Shared death experiences: Long excerpt #19

Radiation oncologist Jeremy Long writes in his article, "Evidence for Survival of Consciousness in Near-Death Experiences: Decades of Science and New Insights" - “Shared near-death experiences are defined as occurring when two or more people have a life-threatening event simultaneously, with at least one person surviving and the other(s) permanently dying. They are aware of the other(s) during their experiences and often interact with each other. The surviving person, the NDEr, later describes the shared NDE. Shared NDEs are important, as they provide one of the most direct lines of evidence that what is described in NDEs is the initial experience of those who  permanently die. Here is an example:

I was in the car taking my girlfriend to her parent’s home in Welland. I fell asleep while driving. I then realized that we were out of our bodies and flying quickly upward while holding hands. We flew straight up for about a minute. We then saw a park or countryside-like landscape. Suddenly, we encountered four creatures. Two flanked each of us, and they began to separate us gently. They overwhelmed us with a feeling of the highest love and compassion beyond anything we could experience on earth. We were feeling a divine love. Therefore, we did not resist their effort. I felt sort of like a baby in mother's arms, though it's hard to describe accurately. Two of the creatures moved her upward toward the distant landscape, and two moved me back downward. I felt so much love, peace, and comfort that I wanted to protest and say, 'No, please let me stay here.' But I heard inwardly or psychically that I couldn't stay. Next, I saw my car in flames, from about a quarter-mile up above. I felt a falling sensation and awakened in the car. The front was on fire. I moved her from leaning on me, as she was when I fell asleep, knowing that her body was only an empty shell. I had left her above with the beings.

“Some shared near-death experiences include awareness of another person dying geographically far away or without the NDEr knowing that the person they encountered in their NDE was dying. An example of this is from Jennifer, who had multiple NDEs over a short time interval due to surgical complications. This shared NDE is remarkable given that her NDE occurred in Florida, yet she interacted with her uncle who died unexpectedly at the same time in Pennsylvania: 

During the other NDE I had, I was in my late uncle's operating room in Pennsylvania. My relatives and I did not know that Uncle Bill went into the hospital for elective surgery to remove some polyps. He wasn't ill, so it should have been an easy routine operation. I found myself together with him, hovering in the corner of his operating room, watching his medical team cover his dead body. We didn't speak or look at each other. He was not wearing glasses as he had in life. I had a shape or form, as did Uncle Bill. We communicated without speaking or using words. We communicated with a meaning that conveyed a knowing. I don't know how to express it. We watched them cover his body, and we then left the room. I understood that I was the only person of my relatives who was aware of my uncle's passing. After I recovered consciousness, I wondered why nobody talked about my uncle's death. Why hadn't anyone mentioned it? I then realized that they were not aware my uncle had died. This was confirmed when I asked what happened to Uncle Bill, and they didn't know what I was talking about.

“David was seriously injured in a severe auto accident that killed his friend. They shared an NDE:

It was like looking down through the branches of a tree. I saw a fuzzy and dark image. I thought, 'What is that?' My friend answered, 'I do not know, what is that?' The images were distorted like the sunlight seen from the bottom of a swimming pool. The dim fuzzy dark image was illuminated momentarily by brighter lines moving across our field of view. I said to my friend, 'That is my brother's car.' I saw a police car to the left, and a group of people behind the police car. To the right was an ambulance and another police car. My friend said, 'That is us.' At that moment, we both said, 'We are dead.’

“When shared near-death experiences occur, they may happen with observations of ongoing earthly events or in an unearthly realm. Lacee was riding with her husband on a motorcycle. They crashed, and her husband died. Lacee survived with serious injuries. They shared an NDE in an unearthly realm:

I began to fly through the tunnel, and the first thing I noticed was looking down at the embankment we had crashed into. I felt the pull to go further becoming ever stronger until I reached the tunnel where a light appeared. I continued fighting with all my strength to stop and not go further. Suddenly I was in a field of tall, beautiful, green grass. The grass undulated in waves, yet there was no wind. Overhead the sky was pink/rosy/purple. I felt a strong sense of well-being as if I were in a beautiful paradise, sort of like the Garden of Eden. My husband was walking towards me through the grass. We looked at each other, and without talking, I understood he had died. I knew we had to say goodbye at this moment. He let me know that he will be waiting for me, but I need to care for our boys for now. I was then back on the ground in my body and feeling overwhelming pain.

“Skeptics may say that near-death experiences may not tell us what happens to those who have permanently died. But shared NDEs, while uncommon, are significant evidence that NDEs are describing the actual beginning of a very real afterlife.

“Shared near-death experiences suggest that what occurs in NDEs is the initial journey of the irrevocably deceased. The NDERF website has received more than a dozen shared NDEs over the years, and they are available for review by anyone. These are among the most remarkable of NDEs and provide powerful evidence for the reality of NDEs and their consistent message of an afterlife.” 

Jeffrey Long, MD, "Evidence for Survival of Consciousness in Near-Death Experiences: Decades of Science and New Insights." In the next several posts I will share excerpts from Long's 2021 article. Footnotes have been deleted. The complete text is available as a pdf at https://www.nderf.org