Nearing Death Awareness

Steven Petrow writes in The Washington Post: "Last summer, six months before my mother died, I walked into her bedroom, and she greeted me with a tinny hello and a big smile. She then resumed a conversation with her mother — who had died in 1973. 'Where are you?' Mom asked, as though Grandma, a onetime Fifth Avenue milliner, was on one of her many European hat-buying junkets. As I stood there dumbstruck, Mom continued chatting — in a young girl’s voice, no less — for several more minutes. Was this a reaction to medication, a sign of advancing dementia? Or was she preparing to 'transition' to wherever she was going next?

"As it turned out, my mother’s chat with a ghost was a signal that the end was inching closer. Those who work with the terminally ill, such as social workers and hospice caregivers, call these episodes or visions a manifestation of what is called Nearing Death Awareness.

“'They are very common among dying patients in hospice situations,' Rebecca Valla, a psychiatrist in Winston-Salem, N.C., who specializes in treating terminally ill patients, wrote in an email. 'Those who are dying and seem to be in and out of this world and the "next" one often find their deceased loved ones present, and they communicate with them. In many cases, the predeceased loved ones seem [to the dying person] to be aiding them in their "transition" to the next world.'

"While family members are often clueless about this phenomenon, at least at the outset, a small 2014 study of hospice patients concluded that 'most participants' reported such visions and that as these people 'approached death, comforting dreams/visions of the deceased became more prevalent.'

"In a moving 2015 TED talk, Christopher Kerr, the chief medical officer at the Center for Hospice and Palliative Care in Buffalo, showed a clip of one his terminally ill patients discussing her deathbed visions, which included her saying, 'My mom and dad, my uncle, everybody I knew that was dead was there [by my side]. I remember seeing every piece of their face.' She was lucid and present."

Steven Petrow, “At the end of her life, my mother started seeing ghosts, and it freaked me out,” The Washington Post, Jully 22, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/at-the-end-of-her-life-my-mother-started-seeing-ghosts-and-it-freaked-me-out/2017/07/21/af8a7c40-56b5-11e7-a204-ad706461fa4f_story.html.

"Let the dead bury the dead"

When Jesus is about to cross to the other side of the Sea of Galilee with his disciples, one of them says to him: “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus responds with a very well known but surprisingly harsh statement: “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” (Mt. 8:21-22)

Not surprisingly, this text from the anonymous gospel attributed by the early church to the disciple Matthew is almost never read in church. If asked to explain it, a Christian preacher or teacher is likely to describe the words attributed to Jesus, or spoken by him, not as criticism of observing rituals to bury deceased loved ones, but as an exaggeration intended to emphasize the importance of following Jesus.

I suggest, however, that the words attributed in this text to Jesus should be understood in the light of the Lord’s Prayer recorded in the gospel of Matthew, which affirms: “Our Father in heaven . . . Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven.” (Mt. 6:9-10) This prayerful appeal, known to every Christian, clearly affirms that “following Jesus” involves a faithful way of living with God now physically on earth, and also after death spiritually “in heaven.”

The gospel of Matthew uses the phrase “the kingdom of heaven” for the phrase “the kingdom of God” in the anonymous gospels attributed to the colleagues of the apostle Paul, Mark and Luke. In the earliest of these three gospels, Jesus begins his ministry by proclaiming: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and have faith in the gospel.” (Mk. 1:15)

In the gospel of Matthew, this declaration becomes: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Writing for Jewish readers, who out of respect for God do not utter God's name, the author of the gospel attributed to Matthew replaces the word God in Mk. 1:15  with the word heaven (Mt. 4:17). The kingdom of heaven (the kingdom of God) is a choice we may make. Following Jesus is choosing to do God’s will “on earth as in heaven.” (Mt. 6:10)

Deuteronomy 21:23 in the Torah requires that someone executed for a crime must be buried “that same day,” and rabbis interpreted this to mean that no corpse should "remain unburied overnight.” (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3842-burial) So, the disciple’s request to bury his father before following Jesus across the Sea of Galilee was his attempt to fulfill his duty according to the Law of Moses.

