Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (9 page)
Read Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience Online
Authors: Pim van Lommel
Empathetic NDE
An empathetic NDE is an experience based on empathy, the capacity to understand and identify with another person’s emotions. This type of NDE is not rooted in one’s own physical or psychological problems but is caused by the strong emotions felt upon the death of a dearly loved person. People share, as it were, in the death experience of another person who is dying or has just died. The content of this empathetic NDE is identical to that of a classic near-death experience.
I was in a relationship with Anne when she suddenly died in a serious traffic accident. Her son, who’d just turned seven, sustained severe head trauma. His brain virtually spilled out of his skull—it looked like a smashed watermelon—and it took him about five days to make the transition. He was the eldest grandson of a couple with nine children. Some sixty relatives had gathered around his hospital bed, and since I’d only been his mother’s boyfriend, I was standing somewhere at the back by the window. The moment he died, when his EEG flatlined, I “saw” that his mother came to collect him. You must bear in mind that she’d died five days earlier. There was this incredibly beautiful reunion. And at one point they reached out for me and included me in their embrace. This was an indescribable, ecstatic reunion. Part of me left my body and accompanied them to the light. I know this must sound very strange indeed, but I was fully conscious and with Anne and her son as they went to the light, just as I was fully conscious and in the room where all the relatives were incredibly sad because their nephew and grandson had just died. And I joined them, we were heading toward the light, but at a certain point it was clear that I had to return, so I fell back. I simply fell back into my body. It was such an overwhelming experience, I glowed with happiness, but then I suddenly realized that I had a big smile on my face amid all these people who’d just lost a child dear to them. I quickly covered my face with my hands because I didn’t want to be disrespectful toward all these mourning and crying people in the room. And I never said a word about the experience. Talking about it seemed completely inappropriate at the time, and besides I didn’t have the words to describe what had happened to me. I used to think that I knew what was what. But my worldview underwent a radical transformation.
I was eighteen when my uncle in New York got cancer in his one remaining lung. I traveled to New York, and we talked a lot. When I came back my mother, his sister, immediately set off for the United States. She stayed with him day and night. He was absolutely terrified. Afraid there would be nothing. He was alone when he died. He wanted it that way. Now for my experience, which took place a couple of hours after his death. I was asleep and “dreaming.” My uncle took me through a man-sized tunnel that opened out onto a beautiful landscape. A green meadow by a hill. A tree. A lake. All illuminated by a silvery sun. “I’m here now,” he said. And he looked extremely happy.
Man, if thy spirit rise above Time and Space, each moment canst thou be in eternity.
—A
NGELUS
S
ILESIUS
(J
OHANNES
S
CHEFFER
)
In conclusion, each of the NDE reports reproduced here is extraordinary and emotional. When people agree to share their experience, the sincerity is always palpable. But there is also a degree of reticence because NDErs are aware that their indescribable experience is difficult to put into words. They understand full well that other people, who have never had such an experience, struggle to believe or comprehend an NDE. Those who have had a near-death experience themselves have had the greatest difficulties understanding and coming to terms with their overwhelming experience. And scientists who have never spoken to anybody with an NDE and who are usually of the opinion that the experience lacks any scientific basis, find it hard to take an NDE report at face value. Scientists continue to dismiss people with an NDE as dreamers, fantasists, attention seekers, or confused patients.
I am of the opinion that people who have had a near-death experience and who are capable of putting their experience into words can teach us a great deal about the relationship between human consciousness and the brain. Finding an explanation for the cause and content of the near-death experience is a major scientific challenge.
Our ideas about death define how we live our lives.
—D
AG
H
AMMARSKJÖLD
A near-death experience elicits skepticism and critical questions from many. Is there any scientific explanation for comprehensive and permanent life changes after a two-minute cardiac arrest? Should the NDE be regarded as an existential crisis? An NDE is an overwhelming confrontation with the boundless dimensions of our consciousness. As long as people have not had an NDE themselves, they remain ignorant of the impact and profound consequences of such an experience.
It felt as if I’d become another person, but with the same identity.
People usually say that their NDE has transformed their views on what really matters in life, and that they have lost their fear of death.
It’s possible to be physically dead while your mind lives on. Only one thing matters: your attitude toward other people. I think about everything now. Why? Everything continues and nothing continues. I feel very peaceful now; I’m no longer afraid of death. I now accept life as it is.
