Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (3 page)
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Authors: Pim van Lommel
The Near-Death Experience: Bridging Science and Spirituality
I hope that readers will approach this book with empathy and without prejudice. By making a scientific case for consciousness as a nonlocal and thus ubiquitous phenomenon, this book can contribute to new ideas about consciousness in relation to the brain. I am aware that this book can be little more than a springboard for further study and debate because we still lack definitive answers to the many important questions about our consciousness and the relationship between consciousness and the brain. No doubt many questions about consciousness and the mystery of life and death will remain unanswered. Nevertheless, when faced with exceptional or abnormal findings, we must question a purely materialist paradigm in science. A near-death experience is such an exceptional finding. Although consciousness remains a huge mystery, new scientific theories based on NDE research appear to be making a major contribution to the search for answers. It looks as if a single anomalous finding that defies explanation with commonly accepted concepts and ideas is capable of bringing about a fundamental change in science.
I suspect that reading this book will raise many questions. I am aware that some topics in this book may be new or even unimaginable to many readers, especially those who have never heard or read anything about near-death experiences. But the hundreds of thousands of people who have experienced an NDE will likely be relieved to learn that others have had similar experiences that are being explored scientifically.
An NDE is both an existential crisis and an intense learning experience. People are transformed by the conscious experience of a dimension where time and distance play no role, where past and future can be glimpsed, where they feel complete and healed, and where they can experience unlimited wisdom and unconditional love. These transformations are primarily fueled by the insight that love and compassion for oneself, others, and nature are important conditions of life. Following an NDE, people realize that everything and everybody are connected, that every thought has an impact on oneself and others, and that our consciousness survives physical death. People realize that death is not the end.
People with near-death experiences have been my greatest teachers. My many conversations with them and my in-depth study of the potential significance of an NDE have changed my views on the meaning of life and death. There is much to learn from the insights acquired through an NDE. We do not need our own near-death experience to gain new insights into life and death.
The acceptance of new scientific ideas in general and ideas about endless consciousness in particular requires us to have an open mind and to abandon dogma. And of course this extends beyond science to include all topical issues in contemporary Western society. As we open our minds to universal questions about life, death, and consciousness, our view of humanity may undergo a profound transformation. I sincerely hope that this book can make a positive contribution to this process.
A detailed report of an NDE and its impact on life can be found in chapter 1. Following a brief historical overview of the first scientific NDE studies, chapter 2 features a comprehensive account of the twelve universal NDE elements, illustrated with striking quotes. In chapter 3 I discuss the positive life changes people report after an NDE during a cardiac arrest that lasted only a few minutes. The many problems of coming to terms with the experience are also dealt with in this chapter. Regrettably, people with an NDE are still too often dismissed as dreamers, fantasists, attention seekers, or confused patients. Chapter 4 focuses on near-death experiences in children because it seems highly unlikely that their experiences could be the result of any outside influence. Young children recall the same NDE elements as adults and are also noticeably different from their contemporaries after an NDE. In chapter 5 I cite historical writings from Europe and Asia to show that experiences of an enhanced and endless consciousness and the idea of consciousness after physical death are not new but feature prominently in these writings.
All existing scientific explanations for an NDE are reviewed in chapter 6. A satisfactory theory that explains all the different aspects of the NDE must consider both the various circumstances under which an NDE can be experienced and the distinct elements that constitute an NDE. In chapter 7 I focus on the Dutch NDE study among 344 cardiac arrest survivors and compare its results and conclusions with those of comparable studies from the United States and the United Kingdom.
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These four prospective studies all concluded that the reported NDE elements were experienced during the period of cardiac arrest, that is, during the complete loss of blood flow to the brain. How was this possible? Chapter 8 contains a detailed description of what happens in the brain in the event of acute lack of oxygen precipitated by the loss of the heartbeat and blood pressure. Complementing this, chapter 9 looks more closely at normal brain function and the limitations of our current scientific ideas about the relationship between the brain and consciousness.
As an interlude between the preceding, predominantly descriptive chapters and the subsequent, more analytical chapters, chapter 10 features a comprehensive report of two NDEs that a woman named Monique Hennequin underwent several years ago.