The reply of Jesus, therefore, seems to require his Jewish followers to ignore this duty under the Law of Moses, when fulfilling one's duty interferes with “following Jesus.”

In the light of the Lord’s Prayer, we also learn that “following Jesus” involves repenting to enter eternal life in “the kingdom of heaven” that is “on earth as in heaven." 

The image above is from the Coptic Christian Church, which dates to the first century.

Marlene's extraordinary knowing

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.

“She soon became distracted by the presence of a soft blue orb of light that came into view on the opposite side of the room. She watched as it began to move slowly toward her. How long it had been there hovering, watching before she had actually seen it, she could not say, but it seems that the mere engagement of her attention drew it forward. While the orb was slowly approaching, she noticed that the voices below became thinner and more distant while the visual scene grew ever smaller and more remote, as if she were looking through the wrong end of a telescope.

“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.

Dr. John's "second death"

Dr. Laurin Bellg writes of Dr. John Martin’s experience after what he described as his “first death” in an army hospital during World War II. “As he began to recover and to gain strength, he was started on a clear liquid diet to test the ability of his damaged gut to handle oral intake. While sipping tepid broth from a cup one day, it suddenly went down the wrong way and he began to choke. In the violence paroxysms of coughing that ensued, he popped some of the sutures that held his abdomen together and blood began seeping from his belly, soaking the bandages and leaching onto the sheets beneath him. Frantic calls for help erupted all around him. A nearby surgeon grabbed a gurney and began issuing orders to get him back to the operating room.

“That’s the last he remembered until he was once more in the surgical suite staring down at his body. He watched as a team quickly set up a sterile field and began breaking down the rest of his abdominal sutures. He saw them dive deeper into his belly to reach the repairs from his previous surgery that had broken loose during his intense fit of coughing. Once more, he lost a lot of blood and became very unstable. That’s when he died for the second time.

“With vital signs losing hold, his body quickly decompensated into an unstable cardiac rhythm that required several minutes of resuscitation to bring him back. Again, he saw the whole thing from above his physical body and watched the team fighting to keep him alive before he drifted away once more into what he referenced as a beautiful space of total love and acceptance.

“This time he described the reunion with the cloud of total peace as euphoric. It was like coming home after being away for so long. He then slowly became aware of another presence that he could feel but could not necessarily see. He knew he was not alone, but what was strange to him was that the presence seemed so familiar—he knew it intimately and it knew him. He was certain of this without knowing why. Again, the voice spoke and told him he must return, that it was not his time to die.

“Once more he descended toward his body as the resuscitation efforts succeeded, and blinked into sudden unconsciousness only to awaken sometime later on the surgical ward. But this time was different. He felt himself only loosely tied to his physical body as he drifted in and out several times, spontaneously floating above and beside himself on numerous separate occasions. When this happened he was fully aware of his surroundings and other conversations going on around him, although looking at his body on the bed below, the physical self seemed to be sleeping or sedated. He shouldn’t have been aware and watching himself, he reasoned, but he was.

“Working out for himself that the most logical explanation must be that his medical catastrophes had resulted in some mental imbalance, he decided not to breathe a word of his experience to anyone lest they think him crazy. He had invested too much of his life and energy into becoming a doctor. It was too great a risk to his career to admit that he had perhaps, as he ultimately determined, suffered some type of psychosis. He worried that in talking about his two deaths, as he now referred to them, he would lose credibility and potentially his license to practice medicine.

“The experience changed him though—internally at least. The more time that passed and the more sane he felt, the less inclined he was to think he was crazy. But the experience itself fit no process or paradigm he was familiar with. He couldn’t explain it to himself, so how could he possibly explain it to others? Not growing up in a particularly religious family, and always a natural pragmatist, he had never even entertained the thought of a life after death or considered the possibility that consciousness could survive beyond the physical body. Yet he had experienced it—twice!

