Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences (11 page)

One of the more remarkable NDEs shared with NDERF involving encounters with deceased relatives came from Brian, who was born totally deaf. At the age of thirteen he nearly drowned. Here is Brian’s description of meeting his deceased family members.

I approached the boundary. No explanation was necessary for me to understand, at the age of ten, that once I cross[ed] the boundary, I could never come back—period. I was more than thrilled to cross. I intended to cross, but my ancestors over another boundary caught my attention. They were talking in telepathy, which caught my attention. I was born profoundly deaf and had all hearing family members, all of which knew sign language! I could read or communicate with about twenty ancestors of mine and others through telepathic methods. It overwhelmed me. I could not believe how many people I could telepathize with simultaneously.

Brian had been born totally deaf, so communication could take place only through sign language, lip-reading, or other visual forms of communication. Brian’s amazing NDE involved communication unlike any he had encountered—telepathy. It is this type of communication, by the way, that takes place during almost all near-death experiences in which communication is described. To the best of my knowledge, Brian’s NDE is the first ever reported from an individual born totally deaf.

Here are several more examples of those who encountered the deceased during their NDEs. I am including these other examples to show this element’s remarkable consistency.

Christine was receiving chemotherapy for leukemia and was in her apartment. As a rare side effect, one of the chemotherapy drugs caused her heartbeat to become dangerously erratic. As it did, she had the following experience:

The first scene I remember was that I was in my apartment bedroom (where my body lay). My ceiling light was on, and my body lay near the right side of my bed. I was on the left side of my bed, not up in the air yet not on the ground either. I saw several people kneeling down around my body, so I couldn’t really even see myself. The people wore dark clothing, so I’m assuming they were police. I think I saw one person with a white shirt (EMT?). While I was watching the “event” I was with two of my deceased relatives: my grandfather’s cousin, Aunt Kate (who was more like a grandmother to me), and my uncle Harry. In life, these were really the only two members of my family (besides my mother) that I was close to. I loved them very, very much. I don’t remember any strong emotion at all during the NDE. In fact, I felt almost emotionally detached from what was going on. I was not elated, I was not frightened or angry, etc. Just peaceful, calm, and… accepting. But I “knew” why Kate and Harry were there. I knew that they were going to take me somewhere.

Peter was six years old when he cut himself so severely that he “bled to death.”

Then I looked to my left and saw my grandmother who had passed away when I was nine months old. I also saw all of my deceased relatives with her, thousands of them. They were in translucent spirit form.

Bob fell out of a building and landed three stories below. He suffered multiple injuries, including a brain injury. During his NDE he met many deceased relatives:

My relatives (all deceased) were there, all at their prime in life. They were dressed, I would say, 1940s style, which would have been prime years for most. Relatives I knew of, such as my grandfathers, but never knew in life were there, as well as uncles/ aunts who passed before I knew them.

At times NDErs encounter beings that they believe to be alive at the time of their NDE, only to find that they were actually deceased. Here’s an example of what I am talking about. Douglas’s heart stopped, and he had to be defibrillated twelve times. Here’s his story:

Now while all this was happening, two hundred miles away my grandfather had a heart attack at the same time. We were both kept alive through the night, but the next morning we both had heart attacks again. At that time I had my NDE. There was no tunnel of light that I hear so much about; it was just an expanse of white light.

Off in the distance to my right was what appeared to be the shadow of a large oak tree with a large group of people standing under it. As I got closer to this group I recognized the people standing in the front of the group as my grandmother, my great-uncle Glenn, my great-aunt Lala, my great-aunt Wanda, her husband, Lee, a woman that was like a grandmother to my sister and me, and then a group of people that I thought I knew but at that time I couldn’t put names to their faces. I tried to speak to them, but all they would say to me is “We’re not waiting for you; go home.”

Then the last thing I remember from that side was my grandfather’s voice. I did not see him; I just heard his voice say, “You’re the luckiest boy I know.”

Then three days later I awoke in the hospital with my mother and sister standing over my bed. My mother says that my first question was about the play I was working on at the time, and my second question was about my grandfather…. My grandfather [had] died at the same time two hundred miles away.

For another example, when a child we will call Sandra was five years old, she contracted encephalitis and lost consciousness. It was then that she encountered her neighbor. Here is a paraphrase of her story, which she shared with the NDERF site:

As I was unconscious, an elderly family friend appeared to me and said, “Go home right now.” I didn’t really know what he meant. I was out of my body when he appeared, and I immediately went back into my body. Before long I opened my eyes, and my family was there smiling in their great relief that I had returned from unconsciousness. When I told them that I had seen our friend and that he insisted I go home, they looked at me with great concern. The day after I went into the hospital, our friend had died of a heart attack. I did not know he had died until after I shared my experience with my parents.

