NDE life reviews are nonjudgmental

Harold R. Nelson, former Chaplain Emeritus of the University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona, explains that an NDE life review “involves a panoramic visual, detailed presentation of one’s entire life. Good deeds, as well as selfish deeds, are flashed back. The review is non-judgmental. The emphasis is on taking advantage of opportunities to love others and acquire knowledge.” Nelson affirms: "In my ministry and studies, I have come to believe that the near-death experience prepares us not only to die but to life live to the fullest until we say good-bye." {HR}

Cardiologist Pim van Lommel reports that: “Patients survey their whole life in one glance; time and space do not seem to exist during such an experience (nonlocality). Instantaneously, they are where they concentrate upon, and they can talk for hours about the content of the life review even though the resuscitation only took minutes. This panoramic review of one’s life seems to contain all the conscious and unconscious aspects or the essence of one’s self in constant and instantaneous connection with the consciousness of others.” [AS, 23]

Not only did I perceive everything from my own viewpoint, but I also knew the thoughts of everyone involved in the event, as if I had their thoughts within me. This meant that I perceived not only what I had done or thought, but even in what way it had influenced others, as if I saw things with all-seeing eyes. And so, even your thoughts are apparently not wiped out. Time and distance seemed not to exist. I was in all places at the same time. [AS, 23]

Radiation oncologist Jeffrey Long reports on data collected by the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation. I saw every important event that had ever happened in my life, from my first birthday to my first kiss to fights with my parents. I saw how selfish I was and how I would give anything to go back and change. {EA, 13}

I went into a dark place with nothing around me, but I wasn’t scared. It was really peaceful there. I then began to see my whole life unfolding before me like a film projected on a screen, from babyhood to adult life. It was so real! I was looking at myself, but better than a 3-D movie as I was also capable of sensing the feelings of the persons I had interacted with through the years. I could feel the good and bad emotions I made them go through. I was also capable of seeing that the better I made them feel, and the better the emotions they had because of me, [the more] credit (karma) and that the bad [emotions] would take some of it back . . . just like a bank account, but here it was like a karma account to my knowledge. {EA, 111}

My entire consciousness seemed to be in my head. Then I started seeing pictures. I think they were in color. It was as if someone had started a movie of myself and of my entire life, but going backwards from the present moment. The pictures were about my family, my mother, other members, others, and it seemed that the most meaningful, loving, caring relationships were being focused upon. I could sense the real meaning of these relationships. I had a sense of love and gratitude towards the persons appearing in my flashback. This panoramic review of my life was very distinct; every little detail of the incidents, relationships, was there—the relationships in some sort of distilled essence of meaning. The review was measured in the beginning, but then the pictures came in faster and faster, and [it] seemed like the movie reel was running out . . .. It went faster and faster, and then I heard myself, along with the entire universe in my head, screaming in a crescendo, ‘Allah ho akbar!’ (God is great). {EA, 48-49}

“The NDERF survey asked, ‘Did you experience a review of past events in your life?’ To that question, 22.2 percent of NDErs answered ‘Yes.’” {EA, 14}

HR - Harold R. Nelson, The Near Death Experience: Observations and Reflections from a Retired Chaplain, 002234090005400205.pdf

AS - “Near-Death Experiences: The Experience of the Self as Real and Not as an Illusion,” Annals N.Y. Acad. Sci. ISSN 0077-8923, 1234 (2011) 19–28, http://pimvanlommel.nl/files/NDE-NYAS-Experience-Self-article.pdf

EA – Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry, Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences (2010)

NDE encounters: a bright light and other beings

Evidence of the Afterlife by Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry presenting information from the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF).

