Do you know someone who has had a near-death experience (NDE)? Many of those who have had a NDE stated seeing a tunnel with bright lights and deceased family members coming to greet them.

Many scientists play NDE events down, proposing that they are due to a lack of oxygen to the brain and usually happen just before someone loses consciousness. They point to fighter pilots who experience the same phenomena when they become unconscious due to flight acceleration, as well as the lack of being able to reproduce the near-death experience in a controlled setting.

While understanding the position of these scientists, I have always been intrigued by the stories I have heard from others about their NDEs. As a mentalist, I have studied psychology and the paranormal and have always hoped for some explanation about NDE events.  Therefore, I was stunned when I read the book, “The ESP Enigma” by Diane Hennacy Powell, MD, where she reports on a controlled experiment on NDE.

Dr. Michael Sabom is a cardiologist who conducted an experiment – with permission – on a patient who was going to have a brain operation. Under very close observation, the operation involved lowering the patient’s body temperature to 60 degrees. Her heart and breathing stopped and her brain waves stopped on the EEG. Clinically speaking, she was “brain dead.”

Additionally, to perform the operation to remove a life threatening aneurysm from the patient’s brain – which was successful – all of the blood had to be drained from her head.  Unclinically speaking – she was dead.

When she regained consciousness after the operation, she spoke of her experience and related seeing a tunnel, bright lights and her deceased family members coming to meet her.

She also reported what was said and done by the operating staff during her operation, even though her eyes were taped shut and she wore earplugs specially molded to her ears to prevent her hearing anything subconsciously. (This is referred to as an out-of-body experience or OBE.)

No heartbeat; no breathing; brain dead and no blood in her head, yet she experienced something amazing. And since she was able to relate what was going on in the operating room when she was “brain dead,” this provides an argument against scientists who feel that people experience NDEs immediately before losing consciousness. It also, in my opinion, provides an argument for those who have experienced OBEs while not being dead.

With no blood in the head and no brain waves, this patient experienced her deceased relatives coming to meet her.  It couldn’t have been in her imagination, because she didn’t have one at the time of her operation – because she was brain dead. Fascinating.

If you want to read more, pick up “The ESP Enigma – The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena.” It’s an eye-opening book and filled with well-dcoumented information.

If you have stories of your own NDE or OBE, send them along to me or comment below.

I’ve always been fascinated with how our subconscious delivers to us specific information with regard to our current life, as well as what may occur in the future.  While surfing the net, I came across the following on Wikipedia about Heinz Pagels, a physicist known for his work on quantum mechanics and cosmology: 

“Lately I dreamed I was clutching at the face of a rock but it would not hold. Gravel gave way. I grasped for a shrub, but it pulled loose, and in cold terror I fell into the abyss… what I embody, the principle of life, cannot be destroyed … It is written into the cosmic code, the order of the universe. As I continued to fall in the dark void, embraced by the vault of the heavens, I sang to the beauty of the stars and made my peace with the darkness.” — The Cosmic Code.

Pagels wrote that in his book, “The Cosmic Code” in 1982. He died in 1988 in a mountain climbing accident. According to his obituary in “The New York Times,” Pagels stepped on a rock, which was unsteady and lost his balance. He fell, sliding down a steep slope and his body was found at the foot of a deep gorge. 

The questions that arise are many: Did Pagels, somehow, predict his own demise? Was his subconcious trying to warn him? How many times did he have this same dream? Did Pagels take this warning seriously or did he just brush it off as being nothing more than a dream? Could he have changed the tragic outcome of his death on the mountain by paying more attention to his dream?

During my presentations as a funny motivational speaker, the serious portion of my program delves into how much your subconsious mind and your thoughts affect your life. 

In my opinion, there is no doubt that Pagels was given a warning from his subconscious mind to either be more careful or to abandon his mountain climbing endeavors. That leads to another question, which can not be answered: What if Pagels would have listened?

2011Copyright Bob Garner. All rights reserved.