“I was impacted by how reluctant he had been to share his story with even his most trusted colleagues and closest family, and yet I was familiar with the predicament. With the sort of barriers and judgments we, as a medical community, impose upon ourselves around phenomena that we cannot readily explain, it is the rare caregiver who would be open to receive such a story from a colleague.

“As he lay dying, he confessed to me deep regret about how he had let the thick veneer of professional code restrict what he shared with others. When his patients had shared personal stories with him of their own near-death encounters, he confessed that even then he was afraid to tell them what had happened to him. Enslaved by a social and professional persona he felt obligated to uphold, as much as he wanted to, he could never muster the courage to share something so personal with his patients. In hindsight, he felt that he had robbed them of the gift of a validation of their experience from someone they looked up to and trusted.

If I had only had the courage to tell my patients that the same thing has happened to me, he confessed, I would have done them a great service. But as it happened, I was too concerned with my own reputation—what my colleagues and patients would think of me—that I held my tongue. And I have to say, he paused, and then continued quietly, avoiding direct eye contact, it remains one of the greatest regrets of my life, both professionally and personally.

Even as my own wife lay dying, he continued softly, I didn’t have the courage to tell her that I believed something wonderful waited for her on the other side. I just couldn’t find the words and in her last moments I didn’t want her to wonder why I had withheld that from her all those years. Cupping his hands loosely in his lap and with shoulders slumped forward, he lifted his eyes toward me and grinned, I’m guessing she knows by now, eh?

“We chuckled together. Even in such a vulnerable moment, I admired his ability to soften the edges with humor.

“I understood Dr. John’s reserve—I’ve lived it. I’m grateful to him, though, for his display of courage and sharing a very personal story with me. Because of his generosity of spirit and words of quiet wisdom, not only as a patient but also as a fellow physician, I found the confidence to document these wonderful stories that patients have graciously allowed me to share with you.”

Laurin Bellg, Near Death in the ICU, 7-12.

Dr. John's "first death"

Dr. Bellg writes: “When I first met Dr. John Martin, I had been consulted to help manage his increasing respiratory distress from the metastatic disease that had sprouted from his colon cancer and settled in his lungs. Offering him the respect I felt he was due, I addressed him by his title when I introduced myself. Setting formalities aside he invited me to call him by his first name, but professional graces being what they are, I found that difficult so I just called him Dr. John. Smiling, he reciprocated by calling me Dr. Laurin. We immediately hit it off.

“Over the ensuing days, as he grew weaker, his family increased their vigil, maintaining more of a presence in the inpatient hospice he had recently been transferred. The atmosphere was purposely serene and he looked peaceful. One day, as I dropped by to see him as part of my daily rounds, I was surprised to find him alone.” Where is everyone? I asked.

They were too sad and it was bringing me down, so I sent them away, he joked. No, I told them I needed to rest so they stepped out for lunch.

Would you like me to come back later? I offered.

No, it’s fine. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.

Of course, I said.

“Finding a chair and pulling it to his bedside, I sat down facing him. He reached out his hand to me and I took it. We sat there for a moment with him looking down at the covers and I could tell he was gathering his thoughts to speak, so I waited for him to break the silence. Finally, squeezing my hand before releasing it, he looked up at me with direct eye contact and I could see his resolve, as if he had decided to entrust me with something very personal.

I’m not afraid to die, he said softly, because I’ve died twice before. Tilting his head slightly and squinting his eyes, he regarded me, weighing my reactions.

Tell me, I said, intentionally leaning forward and resting my hands on the arms of the chair in what I hoped was an invitational gesture encouraging him to continue. Seeming to be bolstered by my interest, he told me his story of not one death but two.

“In 1944 he was fresh out of medical school when he enlisted to serve in World War II as a field physician. As was customary at the time, to make sure she was taken care of should he not return from war, he married his longtime girlfriend before heading overseas. After a brief initial training in the United States he was transported to the European Theater.

