NDEs reveal life's purpose and heaven

Oncologist Jeffrey Long in his book God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience (2016) reports on research conducted by the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation study (NDERF).

Purpose

Life’s meaning or purpose is love. Clear and simple, love. {GA, 97}

To learn and understand love. {GA, 97}

Unconditional love, and our job is to help one another find joy. {GA, 98}

We take that love with us to the other side. People who worry about a loved one dying alone have nothing to worry about. We do not die alone. {GA, 98}

To overcome our fears, we need to love and accept ourselves and each other. The actions and choices we make can either be from love or fear—love is golden light, fear is darkness. {GA, 98}

I felt confirmation that life’s real meaning is love—for family and each other. {GA, 99}

Life is for living, not for impressing someone or gaining something. {GA, 119}

I learned that I hate most in others those qualities that I have in myself but can’t see. I fit very neatly into all the areas I profess to hate in others. Love was the key to everything—acceptance and love. {GA, 119}

Jennifer’s experience: Suddenly I was aware of having infinite knowledge—I knew everything, all languages, all religious thought—all at once. I was one with the Creator and with Creation itself. I was the Creator. We all were; those who haven’t come back still are. It’s impossible to describe. My earthly body, the container or vessel of my soul, had been shed. I was God along with everyone else, and yet God was still a universal power that was gentle and kind, humble and pure. God lives in me; the soul of God was breathed into my dead body when I chose to live. We were in and through and with each other. It was humbling, beautiful beyond beauty, and powerful in the most gentle and kind way. Everything seems to be clear—languages, death and life, God, Creation, love, peace, joy, sorrow. I knew the infinity, oneness, flexibility, and omniscience of all beings; I knew that our physical bodies separate us from the One that we are. We are like water poured from a pitcher into individual glasses, where we stay until we die and return to the whole. The purpose I received was to circulate this knowledge—the knowledge that love is the purpose, or that the purpose of love is life. {GA, 126-127}

Heaven

“Encounters with God almost always take place in a heavenly realm that may consist of a variety of common earthly elements, including mountains, valleys, forests, streams, lakes, rivers, and dwellings. Often they are described as having a decidedly unearthly appearance (often due to color or brightness or scale). There can also be vast cities that may be beautiful beyond anything on earth.” {GA, 135-136}

“Typically this place is associated with feelings of peace, love, and connection in the environment. Beautiful or ‘indescribable’ music is reported. Sometimes spiritual beings or angels are present. The importance of learning or gaining knowledge is also often in evidence, and there are frequent reports of seeing or experiencing institutions of learning (sometimes called ‘temples of knowledge’). People also often describe receiving knowledge directly in the form of telepathic exchange from Light Beings.” {GA, 136}

Edna’s experience: I went down a blue tube with a bright light at the bottom. When I exited the tube, I was surrounded by the most wonderful music—similar to pan pipes—that was everywhere. The feeling was so peaceful and there was no pain. I asked, “Where am I?” and was told, “The Halls of Music.” There were a lot of people, and they were all exuding so much love. The sky was a wonderful blue and the grass so green. I saw a bridge and wanted to cross it, but I couldn’t—there was some kind of invisible barrier. Someone I felt I knew appeared on the other side of the bridge, and he said, ”It’s not time yet. You still have work to do.” I wanted so much to stay, but in no time I was back in my body. {GA, 145-146}

Diane’s experience: Words are inadequate to describe Heaven. But I knew I was home. I knew this was where I’d come from. I first came to a serene and beautiful countryside filled with animals—they were so beautiful and contented, so full of love. The grass and trees and flowers were all so exquisite, and a vibration of love flowed back to me from them. The water was living and sparkled back to me with love. I heard music all around, fully more melodic and more beautiful than anyone could write on this earth, just suddenly playing and filling my soul with joy. Everything was richer and more beautiful than anything we could ever create on earth. I realized that everything we create that is beautiful—all paintings, woven rugs, tapestries, carvings—all have their seed from Heaven. We saw all this before we came to earth, and we try to recapture some of Heaven while on earth. We deeply desire Heaven on earth. We miss it deep in our souls.

