End of life experiences: Fenwick excerpt #11

In summary, The accounts we have of the mental processes of the dying can only give us a partial view, taking us up to the moment of death. The accounts given by those who return from an A/NDE [After Death Experience or Near Death Experience] have a higher definition and paradoxically seems to give a much clearer insight into the mental state of the dying as they start the journey. But despite these differences, the amazing similarity of accounts of the transcendent realm strongly supports the idea that there is one transcendent reality which, although accessed differently, is where the dying go.

It is surely illogical to think of end of life visions and actual death experiences as isolated, entirely unrelated events. It makes more sense to regard them as part of a continuum, or as different views of the same event – the dying process. It is easy to spot the similarities between them. Both give a glimpse of a transcendent realm suffused with love and light, and both seem to eliminate any fear of death. The presence of dead relatives who seem to be there for a purpose is common to both experiences - to take you on your journey, in the case of an end of life experience, or in an ADE, to send you back, with the message that it was not your time to go. The relatives are all healed of any injury like lost limbs and they never age.

There are obvious differences too. First, the feeling of being out of one’s body has not been reported in any of the end of life visions we have been told about, though it probably occurs in about a third of ADEs. Neither has anyone described a tunnel experience as part of an end of life vision. Instead, although the dying person sometimes describes being able to move into and out of another transcendent realm, only a movement towards rather than a real journey seems to be involved, just a feeling of going to and from with great ease. Perhaps it is the mental set of the dying which makes the tunnel experience less likely to occur. The dying often spend some time on the edge of consciousness, and at some level at least may know that death is approaching; they are embedded in a psychological matrix of ongoing, a journey to elsewhere, in which the process of leaving may be prolonged. In the A/NDE the movement into the experience – sometimes through a tunnel – and the return, usually described as a ‘snapping back into the body’ are very precise and abrupt events. There is a clear beginning and a clear end. But the end of life experience is a one way journey only, guided and supported by those you have loved.

How does this help with our understanding of life after death? The evidence we have would suggest that the domain after death has no location in physical space; subjective time is quite different, almost as if there is no time. But the domain is full of light and love. This would fulfill the concept of an entry into no time and no space but the memory of this area is always love and light.

 

“To Be And Not To Be. This is The Answer: Consciousness Survives,” essay for the 2021 Bigelow essay contest submitted by Dr Peter Fenwick & Dr Pier-Francesco Moretti, Dr Vasileios Basios, and Martin Redfern. The complete essay with footnotes is available at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php.