Health Viewpoints
Are we more than these fleshy bodies of molecules? What happens to us when we die?
Philosophers, theologians, sages, and saints have offered their answers, as have atheists and materialists. Some scientists have also investigated the question, usually indirectly because of strange phenomena around the border of life and death.
More than one medical doctor has stumbled into this question and made it an area of specific research, like Dr. Christopher Kerr. While attending to his hospital patients, he encountered a pattern long-known to medical staff around the world: The dying often report very meaningful dreams or lucid visions of loved ones who have already passed.
While this experience is typically dismissed, Dr. Kerr decided to dig deeper.
He and his research team recorded the end-of-life experiences of 1,400 patients and families over the course of 10 years. They found some 80 percent of people reported such experiences, especially as they neared death. These vivid and meaningful visions were transformative, bringing the patient to forgiveness, acceptance, and peace.
A similar phenomena is found among the millions of Americans who have had near death experiences (NDEs).
“A 1982 Gallup poll found that 15 percent of all Americans who had almost died (under widely varying circumstances) reported an NDE. About 9 percent reported the ‘classic out-of-body experience,’ 11 percent said they entered another realm, 8 percent encountered spiritual beings, and only 1 percent had negative experiences,” my colleague Tara MacIsaac reported.
The findings were also published in the book “Adventures in Immortality” by pollsters George Gallup Jr. and William Proctor.
The study of NDEs really began in 1975, continuing ever since with organizations like International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) focused on documenting and finding patterns in these experiences.
In an NDE, the experiencer typically finds their consciousness functioning apart from their body, writes Janice Miner Holden, president of IANDS.
“The experience typically feels real, if not hyper-real—that is, more real than usual waking reality. An experiencer might be perceiving the material world, usually from a position above the physical body,” she writes. Ms. Holden retired from the University of North Texas in 2019, where her primary research area was near-death and related experiences.
Some NDEs get wide attention because of the experiencer’s knowledge of things that happened while they were clinically dead. Stephanie Arnold’s out-of-body observations made while she lay dead in the delivery room is one such example.
But the more transcendental experiences seem harder for many people to accept. Ms. Holden says many people seemingly visit places beyond the material world we know.
“Environments include preternatural scenes similar to those on Earth, except for unusual features, such as colors not seen on Earth, and plants emanating consciousness. Beings include deceased loved ones and other humans, as well as spiritual or religious figures—some identifiable, others not—with whom the experiencer communicates mind-to-mind.”
Dr. Jeffrey Long was another doctor who stumbled into researching NDEs. Dr. Long’s research led him to conclusions echoed by others who have researched the phenomena: that these experiences offer compelling evidence for the reality of a soul and afterlife.
Have you or has anyone you know ever experienced an NDE? Do you know a loved one who had visions before they left his world? Please share your experience with us!
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.