Dr. Laurin Bellg
writes: “Of all the near-death encounters I’ve been fortunate enough to have
patients share with me through the years, I am continually amazed when someone
comes back from a state of confirmed clinical death to relate otherwise
unknowable details about the physical environment or tell of encounters with
deceased loved ones. This is especially remarkable when they report information
that they could not have possibly known or events that will occur that haven’t
yet happened. Such was the case with Marlene.
“Marlene was a young Native American mother who was pregnant with her second child. It had been a routine pregnancy and she progressed without difficulty to labor and then delivery of a healthy baby boy. The problem occurred when she suddenly became unstable with what was later surmised to have been an amniotic fluid embolism. This occurs when a bolus of amniotic fluid enters blood vessels that are perhaps torn or otherwise compromised during childbirth. It goes to the lungs through the right side of the heart and, like air injected into veins, obstructs vital blood flow, causes instability, and not infrequently leads to cardiac arrest.
“This is precisely what happened to Marlene. Her resuscitation was prolonged, with several periods where she had flat lined and didn’t have a heart beat or pulse at all. After nearly an hour, code was deemed unsuccessful and she was pronounced dead. After several minutes, as the doctor was removing his surgical gown and gloves and preparing for the great task of having to inform the family of the tragedy, the nurse announced with alarm, She has a heartbeat! And a pulse!
“Resuscitation efforts resumed and this time were successful, but because she had been clinically dead for several minutes, her medical team warned the family that she would most certainly have anoxic brain injury due to the prolonged time that her brain had no blood or oxygen supply—at best they could expect her to be in a persistent vegetative state. But fortunately for both Marlene and her family, that was not the case. She awakened nearly four days later, and shared an incredible story.
“She recalled being in labor and giving birth to a child. Not long after that, though, she related experiencing the feeling of an incredibly warm wave washing over her while her point of view spread swiftly backward to the corner of the delivery room, and to the left of her body. From there she observed the team panicking, starting to do chest compressions and concerning themselves with the business of trying to save her. She heard shouts and orders from the staff below, but felt strangely calm and detached as she observed them.
“As the orb, about the size of a beach ball, came to rest in front of her, she felt overwhelmed with emotion and intense feelings of peace, love, and complete safety. While nothing particular was said, the thought came to her that she was going to be okay but that something was going to happen first. This was confusing to her, but she did not feel afraid or threatened. For some time, she and the blue orb lingered in the corner of the room where she had been after she had left her body. While she was still aware on some level of what was happening below her, it seem to recede farther and farther away and she began to have a sensation of ascending.
“She felt a density difference as she moved through the ceiling of the delivery room. She saw large silver pipes and industrial wiring as she moved through the spaces in between floors and then briefly paused in another patient’s room. There she saw a man sitting up in his hospital bed. He was eating a meal from a narrow, wheeled tray table while a woman, reclining in a chair beside the bed, was reading a magazine.
“She noted a couple of vases of flowers on the windowsill and perceived, more than actually smelled, their intoxicating fragrance. The flowers were the most vivid colors she had ever seen and the pistils, stems and leaves all seem to be made up of tiny particles that vibrated very fast. There was a palpable, humming energy emanating from the flowers that vibrated across the atmosphere, entering into her body, if she could call it that, and presented itself in such a way that she could feel the flowers.
“After lingering in the room briefly, she and her amorphous companion began to move again through other floors and finally to the roof. She saw the flat, pebble surface and the tar patching that reached out in streaks and twists along seams and in circles around pipes and supporting structures. There was a three-dimensional effect where the pebbles seemed to loom toward her with incredible detail while the black tar appeared to deepen and recede.
“She saw the parking lot several stories below and was aware of a delivery truck, with caution lights flashing, where it was temporarily parked for unloading. Again she homed in on the blinking lights, noticing that the colors and motion of the illuminated blinkers were so intense. Once more, she perceived the sound a blinker would make even though she was too far away to actually hear it. She observed that when she looked at the blinkers she could hear them and when she looked away the sound faded. She saw the deliveryman come back to the truck and, when she looked at him, she could hear his padding footsteps on the pavement. When she looked away, the sound was gone.
“So it would seem that whatever she visually locked in on—from the hospital room where she had seen the flowers, through the roof and then the parking lots below—she gained an instant awareness of the sounds, smells and colors in hyper-sensory detail from a great distance. Her guide, if that is what it was, seemed in no hurry to move her along, allowing Marlene to marvel and observe with this phenomenal skill.
