> In particular, what was convincing to me, is how very very similar the cases are and that they happen to tribes living at a stone age technological level with no contact to Hollywood, and that there is a described case from Plato from over 2000 years ago that is identical to modern cases.

This sounds intriguing.

> Case in point, in NDEs there are a couple of common stages, and experiencers go through some or all of these, most often only some. One is traveling from the location of death to a heavenly realm. For westerners this often is flying through a star trek like hyperspace tunnel, while for stone age people they might be in a canoe that travels by itself to a distant island.

Ah, so the similarity is all enitrely in your interpretation of these clearly dissimilar visions.

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BoardsOfCanada 2 hours ago | parent [-]

If I listen to 100 NDEs and in 50 they travel through a tunnel like this or somehow go through space, and in 2 from stone age cultures they travel in a manner apt to their everyday experience and it has those things in common I think it's a fine hypothesis that what they have in common is the nature of what's happening. And in 48 they didn't experience this stage.

	▲	card_zero 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Have you read any pop neuroscience book? There are common experiences that can be generated by one or another kind of brain-wrong. You sort of acknowledged this already when you mentioned DMT. If you poke somebody in specific parts of the brain you can get illusions of changing size, shadowy figures, mirth, and other delightful errors. We also interpret things very eagerly, like the "night hag" phenomenon where being unable to sense one's own breathing turns into an illusion of something sitting on your chest. That's another worldwide cross-cultural concept, by the way, but there is no night hag, there's just human physiology. So, bright lights and tunnels. Shared human visual neurological glitches. Heard of "tunnel vision"? That's a real medical condition, which can be caused by blood loss, adrenaline, or low oxygen.