Cardiothoracic Surgery:The near-death sense (Nde) is an anomaly that defies the scientific logic of our contemporary world, and therefore it is often met by skepticism because it makes a case for immortality and the afterlife. This is understandable to me, since before my experience, as an atheist, I would also have been very skeptical of the Nde. If I had known about it then, I would indubitably have rejected the reality of the sense on the grounds of lack of solid proof.
A U.S. News & World Report's poll in 1997 estimated that up to 15 million Americans might have had a near-death experience. The most preeminent modern case is the near-death sense of Abc anchor, Bob Woodruff, who was approximately killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. He tells us about his sense that,
"I don't remember hearing it. I remember that I - I went out for a minute. I saw my body floating below me and [a] kind of whiteness. I don't have much more data than that, either it was heaven or something. I still don't know."
Cardiothoracic Surgery:Proof of Life After Death
Most scientific studies are done retrospectively many times years after the experience, but modern prospective studies have shown the sense to be scientifically predictable. In 2001, the first prospective study of near-death experiences was published in the international healing journal The Lancet. The study was lead by cardiologist Pim van Lommel, Md, and set up in ten separate hospitals in Holland over a period of 13 years. In this time period, 344 patients who had cardiac arrest were successfully resuscitated and they were then shortly after interviewed about their sense of being near to death. The study found that of the 344 patients, 62 patients or 18 percent reported having a near-death experience.
This prospective study gives strong evidence that near-death experiences are not just stories that people make up, but that something does indubitably happen to people who come close to death. Still, many experts remain skeptical. One exertion to account for the near-death phenomenon is that the sense is simply due to hallucinations brought on by the loss of oxygen to the brain, which in healing term is called "anoxia."
However, this explanation is a bit problematic because as we all know people who collapse or faint ordinarily have total blackout or are at least very confused about what happened to them. But the near-death experiencer has a clear consciousness of the event, remembering the lesson acutely for many years. So, the big quiz, for the skeptics is; how can people have clear consciousness in a state of cardiac arrest with no brain operation (flat Eeg)? Clearly these cases should not be called near death experiences but life after death experiences because people with cardiac arrest are clearly dead with no breathing or heart beat.
The best documented instance of this paradox is the case of Pam Reynolds. In 1991, Reynolds was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had to feel very involved surgery called "hypothermic cardiac arrest." This is a course where the body climatic characteristic is lowered, the heartbeat and breathing stopped, the blood is drained from the body, and the brain waves are totally flat.
From 11:05 a.m. To 12:00 noon, Reynolds was clinically dead with flat Eeg while the doing and in this timeframe she had a near-death experience. After advent back she was able to delineate the instruments used while the doing and even conversations in the middle of the staff in the operating room. Both the instruments used and the conversations was later confirmed by the doctor and nurse.
Furthermore, her ears where plugged with a sound expedient that would make it impossible for her to hear anything. Dr. Spetzler, who carried out the operation, later said that, "At that stage in the operation, nobody can observe, hear, in that state...I don't have an explanation for it." There is no explanation and Pam's case is one of the strongest signs of life after death that have ever been recorded and monitored by science.
The case of Pam Reynolds is not only a case of clinical death beyond reasonable doubt, but also provides a clear case of "veridical perception," where things seen or heard by the man while the Nde are later confirmed by others. In the study of veridical perception some studies have shown mighty results. In one study of 16 cases, 88 percent of perceptions face the body appeared to be exact and 31 percent could be confirmed by objective means. In other study moving 93 cases, 92 percent appeared to be fully exact with 35 percent being confirmed by objective means.
Even with verifiable veridical perception as evidence there will be skeptics, and therefore, I have also examined my own sense from a skeptical point of view. I asked myself either my lesson could not simply be a recreation of input that I had collected subconsciously throughout my life, let us say from movies. But my sense was so real and so far beyond my own sensibilities that I do not see how I could have imagined it.