“Marlene shared with me how, caught up in the fascination of these new experiences, she became totally detached from her physical existence and less aware of the drama happening to her body in the delivery room. Every now and then she would hear the faint, distant cry of a baby that she understood to be hers. Even the random, chaotic commands of resuscitation in progress would occasionally bleed through to her awareness. For the most part, however, these sounds concerned her less and less. She found that her new nonphysical reality didn’t seem new at all but that the longer she was in her now state, as she put it, she seemed to be more who she really was—than when she was in her physical body.
“As her attention drifted from the visual scene below her, she continued to rise above the point of view of the roof and in a distinct shift in perspective, recalled the specific moment when she was no longer moving from but going toward. She felt that the blue orb, with unspoken permission, had let her make that decision, letting her untangle physical ties at whatever pace she chose.
“Moving into lighter space, she was aware that the orb was less dense as well. Looking to her right has they moved along, she realized that her companion was actually no longer an orb but seemed to have stretched out to a filmier smudge of an elongated, cloud-like substance. She wondered why the orb had changed like that—dense and round in physical space but lighter and less formed in a more ethereal atmosphere.
“As she was contemplating the changing nature of her new guide, she noticed suddenly that they seemed to be moving very fast: it was intoxicating. She had an urge to giggle and felt the distinct vibrations of actually laughing. Soon she noticed a shift in the environment and could see they were skimming a vast body of water. She could even feel the briny spray coming up from what seemed to be a slowly roiling ocean. It was real water, real ocean. She was fascinated, but at the same time, puzzled by how they got there. Tossing these questions around, she heard a reply from her guide to her internal question. We thought ourselves here, she was informed. In this reality, we are not limited by physical matter.
Then “they were instantly skimming across a rippling field of golden grain, moving at incredible speed across the top of a wheat field. To Marlene, it was very real. She could smell the sweet, dusty aroma of wheat and hear the soft, shucking whispers as the heads of green whipped and twisted against each other under the influence of their passing. Glancing behind her, she saw the turbulent depressions in the vast grain field in the wake that their movement seemed to create, and how the motion of the wheat slowed to a gentle wave as they moved on.
“Suddenly, she reported, they came to an instant stop with absolutely no sense of deceleration into a vast void that was incredibly silent. But even the silence seemed to have texture. After a brief pause of floating in this splendid quiet, the environment took on more density, with subtle shifts in color and hue. At this point, Marlene really struggled to explain this to me, saying that it was like a cloud, but not really—like a mist, but not exactly. She described the feeling of silk or soft fog settling around her while, at the same time, muted colors of blues, grays, and faint pinks and greens fluctuated in and out. With the color there was a faint sound that had a somewhat musical quality, but there were no specific tones that she could identify. It was more vibrational than anything, she recounted, much like the connection she’d felt from the vase of flowers she’d encountered in the hospital room where she’d pause briefly on her ascent.
“Suddenly and without warning, Marlene felt overcome with emotion without really understanding why. Then her awareness shifted, as if of its own volition, and she looked up to see her deceased grandmother, mother and a favorite uncle moving toward her. Oddly, a man with a severe limp came forward next. At first she didn’t recognize him, but then remembered he had lived in the same neighborhood where she had lived as a newlywed.
“She was surprised to see him because she didn’t necessarily feel a particular connection with him. She recalled helping him occasionally when he needed a ride, some yard work or a few groceries. But that was her nature with anyone she encountered who was in need of assistance. Why he was there, she couldn’t imagine, but in a brief flicker of infiltrating thought, she understood that the help she offered had meant so much to him when he was alive. The deep gratitude he had held for her actions all those years had caused him to show up in this moment. But her attention quickly returned to her dear loved ones.
“Weeping as she embraced them, she was astonished at how real they seemed. She recalled her mother smiling as Marlene gently wiped tears from her face and the love in her eyes was overwhelming. Then her mother thought three words that ripped the moment apart. You can’t stay.
What? But why? Marlene exclaimed through choking sobs. Even in nonphysical space, she felt the crash of being at the top of unspeakable joy—then plummeting into an abyss of despair. She began crying harder and, gasping for breath, pleaded: But I have to stay. I have to! I want to be here with you. I don’t remember what I left behind.
You will, came the reply. From whom specifically, she could not say.
But why? Marlene asked again.
You were allowed to come here to learn to perceive things differently and understand. You will be different when you return, she was informed.