Encountering a mystical or brilliant light

A beautiful light drew me to itself; the light still touches me with awe, and tears come immediately. {EA, 10}

At first the light was blue. Then it transitioned to white. It was an opalescent white; it almost glowed, but did not shine. It was bright, but not intensely bright, like glowing bright—pure bright. Pure but not in the usual sense of the word. Pure as in something you’ve never seen before or could ever describe or put into words. {EA, 10}

“NDErs may dramatically describe their strong attraction to the light and their emphatic desire to approach or merge with the light. The NDERF survey asked, ‘Did you see a light?’ NDErs responded with 64.6 percent answering ‘Yes.’” {EA, 10}

Encountering other beings, either mystical beings or deceased relatives or friends

Van Lommel writes: “If deceased acquaintances or relatives are encountered in an otherworldly dimension, they are usually recognized by their appearance, and communication is possible through what is experienced as thought transfer. Thus, it is also possible to come into contact with the consciousness or ‘self’ of deceased persons (interconnectedness), even if it was not possible to know that these relatives had died.” [AS, 23]

During my cardiac arrest . . . I saw, apart from my deceased grandmother, a man who had looked at me lovingly, but whom I did not know. More than 10 years later, at my mother’s deathbed, she confessed to me that I had been born out of an extramarital relationship, my father being a Jewish man who had been deported and killed during the Second World War, and my mother showed me his picture. The unknown man that I had seen more than 10 years before during my NDE turned out to be my biological father. [AS, 24]

Then I looked to my left and saw my grandmother who had passed away when I was nine months old. I also saw all of my deceased relatives with her, thousands of them. They were in translucent spirit form. {EA, 126}

I was surrounded by other beings, or people, who I felt as though I recognized. These beings were like family, old friends, who’d been with me for an eternity. I can best describe them as my spiritual or soul family. Meeting these beings was like reunited with the most important people in one’s life, after a long separation. There was an explosion of love and joy on seeing each other again between us all. {EA, 11}

“Why should seeing deceased friends or relatives be evidence of life after death? Because if NDEs were only a product of brain function, then one would expect that beings encountered during the NDE would be those most recently familiar to the NDEr.” A study by Emily Williams Kelly at the department of psychiatric medicine of the University of Virginia “found that 95 percent of the deceased individuals encountered [in NDEs] were relatives, while only 5 percent were friends or acquaintances. Only 4 percent of the NDErs in the study met beings who were alive at the time of the NDE. Other studies have shown that in dreams or hallucinations, the beings encountered are much more likely to be people who are still living.” {EA, 122-23}

“The NDERF survey asked, ‘Did you meet or see any other beings?’ In response, 57.3 percent answered ‘Yes.’” {EA, 11}

Jeffrey Long, MD and Paul Perry, Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences (2010)

Sensations, emotions, altered space and time

Radiation oncologist Jeffrey Long conducted research on near-death experiences under the auspices of the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF). The following quotes are from his 2010 book, Evidence of the Afterlife.

Heightened Senses

It just seemed so much more real than anything I had ever experienced in my entire life. {EA, 8}

All sound was incredibly clear. The voice of the Supreme Being seemed to emanate from nowhere but at the same time from everywhere. Words did not come from the mouths of beings, but from the aura around them. {EA, 62}

"The NDERF survey asked, ‘How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal, everyday consciousness and alertness?’ Of the NDErs surveyed, 74.4 percent indicated they had ‘More consciousness and alertness than normal.’” {EA, 8}

Intense and generally positive emotions or feelings

Words will not come close to capturing the feelings, but I’ll try: total, unconditional, all-encompassing love, compassion, peace, warmth, safety, belonging, understanding, overwhelming sense of being home, and joy. {EA, 8}

All I felt was love, joy, happiness, and every wonderful emotion you could feel all at once. {EA, 8}

Total peace, total calm. I was not in the least bit afraid or anxious. {EA, 9}

"The NDERF survey asked, ‘Did you have a feeling of peace or pleasantness?” To this question, 76.2 percent selected ‘Incredible peace or pleasantness.’ The NDERF survey asked another question about a specific emotion during the NDE: ‘Did you have a feeling of joy?’ NDErs responded to this question with 52.5 percent selecting ‘Incredible joy.’” {EA, 9}

A sense of alteration of time or space

It seemed as though I experienced so much in such a small length of earthly time. Where my soul had traveled to knows nothing of time as we know time passing on earth. {EA, 13}

Both time and space on earth stopped completely. Simultaneously, “the time and the space” on the other side was completely alive, evident, and real. {EA, 13}

Yes, while I was in the light, I had . . . [no] sense of time, as I know it here on Earth. All times (past, present, and future) were experienced at every moment in time while I was in the light. {EA, 13}

“The NDERF survey asked, ‘Did you have any sense of altered space or time?’ To this question the majority, 60.5 percent, answered ‘Yes.’” {EA, 13}

Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry, Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences (2010).

