Consciousness can exist outside the body
***
Eben Alexander
About five o'clock in the morning Nov. 10, 2008 I woke up with the initial symptoms of bacterial meningitis in an unusually acute form. As I wrote in these pages, as well as in his book «Proof of Heaven» (Proof of Heaven), a few hours completely disconnected my cerebral cortex.
The part of the brain that is responsible for higher neurological function was plunged into total darkness, as part of New York during a hurricane Sandy.
But despite the absence of neural activity in my brain, with the exception of the deepest and most primitive parts of it, my self-consciousness, or sense of self, is not extinguished. Instead, I experienced the most vivid and startling moments in their lives. My consciousness was transferred to a different level, a different dimension, a different world.
After telling my story here, I was impressed and pleasantly surprised by the impression she made on people around the world. But I was also subjected to very harsh criticism - mostly those people who are shocked that I, a neurosurgeon, made such allegations about his experiences and tested.
I can not say I'm surprised. As a scientist, I know that the people of my scientific tribe mostly confident that the personality arises from the electrochemical activity of the brain. According to most neurosurgeons and general physicians, the body produces mind.
And when the body ceases to function, the mind stops working, too - like the fading image on the screen when the projector is turned off.
So when I announced to the world that for seven days in a coma, I not only remained fully conscious, but also made a trip to the astounding world of beauty, peace and unconditional love, I knew that stirred up the anthill. Critics argue that my near-death, like so many before me, it's a brain illusion or hallucination, my synapses formed only after I somehow recovered from his seven-day attack of the disease.
Similarly, the situation would have described and I - as long as he has not experienced it. When disturbed thought processes of a higher order, under the responsibility of the cerebral cortex, inevitably, a period in which the bark is slowly rebuilding its function. At this time, the patient may be completely disoriented, falling at times in outright insanity. As I write in my book, Proof of Heaven, I watched many of his patients in a period of recovery.
Look at it from the excruciatingly painful.
I also went through this period of transition, when my brain began to revive consciousness. I remember the vivid paranoid nightmare in which my wife to the doctors tried to kill me. From certain death saved me a couple of ninjas that have pushed me to the 60th floor of a cancer hospital in south Florida. However, the period of disorder and hallucinations nor had anything to do with going on with me for the recovery of the cerebral cortex, that is, at a time when it was turned off, and my mind was not working.
During this period, I experienced something very similar to what was told many people who have experienced near-death: the transition into the sphere beyond the physical world, as well as a powerful extension of consciousness. The only real difference in my feelings and perceptions of other people is that my mind was, if I may say so, deader than their brain.
In most cases, near-death or near-death experience is the result of short-term heart failure. The heart stops supplying blood to the brain, and the brain, deprived of oxygen, unable to maintain consciousness. However, this does not mean that the brain is really dead - and I would be the first to note this before was in a coma. That's why many doctors think that the term near-death experience is a misnomer.
Most of the survivors of near-death people were really in bad shape, but they were not about to die.
And I was. My synapses, called as the contact between neurons in the brain supporting the electrochemical activity, which causes brain function during my coma not only weakened. All their activities are completely stopped.
Only a few pockets of deep cortical neurons somehow continued to flounder, but there was a hint of a vast network that is able to develop what we call consciousness. It did Escherichia coli E. coli (E. coli), filled my brain during illness. The doctors told me how great set of analyzes of the brain, and the results showed that I had a problem with all the functions, including vision, hearing, emotion, memory, language and logic of a speech.
That's why I do not doubt the existence of the world of expanded consciousness, which for centuries have experienced a near-death experience tell people, mystics, lovers meditation and a great many other people. But I also feel that with my experience I can add something new to these stories. This is a new form of evidence that consciousness can exist outside the body.
in the footsteps of The Science of Heaven, http://inosmi.ru
Astral Plane & Other Dimensions
Mystic, researcher, and author Marilynn Hughes made her debut on the show, describing her out-of-body travels and experiences in other dimensions. There are many realms in addition to the astral plane, which is a fourth dimension that overlaps earthly reality, she explained. In one's first forays out-of-body, you might be jolted by a certain type of noise-- the vibration of the astral plane, as well as a "rumbling of voices"-- the thoughts of humanity. There can also be a frightening sensation of the sound of breathing, which is different when detached from the physical body, she detailed. Meditation, prayer, and contemplation are good preparation for handling the out-of-body state, she added.
By allowing yourself to be guided, you can often learn more that just wandering on your own while out-of-body, said Hughes, who noted that a variety of spiritual beings, including ghosts & lost souls, inhabit a multitude of dimensions. She described her work visiting hellish realms on rescue missions to pull beings out of spiritual "bogs." While there, she had to "veil her energy" or subdue her light in order not to be attacked by negative denizens of these realms.
The higher realms are inhabited by exalted beings such as Jesus and Buddha, and a "golden angel from the 23rd dimension" filled her with a sense of awe, said Hughes, who also described her encounters with ET beings, where she observed a Galactic Counsel and was transferred from our universe to a more advanced one for a brief period.
Biography:
Marilynn Hughes had a long-standing career in broadcasting as a news anchor, reporter, and producer. She has experienced, researched, written and taught about Out-of-Body Travel and Mysticism since 1987 and has written more than 50 out-of-body travel books.
Wikipedia
Astral projection (or astral travel) is an interpretation of out-of-body experience (OBE) that assumes the existence of an "astral body" separate from the physical body and capable of traveling outside it. Astral projection or travel denotes the astral body leaving the physical body to travel in the astral plane.
The idea of astral travel is rooted in common worldwide religious accounts of the afterlife in which the consciousness' or soul's journey or "ascent" is described in such terms as "an... out-of body experience, wherein the spiritual traveller leaves the physical body and travels in his/her subtle body (or dreambody or astral body) into 'higher' realms." It is therefore associated with near death experiences and is also frequently reported as spontaneously experienced in association with sleep and dreams, illness, surgical operations, drug experiences, sleep paralysis and forms of meditation.
It is sometimes attempted out of curiosity, or may be believed to be necessary to, or the result of, some forms of spiritual practice. It may involve "travel to higher realms" called astral planes but is commonly used to describe any sensation of being "out of the body" in the everyday world, even seeing one's body from outside or above. It may be reported in the form of an apparitional experience, a supposed encounter with a doppelgänger, some living person also seen somewhere else at the same time.
Through the 1960s and 1970s, surveys reported percentages ranging from 8 percent to as many as 50 percent (in certain groups) of respondents who state they had such an experience. The subjective nature of the experience permits explanations that do not rely on the existence of an "astral" body and plane.