An angel took me to view the reflection of God’s Light—not the full force of His Awesome Wonder. I was so filled with love and wanted to hug Him with joy. His voice came into my mind, and He commanded me to stretch out my hands and arms so that I could see I was made of solid light. And then He imparted the knowledge that we all are made of solid light, and we each have our own identity and purpose. Each of us was created before we entered earth, and each was male or female before that entry. He contains both sides, and this is the truth of it. For it is not the sexual side, but the strong and the gentle of both sides of Him that determine who we will be—a balance of His being. I have a peace most people don’t have about death because I know that is what Christ meant by the words, “Unless you are born again, you cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” They have nothing to do with the meaning religion has given them; they are about something we all must do.  Our Father told me that I had to go back to earth and complete my test; there was much I still needed to do. He affirmed that He loved me and would be with me all my life. {GA, 151-153}

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

NDEs reveal God as Light and All That Is

Oncologist Jeffrey Long in his book God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience (2016) reports on research conducted by the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF).

Light

The light penetrated me fully; I had never felt love like that before. Every cell in my body was full of love from the light, and I began to laugh and cry. I was crying for joy, because I knew I was delivered into God’s light, and I laughed at myself for doubting I ever would be. {GA, 84}

The light was God, and it infused everything. {GA, 85}

I became aware that I am the light also. We are all part of the light. Each soul is part of the whole, or God. {GA, 89}

Andy’s experience while drowning: I never imagined that I could be in such unbearable pain. I sink deeper as the beautiful June sunlight fades to blackness . . . I am instantly drawn toward the Light—I can feel its brightness, warmth, and love. As I get closer to it, I am absorbed by its brilliance and perfect love. Oh my God, I am the light! I look into the Light’s source and see a massive, human silhouette that is radiating with the brightness of thousands of suns. Even though I’ve never seen this form before, I recognize it and it speaks to me: “Andy, don’t be afraid. Andy, I love you, Andy, we love you.” Although I’m in the Light and the Light is in me, I’m still Andy. I’m everywhere and here at the same time. I’m a person but also infinite, warm, and loving Light.  I’ve never heard the Light’s voice before, but it’s not unfamiliar. And the Light has a beautiful smile that I also recognize. We talk and laugh together. The Light has the answers to all the questions in the universe—and I don’t have any questions, because I know everything that the Light knows, which is to say, everything! The Light also knows everything that I’ve ever done and will do but loves me unconditionally. The Light loves me because I’m Andy—a piece of the Light. There is no fear, not judgment, punishment, blame, or shame. No ledger of good and bad deeds. Only warmth, peace, joy, happiness, forgiveness, and love in the Light. I’m one with the unconditionally loving Light. I’m home forever. And then I’m startled because the Light says, “Andy, you must go back. And I say, “No, I’m never going back.” But the Light says again, “Andy, you must go back.” {GA, 79-80}

Anna’s experience: The one word I’d use to describe the experience or journey would be “reality.” It was the most real thing that’s ever happened to me. The life I’d been living was an insignificant experiment that I’d volunteered for. The me, the I, wasn’t Anna, the woman who’d just given birth. I was a light being—“light” in every sense. I was made of the same light as the light that shone from the clear pool in front of me. The light sensed and felt everything, thought and understood everything; it knew I was finally back home! And I sensed “light” as in lightness—no gravity, no strings attached. I was so happy that I wouldn’t have to sleep or eat anymore, I would never feel tired again, no negativity, no anxieties. You just float lightly, dancing and singing with no audiovisuals. You’re just being—that’s what we’re for—to be! The light was God. {GA, 83-84}

Male or Female?

The most beautiful Being of White Light was there. I knew that he took on an image so that I could related to and feel comfortable with him, but his true essence was Light and Love. {GA, 64}

No words can describe my time with God and His perfect love. The type of love God exudes and is all about is beyond human comprehension. God, love, growing spiritually, serving in love, uniting in love are our goals. Our lives are only approximations of what we can achieve through God and His love. Our love is immature and “seen through a glass darkly.” The answer is in God’s light and love. {GA. 77-78}

I believed I saw God not as a female as I thought, but as a man. God was shaped more like an aurora borealis crystalline mist in the shape of a man. {GA, 87}

