The Mays write: A surprising number of people who had their NDEs during infancy or early childhood report that they were “adults” during their NDEs. Most people reporting an NDE or NDE-like experience from this early age describe the experience from an adult perspective, similar to having an adult mind in a child’s body.
P.M.H. Atwater
For example, NDE investigator P.M.H. Atwater quotes from the case of Vicky:
“I remember being able to leave my body, fly around the room, and being pulled back into my body. ... [My dad would] tickle me under my chin. It made me laugh so hard I would fly up through the top of my head and out of my body. From the ceiling I’d look back at my little body on the couch. ... I could see my mom in the kitchen ironing something on the ironing board. I could see the whole house while soaring around. ... While I was out I wanted to stay out, but something always pulled me back. It was as if there were two parts of me. One aspect was me as the baby. And the other aspect was me with an adult mind. While I was out of my body I was me—but older, wiser, much more knowledgeable. When I returned to my baby body, it was as if I forgot that other aspect of myself.”
NDE-like experiences such as Vicky’s can occur even when the person is not near death but score on the NDE Scale as valid NDEs. In Vicky’s case, she described being out-of-body, having perceptions out of the line of physical sight, and being forced to return to her body. Most significantly, she described her out-of-body mind as being a fully mature, adult mind that was an older, wiser, and more knowledgeable version of herself. These qualities were lost when returning to her body. Vicky’s in-and-out experience is reminiscent of Joe McMoneagle’s yo-yo-like experience.
When NDErs report seeing their own physical body, they view it differently: Their body is not part of who they are. They typically view their body with disinterest, disdain, or even disgust. Their physical body generally appears as an empty shell, like an old, discarded coat. For Mary Neal, her body “looked like the shell of a comfortable old friend.”
And when NDErs experience their return to the physical body, the contrast between their expanded out-of- body mind and the coarse physical body becomes even more obvious. Their expanded mind needs to be squeezed back into the body. Consider NDEr Erica McKenzie’s experience as her out-of-body mind rejoined her physical body:
“It was my body but I also knew the real me was not attached to that body. I honestly didn’t think I could shove myself back into what had once felt so familiar, but now I identified as foreign. I knew reintegrating was going to be overwhelming and painful. That body wasn’t me! ... It was too confining and claustrophobic to even consider trying to stuff myself inside it. There must be another solution, but I couldn’t think of one. ... In a split second, I was shoved back into my limp body like a hand in a glove, only the glove was too small. Each part of my spiritual body squeezed its way into my physical counterpart. I could feel my spiritual big toe fit back into the spot of my physical big toe along with each one of my fingers, my hands, feet, arms and legs. My body felt heavy and confined as if I’d been zipped inside a jacket two sizes too small. All the feelings attached to my sick and exhausted body assaulted my spiritual one. My chest hurt along with the rest of me. This was an enormous let down from the light-filled vastness of Spirit I had just experienced. It wasn’t me at all! I had lived as a multidimensional being, basking in the love of God’s presence only to be forced back into the stark reality of a 3-dimensional body. How could I possibly go back to that?”
When NDErs experience being reunited with the physical body, pain returns. Each time Joe McMoneagle was reunited with his body, he felt tremendous pain, but he felt no pain while out-of-body. Any prior physical disabilities also return.
On return to the body, the NDEr typically feels heaviness, fatigue, and physical sluggishness. Compared to experiences during an NDE, the physical body evidently dampens and dulls thinking and perceptions and constrains movement. Erica McKenzie’s body felt heavy and confined, and her pain returned when her “spiritual body” was shoved back into and reintegrated with her “3-dimensional body.” The NDEr experiences their consciousness—their mind—coming back to the limitations of their physical body.
Robert G. Mays, BSc and Suzanne B. Mays, AA, “There is no death: Near-death experience evidence for survival after permanent bodily death.” An essay written for the 2021 Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies addressing the question: “What Is The Best Available Evidence For The Survival Of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death?” Footnotes are omitted from these excerpts but are in the full text available from the Bigelow website at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php.
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