“Barely 3 months into his overseas assignment, while heading out with part of his unit to an outpost triage area for the freshly wounded, their transform jeep was hit by mortar fire, killing the driver and severely wounding the rest of them. Two of his companions died before help could safely transport them back to the hospital, and Dr. John sustained extensive abdominal trauma. Bleeding heavily from his wounds, he passed out on the way back to the Army Hospital they had left barely two hours earlier.

“His next conscious memory was that of floating above his body in the operating room, watching as blood rushed in and pooled in the crevices of his open abdomen as quickly as they could clear it away. He knew all of the doctors and nurses as friends and colleagues and he found it incredibly strange to be watching them in such a detailed manner as they fought intensely to save him.

I can’t find the damn bleeder! He heard the surgeon say in frustration. Keep the blood coming. If you can’t get it fast enough, then I want plasma. The surgeon’s panic was only barely veiled by his intense inner determination not to lose this battle.

“Dr. John heard it all; he saw it at all. He was astonished at how aware he was as he looked. Then a sound distracted him and his attention was drawn to the slowing of his heartbeat on the monitor near his head. At the same time, he felt himself drifting farther away from the drama of the surgery. The last thing he recalled of that scene was the surgeon cursing and yelling out that they were losing him—and his own solitary thought: I must be dying.

“Then he found himself completely and peacefully enveloped in what he could only describe as a soft shroud of mist with tiny points of light blinking in and out, as they darted quickly back and forth all around him. He felt completely weightless and peaceful, void of any fear. The feeling of love was immense, almost unbearable, and recalling it now, Dr. John’s voice became fragile as he paused to fight back tears.

“Retaining his composure, after a few moments he continued. He described floating in such a beautiful and bright place of total peace that he lost all thoughts and concerns related to anything connected to his physical existence. He was aware of nothing except how good it felt to be there where he was—wherever that was. How long he lingered in this space he could not say because time had immediately lost meaning for him.

“Suddenly, though, he heard a very distinct voice say gently but firmly, You can’t stay, John. It’s not your time to die. Whether the voice was male or female he couldn’t determine, but it was commanding and he did not protest. Instinctively, he knew it would be pointless to argue.

“Feeling peaceful and detached, he felt himself descending and slowly his body came back into view as the mist surrounding him dissipated and he could once more hear the clamor and tension of the operating room. Hovering above the scene, he watched the weak representation of his pulse on the monitor slowly gaining strength as the resuscitation efforts of the surgical team reclaimed their hold on Dr. John’s physical body.

Thank God, he heard the surgeon whisper to himself as he stepped back and let an attendant wipe sweat from his brow.

“This was Dr. John’s last awareness of that particular episode. As he lay drifting in and out of consciousness on the surgical ward—a large, open room lined with several beds along each wall, separated only by curtains—he found his thoughts often drawn to that mysterious event that defied any explanation he could come up with. What he had seen and experienced had been so real. He knew that under the effects of anesthesia, he shouldn’t have been able to see his body or the surgical team the way he had. Yet it had been so clear.

“He missed the way that weightless space felt, especially when the effects of the morphine wore off. Whenever the racking pain of his surgery washed over him, he longed for the loss of physical sensation he had experienced in that cloud of total peace, as he would come to refer to it. But, as Dr. John had suggested when he started telling me about his experience, it would not be the last time he would be there.

Laurin Bellg, Near Death in the ICU, 1-6.

Dr. Laurin Bellg writes: “I am a critical care physician working with very ill patients in the ICU. My training prepared me to help care for the very sick, but it did not prepare me for encounters with the unknown. Over the past twenty years I've heard numerous mysterious and beautiful stories that patients have returned from the brink of death to share with me. They are both incredible and life affirming. “I don’t think at this point in human evolution we have the scientific theory, language, or methodology to untangle and understand consciousness phenomena.” Until we can, she urges that we hold these experiences “in curious regard, rather than dismissing them as preposterous impossibilities,” as this attitude “will better facilitate both an eventual understanding of these events and a supportive relationship with those who have them.”