Out-of-Body experiences during an NDE

“During their OBE,” cardiologist Pim van Lommel observes, “people have the feeling that they have apparently taken off their body like an old coat, and to their surprise and confusion, they apparently have retained their own self-identity with the possibility of perception, emotions, and a very clear consciousness.” [AS, 22]

Oncologist Jeffrey Long reports in his book Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences, examples of out-of-body experiences during NDEs.

I could feel my spirit actually leaving my body. I saw and heard the conversations between my husband and the doctors taking place outside my room, about forty feet away down a hallway. I was later able to verify this conversation to my shocked husband. {EA, 7}

I still had a “body, but it was entirely different. I could see in three dimensions as if I had no body at all but was just a floating eyeball, for lack of a better explanation. I could see all directions at once, yet there were no directions or dimensions as we think of them. {EA, 60}

Having no material body, I was sensing, seeing, feeling, on another plane. It is like trying to explain the colors of the rainbow to a blind person. {EA, 90}

“Even people who are blind from birth,” van Lommel notes, “have described veridical perceptions during OBEs at the time of their NDE.” [AS, 24]

Everything was very bright and sharp. I am legally blind without my glasses, but the nurse took my glasses before they took me to the delivery room. Yet [during the out-of-body experience] I could see clearly what the doctor was doing. {EA, 88}

“Some patients can describe how they consciously returned into their body, mostly through the top of the head, after they had come to understand that ‘it wasn’t their time yet’ or that ‘they still had a task to fulfill.’ This conscious return of the self into the body is experienced as something very oppressive. They regain consciousness in their body and realize that they are ‘locked up’ in their damaged body, meaning again all the pain and restriction of their disease.” [AS, 24]

“Following a successful resuscitation,” van Lommel explains, NDE survivors may “report veridical perceptions from a position outside and above their lifeless body. This OBE is scientifically important because doctors, nurses, and relatives can verify the reported perceptions, and they can also corroborate the precise moment the NDE with OBE occurred during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

“In a recent review of 93 corroborated reports of potentially verifiable out-of-body perceptions during an NDE, about 90% were found to be completely accurate, 8% contained some minor error, and only 2% were completely erroneous. This proves that an OBE cannot be a hallucination, that is, the experiencing of a perception that has no basis in ‘reality,’ like in psychosis; neither can it be a delusion, which is an incorrect assessment of a correct perception, nor an illusion, which means a misapprehension or misleading image.” [AS, 22-23]

“The NDERF survey asked 613 NDErs, ‘Did you experience a separation of your consciousness from your body.’ In response, 75.4 percent answered ‘Yes.’” {EA, 8}

AS - “Near-Death Experiences: The Experience of the Self as Real and Not as an Illusion,” Annals N.Y. Acad. Sci. ISSN 0077-8923, 1234 (2011) 19–28, http://pimvanlommel.nl/files/NDE-NYAS-Experience-Self-article.pdf

EA – Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry, Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences (2010)

What is involved in near-death experiences?

Cardiologist Pim van Lommel writes: “A near-death experience (NDE) can be defined as the reported memory of a range of impressions during a special state of consciousness, including a number of special elements, such as an out-of-body experience (OBE), pleasant feelings, seeing a tunnel and/or light, seeing deceased relatives, a life review, or a conscious return into the body.” [AS, 19]

Radiation oncologist Jeffrey Long studied a wider range of NDE survivors than van Lommel under the auspices of the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation. Long writes: “The NDERF study took a straightforward approach by defining both the near-death and experience components of near-death experience. I considered individuals to be ‘near death’ if they were so physically compromised that they would die if their condition did not improve. The NDErs studied were unconscious and often apparently clinically dead, with absence of heartbeat and breathing. The ‘experience’ had to occur at the time they were near death. Also, the experience had to be lucid, to exclude descriptions of only fragmentary and disorganized memories.” {EA, 5}

