Near Death experiences and the scientific method.

[Dan From Smithville]

It is of no matter if you do not believe, your belief is your belief.

Can you show that minds reach a state of total, unthinking stillness? How is this determined?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

My questions are not about what I believe. They are about what you claim. You claim the mind can cease thinking and that dreams are not thoughts. Those are specific claims. If you cannot support your claims, it is not a weakness to admit that.

I have explained to you and you don't believe, there is no problem for me.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Can you show that minds reach a state of total, unthinking stillness? How is this determined?

It is as it is, if you can not still your mind, you can't know or understand.. You must practice meditation years before the mind can be stilled. No practice, no knowledge of what it is like, logical yes!

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I have explained to you and you don't believe, there is no problem for me.

No you have not. You have explained nothing to anyone here. You make claims and then...nothing.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It is as it is, if you can not still your mind, you can't know or understand.. You must practice meditation years before the mind can be stilled. No practice, no knowledge of what it is like, logical yes!

You have not shown me that anyone can still their mind to the point there are no thoughts. I recognize that you believe it, but clearly you haven't got a clue.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

If it is a fact, then you can provide the evidence showing it is a fact.

That was my point regarding the goal metaphor.

You need to learn to help yourself, you don't tend to accept what I say anyway.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You need to learn to help yourself, you don't tend to accept what I say anyway.

Thanks for your responses. I have learned all that I need to. Best of luck.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

That is neither here nor there. It is what you claim that is of interest to us. Apparently, you do understand the difference between believing something and demonstrating something. The actual duality.

You are not helping yourself Danny Boy, if you don't understand things, just admit it and get to work learning.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You are not helping yourself Danny Boy, if you don't understand things, just admit it and get to work learning.

I believe I have helped myself quite well in my assessment of the claims made here and the behaviors I have witnessed. Again, thanks for enlightening me. Cheers.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I see. Blame the person asking questions rather than answer questions you cannot. That doesn't seem like the pinnacle of spiritual enlightenment to me.

What does common sense have to do with differentiating dreams from thoughts? How do we know that dreams are not thoughts? How do you know? It is a pretty simple question based on what you keep claiming.

If this is all a waste of your time, why bother posting in the first place?

I think my mind is sufficiently developed. I know it is. Tell me how dreams are not thoughts.

Thoughts are not dreams Danny, it's elementary, I suspect a child would know the difference.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I do understand. What you seem to be doing your best at is to avoid answering simple questions on how you have come to that conclusion?

I am asking you. It is your answer that I am interested in since you claim dreams are not thoughts. Why is a dream not a thought? I do not see why you are making this so difficult.

Thoughts are what you think when you are awake Dan, dreams are mind events during sleep, it is not thinking.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

No you have not. You have explained nothing to anyone here. You make claims and then...nothing.

You mistake thoughts for dreams Dan, this is not logical,

 

[Ben Dhyan]

You have not shown me that anyone can still their mind to the point there are no thoughts. I recognize that you believe it, but clearly you haven't got a clue.

I don't believe it Dan, I know. You too can know, just practice for a few years daily.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Thanks for your responses. I have learned all that I need to. Best of luck.

My pleasure Danny.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I believe I have helped myself quite well in my assessment of the claims made here and the behaviors I have witnessed. Again, thanks for enlightening me. Cheers.

Again, it has been my pleasure Daniel.

 

[rational experiences]

If a human didn't exist for a human to talk about the human would you ever just accept your human life?

Should be the teaching why study a NDE when you said a human nearly died?

In logic it makes no sense unless you are gathering data to invent to cause it.

What scientific human first theists do.

Uses information against us.

 

[gnostic]

I am not the one claiming thoughts are the same as dreams, you and Dan are, so please provide evidence for your claim that thoughts are dreams?

I can't make it any clearer than I explained, provide your explanation of why you think thoughts are dreams and it may help me understand your understanding.

As an atheist, you are not able to understand the underlying unity of the universe, you appear to imagine the universe to be made of parts, and that you are totally separate from me. You are not, it is only in your mind that you have these erroneous thoughts, in meditation you will realize we are expressions of the same source, that your body is not what and who you are. Souls are not equal in their development.

The mental activities of the brain - or the “mind” - are responsible for memory, thought, imagination, emotion, decision-making, etc.

A person can controlled all of the above, "consciously".

But when it comes to dream, the activities can also come from any one or combination of the above, I have already mentioned, particularly "emotion", "imagination", "memory", and of course "thought", but the brain draw from them involuntarily, during sleep.

So, the dream come from the mind, but when the brain is at subconscious level.

As someone early, the dreams are part of the brain activities, that occur during sleep.