Later during this same experience, Sandra encountered a sister, one who had died before she was born and that she didn’t know she had. A few days after she came around, Sandra was drawing a picture of the girl she had met during her coma. When she told her parents what she was drawing, they became ashen and left the room. Later they returned and told her about the sister she never knew she had, who was struck by a car and died before she was born.

As you may have noticed, encounters with the deceased loved ones are almost always joyous reunions, not horrifying ones like what might be seen in a ghost movie. Also, although many deceased loved ones prior to death were elderly and sometimes disfigured by arthritis or other chronic illnesses, the deceased in the near-death experience are virtually always the picture of perfect health and may appear younger—even decades younger—than they did at the time of death. Those who died as very young children may appear older. But even if the deceased appear to be a very different age than when they died, the NDEr still recognizes them.

People may encounter in their near-death experience a being who seems familiar but whose identity is unknown during the NDE. Later on, the NDEr may discover the identity of this familiar but unknown being, for instance, by looking at old family photographs.
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Most of the time these unfamiliar beings turn out to be family members from the past. We just saw an example of this from Sandra, who encountered during her NDE a sister she did not know she had. Here is another example from the NDERF site, regarding a woman we’ll call Missy.

Missy suffered head trauma in an automobile accident. Although she suffered loss of memory, Missy remembers well going up a tunnel and seeing her sister. To paraphrase her story:

I saw a child that I recognized as a sister of mine who had died in afire. I was only a year or so when she died, but I knew it was her. She had a strong family resemblance. Much later, when I was older, I confirmed it was my sister when I saw pictures of her in the family photo album.

Sometimes NDErs meet beings who are unfamiliar; many such beings encountered by those in the NDERF study had a mystical quality. Despite being unfamiliar, these mystical beings were generally described as very loving in their interaction with the NDErs. To the question, “Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence?” NDErs responded with 49.9 percent selecting “Definite being, or voice clearly of mystical or otherworldly origin,” while 9.8 percent selected “Unidentifiable voice,” and 40.3 percent selected “Neither.” Here are some examples of the mystical beings they encountered.

Jonathan was told he had only a 1 percent chance of surviving surgery on his esophagus.

[I] remember standing about ten feet up and ten feet to the side of mybody on the [operating] table. A person was standing next to me, but I didn’t look at him/her. I had no fear or questions to ask;I just observed. Around the table were at least a dozen nurses and doctors. But what was so emotional was the presence of [glowing] people that I can only describe as angels. Each angel was guiding the hands of the staff they were standing next to. I heard no noise, no voices, no music. It was peacefully quiet. I don’t remember details too specific, such as what tools were used or the exact position of my body, but only because I was focused so much on the angels guiding the staff in everything they did, from walking to the use of the tools within my chest cavity. Even after the operation, I still had an unusual peace and no fear. The doctor said it was the best operation he had ever gone through—there were no problems at all—and he was impressed at my rate of recovery.

Andrew suffered an allergic reaction that left him unconscious. He wrote,

I was aware of another person or being; it was feminine, and she spoke to me. It was a feeling of presence, not really seeing. She told me everything would be all right and that [when I thought about having so much knowledge] I would know the secrets of the universe.

Jesse overdosed on a mixture of heroin and cocaine, calling it “an instant death.” During his NDE,

I met this being filled with love, joy, patience, compassion who knew my thoughts and knew everything I’ve ever done in this life and beyond! He also knew and remembered who I am!

A man we’ll call Leonard had a heart attack. He described 360-degree vision as he watched the frantic efforts to resuscitate him:

On the other side communication is done via telepathy (thought transfer). I must tell you that God has a fantastic sense of humor; I never laughed so much in all my life!

During a near-death experience, these mystical beings may be sensed or heard but not actually seen. When mystical beings are seen, their appearance is variable. Some in the NDERF study described these beings as angels. They usually don’t have wings. Rather, they may appear similar to earthly beings, or they may be described as beings of light, without easily definable features.

Communication with these mystical beings, as with known deceased beings, is almost always telepathic. Mystical beings may be present at any time during the NDE. They often are present at a time of discussion near the end of the NDE.

The NDERF study’s conclusions—that NDErs see deceased relatives and friends during their experience—is supported by Emily Williams Kelly’s previously cited study. As noted, her research found that 95 percent of the deceased individuals encountered were relatives, and only 5 percent were friends or acquaintances. The age of the NDEr did not make any difference in whether or not they encountered a deceased being. If the deceased relatives encountered during NDEs were only a product of earthly memory, it would be expected that older individuals, who would have experienced more deaths of people that they knew in their lifetimes, would encounter more deceased relatives. However, this is not what the Kelly study found.

