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 study of seven terminally ill patients found identical surges in brain activity moments before death, providing what may be physiological evidence of “out of body” experiences reported by people who survive near-death ordeals.
Doctors at George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates recorded brain activity of people dying from critical illnesses, such as cancer or heart attacks.
Moments before death, the patients experienced a burst in brain wave activity, with the spikes occurring at the same time before death and at comparable intensity and duration.
Writing in the October issue of the Journal of Palliative Medicine, the doctors theorize that the brain surges may be tied to widely reported near-death experiences which typically involve spiritual or religious attributes.
I believe the theory to come out of this study is correct up to a point. Near death experiencers report a buzzing sound followed by a loud pop as they exit their bodies at the beginning of their experience. (This could very well be the brainwaves surge measured by this study.) While out of body they see the light, and experience all the other facets of the near death experience before reentering their bodies.
In the above study the people were close to dying from terminal illnesses, so when they exited their bodies with a brain waves surge of energy they did not return. Their lives were over. So the study covers the body exit, but it does not explain the many facets of near death experiences.
Near death experiences are real and we have the proof say scientists. There is no reason to believe NDEs are anything other than what the experiencers say they are, no evidence of any kind that they are local events within the brain, while there is a great deal of evidence that they are non-local events and very real.
Less than ten percent of the world population believes the brain somehow creates the personality and consciousness of the individual. That small group would mostly be part of the scientific community that also believes materialism, sometimes called naturalism, is the only aspect of the Universe. This belief eliminates all spiritual aspects of life saying spirituality is mythology, unprovable wishful thinking, and irrational nonsense. One of their main arguments for this belief is the observation when the brain is damaged the personality and consciousness are also damaged.
The purpose of this writing is to show they are wrong. That the mind/spirit is not damaged when the brain is damaged. That the mind/spirit is totally separate from the brain and can fully function without the brain.
First, I would like you to watch a video made by Jill Bolton Taylor, PhD, of her stroke. Notice how she talks about all aspects of her stroke.
If the brain creates and supports the mind, which is damaged when the brain is damaged, how is Jill able to understand and talk about her brain as it is being damaged. Would not the mind also be damaged along with the brain. Apparently not. So here we have an indication the mind and brain are not one, but are two separate entities. She begins to recognize everything as energy, total energy, she can’t determine the boundaries of her body. The physical/material world fading into energy, her brain being damaged more and more, yet her mind remains clear and logical, able to describe each moment of brain damage as it happens.
Jill’s description of her stroke is not unusual, there are many accounts of recovering stoke victims telling about feeling trapped inside bodies they can no longer control. Where nothing is wrong with their mind, where the mind is fully functional, and knows what is going on around them.
Doctors and nurses continue to stream in and out of my room. I cannot communicate with them. I cannot make my mouth form the words. The words are there in my brain but I cannot get them out. When the nurse talks to me I want to scream, “I’m here!” I am frustrated, but more than that, I am scared.
Cleo can not communicate, but she does understand and wants to communicate. She is locked in a body that doesn’t work for her, her mind is fine, the brain is damaged.
I have a close friend who had a stoke leaving him partially paralyzed on one side of his body and unable to talk. He repeats short sounds, usually “ok, ok” in response to everything said to him. He understands, but can’t answer except with these short sounds. He has been this way for several years.
However, his wife has this to say about him.
Yes, my husband will talk a normal speech pattern, when he talks in his sleep. Sometimes I can actually get a full conversation going, but when he is awake the speech is just a repeat of anything he hears, reads. For some reason all words, fazes come in a patter of three. It is like he runs into a brick wall. The spontaneous speech is what did not come back.
This is another brain problem, but not a mind problem. His mind is there, he understands, he just can’t make the body work as he once could.
We are spirit/energy/mind/soul/psyche, whatever you wish to call the essential “you” occupying a physical body for the purpose of learning about ourselves.
The following is a quote from a near death experience. The experiencer was in a car crash.