“It was then that a small female child was brought forward by three beings that she as a Native American, perceived to be Elders. As she was shown the child, who was about four or five years old, she was told, This one is special and she will need you.
“Marlene couldn’t say why or how she knew, but she could sense there was a problem with this child. Physically, the child looked beautiful, but it was more the essence of a mental struggle she seemed destined for. She was told that the child will be named Crystal and would come to teach those near her about love and acceptance. The young girl seemed excited about the task. Marlene was informed, again through a thought that seemed to be deposited in her mind, that this was a preordained task agreed upon by the young child and her guides.
“It was then that Marlene perceived herself beginning to move slowly backward as the gathering of loved ones and Elders faded away. Her loved ones waved to her and smiled gently, even as they receded further and further into the ether that surrounded them. Then, with incredible speed, she was hurled back into her body. She had survived the grueling mechanics of resuscitation from death, felt the wrenching pain of broken ribs from chest compressions and the limp exhaustion of having given birth. She lay there, feeling sad that she had been made to return.
“She could hear the hurried excitement of the medical team around her, but could not bring herself to respond. For the next few days she faded in and out of awareness. When she finally came to full consciousness, she saw her family surrounding her. They were obviously very concerned and were overcome with tears when she was able to engage with what was going on around her. She appeared to have come through her ordeal relatively unscathed, and mentally intact.
“After a few days of assimilating her experience and gaining strength, she dared to share her story. While her family was fascinated and even felt encouraged to hope that loved ones live on, the response she received from her physician was lukewarm and dismissive.
The brain can do funny things when it doesn’t have oxygen, her doctor remarked, “insinuating that this vastly rich journey beyond the physical had all been a hallucination. That was the last she spoke of it to anyone outside of her family until years later when she was working with me as a staff nurse in an outlying clinic. A few of us were gathered in a break room over lunch, and when the discussion somehow drifted toward near-death anomalies, she entrusted us with her spectacular story.
“She also shared that, twenty-one years later, her daughter had a child. Her journey into the afterlife, long buried in the activities of daily living, came rushing back to her the moment she learned that her daughter was pregnant, knew from ultrasound it was a girl and her name would be Crystal. This was part of her near-death experience she had deliberately not shared with anyone—not even her family
“The sobering memory of being informed by those she had encountered during her journey that the child would likely have a disability of some kind was suddenly a possibility. She kept this information to herself, hoping that she was wrong, but as time would reveal, Crystal struggled with autism and a profound dysfunction of sensory integration. She was extremely sensitive to sound and other stimuli, and would go through years of occupational and physical therapy to learn to turn the volume down on her hyperactive response to sensory triggers in order to function relatively normally in a physical environment.
“It wasn’t easy. Crystal required a lot of work and attention but her ready smile, infectious humor and unqualified affection more than compensated for it. Her characteristic gesture when someone was angry or frustrated, especially with her, was to take their face between her hands, bring it close to hers, look into their eyes with extreme ease and calmly say, Love, love! No one could resist, and they would collapse into a hug with this special child.
“Marlene and Crystal had a particularly special connection, a bond that was instant and strong. They spent hours together and, living close by, Crystal often stayed the night with Marlene while her mother worked third shift at a local factory. Once when Crystal was about four years old, as Marlene was tucking her into bed for the evening, she looked peacefully up at her grandmother and, lost in a soft gaze that connected her to something faraway, said, I saw you before, Grammy, remember?
What do you mean, sweetheart? Marlene did not immediately know what her granddaughter meant.
When you died before, and came to Heaven. I saw you there.
“With a shiver of excitement, Marlene leaned in toward her granddaughter and replied softly through instant tears, Yes, Crystal, I remember. Marlene’s death and return to life so long ago was now a distant memory. It was something she rarely talked about, and certainly not with Crystal. There was no way that this child could have known what she seem to know about what had happened over twenty years earlier.
You were sad that you had to go back in your body; Crystal became pensive as tears poured down Marlene’s cheeks. Are you still sad?
No, Crystal, I’m not sad. I’m very happy to be here with you. She gave her granddaughter a light kiss on the forehead and tousled her dark curls. With a giggle on the bright smile, Crystal leaned forward and, taking Marlene’s face and her two small hands, brought her close and said brightly, Love, love!
Bellg comments: “We simply don’t know what is happening when patients perceive themselves to be floating outside of their bodies and can then later relate details to us with astonishing accuracy.”
Laurin Bellg, Near Death in the ICU, 45-58.
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