Long proposes “that NDEs may include some or all of the following twelve elements:

1.  Out-of-body experience (OBE): Separation of consciousness from the physical body

2.  Heightened senses

3.  Intense and generally positive emotions or feelings

4.  Passing into or through a tunnel

5.  Encountering a mystical or brilliant light

6.  Encountering other beings, either mystical beings or deceased relatives or friends

7.  A sense of alteration of time or space

8.  Life review

9.  Encountering unworldly (‘heavenly’) realms

1   Encountering or learning special knowledge

11 Encountering a boundary or barrier

1   A return to the body, either voluntary or involuntary” {EA, 6-7}

Long explains: “That so many people are willing to share their NDEs with others speaks volumes about the power of these experiences in a person’s life. Respondents describe their experiences in a variety of ways, calling them ‘unspeakable,’ ‘ineffable,’ unforgettable,’ ‘beautiful beyond words,’ and so on. More than 95 percent of the respondents feel their NDE was ‘definitely real,’ while virtually all of the remaining respondents feel it was ‘probably real.’ Not one respondent has said it was ‘definitely not real.’ Some say it was not only the most real thing to ever happen to them but also the best event of their lives.” {EA, 2}

Long argues that the results of his research justify reaffirming the old assumption that there is life after death. He presents the results of scientifically studying more than 1,300 cases shared with NDERF in his book, Evidence of the Afterlife.

AS - “Near-Death Experiences: The Experience of the Self as Real and Not as an Illusion,” Annals N.Y. Acad. Sci. ISSN 0077-8923, 1234 (2011) 19–28, http://pimvanlommel.nl/files/NDE-NYAS-Experience-Self-article.pdf

 

Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry,  Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences (2010).

Experiences of grace and going home

Wendy writes: I knew that I had died and would be leaving behind my baby and my husband, but I didn’t care. I wanted to go into the light. I wanted to go home. I felt like a blanket of love was wrapped around me. When I went through the light, all my dead relatives were there. I knew everyone even though then I hadn’t met them before. They were so happy to see me and welcomed me home. Even though they appeared in human form, I sensed that that wasn’t their true form. I had a connection with everyone—like some kind of collective consciousness. {GA, 74}

Sandy, who had a near-death experience at age five, later wrote: The Light was a sparkling glowing cloud. I heard a voice in my head and knew it was God. We never talked about God at my house, and I never went to church. Yet I knew this place, with this beautiful light, was God and my real home. I was surrounded by the light and one with it. It was like being scooped up and held safe by my daddy when a dog was barking at me, only more so. {GA, 121}

Another NDE survivor treasures this memory: On the other side, the arms of my loved ones welcomed me home. The feelings weren’t of this earth. {GA, 14}

After becoming unconscious during a grand mal seizure, Stacy recalls: I was totally relaxed, calm, and peaceful, and I knew I could comprehend everything about my life. I was home in God’s arms, and I was being given a peek at Universal Knowledge through the eyes of God. {GA, 115}

Words are inadequate to describe Heaven, Diane says, recalling her NDE experience. But I knew I was home. I knew this was where I’d come from. {GA, 151}

And another NDE survivor remembers: At the top of this mountain was a beautiful city. I knew some of the people there, but couldn’t make out the faces of others. I started walking up the mountain to get to the city, but a voice behind me said, “No, you can’t go up yet; it’s not your time.” I argued with the voice because I felt that if I could get to that city, I would be at home. {GA, 23}

After recalling in her NDE being “cleverly mean” to a childhood friend, and feeling remorse, Carol writes: Then I was embraced by love with layer upon layer of compassion. It felt like Home! Like coming inside from the snow to a warm fire, the smell of good cooking, and the laughter of family. I was euphoric beyond anything I’d felt before or anything I’ve felt since. {GA, 100}

These are not experiences of ordinary consciousness, for everyone having a near-death experience is dying and suffering cardiac arrest or in a coma or unconscious due to lack of oxygen or a general anesthetic or brain trauma. Breathing has stopped, the heart is no longer beating, eyes are closed—and yet the dying person “sees” and “hears” words that are unspoken, and also and has strong feelings as well as enduring memories. Furthermore, many NDE survivors remember that during their extraordinary experience separated from their human bodies, they were “back home” in the heavenly realm of Love and Light.

