-2 minutes, though, your brain goes into kind of a "survival" mode, where the lowered supply of oxygen triggers the release of chemicals that start neurons firing madly to try and keep the brain alive in a low-oxygen state. Just like in dreams, the random firings of neurons result in sequences of memories being accessed that are very random, and from which your subconscious tries to make some sense. And yes, there's usually no sense of "time" involved, just like in dreams (it's quite common to "dream" for a few minutes and have it seem like hours).

There's nothing magical or life-after-death going on here, just simply brain chemistry. That the effect can be duplicated without "flatlining" by chemical injections shows that. That what people "experience" is different depending on culture, location, and belief shows that it comes entirely from within their own brains, not from some external experience.

Peace.

Brain hypoxia (lack of oxygen) leads to hallucinations. This has been studied extensively by the US Air force. Not only that, but it has been REPLICATED multiple times.

EDIT: is it A: there is enough brain activity after death to produce experiences of consciousness?

You are confusing "death" with "clinical death."

Clinical death is simply defined as when the heart stops. The brain is still alive for several minutes, moreso if CPR is performed, and there is still brain activity.

Actual "death" is the death of the brain. That's when brain activity is zero, and no one EVER comes back from that.

EDIT: you do realize that people report experiences after several minutes of not breathing? the initial effects of oxygen deprivation seem to be outweighed by those that occur several minutes into the death experience. none of which are similar to oxygen death reports.

I've spoken to several neurologists and neurosurgeons about this topic as it interests me as well. They all told me that the experiences that people have while clinically dead, especially in regards to when exactly the experiences took place, are not to be trusted because it's impossible to gauge time accurately when unconscious. There have been studies on this as well, with people being questioned about how long exactly their experiences were and how long they think they were unconscious. The study found that you can't accurately measure time in a state like that.

So when people say that their experiences happened minutes after the oxygen loss, I regard that as unreliable data.

The brain still functions for tens of seconds after complete separation from a blood supply (such as after getting severed from the body). What do you think goes through the mind while it is still active in that situation?

If they all had the same experience, it would be of note.

As it is, they report experiences that reflect their particular beliefs.

So the experience isn't real.

Edit: If one sees Jesus, and another sees a different deity, and another sees no deity, they can be said to be seeing what they expect to see, a personal fiction.

The research into this is fascinating. I understand they've been placing objects up on top of things so high they're not visible unless you're floating at the ceiling, as many have claimed to experience. So far, not one of them has been able to report those objects.

When you awaken in the morning, and you recall some dreams from the night before, do you know which REM cycle it was from? When a person is revived, are they recalling something from time during which all brain function had ceased or from the moments before brain function ceased?

I don't know the answer to that one.

Yes I have experienced a NDE on the operating table, but I can't explain it and neither could the doctors, so I'll take it for what it was, a rather interesting experience and one I have no answers for.

I would however be lying if I said I didn't want to know more, because I do.

i could have faith what replaced into written in the Bible that Jesus reported over a 4 300 and sixty 5 days previous. The 4 300 and sixty 5 days previous could not have a sufficient command of his language to communicate what he seen. yet it somewhat ought to count on who's examining of the scripture and in case you somewhat understood what the lad meant.

your assumption is flawed in that those experiences actually happened while they where dead and not in the seconds prior as the brain fought for oxygen as has been studied. Assumptions are why you are religious, questions are why we are not.

There is no such thing as clinical death. Either you are dead or alive.