Imagine a three-dimensional ball of intense energy made up of golden white light. In the center of the ball was the figure of a person—I couldn’t tell whether it was male or female. Around the ball were smaller balls of energy traveling in different directions and made up on all different colors that circled the outside of the ball. But the form didn’t and doesn’t matter. The point is the energy that the form gave off. Once you have “experienced” that energy, form doesn’t matter. I knew who it was by recognizing and knowing the energy the form gives off. {GA, 87}

I was in front of this being, and I knew he was holy. I felt this was God appearing to me as I had always imagined him: an old man with a large beard. He had taken on this persona so that I wouldn’t be afraid. I felt safe. I have never felt so safe in my life. {GA, 86}

All That Is can be perceived simultaneously as a force and as a consciousness that exists within each individual consciousness and yet is separate from each consciousness or being. It might be called God, but the ideas of gods that we have are a pale and incomplete shadow of the All That Is that I perceived. We project an idea of a god or gods upon that infinite creative consciousness, which inevitably limits our understanding of the All That Is in ways that reflect the limited comprehension that we have of ourselves and the physical universe. {GA, 175}

God is indescribable, unimaginable, and not human. {GA, 87}

I didn’t see God with eyes, but God was everything and everywhere. There was no separation felt. {GA, 89}

Amy’s experience: During my NDE, “God” was the Mind, or the “Order” in all things. I felt “God” as the Supreme Highest Vibration and Frequency, which felt like more of an essence than an old man. It was all around me and in everything. And “God” no longer felt male to me—there was no gender. The idea of gender seemed silly because God was all that is beautiful and peaceful and One, and all that is Good. And everything did feel so good. In fact, I came back with a knowing that despite what seemed “good” or ”bad” before, now there was only “Good,” because I trusted and knew that everything was in its right place. Even when people made decisions that I didn’t agree with, I felt that it was still all “Good.” I also had this knowing that the essence or spark of the Highest is in everything—every mineral, vegetable, animal, and human. I knew that the Highest waited within everything to expand and create and grow and experience. I lost all desire to analyze everything in life, to judge everything as being either “good” or “bad.” I wasn’t concerned. We are all just consciousness experiencing life and learning how to love, create, and develop to the highest we can be. I now know to choose what feels right, and I do what I can to work toward harmony when something is unjust or unbalanced. The universe is full of Order, so it always finds a way to balance everything because it can’t exist without perfect balance. {GA, 179}

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

Evidence for God in near-death experiences

Oncologist Jeffrey Long in his book God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience {GA} reports on a study conducted by the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF).

“All the NDErs answered the NDERF survey question: ‘During your experience, did you encounter any specific information/awareness that God or a supreme being either does (or does not) exist?’” Of the “420 experiences shared in the most recent version of the NDERF survey that met all the previously discussed criteria for near-experiences,” 191 answered “Yes,” 62 answered “Uncertain,” and 167 answered “No.” That is, “the percentage of NDErs who were aware of God or a supreme being during their NDE [45%] is greater than the percentage of NDErs reporting a tunnel [32.4%], encountering deceased loved ones [25.2%], or having a life review [20.7%].” {GA, 37-38}

“In addition to asking questionnaire responders if they encountered information about or awareness of God, the NDERF survey also asked this group about their beliefs in the existence of God just before they had their NDE and then again at the time they shared their experiences.” Before their NDE, 39 percent of the respondents believed that ‘God definitely exists.’ “At the time they shared their NDEs with NDERF, an average of twenty-two years later, 72.6 percent of the NDErs believed ‘God definitely exists.’ To put this another way, there was an 86 percent increase in those who believe God definitely exists after their NDEs.” Combining the “NDErs who currently believe that ‘God definitely exists’ with those who currently believe ‘God probably exists,’ you find that this is the belief of a whopping 81.9 percent of NDErs—compared to 64 percent for the combined group before the NDE.” {GA, 39}

Certainty

I went from an uncertain belief in God to a certain belief. {GA, 43}

I was speaking with God, so that is my proof that God exists. The existence of God and Heaven was verified. It is real—the light and the presence. It was clearly God—everywhere and a part of everything. There were no limits on the power of God. I felt unconditional acceptance, forgiveness, and love. {GA, 43}

The light that I encountered felt supreme—unending, unconditional, immense love, a force that feels eternal, powerful and creative at the same time, which satisfies my definition of “God.” {GA, 44}

I have strong faith now and can see where God influences my life. {GA, 46}

I no longer fear death. I have a connection with God that is very personal and is forever. It’s not limited to this earth. {GA, 46}