Chapter 11 explains the concepts and insights from quantum physics that may contribute to a better understanding of consciousness. In chapter 12 I draw on a theoretical overview to consider the relationship between the brain and consciousness and put forward some ideas for a possible scientific explanation. New insights into DNA’s potential role in the continuous changes to our bodies are discussed in chapter 13. It is possible that DNA acts as the interface between nonlocal consciousness and the body and plays a role in the coordination of cells, cell systems, organs, and the organism as a whole. Chapter 14 focuses on the different aspects of nonlocal or endless consciousness, many of which have been demonstrated by empirical scientific research.
Some of the implications of NDE and nonlocal consciousness in relation to ethical, medical, and social issues in our predominantly materialist Western society are reconsidered in chapter 15. In the epilogue the concept of nonlocal consciousness and its consequences for science, health care, and our image of humankind is summarized. Finally, in the appendix I stress that knowledge about near-death experiences can be of great practical significance to health care practitioners and to dying people and their families. Everybody ought to be aware of the extraordinary experiences that may occur during a period of clinical death or coma, on a deathbed, or after death.
Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.
—R
ICHARD
B
ACH
I want to begin this book with a report that is typical of a near-death experience (NDE) and of the difficult process of coming to terms with the experience afterward. This NDE was precipitated by serious complications during the delivery of a child.
On September 23, 1978, I get my first contractions. At that point I am nine months pregnant with, as we later learn, our second daughter. My entire pregnancy has been a textbook case. After some time my husband and I join the midwife and go to the hospital. I’m wheeled into the delivery room. The midwife regularly listens to the child’s heartbeat through the large wooden horn [a natural stethoscope]. The waters are broken. The delivery room becomes extremely quiet. People are rushing around and talking to one another in soft yet urgent voices. When I ask what’s happening, neither I nor my husband receives a reply. The contractions stop, but I’m feeling fine. Meanwhile the gynecologist has joined us, along with some more nurses. We have no idea what’s happening. I’m told to start pushing. “But I have no contractions!” This doesn’t seem to matter. There’s a rattling of tongs, scissors, trays, and tissues. My husband passes out and is pulled out of the delivery room and left in the corridor.
Suddenly I realize that I’m looking down at a woman lying on a bed with her legs in supports. I see the nurses and doctors panicking, I see a lot of blood on the bed and on the floor, I see large hands pressing down hard on the woman’s belly, and then I see the woman giving birth to a child. The child is immediately taken to another room. The nurses look dejected. Everybody is waiting. My head is knocked back hard when the pillow is suddenly pulled away. Once again, I witness a great commotion. Swift as an arrow, I fly through a dark tunnel. I’m engulfed by an overwhelming feeling of peace and bliss. I feel intensely satisfied, happy, calm, and peaceful. I hear wonderful music. I see beautiful colors and gorgeous flowers in all colors of the rainbow in a large meadow. At the far end is a beautiful, clear, warm light. This is where I must go. I see a figure in a light garment. This figure is waiting for me and reaches out her hand. It feels like a warm and loving welcome. Hand in hand, we move toward the beautiful and warm light. Then she lets go of my hand and turns around. I feel something pulling me back. I notice a nurse slapping me hard on my cheeks and calling my name.
After some time I realize where I am and I know that my child isn’t well. Our daughter is no longer alive. This return hurts so much! I long to go back to—indeed, where to? The world goes on turning.
My NDE was caused by blood loss during the delivery. Initially, this blood loss went largely unnoticed by the nurses. Everybody must have been too focused on the birth of the child. They only intervened at the last moment by pulling the pillow from under my head, giving me blood and…I didn’t see any more. By then I had reached the heavenly paradise.
When I returned from this beautiful world, this amazing experience, my reception here in this world was cold, frosty, and above all loveless. The nurse with whom I tried to share my beautiful experience dismissed it by saying that I would soon receive medication to help me sleep and then it would all be over. All over? I didn’t want that. I didn’t want it to be over at all. I wanted to go back. The gynecologist told me that I was still young and that I could have plenty more children; I should move on and look forward to the future.
I stopped telling my story. It was difficult enough to find words for my experience because how could words express what I had experienced? But what else could I do? Who could I talk to? What was the matter with me? Had I gone crazy?
