Posted on 03/17/2015 7:41:45 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Near-death experiences have gotten a lot of attention lately. The 2014 movie "Heaven Is for Real", about a young boy who told his parents he had visited heaven while he was having emergency surgery, grossed a respectable $91 million in the United States.
The book it was based on, published in 2010, has sold some 10 million copies and spent 206 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Two recent books by doctors—Proof of Heaven, by Eben Alexander, who writes about a near-death experience he had while in a week-long coma brought on by meningitis, and To Heaven and Back, by Mary C. Neal, who had her NDE while submerged in a river after a kayaking accident—have spent 94 and 36 weeks, respectively, on the list. (The subject of The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, published in 2010, recently admitted that he made it all up.)
Their stories are similar to those told in dozens if not hundreds of books and in thousands of interviews with “NDErs,” or “experiencers,” as they call themselves, in the past few decades. Though details and descriptions vary across cultures, the overall tenor of the experience is remarkably similar. Western near-death experiences are the most studied.
Many of these stories relate the sensation of floating up and viewing the scene around one’s unconscious body; spending time in a beautiful, otherworldly realm; meeting spiritual beings (some call them angels) and a loving presence that some call God; encountering long-lost relatives or friends; recalling scenes from one’s life; feeling a sense of connectedness to all creation as well as a sense of overwhelming, transcendent love; and finally being called, reluctantly, away from the magical realm and back into one’s own body.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
I died once, (a short cardiac arrest, dropping dead in front of a hospital emergency doctor - Location, location and timing). Didn’t see a thing and didn’t even get a t-shirt.
However, besides getting back the gift of life, my young granddaughter bought me a red and green polka-dotted toy elephant. It stays next to me on my night table. PRICELESS!
You don’t need images of deceased people and angels when you have an angel right there in your family. You just have to see and appreciate them.
Best post of the month. Thank u.
Love your post, too.
Great post!!
I read somewhere that Al Gore once had a “near-life” experience.
I had an NDE- got peritonitis in hospital when really sick, went into convulsions, Docs rushed into room to revive me-and while it happened, I had the NDE-
Didn’t go to heaven though, went to hell- it’s a long frightening story- and certainly not a biblical one- but suffice it to say the experience left me shaken
My personal belief is that my high fever during the convulsions caused the brain’s synapses to fire wildly, giving a ‘lucid dreaming-like’ experience-
The reason I have my doubts about actual NDE’s is due to the fact that my visions while experiencing this near death-like experience were unbliblical- I was ‘given a test’ whiel in hell, where I had to count the sounds- bells ringing- I was covered in sand completely, hard to breath, and I was struggling to breath and trying to hear the sounds over my breathing- I counted for awhile, but they got too fast and I lost count, and began to weep- a voice said “Don’t worry, there is no heaven or hell, you don’t exist
I immediately felt a crushing sense of .. I dunno really how to explain it, other than ‘non-existence’ where I was somehow conscious of not existing- that is what shook me the most when I came to again- and really messed with my mind for a long time-
Bottom line, I had a ‘near death’ experience of some kind, but don’t think it was an actual passing on/over- but rather more aq brain synapse system going haywire, but what has me a bit confused, is why did the brain automatically go right to death/afterlife and not something else like perhaps recalling childhood, or perhaps think about things I liked, or wanted to do in life, or of people I knew etc- why did it go right to death/afterlife visions/experience? Is that just what overactive synapses do? I can’t really say for sure what happened in my experience, but suspect it was just high fever, crazy synapses causing the experience
In 2010 I flipped an ATV over on on myself and the
headlight broke all of my ribs and collapsed both lungs.
They airlifted me to a hospital trauma unit 40 miles away.
Tubes were stuck in every conceivable place in my upper
body and I was intubated for almost three weeks. I was
on IV pain medication (morphine?). It was the second night
and I can’t say that it wasn’t a dream but I saw my
cousin,Tom. He was in a dark place and there was a bright
light behind him. Tom had been killed piloting a plane
he had built the year before my accident. In the “dream”
he told me to go back and it was not my time. It seemed
so formula like, just like the typical NDE story that I
chalked it up as a dream but I really don’t know.
Has your experience changed your spiritual life?
I got to know the hospice nurses well of course (I couldn't have done it without them--I was primary caregiver).
Anyway the hospice nurses said that their patients (some, not all, by any means) tell stories of NDE's and they all pretty much tell the same or similar stories about the light, family members, heaven, and the Lord.
Their patients are often visited by family members before they pass who appear to be there to comfort them and help them go through.
Hospice gave us pamphlets telling us what to expect. Apparently it’s normal for the person dying to see loved ones who’ve gone before them. Our neighbor certainly did.
Hello- it did for a long time- I went around bugging everyone (I was in high school, junior at the time) about the need to be saved=- the experience really shook me- I even grabbed the doctor by his coat and told him about what happened and told him he needed to be saved- He was polite- but dismissive-
yeah it’s hard to know- My experience wasn’t really typical- so not sure what happened there- It could be that these visions are ‘protective’ experiences (Much like going into shock) that are common to everyone- with some variances- When I was going through my ordeal, docs were pounding on chest- doused me with icewater to get fever down, holding my tongue etc- I didn’t feel any of that happening- and could only see what was going through my mind at the time-
I still worry about people getting saved. But I have come to realize that there is very little I can do (other than tell them that I am and they can be if they want to).;-)
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