When it comes to near-death experiences, some of the most skeptical medical professionals are neurologists. Typically, they espouse a materialistic view emphasizing that the brain is the source of consciousness, and that NDEs are products of the dying brain–hallucinations and other imaginary mental constructions that will ultimately stop when the brain’s activity stops. If this hypothesis is true, then NDEs tell us nothing about life after death.
Now comes Dr Eben Alexander, a Harvard-educated neurosurgeon, who drifted in a coma for seven days in 2008 after contracting meningitis. During his illness Alexander says that the part of his brain which controls human thought and emotion “shut down” and that he experienced “something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death.”
What was it? He saw angels.
Writing for Newsweek, Dr Alexander says he was met by a beautiful blue-eyed woman in a “place of clouds, big fluffy pink-white ones” and “shimmering beings.” He has written a book, Proof of Heaven, describing his experience.
“Birds? Angels? These words registered later, when I was writing down my recollections. But neither of these words do justice to the beings themselves, which were quite simply different from anything I have known on this planet. They were more advanced. Higher forms.”
Alexander added that a “huge and booming.. glorious chant, came down from above, and I wondered if the winged beings were producing it. The sound was palpable and almost material, like a rain that you can feel on your skin but doesn’t get you wet.”
The neurosurgeon says he had heard stories from patients who spoke of out-of-body experiences, but disregarded them as “wishful thinking.” Now he has reconsidered his opinion following his own experience.
“I know full well how extraordinary, how frankly unbelievable, all this sounds. Had someone even a doctor told me a story like this in the old days, I would have been quite certain that they were under the spell of some delusion.
“But what happened to me was, far from being delusional, as real or more real than any event in my life. That includes my wedding day and the birth of my two sons.” He added: “I’ve spent decades as a neurosurgeon at some of the most prestigous medical institutions in our country. I know that many of my peers hold as I myself did to the theory that the brain, and in particular the cortex, generates consciousness and that we live in a universe devoid of any kind of emotion, much less the unconditional love that I now know God and the universe have toward us.
“But that belief, that theory, now lies broken at our feet. What happened to me destroyed it.” To say his experience was as real as his wedding day and the birth of his children is a strong statement in support of NDEs. I doubt that he will change the views of skeptics in his field, but maybe they’ll think twice before dismissing their patients experiences.
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Dr. Alexander’s reflections are a welcome sign from a medical field which routinely rights off NDEs as wishful thinking, telling us that we can’t trust our own experiences. Apparently, when it happened to him, Alexander wasn’t so quick to dismiss his own experience.
And lest we forget, a team of noted scientists at Duke University created a tightly controlled study to determine if there is a “consciousness” or “soul” that actually departs the physical body at death. These experiments were conducted over a period of time and involved terminally ill patients. The patients were weighed by special equipment just prior to death, and exactly one minute post-death, were weighed again. In every patient in the study, there was a consistent weight loss of four ounces immediately following death. The spontaneous loss of bodily fluids that occurs at certain deaths didn’t account for this sudden four-ounce loss, and the loss was constant. The weight of bodily fluids released at death varies. (Urine, feces, stomach contents) In these experiments, the scientists were careful in trying to choose patients who were not likely to lose bodily fluids at death, so that it wasn’t a consideration. Their final analysis was that, at the moment of physical death, “something invisible” is released out of the physical body that has weight and mass, and the weight is four ounces. That doesn’t sound like much, but when we think about the essence of a Soul being comprised of Light Energy, how much would Light Energy weigh? Not much, I suspect. I found this scientific experiment to be fascinating!
One of my frustrations in talking about NDEs with atheists is the automatic dismissal: “oxygen deprivation in the brain.” That’s basically what every atheist will say in response. But I keep thinking, if there’s oxygen deprivation in the brain, wouldn’t there be no brain activity? And besides, the many NDEs I’ve read are incredibly detailed and fit within a logical framework. They are not scattered symbology of our dreams, where we have to struggle to interpret what our dreams might be telling us. With NDEs, it seems pretty easy to understand and straight forward. Besides, the fact that NDEs seem to all say that they did not want to come back, essentially saying that they wish they were still dead, that should be a big clue to skeptics and non-believers that the oxygen deprivation in the brain does not make sense. A person who was brought back to life would be grateful, not bemoaning the fact that they are back in their bodies and wishing that they could be in that other place.