It was more than an affirmation that God exists. It can’t be explained in words . . .. Saying that it’s “proof” downplays this experience. {GA, 46}

After my experience, I felt greatly comforted. I knew that God loved me and was always with me. {GA, 46}

I believe in God now. I don’t question whether there is a God. I’m not afraid of “death.” I don’t make people question their own faith anymore. {GA, 46}

I had the overwhelmingly creative and unifying emotional experience of the presence of God. This presence is what is “real,” and everything else is such a minor field of this reality. {GA, 55}

Love

I felt the presence of pure love. This is very hard to describe. Everything made sense: God exists, God is love, we are love, and love creates all that is. Everything is pure love, God is love, and everything exists because of this unconditional love. {GA, 50}

The entire encounter was about God, the ultimate power of God, and God’s forgiveness. The message was, “Love is the greater power in the universe.” {GA, 50}

I felt God as an all-encompassing presence—complete, total, and unconditional love in its highest form! I was surrounded by God’s unconditional love, which was so much greater than human love. I was given the knowledge that God is real and loves me unconditionally. {GA, 50}

No human can ever love with the love I felt in that light. It is all-consuming, all-forgiving. Nothing matches it. It is like the day you looked into the eyes of your child for the first time magnified a million times. {GA, 50}

“The NDERF questionnaire asked ‘During your experience, did you encounter any specific information/awareness regarding love?’” 244 respondents (58.1%) answered “Yes” and 136 (32.4%) answered “No.” 85% of those who said, “Yes,” provided a narrative response. {GA, 52}

Love is the paramount element of reality. {GA, 53}

I knew that the being I met was composed of a substance I can only call “love,” and that substance was a force or power, like electricity. {GA, 53}

Love was everywhere. It permeated the afterlife. It was incredible. {GA, 53}

I was loved unconditionally despite my faults and fears. {GA, 54}

This love was unique. I felt completely safe; nothing bad could happen. I was no longer in pain, and all my worries and fears were left behind with my body. {GA, 54}

Thelma’s experience: I have not found words to tell of it. “Light”? It was much bigger, profoundly more than just light. It was so vast! Shimmering, a cloud of warm love. Like I was in love with the whole world, and everyone loved me back! It was such a glorious feeling, I didn’t want to return. Our life is a gift; we make of it what we want. There is a “God,” for lack of a better word, and it would have to be called love! Now I understand some of my father’s Bible. {GA, 55-56}

Katie’s experience: When I died, I rose above my body and saw my grandfather trying to revive my body. But my body was of no interest to me, so I moved out of the room toward a presence I felt in the living room. I went toward this presence, which was in a brilliantly bring space—not a tunnel, but an area. The presence was one of peace, love, acceptance, calm, and joy. It enveloped me, and my joy was indescribable. I can still feel this spectacular feeling. I did not experience this presence as God (I was too young to understand the concept), but I did experience it as that which made me. I knew without a doubt that I was a created being that owed its existence to this presence. {GA, 65-66}

{GA} - God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience (2016)

NDEs require a new view of consciousness

Cardiologist Pim van Lommel writes: “it is indeed a scientific challenge to discuss new hypotheses that could explain the reported interconnectedness with the consciousness or self of other persons and of deceased relatives; to explain the possibility to experience instantaneously and simultaneously (nonlocality) a review and a preview of someone’s life in a dimension without our conventional body-linked concept of time and space, where all past, present, and future events exist and are available; and to discuss the possibility to have clear and enhanced consciousness with memories, with self-identity, with cognition, with emotion, with the possibility of perception out and above the lifeless body, and even with the experience of the conscious return of the self into the body.” [AS, 25]

To conceptualize this experience of an “enhanced consciousness” van Lommel proposes that: “our endless consciousness with all the aspects or essence of self finds its origin in, and is stored in a nonlocal space as wave fields of information, and the brain only serves as a relay station for parts of these wave fields of consciousness to be received into or as our waking consciousness or ego in the shape of measurable and changing electromagnetic fields.” [AS, 25]

