I also made a throwaway account to make a comment here. I also said the article was well written. I am an HN regular, but didn't want my medical problem tied to my HN account name.
Is it that odd that we might have polar opposite views on the article? Or that having a somewhat similar experience to the author, that I might view the article differently than you do?
Really well written, especially considering the author's plight.
Regarding this bit:
>The day of the accident I had been working on a project to improve how homeless people are placed into shelters. I say out loud, “I don’t care about homeless people” to see how it feels. It doesn’t ring true; I do care about homeless people. I just don’t feel like working.
I wonder if that's directly to do with the brain damage or not. I survived a particularly rough "you're gonna die" type cancer. And I have similar issues with depression, motivation, procrastination, and so on. Which I know sounds counter-intuitive. I survived, and the physical aftermath isn't really bad. So I should be grateful versus depressed, right? I have tried a variety of depression meds over the 5 years that have passed. I really can't tell if any of them work. I suppose partly because I'm not despondent really...just mostly unmotivated. None of them changed that.
Anyhow, just to say that near-death experiences, even without physical damage to the brain, seem to have mental consequences.