The only person I could tell my story to, over and over again, was my husband. He listened and asked questions even though he didn’t understand what had happened to me, what this experience meant or what it was called, and whether I was the only person with such an experience. I was, and still am today, delighted that he was such a good listener. My NDE didn’t jeopardize our relationship. And I know now that this is very precious indeed. Speaking of unconditional love! But I did feel like I was the only person who had experienced such a thing. Nobody asked me anything; nobody was interested. To be fair, my situation made it harder because how do you react when you expect a birth announcement and you receive a death notice instead? For many people that’s hard enough, even without having to listen to an experience like mine.
During that time I lived like an automaton. Although I looked after my husband and our eldest daughter and I walked the dog, my mind was elsewhere. My mind was on my experience. How could I reconnect with it? Where could I hear such beautiful music, see such lovely colors, find such gorgeous flowers, see such a dazzling light, experience so much unconditional love? And was I crazy for thinking these things? What was the matter with me?
In my undergraduate dissertation I proposed the following key recommendation for health care practitioners: “I would have been immensely grateful for only 1 percent of all the advice now found in books and articles on NDE!” In 1978 support was clearly not of the same high standard as it is today, but apart from regular nurses, the gynecologist, and the midwife, I didn’t see anybody. The family doctor never came to see me, not even after a couple of weeks. He never got in touch with me. Did he assume I was doing okay? I didn’t go and see him either; after all, what could I have told him? I had come to the conclusion that my experience was abnormal and that it was better to keep silent. My checkups at the gynecologist revealed no irregularities. On a mechanical level I was still functioning fine, and that was all that mattered. No further questions were asked.
So I kept silent.
I spent years dedicated to a silent search. When I finally found a book in the library that mentioned an NDE, I could scarcely imagine that I’d had such an experience. Surely not? I had stopped believing myself. Only very, very gradually did I find the courage and the strength to believe myself, to trust my experience, and to start accepting and integrating it into my life. It wasn’t easy. Over the years I had developed a fairly successful survival strategy, or rather a flight strategy. I fled from my feelings, and I fled from myself. I had taken on more and more work. I had also thrown myself into sports—running, of all things. How symbolic! I was running away from myself and from my NDE. Initially this worked out well, also in the eyes of the world: I often found myself clutching flowers on the winners’ podium. But these weren’t the flowers I was looking for. I struggled to accept the opinions of others, of colleagues. My inner conflicts—between what I knew and what I felt—intensified. Everything became increasingly difficult.
Then my body intervened. From being overworked and stressed, from what I felt was a burnout, I slipped into a depression. I received treatment from a psychologist who worked in the homeopathic tradition. There’s no such thing as coincidence. He was the first health care practitioner who listened to my story, to my experience. He believed it and even considered it normal! But this was more than twenty years after my NDE! He told me to sketch the experience or write it down, to actively engage with it. With his help I made a fascinating journey into my inner self. Everything was accepted and considered normal. Now I realize that I’m not crazy but that my NDE has changed me. This is why my fear of death has disappeared completely, in marked contrast with the years prior to my NDE, years in which I struggled with death and with the fear of death. This is why I have difficulties with the concept of time. These days I constantly lose track of time, whereas before I lived by the clock. Material things aren’t important to me. The only thing that matters to me is unconditional love. And this is what I’ve always had with my husband. Yet recently I read in a study that unconditional love between human beings is an illusion. And they refuse to believe me! This is why I feel like an outsider sometimes. This is why I’m always, especially during vacations, on the lookout for landscapes, for colors and flowers that I’ve seen but can’t find again. This is why I can’t stand arguments—I want to go back to those peaceful surroundings. As a matter of fact, I’m incapable of arguing.
Having made my inner journey to where I am now, I’m glad that I had my NDE. I accept it as a beautiful experience, as something that gives me peace and allows me to be myself—a self that includes my experience. I can now enjoy life, with my experience. Integrating my NDE can only make this world a better place. It was only when I began to accept and integrate my NDE that I was able to take some pleasure in life again. My thoughts and feelings are relevant after all; they are neither strange nor crazy. I need them to cut through the chaos to carve out my own identity amid the masses. Of course I still face the task of raising awareness of NDE among people and especially health care practitioners. Having carried out a small-scale study among family doctors in my hometown, I was disappointed to learn that many of them still don’t know what to do when somebody has an NDE.
But the most important thing for me now is that I can be who I am, with my experiences. I am who I am, no more, but certainly no less either! And that’s good.
E. M.