This blog is more than an account of Near Death Experiences. It ponders in detail the tough questions of life. Who are you, and why are you here in this physical world? What happens when you die, and is there a judgment? However, most anything could appear here. This is not a news blog, archived posts are just as relevant as new posts. Check the boxes at the top of the page for the Contents, Contact, Forum and other links.
A measuring tape is a great way to find the true length of a 2×4 wooden board. But it won’t tell you how many gallons of water are in your bathtub.
No one measurement, or group of measurements, will suffice to find truth in all situations. Lets look at the problem of consciousness, or psyche, or mind, or soul, or spirit, whatever you wish to call it.
Consciousness is who you are, and science says it resides in the brain. OK. If consciousness resides in the brain then it must be biological, and it must die when the brain dies. So we look at the brain, and find that brain cells look pretty much alike. It seems “memory” would take up a lot of brain space, but we can’t find memory anywhere, does it have a color? Do we look for red for memory, green for thoughts, where are the thoughts?. Well we have looked over 100 years at the brain, and can’t find consciousness anywhere in it.
So, we just assume it’s there, but we can’t see it. Maybe brain mapping will tell us where it is, so scientists start mapping the brain. A problem arises, the maps don’t match, and then when a portion of the brain is damaged, another portion takes over to continue the function. How does the brain do that?
Enter the near death experience. Surgeons and medical doctors noticed their patients recalling strange stories after they were revived from cardiac arrest. One doctor Raymond Moody decided to study this strange phenomenon with the permission of the doctors and hospital. When he completed his study and published a book, his peers were outraged, and kept him from working as a Psychiatrist for the rest of his life. Dr. Elisabeth Keubler-Ross spent her whole life studying death and dying. She came to the same conclusion that Dr. Moody did. Consciousness is spiritual, and Spirit does exist without the body.
I think Pam Reynolds will become the benchmark of near death experiences. Here is an event that was experimental surgery. It was monitored and taped with every modern device of medicine.
Stopped heart and no brain waves
A mother of three, 35 year old Pam Reynolds lay on the operating table in the summer of 1991 with a life-threatening bulge in her brain.
Doctor Robert Spetzler, the director of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix had arranged for Pam to be hooked up to a brainstem monitoring machine. And other machines tracked Pam’s heartbeat, temperature, breathing and other vital signs. Additionally, Pam’s eyes were taped shut. Pam was also under anesthesia. Doctor Spetzler had to stop Pam’s heart which caused all bodily signs to cease.
Shortly after Doctor Spetzler turned on the surgical saw to begin cutting through Pam’s skull, Pam felt herself “pop” outside her body and hover above the operating table to a position where she could hover over Doctor Spetzler’s shoulders where she could observe the operation on her motionless body below.
From this position she saw Doctor Spetzler working on her with a saw which looked to her like an electric toothbrush. Pam heard and reported later what nurses in the operating room had said and exactly what was happening during the operation.
A little while into the operation, Doctor Spetzler ordered that Pam’s blood begin to drain from her body. Still every monitor attached to Pam’s body registered “no life”.
Pam found herself going from monitoring the operation above the table to traveling down a “tunnel” which had a light at the end. At the end of this tunnel Pam could see her relatives and friends waiting, including her long-dead grandmother. Time and all worries seemed to stop for Pam.
It wasn’t long, however, before a “dead” uncle led her back to her body.
Reentering her body felt to Pam like “plunging into a pool of ice”.
BIBLE PROBE COMMENT:
THE ABOVE STORY was reported in the August 2003 Reader’s Digest.
What is important about this story is that with no brain wave function, no heart function, and blood being drained from her – Pam’s is a case that rules out any “hallucinations” from chemical or psychological reasons. Combine this with the preponderance of evidence from thousands of similar near death experiences – and any thinking person would have to be led to the belief that the “soul” is cognitive, and that it survives death….
Who has not asked:
“What am I doing here?”
In a moment of quiet despair
who has not wondered “why me?”
No one knows how life began. Many theories abound, but facts are scarce. Religion, science, even aliens are used to explain creation. However, if theories were facts they would not be theories. We can only look at the wonders of this world speculating how they came into being. We can only guess how the Universe was born, and by what power it was thrust into reality.
It is simplistic to believe creation was chance and mankind only a fluke of fate. It is more logical to assume a “Higher Intelligence” put this world together. Religion attempts to describe this “Higher Intelligence” with many contradictory behaviors. One cannot rationally believe these man-made explanations.
From the beginning of recorded history man has believed in life after death. Paintings on cave walls reveal cavemen believed. Where did this idea/belief come from, how did mankind start to believe in life after death? It is possible they experienced themselves outside their body. Today, due to traumatic events folks have found themselves out of body and still very much alive. These experiences are called “Near Death Experiences.” It is estimated eight million people living in the U.S. have experienced this out-of-body phenomenon.
What is within the human body that still exists after death? Is it conscious energy given by a Higher Intelligence? Is this conscious energy the real you — your personality, thoughts, beliefs and memory? We humans do not create this energy, nor can we destroy it. It is eternal. For simplicity we will call this energy “consciousness.” A married couple can’t create consciousness. They only create the mortal coil, or body in which it exists here on planet earth. If the body becomes unable to sustain consciousness, it returns to the non-physical.
We come into the physical to grow into emotional maturity. We have to work at it every day. Watching our words and actions to insure we harm no one. The methods have been taught by Master Teachers. Jesus, Confucius, Krishna, and Buddha to name a few. The methods are: love your enemies, forgive those who use and/or exploit you, return good for evil, and help those in need. Your wealth or position in the physical matters not one whit. If you’re like most, you’ll not feel the value until after you try. It is infinitely worthwhile.
Consciousness, mind, spirit, soul, psyche, life force, intelligent, divine spark, awareness, cognizance, perception, sensitive, etc., are words we use to describe the phenomenon of being. This wide variety of words are used in different contexts, and have connotations suitable for different modes of expression, i.e., formal, colloquial, religious, and secular. For this post only the word “consciousness” will be used.
The amount of material written about consciousness is massive, and would have one believe we understood the subject well, however, there are some real world facts that need to be considered.
Consciousness has never been observed. Neither has it been weighed nor measured. The source of consciousness is unknown. Its location, within or without the body, has never been found. No one has determined what consciousness is made of, or exactly what it contains. There is no proof that consciousness is biological.
True, we don’t know what consciousness is, only that it exists, and we could not exist without it, because we are consciousness.
You are eternal consciousness!
You, as consciousness, entered your body at birth, and will exit it at death. This is evidenced by millions of near death experiences. Now, I could list some NDEs along with testimony of surgeons and doctors who witnessed them in order to corroborate my point. But you can read them on the Internet anytime. Instead, I will link a Near Death Experience by a friend named David. This experience illustrates several things that can happen when you attempt suicide. I will also link a Before Birth Experience, in order to give some good thoughts on how consciousness, (that’s you), moves through the physical dimension. David’s Experience Before Birth Experience Bonus Experience
Dr. Bruce Greyson, MD
Bruce Greyson discusses how cumulative research into Near Death Experiences challenges both a classical physical view of reality, and an exclusively neuroscience-based view of consciousness.