It might also be expected that NDErs would encounter deceased individuals that they were emotionally close to. Once again, though, Kelly’s study held a surprise. For 32 percent of the deceased beings encountered, the NDErs were emotionally neutral to or distant from the beings or had never previously met them. The NDErs in the study frequently commented that the individuals they encountered were completely unexpected.
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No skeptic’s argument can explain the overwhelming percentage of deceased beings encountered during NDEs, especially given that living beings would be much more likely to occupy a place in the NDErs’ recent memory. People who undergo near-death experiences are generally not thinking about the deceased at the time of their NDEs, anyway. Yet people who died years or decades before are commonly encountered. The skeptics’ suggestion that NDErs expect to see these deceased beings cannot explain NDEs in which the NDEr had never met the deceased or did not even know the person was deceased at the time of the NDE.

The findings of the NDERF study and others are consistent with what NDErs themselves generally believe: they are briefly reunited with deceased relatives and friends when they venture to the other side.

Reuniting with our lost loved ones is the reality—not just the hope—of the NDE. As Mark Twain said, “Death is the starlit strip between the companionship of yesterday and the reunion of tomorrow.” It is the convincing stories collected in the NDERF website that lead me to believe these reunions are real and strong evidence of the afterlife.

Skeptics have suggested that Oprah created the near-death experience. They say this with tongue in cheek, of course (or so I think). What they are jokingly suggesting is that Oprah and other cultural icons have popularized the near-death experience to such a point that people claim to have NDEs when they really don’t. It is hip to have NDEs, the skeptics claim, and people will go to any length to fit into that category.

Frankly, fabricated NDEs are more rare than the skeptics would have you believe. I have run into fewer than ten NDEs shared on the NDERF survey form that were definitely fabricated—out of 1,300 NDEs shared with NDERF. But still the skeptical questions remain: Has our culture become so familiar with near-death experiences that people are now embellishing their experiences? Or, worse, are they creating them out of whole cloth?

The short answer to those questions is no. The fact that NDEs have been the subject of many television shows and a couple of feature films does not mean that people are now pretending to have NDEs.

Still there are skeptics. Carol Zaleski, a Harvard-trained theologian, describes NDEs as a product of “religious imagination.”
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The Sceptic’s Dictionary
says, “NDE stories are now known to a large audience. Thus, when new stories are told about going into the light, etc., one has to be concerned that these stories may have been contaminated. They may reflect what one has heard and what one expects.”
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And, at the far end of skepticism come those who think that NDEs are the work of Satan.

Personally, I think all of the above are wrong. If asked why, I have many answers, and one of them is: “The children told me.”

It is through young children that we can help determine if NDEs are just a made-up phenomenon. And it’s through very young children that we can help prove once and for all that NDEs are natural events, not events made up or influenced to match some television program.

Let’s look at some of the data from the NDERF study to see how the NDEs of very young children relate to the subject of NDEs overall. For the sake of categorizing, I call children five years of age and younger “very young children.” Most five-year-olds have not yet started elementary school, where cultural influences are accelerated. A child of five or younger is less likely to have experienced the cultural influences that might affect how they interpret a near-death experience. Plus, very young children have less-developed views of death than older children and adults. It is unlikely that very young children have heard of near-death experiences or that they understand NDEs even if they have.

In essence, very young children are practically a blank slate when it comes to the subject of death, which makes them an important subject group to use when studying near- death experiences.

In prior chapters responses were presented to survey questions from the NDERF study of 613 NDErs, all with NDE Scale scores of 7 and higher. To compare the content of NDEs of very young children to older children and adults, I used this same group of 613 NDErs, minus 2 NDErs who did not give their age at the time of their NDE on the NDERF survey. I used the same methodology that was previously described in chapter 6, where NDEs occurring under general anesthesia were compared to all other NDEs.

This study included 26 NDErs age 5 and below (average age 3.6 years old) and 585 NDErs age 6 and above at the time of their NDEs. The survey consisted of thirty-three questions that addressed the content of NDEs. We compared the responses to these thirty-three questions between the two groups.

The results:
Very young children had every NDE element that older children and adults had. There was no statistically significant difference in the responses to any of the thirty- three survey questions regarding the content of the NDEs between very young children and older children and adults. There were only two questions with a trend toward a statistically different response between the two groups.