He suggests: “The function of the brain should be compared with a transceiver, a transmitter/receiver, or interface, and the function of neuronal networks should be regarded as receivers and conveyors, not as retainers of consciousness and memories.” In this concept, “consciousness is not rooted in the measurable domain of physics, our manifest world. This also means that the wave aspect of our indestructible consciousness in the nonlocal space is inherently not measurable by physical means. However, the physical aspect of consciousness, our waking consciousness or ego, which presumably originates from the wave aspect of our consciousness through collapse of the wave function, can be measured by means of neuroimaging techniques like EEGs, fMRIs, and PET scans.” [AS, 25-26]

“There is a kind of biological basis of our waking consciousness or ego, because, during life, our physical body functions as an interface or place of resonance. But there is no biological basis for our whole, endless, or enhanced consciousness because it is rooted in a nonlocal space. Our nonlocal consciousness with the experience of self resides not in our brain and is not limited to our brain. So our brain seems to have a facilitating, and not a producing, function to experience consciousness.” [AS, 26]

“In trying to understand this concept of interaction between the invisible nonlocal space and our visible material body, it seems appropriate to compare it with modern worldwide communication. There is a continuous exchange of objective information by means of electromagnetic fields for radio, TV, mobile telephone, or laptop computer. We are not consciously aware of the vast number of electromagnetic fields that constantly, day and night, exist around us and even permeate us, as well as permeate structures like walls and buildings.” Yet we know: “The voice we hear over our telephone is not inside the telephone. The concert we hear over our radio is transmitted to our radio. The images and music we hear and see on TV are transmitted to our TV set. The Internet, with more than a billion websites, can be received at about the same moment in the United States, in Europe, and in Australia, and is obviously not located in, nor produced by, our laptop.” [AS, 26]

AS – Pim van Lommel, “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.

NDE Research verifies long-term consequences

What was cardiologist Pim van Lommel’s “prospective study” of near-death experiences?

“Our study aimed to include all consecutive patients who had survived a cardiac arrest in 1 of the 10 participating Dutch hospitals. In other words, this prospective study would only be carried out among patients with a proven life-threatening crisis. This kind of design also creates a control group of patients who have survived a cardiac arrest but who have no recollection of the period of unconsciousness. In a prospective study, such patients are asked, within a few days of their resuscitation, whether they have any recollection of the period of their cardiac arrest, that is, of the period of their unconsciousness.” {AS, 20}

“Within four years, between 1988 and 1992, 344 successive patients who had undergone a total of 509 successful resuscitations were included in the study. In other words, all the patients in our study had been clinically dead.” {AS, 20}

“Clinical death is defined as the period of unconsciousness caused by total lack of oxygen in the brain (anoxia) because of the arrest of circulation, breathing, or both, as caused by cardiac arrest in patients with an acute myocardial infarction. If in this situation no resuscitation is initiated, the brain cells will be irreversibly damaged within 5–10 min, and the patient will always die.” {AS, 20}

How did van Lommel’s study verify the long-term effects of these near-death experiences?

“A longitudinal study into life changes was based on interviews after two and eight years with all patients who had reported an NDE and who were still alive, as well as with a control group of post resuscitation patients who were matched for age and gender, but who had not reported an NDE. The question was whether the customary changes in attitude to life after an NDE were the result of surviving a cardiac arrest or whether these changes were caused by the experience of an NDE. This question had never been subject to scientific and systematic research with a prospective design before. The Dutch study was published in The Lancet in December 2001.” {AS, 20}

Were the effects for NDE survivors still present after several years?

“It struck us that after eight years the people without an NDE were also undergoing unmistakable processes of transformation. Nevertheless, clear differences remained between people with and without an NDE, although by now these differences had become a little less marked. We were also surprised to find that the processes of transformation that had begun in people with an NDE after two years had clearly intensified after eight years. The same was true for the people without an NDE. Nevertheless, the people who had experienced an NDE during their cardiac arrest continued to be clearly different.” {AS, 21}

Interviews with NDE survivors after eight years revealed “the NDE had become an experience that provided a fresh insight into everything that matters in life: compassion, unconditional love, and acceptance of oneself (including acceptance of one’s negative qualities), others, and nature.” {BL, 151}

Van Lommel also noted: “Patients with an NDE did not show any fear of death, they strongly believed in an afterlife, and their insight in what is important in life had changed . . .. They now understood the cosmic law that everything one does to others will ultimately be returned to oneself: hatred and violence as well as love and compassion. Remarkably, there was often evidence of increased intuitive feelings.” {EA, 180}