These NDE affirmations reminded me of African-American spirituals that refer to “going home” after death. “Swing low sweet chariot,” which tells of the prophet Elijah being taken up to heaven (2 Kings 2:11), is followed by the words: “coming for to carry me home.” The chorus of “Steal Away” is: “Steal away home, I ain’t got long to stay here.” And all the verses of “Precious Lord” end with the three words, “lead me home.”

Also during slavery, at the end of the 17th century, two English Christians wrote hymns that remain popular, perhaps because of the image of going “home” after death. Isaac Watts, minister of a Congregational Church in London, wrote “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past,” with opening and final verses that end by affirming God as “our eternal home.” John Newton, a former slaver trader who after his conversion served as curate in the village of Olney, wrote the words to “Amazing Grace.” It’s third verse reads: “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come; ‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

These experiences and hopes challenge our faith and beliefs. Is our everyday consciousness an embodied and limited experience of the greater consciousness that we each are? Do near-death experiences reveal an eternal Consciousness that gives purpose and meaning to our embodied experience? Do the experiences of near-death survivors verify that our real home is a transcendent realm of timeless Light and Love? 

{GA} quotes from Jeffrey Long, God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience (2016).

Dr. Eben Alexander's NDE transformed his life

If there was ever a NDE survivor with more credibility as a scientist than Eben Alexander, I haven’t heard of him. Alexander was an experienced neurosurgeon at the time of his near-death experience. He writes in his book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife: “As a neurosurgeon, I’d heard many stories over the years of people who had strange experiences, usually after suffering cardiac arrest: stories of traveling to mysterious, wonderful landscapes; of talking to dead relatives—even to meeting God Himself. Wonderful stuff, no question. But all of it, in my opinion, was pure fantasy.

“What caused the otherworldly types of experiences that such people so often report? I didn’t claim to know, but I did know that they were brain-based. All of consciousness is. If you don’t have a working brain, you can’t be conscious. This is because the brain is the machine that produces consciousness in the first place. When the machine breaks down, consciousness stops. Or so I would have told you before my own brain crashed.

“On November 10, 2008, however, I was struck by a rare illness and thrown into a coma for seven days. During that time, my entire neocortex—the outer surface of the brain, the part that makes us human—was shut down. Inoperative.

“Mine was in some ways a perfect story of near-death experiences. As a practicing neurosurgeon with decades of research and hands-on work in the operating room behind me, I was in a better-than-average position to judge not only the reality but also the implications of what happened to me.

“Those implications are tremendous beyond description. My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness; that human experience continues beyond the grave. More important, it continues under the gaze of a God who loves and cares about each one of us and about where the universe itself and all the beings within it are ultimately going.

“The place I went was real. Real in a way that makes the life we’re living here and now completely dreamlike by comparison. This doesn’t mean I don’t value the life I’m living now, however. In fact, I value it more than I ever did before. I do so because I now see it in its true context.

“This life isn’t meaningless. But we can’t see that fact from here—at least most of the time. What happened to me while I was in that coma is hands-down the most important story I will ever tell. But it’s a tricky story to tell because it is so foreign to ordinary understanding. I can’t simply shout it from the rooftops. At the same time, my conclusions are based on a medical analysis of my experience, and on my familiarity with the most advanced concepts in brain science and consciousness studies. Once I realized the truth behind my journey, I knew I had to tell it. Doing so properly has become the chief task of my life.

“That’s not to say I’ve abandoned my medical work and my life as a neurosurgeon. But now that I have been privileged to understand that our life does not end with the death of the body or the brain, I see it as my duty, my calling, to tell people about what I saw beyond the body and beyond this earth. I am especially eager to tell my story to the people who might have heard stories similar to mine before and wanted to believe them, but had not been able to fully do so.

Eben Alexander, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife (Simon & Schuster, 2012).