My mother had a Near Death Experience (NDE). She had fallen asleep on the sofa, and she remembers floating above her body and looking down on it, feeling a surge of warmth and peace. When she woke up, she was back in her body, but she was rushed to the hospital with a medical condition that she ultimately recovered from. Yet those moments when she looked down on her body changed her perspective on life profoundly.
Turns out NDEs are experiences that those who have them, psychic mediums and researchers can all agree on. They are real.
An NDE is an experience that describes what it sounds like — one comes face to face with death, but ultimately does not cross over to the other side. In some cases, people recall having a choice: they could either die or choose to live longer. In other cases, people describe being told that their work in their current lifetime is not yet done. Most people describe the experience as being a pleasant one that shows them that death is not the end, but rather the beginning of a new spiritual journey. My mom believes that for those moments, she was suspended between life and death and could have gone in either direction.
What are Near Death Experiences trying to tell us?
There is so much about NDEs that we don’t know about, but if you’ve ever had a Near Death Experience, you may be able to help all of us understand them better. Scientists at the University of Virginia are conducting a research study into NDEs and they ae looking for participants who have had one to share their experience.
While no two NDEs are exactly alike, there are certain qualities about them that many people describe. According to the researchers, many people who have had NDEs report:
- Feelings of comfort, peace and a lack of pain
- The sense that one has left their physical body, and possibly the feeling of floating above it
- An experience of moving though a dark tunnel toward a bright light
- Extreme mental clarity or a flood of knowledge and understanding
- Feelings of absolute love
- Time spent with loved ones who have crossed over to the other side
- Visions of future events
Some people even describe having gone through a ‘life review,’ an experience in which one remembers all of the important moments in that particular lifetime with a higher level of understanding.
The scientists are particularly interested in cases that may offer proof that there is life after our physical body dies. While I know this is the case intuitively, I wonder how life might change if people had proof that it was so. Researchers would be particularly interested, for example, if you learned some piece of verifiable information while you were having a near death experience. There are even cases in which medical personnel can verify that a person is dead yet that person can describe in vivid detail what was happening in the room where their body lay ‘lifeless.’
To participate in the study, you must be 18 or older, have experienced a near death experience and be fluent in English. Learn more about how you can participate here.
