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What happens after we die? This is the greatest mystery of life. Is there an afterlife or is it something we have created to deal with the inevitable?

There are those who have died and experienced a near death experience (NDE), have returned, and are now certain that we are much more than our physical bodies. An NDE is generally described as stepping back from the body and being able to see oneself from above accompanied by a euphoric calm as the spirit travels through a tunnel with a bright light at its center and the knowledge that there is another dimension once the spirit is reached. the light.

On the website of the “Near Death Experience Research Foundation” there is an account of a NDE recorded by Anita M., a cancer patient from Hong Kong who claims that such an event took place when she “died” in hospital. and the doctors were frantically trying to bring her back. back. Dipping in and out of consciousness, she could feel her spirit leave her body. As she crossed she felt that this other dimension was actually the real world and she felt free and powerful connected to something much bigger, “I thought I knew so much more than when I was in my body,” she says, “I was surrounded by loving beings, people that I seemed to know but could not recognize from this life and was aware that they were around me all the time even when I was in the physical body and I didn’t even realize then that they were looking behind me all the time in the world three-dimensional”.

He claims his consciousness was so heightened that he could hear conversations between his family and medical personnel 40 feet away, which he later verified: “It’s not that I could see through walls, it’s just that when I wanted to know something, I could see him”. immediately, the understanding, the visual came to me immediately. There was no such thing as time lag or separation, everything was happening simultaneously at once and it depended on what she wanted to focus on. As unreal as it sounds when I was there, I felt that this was the real world, not the physical one. There was understanding and clarity. If only I had known this when I was in my body. I was aware that I had the option to go back and return to my body. this was real. I also knew that if I returned to my sick body, it would be healed immediately, my body would express what the spirit now knows.”

Anita described her state as one of pure joy and that she was loved no matter what. She didn’t have to do anything to earn this love and this is something that stuck with her when she came back, “All I had to do was be myself. If everyone realized you don’t have to do anything, just the fact That you exist is enough, that knowing would alter your vibrations and this can later change your life.”

Reverend Gino Concetti, chief theological commentator for the Vatican newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano”, said that the Catholic Church opposes the elevation of spirits, but affirms that communication is possible between those who live on earth and those who live in a “state of eternal rest.” and he suggested that dead loved ones might be responsible for impulses and manifestations, such as in dreams. John Hooper published the reverend’s comments in the London Observer Service in January 1997.

Gwen Carden wrote about these three stories in “The National Enquirer” on December 22, 1998:

A college student was urged by his dead grandfather to close all the windows in a dream. He did so and found out the next day that a nearby room had been broken into the night before.

The mother of a 9-month-old baby woke up one night to find her dead mother standing by her bed looking worried as she led her to the child’s room. The young mother checked on her baby and discovered that she had been choking on a piece of plastic.

A woman had a vision of her father who told her, “It’s beautiful here, I’m fine, so don’t worry!” She laughed and added, “Now I don’t have to pay for all the furniture your mom and sister bought.” A few minutes later she received a phone call informing her that his father had just died of a heart attack and soon after received a letter saying that her mother and his sister had bought a house full of furniture the night they his father died.

Does life continue in a world beyond? The closest proof we have is just NDE memories like Anita M’s, but there have been scientists investigating such a phenomenon. As reported on BBC News in the UK, they say they have found evidence to suggest that consciousness can continue after the brain has stopped working.

Neurology experts have questioned these findings. Dr Sam Parnia of Southampton General Hospital in the UK says that consciousness is independent of the brain and no one can fully understand how the brain generates thoughts. Under examination, the brain contains cells like any other that produce chemicals, but there is no evidence of their ability to create the thought phenomenon that we have. He says that the brain is necessary to manifest the mind in a similar way to how a television can transmit what are essentially waves in the air.

There is skepticism from sources including The Skeptic Society and Dr. Chris Freeman, a consultant psychiatrist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in the UK. Dr. Freeman states that these experiences possibly occurred during recovery or just before cardiac arrest and there is very little evidence that they happened when the brain shut down.

Dr John Happs, Chairman of Western Australian Skeptics, says: “NDEs are quite common and I have experienced them myself on at least two occasions. NDEs are very real and occur when the brain is deprived of oxygen. The phenomenon has been well and truly explained in medical terms. The brain begins to shut down when oxygen is limited and peripheral vision slowly fails. That explains why people report a tunnel effect with a bright light in the center. That’s it exactly what I experienced when, as a competitor in judo tournaments, I was strangled unconscious.There have been many NDEs reported, unsurprisingly, though few people would realize what is happening to them from a physiological perspective, so they imagine they are traveling through a tunnel towards a bright light. Add some singing angels and an imaginative link between earth and heaven and you have a great story.”

John Perkins of the Atheist Society, Melbourne, Australia says: “I believe the phenomenon exists, but not that it represents any evidence or experience of an afterlife. Humans have minds, not souls. At death, the mind stops working Believing otherwise is just superstition or deliberate self-deception. If souls existed after death, there would be 100 billion of them hanging out somewhere, forever. Would you really want to go there?

The only thing that seems self-evident is that there is “something” that controls the universe, like nature itself, and it’s a hard concept to grasp that a person’s essence can simply die. Birth and coincidences may well be true miracles, although both have a scientific and rational explanation. For most, it is part of life’s purpose to continue to question the meaning of our existence and to strive to realize that we are kind just because we exist. It is certainly something worth pondering and who knows? Perhaps if we practice a little more kindness each day our “vibes” can be raised enough for us to notice some responses. Or at least we would be working to make this world a better place.

Suggested reading:

The journey of a soul Peter Richelieu

Life after life Dr. Raymond Moody, Jr., MD

Reaching the other side Dawn Hill

Edge of Reality Hill of Dawn

Lifting the veil Dawn Hill

My Own NDE: A Skeptical Look Martin Bridgstock Australian Skeptics Life Member Published on Page 16 Summer 2003 Issue of The Skeptic Quarterly Volume 23

Spook Science tackles the afterlife Mary Roach