People often talk of attaching greater value and meaning to life and less importance to material things such as an expensive car, a big house, and a job with status or power. The near-death experience turns out to be a life-insight experience. Or as one person who experienced an NDE put it: NDE really stands for New Discernment through Experience. The newfound insight pertains to what matters in everyday life: acceptance of and unconditional love for oneself (including acceptance of one’s dark side), others, and nature. It also pertains to insight into connectedness: everything and everybody is connected. Because of this sense of connectedness, some people describe the NDE as an experience of unity. They speak of a “cosmic law” in which everything they do to another person will ultimately have an effect on them too, and this applies to both love and affection and violence and aggression.
But is everything always rosy after an NDE? Are there any hitches in the process of coming to terms with the experience? How common are changed insights after an NDE? And what happens to these changed insights over time: do they intensify or wear off? Does everybody display the same patterns of change, or are there any cultural differences? In this chapter we look at changes that NDErs experience as a result of their NDE. We ask if these changes are mostly positive or if they actually cause any problems, and how the reactions of one’s friends and family affect the ability of the person who had an NDE (NDEr) to integrate the experience.
The Consequences of an NDE
Irrespective of the immediate cause of a near-death experience, its survivors display permanent and fundamental change in their outlook on life, religious beliefs, values, and behavior. The depth of the experience and, above all, the panoramic life review and the encounter with the light appear to contribute to the intensity and inevitability of these changes.
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Popular literature tends to concentrate on the positive nature of these changes, yet many people struggle to accept and integrate their newfound insight, especially when faced with negative reactions from family, friends, and health care practitioners.
My body, my life, and the whole world suddenly felt like a prison.
The reported changes are probably triggered by the conscious experience of a dimension where time and distance play no role, where past and future can be glimpsed, where people feel complete and whole, and where infinite wisdom and unconditional love can be experienced. After an NDE, the insight no longer rests on faith but on certainty.
It had such a profound effect on the rest of my life: the timelessness that I experienced; the knowledge that my consciousness will survive outside my body. It was enough to destabilize my life.
Some people feel nostalgic about their NDE because of the unforgettable feelings of peace, acceptance, and love they encountered during the experience. In fact, the life changes derive in no small measure from the new insight that love and consideration for oneself, others, and nature are paramount and that death is not the end of everything. The NDE teaches people that life goes on after physical death.
The experience changed everything for me: there’s something after death, and it’s good. Death is merely a release from the body.
To illustrate this, here are some extracts from an interview with a patient who had an NDE during his cardiac arrest eight years earlier:
I’m no longer afraid of death because I’ll never forget what happened to me there. Now I’m certain that life goes on. Over the years I’ve undergone a number of changes. I feel a strong connection with nature. The garden now plays an important role in my life. I’ve become much more emotional. I’ve acquired a great sense of justice. I’ve become more patient and peaceful. I can see things in perspective now. My aggression is a thing of the past. I feel a strong inner urge to never lie again. I’d rather keep silent than tell a little white lie. I do struggle with deadlines: things must get done within a certain time. But I can handle it reasonably well. Before I never knew anything about spirituality; I wasn’t interested. But now I’ve become aware of prophetic powers with which I can help others. I have a sixth sense. Over the years I’ve learned to live with it. It has simply become a part of my life. I really rely on my instincts these days. The moment I start thinking, everything goes haywire. But my hypersensitivity also causes a lot of problems, as it creates tension between rejection by those who don’t understand and curiosity from those very same people. I’ve learned to listen to my body. I enjoy life immensely. Now I’m aware of things that I never noticed before in my experience. I believe that people have stopped living from the heart. And I prefer to do everything as simply as possible. I’m so glad and grateful that I can discuss it with my wife.
Studies of Life Changes After a Near-Death Experience
Over the past twenty-five years a great many books have been published with personal testimonies of near-death experiences and the often intense changes that follow. The most systematic (retrospective) studies of such changes have been published by Kenneth Ring, Margot Grey, P. M. H. Atwater, Cherie Sutherland, Melvin Morse, Peter and Elisabeth Fenwick, Kenneth Ring with Evelyn Elsaesser-Valarino, and Anja Opdebeeck.
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These books show great similarities between the reported processes of change irrespective of age, cultural or religious background, or the medical cause of the NDE. However, the people who were interviewed for these (retrospective) studies were approached through advertisements, lectures, and the Internet, and thus they raise the aforementioned problem of selection. Who did or did not volunteer for an interview? Are we hearing only from people who struggle most to come to terms with the experience? Or those who struggle least? Unfortunately, we will never know.
The major failing of these interesting and edifying books filled with remarkable anecdotal evidence is that while they provide a clear picture of the various aspects of the process of change, they offer no reliable figures on the incidence of the changes and the exact times when they occur. Another limitation of these studies is that they fail to indicate the passage of time between the NDE and the interview. The sole exception here is Sutherland’s study.