When I died at 16 by drowning, it was a female who gently spoke to me.
I remember no pain, only warmth and love and absolutely no fear, all of that came back as I was jolted back into my body and tried to breath.
I still remember this like it was yesterday!
Thanks for the details, Mom! This is fascinating.
I bought Richard Martini’s book
https://www.amazon.com/FlipSide-Tourists-Guide-Navigate-Afterlife/dp/0970449984/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350613924&sr=1-1&keywords=flipside
on Kindle.
I’ll let you know what I think of it when I get a chance to read it.
Mike Clelland has recorded a conversation with Grant Cameron,
https://hiddenexperience.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/audio-conversation-with-grant-cameron.html
who also talks about Newton,the guy Richard writes about.
I think that if your library met ours, there wouldn’t be any room for people. Thanks for the links Off to check them out! Do a post on the book when you finish it.
Lauren, another possibility to consider about the folks who report seeing “Jesus”, many of whom are NOT Christians, could it be that the entity greeting them is choosing to appear in a form that the person will recognize? Because even people who are not Christians have seen, through the centuries, pictures, paintings, etc, of what is perceived as Jesus’s image and physical appearance. I frankly have the conviction that Jesus of Nazareth was /is an ET, (lightning, don’t strike me dead!), who assumed human form to do His work here, and there are quite a few well-researched texts out there that support this hypothesis. Jesus is a familiar figure to almost everyone on the planet in this day and time, of whatever spiritual persuasion, and even of those who have NO spiritual persuasion. Perhaps that’s why the NDE folks perceive the entity as being “Jesus”? In my initial NDE following the birth of my first child, (clinically flat-lined for several minutes from hemorrhaging), I heard a distinct MALE, not female, voice instructing me that I couldn’t stay because I had a new little boy to take care of, and two more coming. I crashed back into a horribly diseased and pain-filled body. But I don’t fear death at all. Did give birth to two more little boys! My 2nd NDE was very different and if that is where we go when we die, I will be ready when my time comes, because it is beyond anything we can describe in any language. I didn’t want to come back, but had to do it. We must weigh and balance the NDE reports with what resonates within us as Truth. I recently read a book about her NDE by a woman that I felt was total fabrication. It may not have been. It may have been her experience. If so, it isn’t one I want to have although for her, it seemed magnificent. Different strokes for different folks, no doubt, even where death and dying are concerned. I had a patient in Hospice who was deeply comatose, a young woman of only 49, whose Dad was In Spirit. At the moment of her death, she reached both her arms (impossibly!) towards the ceiling and her face became a radiant smile as she said, “DADDY”! Her expression was so incredibly beautiful that her husband asked the funeral director to make sure they didn’t take that glorious smile from her face when they “fixed her” for viewing. They didn’t.
you know what i don’t get there Mac and Trish… is there is a book out there called the “Synchronized Universe” (big blue book) have had it since “05” and you guys don’t tout the book… like your afraid of the science….. just don’t understand… synchros this year like… well anything read on your site… humbly saying
Whoot – never heard of the book. I’ll go look it up.
yes, it’s definitely refreshing to find a member of the medical community stand up and speak out of his/her own experience – i remember when i had my NDE many moons ago during a surgical procedure and i told my surgeons about it – to their credit, they were not dismissive of it and spoke to me at length about it – the conversation began simply when they were both beside my bed post-op and one of them said “you know, we lost you but you came back” – and i remember as if it were yesterday the first time i told any other person about my experience – it was a number of years after the experience – and even more after that before i discussed it with anyone else – this was the mid 60s even before the moody era – anyway, great post – and again, so good to have a member of the medical community step forward –
I’ve listened to quite a few prominant speakers about NDE’s at IANDs, a national group that’s been investigating NDE’s for 30 years. After hearing so many speak of their experiences, I have no doubt any more.