At some point I remember my intelligence/spirit being to the right of my body and above the car looking at about a 45 degree angle through the roof. I remember thinking “Is this all there is to death?” I remember looking at my body and thinking that “it” wasn’t me. My intelligence/spirit was me. I don’t remember any voices or white lights like I have read about. I just remember incredible peace and being in a completely logical state. I lost my identity with my body. I no longer identified with it. It was just flesh.
There are literally thousands of near death experiences posted on the Internet, there is no chance all these people are mistaken about what they experienced.
Out of body experiences, and near death experiences indicate we are separate entities from our brain and body. Research and documented veridical near death experiences show good evidence that we will remain alive and well after the death of the body.
It may take a few years for mainstream science to catch up with the research, but reality will win out in the long run.
This is the breathtaking story of Daniel Tammet. A twenty-something with extraordinary mental abilities, Daniel is one of the world’s few savants. He can do calculations to 100 decimal places in his head, and learn a language in a week. This documentary follows Daniel as he travels to America to meet the scientists who are convinced he may hold the key to unlocking similar abilities in everyone. He also meets the world’s most famous savant, the man who inspired Dustin Hoffman’s character in the Oscar winning film ‘Rain Man’.
As you watch the video notice that Daniel suffered some brain problems when very young. This was critical to his genius ability. Note also than “Rain Man” Kim Peek was born with brain damage. There is a pattern here that covers many such people with genius ability in some part of their life. It is also true of some psychics such as George Anderson and Uri Geller. It seems that when the brain is damaged in some people a genius talent emerges. This tends to make the brain a limiter of consciousness rather than a creator of consciousness.
Near death experiencers know this to be true also. Many experiencers go through a part of their experience where they are able to access all knowledge about all things. Their consciousness expands after they leave the confines of their body and enter the light. At this point their brain, left behind in their body, has no part in their experience, they become pure energy, sometimes called spirit. I am thinking that brain damage in some instances takes the brain, or part of the brain, out of the physical loop, thereby allowing the individual to become what we humans call a genius. They become individuals that can somehow access the spiritual realms, and are no longer limited to the physical realm by their brains.
I experienced this expansion of consciousness in my own near death experience, and know what it feels like. I describe it as: “like an earthquake to my beliefs; shaking, crumbling them to dust. I would never be the same again, the experience changed my perception of life forever.” All previous knowledge and beliefs that I held about my life, and this world, just didn’t matter any more. My consciousness expanded beyond the duality of this world into the Oneness of all creation. Then upon reentering my body most of this knowledge could no longer be accessed due to the limitations of my brain and body.
Below I have gathered quotes from a few near death experiences showing the effects of this “all knowledge” phenomenon. Clicking on the bold “lead-in” will take you to the whole near death experience.
There was total peace. I was surrounded on all sides by a black void. I was no longer frightened. I was comfortable and content to be where I was. No fear…no pain…just peace and comfort and amazingly undaunted curiosity. Immediately the blackness began to erupt into a myriad of stars and I felt as if I were at the center of the Universe with a complete panoramic view in all directions. The next instant I began to feel a forward surge of movement. The stars seemed to fly past me so rapidly that they formed a tunnel around me. I began to sense awareness, knowledge. The farther forward I was propelled the more knowledge I received. My mind felt like a sponge, growing and expanding in size with each addition. The knowledge came in single words and in whole idea blocks. I just seemed to be able to understand everything as it was being soaked up or absorbed. I could feel my mind expanding and absorbing and each new piece of information somehow seemed to belong. It was as if I had known already but forgotten or mislaid it, as if it were waiting here for me to pick it up on my way by. I kept growing with knowledge, evolving, expanding and thirsting for more. It was amazing, like being a child again and experiencing something brand new and beautiful, a wonderful new playground. As each second passed there was more to learn, answers to questions, meanings and definitions, philosophies and reasons, histories, mysteries and so much more, all pouring into my mind. I remember thinking, “I knew that, I know I did, where has it all been.”