“The original version of the NDERF study questionnaire asked, ‘Has your life changed specifically as a result of your experience?’ Of those responding, 73.1 percent answered ‘Yes.’” In the NDERF study, “45.0 percent of those surveyed answered ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Did you have any psychic, paranormal, or other special gifts following the experience you did not have prior to the experience?’” {EA, 177 and 189}

For example, “Marcia was under a one-and-a-half-ton structure when it collapsed. Marcia had an out-of-body experience, and then her late father and sister appeared to her. Her sister had died of brain cancer several years earlier and her father had died about four months earlier. Her father kept telling her to breathe. Marcia survived. After her NDE Marcia had premonitions about future events. This is one of the more striking: I woke up one morning and told my husband that a friend and business associate of my husband’s had died. I had talked to this man on the phone at some point over a fifteen-year period, but I [had] never met him. I just matter-of-factly told my husband that he died. A short time later my husband got a phone call, and a friend told him that this man had died.” {EA, 190-191}

Oncologist Jeffrey Long also reports: “a significant number of NDErs express a belief that they were healed during their NDE,” and he describes a striking example of a NDE survivor who “had been born with cerebral palsy. As a result, he had a contracted and deformed hand, which throughout his life he had not been able to open completely. After his NDE he was able to open and use his hand for the first time in his life. This medically inexplicable healing was corroborated by his family and health-care team.” {EA, 108}

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

BL – Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (2011)

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

NDE causes, consequences, and cultures

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

What medical crises may lead to a near-death experience?

Cardiologist Pim van Lommel explains: “Many circumstances are described during which NDEs are reported, such as cardiac arrest (clinical death), shock after loss of blood (childbirth), traumatic brain injury or stroke, near-drowning (children), or asphyxia, but also in serious diseases not immediately life threatening—during isolation, depression, or meditation, or without any obvious reason.” [AS, 19]

“Cyndi was having a second heart valve replacement surgery within six months when she had the experience she described below. She asked her doctor if it was possible to dream during surgery. When he said no, she replied, ‘Then we have to talk.’ Here is a paraphrase of what she experienced.” During my surgery I felt myself lift from my body and go above the operating table. The doctor told me later that they had kept my heart open and stopped for a long time, and they had a great amount of difficulty getting my heart started again. That must have been when I left my body because I could see the doctors nervously trying to get my heart going. It was strange to be so detached from my physical body. I was curious about what they were doing but not concerned. Then, as I drifted farther away, I saw my father at the head of the table. He looked up at me, which gave me a surprise because he had been dead now for almost a year.” {EA, 98}

“Other NDE researchers have reported NDEs that take place while under general anesthesia. Bruce Greyson, MD, at the University of Virginia states, ‘In our collection of NDEs, 127 out of 578 NDE cases (22 percent) occurred under general anesthesia, and they included such features as OBEs that involved experiencers’ watching medical personnel working on their bodies, an unusually bright or vivid light, meeting deceased persons, and thoughts, memories, and sensations that were clearer than usual.’” {EA, 102}

What are the long-term consequences of a near-death experience?

Based on his longitudinal study, van Lommel concludes: “The NDE is usually transformational, causing enhanced intuitive sensibility, profound changes of life insight, and the loss of fear of death.” [AS, 19]

I was withdrawn and victimized before. I attracted bad people and didn’t see it. I still seem to attract some bad ones, but [now] I see it. I am very independent, strong, focused, but can be too loving and too giving. I have fewer and need fewer relationships, but those I have are more meaningful. {EA, 181}

I was never patient before; now I have lots and lots of patience. I have a lot of discernment too, which I didn’t have before. I have empathy and understand that none of us are ever going to be perfect in this life. {EA, 182}

I had always been terrified of death, of oblivion. I no longer fear death. {EA, 192}

Van Lommel notes that research does not support common interpretations of NDEs. “A psychological cause, such as the infrequently noted fear of death, did not affect the occurrence of an NDE either, although it did affect the depth of the experience. Whether patients had heard or read anything about NDEs in the past made no difference either. Any kind of religious belief, or indeed its absence in nonreligious people or atheists, was irrelevant, and the same was true for the standard of education reached.” [AS, 21]

Is this only a Western cultural experience?