I am no expert in dreams, and I am no good at interpreting them, but I do have lots of dreams...some dreams make sense, some don't...some I can remember while others I don't...while other dreams are wildly imaginative.

All I do know is that some of my dreams are memories, while others clearly not. I does relate to some of my experiences, while other memories of what I probably have seen on TV, are not, like me jumping off plane without parachute, which I have not done, so my mind imagined that it was me.

Can I explain what dreams really are for?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

The mental activities of the brain - or the “mind” - are responsible for memory, thought, imagination, emotion, decision-making, etc.

A person can controlled all of the above, "consciously".

But when it comes to dream, the activities can also come from any one or combination of the above, I have already mentioned, particularly "emotion", "imagination", "memory", and of course "thought", but the brain draw from them involuntarily, during sleep.

So, the dream come from the mind, but when the brain is at subconscious level.

As someone early, the dreams are part of the brain activities, that occur during sleep.

I am no expert in dreams, and I am no good at interpreting them, but I do have lots of dreams...some dreams make sense, some don't...some I can remember while others I don't...while other dreams are wildly imaginative.

All I do know is that some of my dreams are memories, while others clearly not. I does relate to some of my experiences, while other memories of what I probably have seen on TV, are not, like me jumping off plane without parachute, which I have not done, so my mind imagined that it was me.

Can I explain what dreams really are for?

Of course dreams contain images, emotions, etc., but it is not thought. A student of life must develop a discernment for subtle differences in how and what we perceive, if you can not discern the difference between the perception of awake state thinking process and the perception of the dream state process, then you are grossly unaware of really how different the respective dream and awake brain state processes are.

Btw gnostic, you mention some of your dream experiences, I have experienced probably in excess of fifty or more dream events that were prescient. Nearly all of them were about mundane events happening that day, but there are a small number that involved events of a historical nature, an assassination, an international plane crash. Now of course I can not provide any objective evidence to prove the veracity of my claims, but people close to me know that some of the mundane ones were prescient because I shared my dream with them early in the day so that when it happened, they acknowledged it. Anyways, I am not interested in defending my claim, if your mind can not accept that prescience is possible, that's fine.

 

[gnostic]

Of course dreams contain images, emotions, etc., but it is not thought.

But dreams do occur because of the mind.

Clearly, the mind more than think (hence thought). As I said before, the mind can do other things, such as -

• contain and recall memories,
  
• it is responsible for how we act, feel, the emotional aspect of the mind,
  
• as well as for imagination, inspiration.

And of course, the mind is responsible for what we dream about.

And the mind can clearly do more than dream, and it is something that occur because of the physical brain is still active, even when a person is sleep.

The brain is active, when we dream, even though we are not conscious; dreams occurred when the brain is in subconscious state.

I am quite sure, you would agree that the brain can function while we are in conscious state? If you don't agree, then you don't know much about biology.

What I mean by that question, is that we can control how we move about, arms, hands, legs, feet, back, neck, etc. These are things that control, consciously...you agree?

But there are other things, that we do control, but the brain function automatically. For examples, the heart pump, circulating the blood through veins and arteries; the lungs function automatically, controlling the breathing; the stomach and intestines help with digestion, as well as converting food into energy, and so on.

These functions don't require people to control, consciously.

Now, I don't deny that we can consciously control our breathing, taking deeper breath, and this in turn can slow our heart rhythms, as well as sharper a person's perception, or focus and concentration. People who do sports, yoga or martial art, use these techniques, to focus.

Now, my points are that there are things that the brain can do certain functions without us being in control; much of our organs, glands, and other things, don't require our conscious control, because the brain perform them automatically.

Now, if the brain do things that we don't control consciously and manually, then why can't the brain also automatically bring about dreams?

...dreams delved in parts of our memory, imagination, thoughts and emotion.

Sorry, but I still have to disagree with you. Dreams occurred because of the subconscious mind. There are no need to delve into your religion or anything "supernatural", in regards to dreams.

Anyways, I am not interested in defending my claim, if your mind can not accept that prescience is possible, that's fine.

And that's all you have given us - claims.

When ask for explanation, you don't explain.

You just make more claims, which would then require more explanations.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

And that's all you have given us - claims.

When ask for explanation, you don't explain.

You just make more claims, which would then require more explanations.

It is a very familiar pattern of behavior and the presentation here is almost textbook. It does not take any effort to quickly realize that questions will not be answered. The irony of that is telling in itself. Individuals claiming superior knowledge and greater maturity of mind that cannot even answer simple questions and must turn to fallacious tactics and belittling (pretty rapidly too) in order to stay in the conversation.

The self-appointed expertise is a pretty flimsy veil that falls apart easily under question. For instance, almost nothing that has been told to me regarding mediation is correct.