“Helen had been in a very bad car accident,” Dr. Billg reports. “She didn’t remember the actual impact that crumpled four vehicles at an intersection. What she did remember, however, was shortly after the crash getting out of her car in somewhat of a panic, with the intention of surveying the damage and making sure everyone was all right. She knew how many vehicles were involved—there were four—and that one was a gray floral-delivery van with company decals on the side, composed of blue writing superimposed on a spray of red roses. That was correct.

“She described walking over to a dark-green, four-door sedan that was smashed against her hood at a sharp angle where it had hit her from the left side after running a stop sign. She described the dark-haired man with a beard, slumping over the steering wheel, moaning. She correctly concluded that the impact of the two vehicles—her car and the bearded man’s—had been the initial catalyst that had created a pileup when the delivery van that was behind her and the white SUV behind it couldn’t stop in time. She noted that the van had slammed into the back of her car, causing it to be wedged like an accordion between the green vehicle and the van. This left her pinned in and unable to move—physically, that is.

“The white SUV merely rear-ended the delivery van behind Helen, and the woman driving seemed none the worse for wear. Helen pointed out that it was this driver she had heard making the call on her cell phone to emergency services, as clearly as if she were right beside her. This was also correct. The driver of the least damaged vehicle, the white SUV, had indeed made the initial call for help.

“Helen was unresponsive and trapped in her car, according to the paperwork. Her consciousness, however, seemed to have surveyed the scene and remembered it accurately from a vantage point not just outside of her vehicle, but also actually outside of her physical body itself, which was still trapped in the car. She knew the driver of the delivery van was relatively unharmed but unable to open his door, which was rendered unusable by the impact.

“She also knew that after placing the 911 call, the driver of the white SUV was rushing frantically from vehicle to vehicle to survey the damage. She saw her reach into the green sedan, weaving her arm underneath the injured driver, to turn off the engine that was starting to generate billowing smoke from underneath the wrinkled hood. Hearing him groan, she then leaned in to comfort him, rubbing his back in a soothing gesture. Helen heard the lady trying to reassure him that he would be okay and help was on its way.

“She also saw the woman in the passenger’s seat beside the bearded man, crying, obviously upset. Seeing that the owner of the white SUV was focused on the driver, Ellen walked over to the passenger side of the car and tried to offer comfort and support to the crying woman through the shattered window, but she didn’t answer. She didn’t seem to notice her.

“It was then that Helen heard the wailing sirens of approaching police cars and ambulances. She took that as a cue to get back to her own vehicle so that they could all be properly cared for. Walking back to her own car, a sudden realization stopped her in her tracks—she was looking at a woman, apparently unresponsive, in the driver seat of her car and realized that she was that woman.

“She was standing outside of her own car, looking at what appeared to be her body trapped in the driver seat of a very damaged vehicle. It took her awhile to orient to the fact that she was looking at her own body while somehow being separated from it. In doing so, she eventually came to the sobering conclusion that if she was outside of her body looking at herself trapped in the heap of mangled metal, she must be dead.

“The official police report indicated that Helen was quite entangled in the debris of her car, and that it took nearly thirty minutes to extricate her. It was unclear at that time exactly what was injured or broken, but soon enough, the odd angles of her ankles revealed the truth of her injuries and that information was called into the hospital ahead of her arrival. Not only was she trapped in the rubble of the car, both of her ankles were clearly broken and she was observed by experienced rescue workers to be unconscious at the scene. There is no physical way that she would have been able to get out of her vehicle, let alone walk around and report was such great accuracy what she later described.”

Laurin Billg, Near Death in the ICU: Stories from Patients Near Death and Why We Should Listen to Them (Sloan Press, 2016), 177-181. Dr. Billg is a Critical Care Medicine Specialist in Appleton, WI and has over 24 years of experience in the medical field.