One of these questions was “Did time seem to speed up?” There were three possible responses to this question: “Everything seemed to be happening all at once,” “Time seemed to go faster than usual,” and “Neither.” Very young children were somewhat more likely to select the “Neither” option in response to this question. However, there were no differences between the two groups in response to the more generally worded survey question “Did you have any sense of altered space or time?”

The other question with a trend toward a statistically significant difference in the responses between the two groups was “Were your senses more vivid than usual?” The three possible responses to this question were “Incredibly more so,” “More so than usual,” and “Neither.” Very young children were somewhat more likely to select the “More so than usual” option. However, there were no differences between the two groups to three more specifically worded questions that addressed their senses during the NDEs. These three questions with no differences in responses between the two groups asked “How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness?” and two questions asking if their vision and hearing during their NDEs differed from everyday vision and hearing.

The conclusion:
Very young children have every NDE element that older children and adults have in their NDEs. This group of 26 very young children, age 5 and below, appears to have NDE content that is identical to that of older children and adult NDEs. The percentage of time NDE elements occur during their NDEs is not statistically different between the two groups for any of the NDE elements. The two questions with only a trend toward statistical significance are not corroborated by differences in responses to other questions asking about the same NDE elements.

Dr. Cherie Sutherland, a noted NDE researcher, reviewed thirty years of scholarly literature regarding NDEs in children, including very young children. Here’s what Dr. Sutherland has to say about NDEs in very young children:

It has often been supposed that the NDEs of very young children will have a content limited to their vocabulary. However, it is now clear that the age of children at the time of their NDE does not in any way determine its complexity. Even prelinguistic children have later reported quite complex experiences…. Age does not seem in any way to affect the content of the NDE.
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I agree with Dr. Sutherland. The NDERF study is by far the largest study of NDEs in very young children ever published. We may now be more confident than ever in concluding that the content of NDEs in very young children is not affected by their young age at the time of their NDEs.
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There is much more to understanding near-death experiences than simply analyzing responses to questions with statistics. There is no substitute for
reading
NDEs to see for yourself their deeper dimension. I have read every NDE ever shared with NDERF. In reading the NDEs of very young children, I see that their thinking may be childlike during the NDE. However, I also see a deeper dimension of their NDEs that goes beyond even the very detailed NDERF survey questions. There is a subjective similarity between the NDEs of children of all ages and adults that can only be appreciated by reading the accounts.

What about older children? Do they have the same NDE content as adults? It is difficult to select the age that separates children from adults. Eighteen years old is a legal definition of adulthood in many countries. However, youth between the ages of sixteen and eighteen are able to drive, often start employed jobs, and frequently begin romantic relationships. I consider those between sixteen and eighteen years old to be between childhood and adulthood rather than to be children. With this consideration, I defined
children
to be younger than sixteen years old and
adults
to be age sixteen and older.

Using the same methodology I used to study the content of NDEs in the very young, the content of the NDEs of 133 children and 478 adults were compared.

The results:
The responses to the thirty-three questions about NDE content were reviewed. There was only one question that had a statistically different response between the two groups. This question asked, “Did you see a light?” Children were more likely to answer “Yes” and less likely to answer “No.” A similarly worded question asked, “Did you see or feel surrounded by a brilliant light?” Possible responses included “Light clearly of mystical or otherworldly origin,” “Unusually bright light,” and “Neither.” I believe this latter question, one of the NDE Scale questions, better addresses the mystical, unearthly light that NDErs often encounter. There was no statistical difference between children and adults in their response to this question.

The conclusion:
This group of 133 children, age fifteen and below, appears to have NDE content that is identical to that of adult NDEs. Considering the above discussion, there does not appear to be any statistical difference between the two groups in the percentage of occurrence of each NDE element during their NDEs.

As with the NDEs in very young children, this is the largest study ever published that directly compares the content of childhood and adult NDEs. I coauthored a book chapter that included a review of thirty years of scholarly research on childhood NDEs. That chapter was written before we had the results available from the NDERF study of childhood NDEs. From prior published scholarly literature, we could still conclude:

Over the first three decades of NDE research, investigators have published findings on several hundred childhood NDEs. NDEs in children appear to be accurately remembered, even if shared years later in adulthood. The contents of children’s NDEs appear similar to those of adults and do not appear to be substantially affected by age.
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The NDEs of children, even very young children, have the same content as adult NDEs. This strongly suggests that NDEs are not significantly influenced by preexisting cultural influences, beliefs, or life experiences. This is further powerful evidence that NDEs, and their consistent indication of an afterlife, are real.

Below are several case studies from very young children (five years old and younger) and children over five. Note their similarity.