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The passage of time between the NDE and the interview is significant in determining the degree to which the changes have been accepted and integrated. The longer this interval, the more positive changes are reported. In other words, the processes of change vary a lot depending on whether people are interviewed one year or twenty-five years after their NDE, and this complicates the interpretation of the data in these studies. Not all the changes listed in them occur, and the changes that do occur do not always occur at the same rate.
Cherie Sutherland carried out a somewhat more systematic study by examining changes in religious beliefs, spiritual interests, and aspects of heightened intuition before and after the NDE and comparing these data with the general population. Her study included fifty people with an average (young) age of 31 (7–76), and an average (long) interval between the NDE and interview of 19 years (2–52). There are only a few other retrospective studies in which post-NDE changes have been compared with a control group of people who suffered a serious medical crisis without an NDE. Such comparison plays an important role in ascertaining whether the reported changes are caused by the NDE or by the serious medical crisis. In his study Ring also interviewed friends and family in order to put the reported changes into perspective.
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The Dutch study that my colleagues and I conducted (see chapter 7) is the only prospective, longitudinal study of post-NDE processes of change. It drew on a control group of cardiac arrest survivors without NDE who matched the patients with an NDE in terms of age and gender. Our research, featuring interviews with NDErs and a control group at two- and eight-year intervals, has the longest follow-up published to date. Wherever possible, the interviews included patients’ partners, which enabled us to put the processes of change into perspective. (We will discuss the effect of time on processes of change later in this chapter.)
Factors That Influence the Process of Change
The transformations reported by people with a near-death experience differ widely both in terms of content and in terms of the rate of acceptance and integration.
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Factors that play no role are age (except in very young children), gender, and level of education. But personality traits of the person prior to the NDE, such as an extroverted or introverted character or a positive or somber disposition, are important factors in this process. If dealing with unexpected situations was always a challenge, coming to terms with an NDE is that much harder. And people with a strict religious upbringing cope with the experience differently than people who reject any form of religion, as for example in the former East Germany.
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Cultural factors play a role too: in countries such as India, where spirituality, meditation, and reincarnation are widely accepted, the content of the NDE and its resulting changes appear to be more easily integrated than in the West. Within Western culture the experience is completely at odds with conventional wisdom. And it is no surprise that people who were raised with material values find it harder to accept the new insight that money and power are no longer essential to happiness. It is not so much the content that makes the NDE so difficult to come to terms with but the fact that Western culture and science do not really accommodate this kind of spiritual experience.
As mentioned, the depth of the NDE is not the only important factor in the process of change. Significant too are the medical circumstances under which the NDE occurred, such as a car accident with prolonged rehabilitation, a heart attack with feelings of restriction and anxiety, or a brain hemorrhage with permanent paralysis. Patients must come to terms with the NDE itself but also accept and deal with the consequences of the serious medical crisis that precipitated it, which sometimes involves extensive rehabilitation, wheelchair use, and other lingering symptoms.
Alongside the personal acceptance and integration of the NDE, the social support of family and friends is equally crucial.
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An NDE can put a severe strain on relationships (more on this later). Integration also depends on the response of health care practitioners, on whether they can lend a respectful ear and the support needed for processes of change. The skeptical response of most health workers is a source of extreme frustration to NDErs. The integration process can be accelerated if the person affected learns that he or she is not the only one who has had such an overwhelming experience and that there is a name for it (NDE). Contact with other NDErs and reading books on NDE and its consequences for later life can be equally helpful. This form of affirmation helps people recognize their experience, reduce anxiety, and facilitate better and faster integration.
Integrating the Experience
Acceptance of the experience and the changed insights often depends on the response of the partner and family, friends, acquaintances, doctors, nurses and other health care practitioners, particularly during the first few months and years after the NDE. Yet many people with an NDE discover that others are incapable of listening without prejudice and criticism. Retreating into years of silence may be the only way to cope with the experience. People feel transformed while those around them remain the same. The process of accepting and integrating the NDE cannot begin until people feel capable of sharing their thoughts and feelings.
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With immense perseverance, often aided by positive reactions from those around them, people learn to live according to their newfound insights into what matters in life.
The integration process lasts at least seven years or more because the effort provokes a lot of resistance in both NDErs and those around them. I have come across people who were unable to talk about their NDE and its consequences until more than fifty years after the event. For fear of rejection, they kept their NDE a lifelong secret. These people had found it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to live their lives according to their newfound insights. Despite its largely positive content, the NDE is traumatic in these cases because the process of coming to terms with the experience is so difficult and painful.
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Positive and Negative Aspects of Processes of Change