I do have to say, I’ve heard a number of these speakers (most recently, a very genuine, prominant woman doctor who has written a book about her experience of dying and returning). One problem I have is that many of them recount having seen Jesus, and hence, are now almost evangelical Christians, this being the conclusion they come to after returning to normal life. Being non-denominational and open to all spiritual traditions, it’s one thing I’ve had difficulty with in listening to some of these stories. I personally think that the “beings of light” that seem to come as guides to those who die manifest in whatever forms the person believes in or is culturally adapted to.
An American might see Jesus, but a person from Tibet might encounter Tara, or Buddha, a Hindu might meet Krishna.
And an atheist might have a completely different experience.
I have had many years of visionary experience, and what follows is my understanding. The deeper human psyche does not perceive through the body and five senses during mystical experiences. The events are ethereal (for want of a better word). “Places” and entities are perceived according to the existing perceptual framework of the individual. Entities will often be perceived or represented within the mind according to ‘best fit”. e.g. a being of great love and radiance may be seen as Jesus, if that is the person’s best frame of reference. But this if not simply projection. The being exists independently of the person perceiving it, but the person merely has a limited capacity to understand what he/she is ‘seeing’. When the entity has a ‘clear fit’ – such as a deceased loved one, the mind will usually be able to repesent it in the correct form. But at times what the person perceives in their mind may be far from being a literal representation of the entity. For example, if the entity has a rustic, humorous ‘vibe’, the person may interpret the experience as talking with Steve Irwin, even when it is not S.I. What I have come to see is that each person and entity has a signature ‘vibe’, and it is quite distict for each person/entity. However this is sensed through a ‘fuzzy’ feeling, and some ‘signatures’ contain very similar qualities – and therefore can easily be confused when we see them in dreams, visions and mystical experiences. Most people have completely lost touch with the ability to ‘read’ such signatures – even though it is an innate human capacity. This is, I believe, also why people tend to experience NDEs within their own cultural frameworks. Marcus
Well put, Marcus. In another culture and time, the ‘Jesus vibe’ might’ve been interpreted as contacting Odin or Wotan.
A convincing experience from Dr Alexander. I have said before though how it’s interesting how NDEs vary, often dependent on the person’s upbringing, culture or religion. As we create our own lives maybe we are also creating our own Heaven at the same time.
I agree, Mike. We create our lives and our deaths, through our beliefs and expectations.
DJan, would LOVE to hear your Mom’s story, if you can share??
What a joy it is to read something like this from a person who has been a complete scientific skeptic. Physicians are notoriously doubtful, generally speaking, altho there are some, like my cardiologist, who is an evengelical Catholic and so has a deep faith in angels and “heaven”, in their Biblical sense. It’s impossible to dismiss something so profound when one experiences it, as opposed to reading or listening to another’s event. His experience with the huge palpable booming makes me think of a UFO. It would do that for me, of course, because of my own witness to and participation in just such an incident when I was young….a “Spielberg” booming so loud and prescient that it shook an enormous solid brick hospital. And who knows…..I have good reason to consider that highly evolved ETs or EDs come for us in their crafts when we transition out of these bodies. Perhaps he was taken on just such a craft by benevolent Entities….not the awful ones, but the ones who come for us from places of unimaginable beauty and peace and joy. After such an experience, who could fear death! I must get a copy of the magazine. Thanks!!
RE:
“Dr Alexander says he was met by a beautiful blue-eyed woman …”
At the “Origins of Consciousness Tour” I was at tonight,Graham Hancock and most of the other speakers mentioned that most entities who you meet that teach you lessons on the shamanic trip are female in essence.
My mother went through an NDE. When she came back, she no longer had any fear of dying. It lasted and has given me a sense of peace as well. I have read in several places about this particular doctor and am glad he has joined those believers. 🙂
His story is on the cover of newsweek. That’s how far we’ve progressed since raymond moody first coined the term in the 70s. Did your mom describe the specifics, DJan?