On May 19, 2012, at 6:04 PM, Xenophaneros Anartaxius wrote: > I was being a bit facetious, but after a few days, no reports from the dead. > Suspension of breath in TM seems to be a feature of the early years of > meditation, or just a lot of fatigue. Meditation is fine, but no suspension > of breath, and as far as I can tell, transcending is a myth of the past, it > no longer seems real; what it has been replaced with is much more > interesting, and no big deal. In fact I cannot think in terms of transcending > and transcendence at all unless I really force the issue. > > I believe you have some kind of medical training, or are familiar with a > number of medical issues. What are your thoughts on anesthesia and > consciousness? Based on what I have read, and experienced, I would think this > medical technology can bring us very close to the experience of death, or > perhaps the non-experience of death, to put it another way, that the > consciousness in the brain is sufficiently disrupted as to simulate the > experience of death with a high degree of fidelity.
There are researchers looking into meditative implications of anesthesia, but it’s very speculative and theoretical. Anesthesia, it should be pointed out, reduces the functions of many brain areas needed for conscious awareness. Generally you need to main four basic parameters for any state to be truly worthwhile: to generate valid insights, to experience them clearly in context, to remember them, and to gain positive benefits which carry over into daily life. People have been experimenting with ether for decades now and often people experiencing ether dreams will have profound insights which they can write down, but afterwords end up having little meaning in real life. Some surgical patients, about 1 out of 900, experience “awareness of awareness” but this contains no wisdom or insight component, merely the all-pervading, unborn awareness, that’s all. There is one popular Hindu master, Pilot Baba, who will stop his breath for several days at a time while in samadhi, but I don’t believe he’s been studied with any real scrutiny. The more traditional experiential reports OTOH have been experienced for centuries and are quite replicable.