I said to the Light: “All this Love for me?”, without words of course. You only need to think there, and you know they know. In fact, I seemed to know everything. I felt as large as a galaxy. Knowing everything. I did not need to turn away from the Light but could see the whole world going on behind me, past, present and future. I always wondered what it was like for our ancestors coming across on the ships and I could see clearly a vision of a ship sailing on rough seas, mixed in with my life scenes and the future which was a bit foggy.
I floated along slowly, I would float in the background. At one point I would see other people greeting the other floaters in the corridor, they hugged and held hands and some walked hand in hand towards the light. I did not recognize anyone. I asked a lot of questions, but it was strange, I thought of the question in my mind, but they were answered before I thought of them? I started to panic, I realized this was death, I started to get scared, “what was happening to me,” at that moment a boy came through the tunnel fog. He was probably 12, (I have no idea who it was) he smiled and waved to me. All my fear then disappeared.
A feeling of extreme peace and joy came over me as I began to realize I was home again. I was where I belonged and I was not interested in returning. Then my mind cleared and finally I understood everything I had ever wondered about. All the mysteries of the world were right there in my mind. Not that I asked about anything or that she told me anything, I just remembered! I just thought, “oh well, I just forgot everything while I was there.”
I had all knowledge.
Hello! I just discovered this message board today.
I feel that I had a NDE after a car accident 2 years ago. It was like one minute all my questions were answered and when I woke up I could barely remember what I was told. I do remember asking if I would remember.
In my choice to live or die, the consequence of coming back was not having the knowledge and the open-mindedness. I tried to remember something anyway. I think all that I remember is that people waste so much energy on small issues that really have no purpose in the grand scheme of things.
Anyway, I hope this helps. — L.H.
Then there was a beautiful glowing pearly white light. I was completely absorbed in it. It was all love, all knowledge, all happiness. We have nothing to compare it to here. Just think of the happiest most loving time you have ever had and multiply it by a million and you still couldn’t come close to it. I was absorbed in all knowledge. I knew everything there ever was to know and it was good. I thought of two pastors I knew and it made me laugh to know how surprised they were going to be. I also knew it didn’t matter one bit that all was as it should be. I saw my children’s lives ahead of them, saw they had much to learn and many hard lessons but it was all good and that our lives…
These quotes are only a tiny part of the NDEs available on the Internet and in the media. I have over three hundred of them on my web site. I hope this writing will further the understanding that the brain is not the creator of our consciousness and/or personality. That this writing will evidence the need to use the knowledge gathered from near death experiences to make our lives better and broader here in the physical realm.
I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and what I saw in today’s paper saddened me. The suicide rates are up 12% percent from just five years ago. There were 119 people that killed themselves in my hometown last year, and 578 committed suicide in my state in the same period. Suicide rates are twice the rate of homicides in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma is just a small state. In 2005 nationwide there were 32,637 suicides. Most of these deaths were young men. Most of the young man were plagued with depression.
What is going on, why are the suicide rates increasing? The paper called it the “Hidden Epidemic.” The suicide rate has tripled nationally in the last 30 years.
I doubt there is just one reason for it. I can see the pressure being put on young people in school to achieve far beyond what I experienced. Why? Why is all this necessary, people are individuals, they learn at different rates, humans just don’t fit into the “one schedule, one method for everyone” routine offered in most schools and businesses.
Churches are losing attendance, holding onto ancient doctrines that no longer work with the better educated young people. Science has become materialistic, or naturalistic, teaching spiritual things are nonsense, and mythology according to many scientists.
Where will the young turn to find meaning and purpose for their lives. How will they cope with the vicissitudes of today’s modern life styles. It is time to start addressing some of these problems in earnest.
I know some of them are finding meaning and purpose in near death experiences. A spirituality without religion. Millions of people have had near death experiences and have been changed for the better. Just reading near death experiences have helped many more. There is meaning and purpose to life, we are eternal beings and will live after the death of our bodies, these things we have learned from NDEs, and the research on them.
