NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES

What is the near death experience?

• It occurs when a person enters “clinical death” and usually has a profound personal experience which can include:

• A sensation of leaving the body• Following a bright light• Encounter with a higher being (God, Buddha,

Aliens, etc.)• What is “clinical death” then?• Clinical death: no cardiac output, no

respiration, fixed dilated pupils

TYPES OF NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES

• INEFFABILITY• HEARING THE NEWS OF THEIR DEATH• FEELING PEACE AND QUITE• THE DARK TUNNEL• OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCES• THE BEING OF LIGHT• THE LIFE REVIEW• THE BORDER OR LIMIT• EFFECT ON LIVES• CORROBORATION

NDE TRAITS BY RAYMOND MOODY IN

“LIFE AFTER DEATH”

• TIME AND SPACE

• PAINLESSNESS AND PEACE

• OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCES

• RISING INTO HEAVENS

• RELUCTANCE TO RETURN

• MEETING OF THE SUPREME BEING

RESEARCH

• Research by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, George Ritchie, and Raymond Moody Jr. Moody's book "Life after Life", released in 1975, brought a lot of attention to the topic of NDEs

• This was soon followed by the establishment of the International Association for Near-death Studies, IANDS, in 1981.

PREVALENCE OF NDEs • According to the Gallup and Proctor survey in 1980-1981, of a

representative sample of the American population, data showed that 15% had an NDE.

• Knoblauch in 2001 performed a more selective study in Germany and found that 4% of the sample population had experienced an NDE

• Perera et al., in 2005, conducted a telephone survey of a representative sample of the Australian population, as part of the Roy Morgan Catibus Survey, and concluded that 8.9% of the population had experienced an NDE.

• van Lommel et al. (2001), a cardiologist from Netherlands, studied a group of patients who had suffered cardiac arrests and who were successfully revived. They found that 62 patients (18%) had an NDE, of whom 41 (12%) described a core experience.

BIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS AND THEORIES

• Dr. Karl Jansen, a New Zealand-born psychiatrist, claims to have reproduced the effects of NDEs through the use of ketamine, thus giving potential evidence of a biological cause of the experience

• In the 1990s, Dr. Rick Strassman conducted research on the psychedelic drug Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) at the University of New Mexico. Strassman advanced the theory that a massive release of DMT from the pineal gland prior to death or near-death was the cause of the near-death experience phenomenon

• According to Engmann, near-death experiences of people who are clinically dead are psychopathological symptoms caused by a severe malfunction of the brain resulting from the cessation of cerebral blood circulation.

EFFECTS• Changes in personality and outlook on life • A greater appreciation for life. • Higher self-esteem, greater compassion for others.• A heightened sense of purpose and self-understanding.• Desire to learn.• Elevated spirituality.• Greater ecological sensitivity and planetary concern.• A feeling of being more intuitive. • Changes may also include increased physical sensitivity;

diminished tolerance to light, alcohol, and drugs; a feeling that the brain has been "altered" to encompass more; and a feeling that one is now using the "whole brain" rather than just a small part

RELIGIOUS BELIVES

“This body, that you are in has been alive forever. It comes from an

unending stream of life, going back to the big bang and beyond.”

-MELLEN THOMAS BENEDICT