Van Lommel’s patients were Dutch, but the NDE experience is global. “The content of an NDE and the effects on patients seem similar worldwide, across all cultures and all times. However, the subjective nature and absence of a single frame of reference for this near-ineffable experience leads to individual, cultural, and religious factors determining the vocabulary used to describe and interpret this experience.” [AS, 19]

“NDEs in more than twenty languages have been shared with NDERF. Before I knew it, readers from more than 110 countries were devouring more than 300,000 page views per month on the NDERF website.” {EA, 42}

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)

Encountering a barrier and returning from an NDE

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

Encountering a boundary or barrier

There was this door in front of me with this music coming out and people celebrating with utter joy that I knew and recognize[d] as home. Once [I] crossed, I couldn’t come back. {EA, 16}

I reached the point where I felt I had to make the choice whether to go back to life or onward into death. My best friend was there (who had died of cancer two years before), and she told me that this was as far as I could go or I would not be able to turn back. “You have come to the edge. This is as far as you can go,” she said. “Now go back and live your life fully and fearlessly.” {EA, 16}

I approached the boundary. No explanation was necessary for me to understand, at the age of ten, that once I cross the boundary, I could never come back—period. I was more than thrilled to cross. I intended to cross, but my ancestors over another boundary caught my attention. They were talking in telepathy, which caught my attention. I was born profoundly deaf and had all hearing family members, all of which knew sign language! I could read or communicate with about twenty ancestors of mine and others through telepathic methods. It overwhelmed me. I could not believe how many people I could telepathize with simultaneously. {EA, 125}

The NDERF survey asked, ‘Did you reach a boundary or limiting physical structure?’ To this question 31.0 percent of NDErs answered ‘Yes.’” {EA, 16}

A return to the body, either voluntary or involuntary

I was really hurt that I couldn’t stay because there wasn’t anything I wanted more than to stay. Pure love is the best way to describe the being and place that I would be leaving. Under protest, I was sent back. {EA, 17}

I found out that my purpose now would be to live “heaven on earth” using this new understanding, and also to share this knowledge with other people. However, I had the choice of whether to come back into life or go toward death. I was made to understand that it was not my time, but I always had the choice, and if I chose death, I would not be experiencing a lot of the gifts that the rest of my life still held in store. One of the things I wanted to know was that if I chose life, would I have to come back to this sick body, because my body was very, very sick and the organs had stopped functioning. I was then made to understand that if I chose life, my body would heal very quickly. I would see a difference in not months or weeks, but days! {EA, 17}

“The NDERF survey asked, ‘Were you involved in or aware of a decision regarding your return to the body?’ To this question, 58.5 percent answered ‘Yes.’” {EA, 17}

What medical crises may lead to a near-death experience?

Cardiologist Pim van Lommel explains: “Many circumstances are described during which NDEs are reported, such as cardiac arrest (clinical death), shock after loss of blood (childbirth), traumatic brain injury or stroke, near-drowning (children), or asphyxia, but also in serious diseases not immediately life threatening—during isolation, depression, or meditation, or without any obvious reason.” [AS, 19]

“Cyndi was having a second heart valve replacement surgery within six months when she had the experience she described below. She asked her doctor if it was possible to dream during surgery. When he said no, she replied, ‘Then we have to talk.’ Here is a paraphrase of what she experienced.” During my surgery I felt myself lift from my body and go above the operating table. The doctor told me later that they had kept my heart open and stopped for a long time, and they had a great amount of difficulty getting my heart started again. That must have been when I left my body because I could see the doctors nervously trying to get my heart going. It was strange to be so detached from my physical body. I was curious about what they were doing but not concerned. Then, as I drifted farther away, I saw my father at the head of the table. He looked up at me, which gave me a surprise because he had been dead now for almost a year.” {EA, 98}

“Other NDE researchers have reported NDEs that take place while under general anesthesia. Bruce Greyson, MD, at the University of Virginia states, ‘In our collection of NDEs, 127 out of 578 NDE cases (22 percent) occurred under general anesthesia, and they included such features as OBEs that involved experiencers’ watching medical personnel working on their bodies, an unusually bright or vivid light, meeting deceased persons, and thoughts, memories, and sensations that were clearer than usual.’” {EA, 102}

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

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