u/FodderWadder

For context I am someone who deeply desires confirmation that NDEs are more than simply a localized product of the human brain, but I'm also a very skeptical person and if I want to believe something, I like to require myself to have a very good reason for believing it. I recognize this is a product of trauma but I also don't think it makes sense to ignore.

At some point as I was mulling this over in my head, I finally realized that it might be worth listening to my doubts and following them to where they want to go. A lot of the evidence people put forth is that NDErs often come back with knowledge of things they shouldn't have had, such as events that happened or comments that were made by others while they were dead. There are even reports of awareness despite the fact that their eyes and ears were entirely obstructed, or that the event in question happened in a completely different room. However, to my knowledge, most if not all of these are unverifiable for most people, who have no choice but to look in from the outside.

I have seen the Top-voted post (this year) about the Pam Reynolds case. I'm also aware that the case was initially documented by Michael Sabom, who is himself a Christian and a firm believer in NDEs, so maybe not the most unbiased party? I also know that people dispute that the events Reynolds remembered were things that happened while she was dead, instead pointing out that they likely happened during anesthesia instead. As a whole it's not exactly explained by modern science, no NDE is, but it also doesn't seem as "indisputably verifiable" of paranormal activity as it seems to present itself at first glance.

So I want to hear other people's thoughts. Part of me gets the feeling that we only hear the "amazing" side of the story, where people come back reporting things that did actually happen while they were dead. If there are other cases we don't hear about where the opposite happens -- people falsely report things that didn't happen while they were dead -- of course it wouldn't automatically discredit all the other accounts on its own, but it would quietly raise some flags. On the other hand, if you feel that these NDE reports do stand up to scrutiny, I'd also like to hear from you.

Thanks for reading.