This is a common windup after the experience, and the International connection of Near-Death Studies (Iands) tells us that people ordinarily narrative that the sense is "hyper-real" and more real than the life we know in this dimension.
Therefore, I have wee doubt about the reality of my experience, and researcher Margot Grey confirms that this is typical: "To the near-death survivor there is seldom any uncertainty." One of her accounts describes this by saying that "there is no doubt in my mind that what I experienced was real."
In one study, The Southern California Study, "Ninety-six percent carefully the sense real and not a dream, claiming that the contents of the sense were unlike whatever they'd ever had in a dream." One more thing to be said again in this relation is that the sense of realness stays with the experiencer. ordinarily people are able to recall the sense with excellent clarity many years afterward. In contrast, dreams and illusions are easier forgotten and disregarded as unreal.
This sense that the sense was real is born out by the aftereffects of the Nde, which are often deep and strong. P. M. H. Atwater, found that 79 percent were affected in a profound way, where 60 percent "reported primary life changes," while 19 percent "noted radical shifts-almost as if they had come to be other person."
For me, this is indubitably true about my sense also. The direction of my life totally changed after my sense to the extent that I would say I was reborn. Do dreams and hallucinations also have this strong life-changing effect? Having had both, and believing I know the difference, the retort is clearly, no.
Another researcher, Dr. Peter Fenwick tells us that, "[Near-death] experiences have a universal quality. If this were a purely psychological experience, one would expect it to be much more culturally influenced than it seems to be." This is also the windup of Margot Grey, who puts the same point in the following way, "What has clearly emerged is that a common pattern of events, moving a sequence of occurrences that seem to be approximately universal in their conformity of content."
In Lessons from the Light by Kenneth Ring and Evelyn Elsaesser Valarino, Ring writes about his investigate into near-death experiences with blind people. Skeptics sometimes say that the Nde is created by conditioned images, or even that people must have seen the same movie about near-death experiences. It was this conference that Kenneth Ring wanted to investigate when he started to look for near-death experiences among blind people.
Interestingly, not only did he find that people who had poor eyesight could see clearly while the near-death experience, but he also found that some blind people were able to see for the very first time. In his study Ring found that 80 percent out of thirty-one blind people who had a near-death sense were able to see while their experience.
Vicky, one man who had been fully blind from birth and survived two near-death experiences, explained, "Those two experiences were the only time I could ever delineate to seeing, and to what light was, because I experienced it. I was able to see." other person, Brad, who had also been blind from birth said, "I know I could see and I was supposed to be blind...It was very clear when I was out. I could see details and everything."
This gets even more moving when Ring then wanted to compare their eyeless finding with their dreams. When asked to compare their near-death experiences to their dreams, both Vicky and Brad answered that there were no similarity at all. The big variation is that blind people do not see things in their dreams like sighted people do.
Vicky tells us that, "I have dreams in which I touch things...I taste things, touch things, hear things and smell things-that's it." And when asked either she was able to see whatever at all while her dreams she answers, "Nothing. No color, no sight of any sort, no shadows, no light, no nothing."
Brad explained the same, "I've had the very same consciousness level in my dreams as I've had in my waking hours. And that would be that all my senses function...except vision. In my dreams, I have no visual perceptions at all."
Here are examples of two people who have never been able to see, but in their near-death sense are able to see for the first time. How is it potential for these blind people to transcend the sensory restrictions?
Personally, I have no doubt that life continues after death and that consciousness can exist without the body. I think that the imagine we cannot get any solid 'proof' is that we do not perceive all of reality. From my sense I am convinced that there is much, much more to reality than what meets the eye. Just as the universe continues beyond what we know, I am also convinced that life does.
William A. Tiller, physicist at Stanford University, has given what I believe to be the exact narrative of the scenario. "Humans see only a small fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum and hear only a small fraction of the sound spectrum. Perhaps we similarly perceive only a small fraction of a greater reality spectrum."
Cardiothoracic Surgery:Proof of Life After Death
