The Science of Near-Death Experiences


Book Description

What happens to consciousness during the act of dying? The most compelling answers come from people who almost die and later recall events that occurred while lifesaving resuscitation, emergency care, or surgery was performed. These events are now called near-death experiences (NDEs). As medical and surgical skills improve, innovative procedures can bring back patients who have traveled farther on the path to death than at any other time in history. Physicians and healthcare professionals must learn how to appropriately treat patients who report an NDE. It is estimated that more than 10 million people in the United States have experienced an NDE. Hagan and the contributors to this volume engage in evidence-based research on near-death experiences and include physicians who themselves have undergone a near-death experience. This book establishes a new paradigm for NDEs.




Science and the Near-Death Experience


Book Description

The scientific evidence for life after death • Explains why near-death experiences (NDEs) offer evidence of an afterlife and discredits the psychological and physiological explanations for them • Challenges materialist arguments against consciousness surviving death • Examines ancient and modern accounts of NDEs from around the world, including China, India, and many from tribal societies such as the Native American and the Maori Predating all organized religion, the belief in an afterlife is fundamental to the human experience and dates back at least to the Neanderthals. By the mid-19th century, however, spurred by the progress of science, many people began to question the existence of an afterlife, and the doctrine of materialism--which believes that consciousness is a creation of the brain--began to spread. Now, using scientific evidence, Chris Carter challenges materialist arguments against consciousness surviving death and shows how near-death experiences (NDEs) may truly provide a glimpse of an awaiting afterlife. Using evidence from scientific studies, quantum mechanics, and consciousness research, Carter reveals how consciousness does not depend on the brain and may, in fact, survive the death of our bodies. Examining ancient and modern accounts of NDEs from around the world, including China, India, and tribal societies such as the Native American and the Maori, he explains how NDEs provide evidence of consciousness surviving the death of our bodies. He looks at the many psychological and physiological explanations for NDEs raised by skeptics--such as stress, birth memories, or oxygen starvation--and clearly shows why each of them fails to truly explain the NDE. Exploring the similarities between NDEs and visions experienced during actual death and the intersection of physics and consciousness, Carter uncovers the truth about mind, matter, and life after death.




Closer to the Light


Book Description

Case studies of near-death experiences in children reveal the patients' ability to communicate with deceased relatives and friends, as well as their experiences while dead




Life at Death


Book Description

"What is it like to die? Despite the poet's plaint that no one has returned from that dark land to tell us, there is a growing body of information about the nature of death. Its common, basic features have been confirmed and are presented in this extraordinary book, the first scientific investigation of the near-death experience. From interviews with more than a hundred men and women who have come very close to death or have experienced "clinical" death -- a state in which vital signs such as heartbeat and respiration are entirely absent -- and have survived, Dr. Ring shows that certain elements are common. He confirms that findings reported by Raymond Moody concerning the near-death experience -- a sense of floating out of one's body, of entering a dark tunnel, of experiencing a panoramic life review and of encountering a brilliant golden light. In this book Dr. Ring elaborates on what happens at the threshold of death. He tells of the frequency of these experiences, discusses whether the manner in which one almost died --illness, accident, suicide -- changes the nature of the experience, and probes what role religion has in shaping the approach to death. He shows that the near-death experience is not affected by an individual's ages, sex education, race or religion. He found, however, that the typical near-death experience -- which he calls the "core experience" -- tends to unfold in a series of five stages. the "deeper" the stages, the fewer the people who reach it. The experience tends to end with an encounter with what is described as a "voice" or "presence" that asks whether the person wants to return to life. The aftereffects of the core experience are dramatic and profound. The fear of death tends to vanish, and the total impact is akin to a spiritual rebirth."-Publisher.




The Art of Death


Book Description

A moving reflection on a subject that touches us all, by the bestselling author of Claire of the Sea Light Edwidge Danticat’s The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story is at once a personal account of her mother dying from cancer and a deeply considered reckoning with the ways that other writers have approached death in their own work. “Writing has been the primary way I have tried to make sense of my losses,” Danticat notes in her introduction. “I have been writing about death for as long as I have been writing.” The book moves outward from the shock of her mother’s diagnosis and sifts through Danticat’s writing life and personal history, all the while shifting fluidly from examples that range from Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude to Toni Morrison’s Sula. The narrative, which continually circles the many incarnations of death from individual to large-scale catastrophes, culminates in a beautiful, heartrending prayer in the voice of Danticat’s mother. A moving tribute and a work of astute criticism, The Art of Death is a book that will profoundly alter all who encounter it.




Dying to Live


Book Description

Progress in medical science has increased our understanding of what happens when the brain begins to fail. Psychology delves ever more deeply into the nature of the self. In Dying to Live, Blackmore, a leading expert in near-death experiences, explores what psychology, biology, and medicine have to say about this extraordinary aspect of death and dying.. . . the best resource for materialist arguments that currently exists. . . . Blackmore's book is the most up-to-date catalogue of misgivings about the dualist concept of self and the religionist's desire for the afterlife vis-a-vis experiences near-death. . . . a fine book. -Journal of Scientific Exploration. . . one of the most intelligent and comprehensive examinations of the near-death experience to date. For thoroughness of treatment and tidiness of theory, the book is quite without equal. -Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research[This book is] brilliant though controversial . . . -ChoiceHer book is a model of understanding and . . . moving in its course through a sensitive subject. -New ScientistWell documented and well researched . . . The author's impartial treatment of diverse beliefs on the subject helps readers to see how scientific and spiritual points of view can coexist. There's much to think about here. -School Library Journal




After


Book Description

The world's leading expert on near-death experiences reveals his journey toward rethinking the nature of death, life, and the continuity of consciousness. What happens when we die? 10% of people whose hearts stop report near-death experiences (NDEs). Stories of lights, tunnels and loved ones have been relayed — and dismissed — since ancient times. But when Dr Bruce Greyson’s patients started describing events that he could not just dismiss, he began to investigate. As a physician without a religious belief system, he approached NDEs from a scientific perspective. In After, he shares the transformative lessons he has learned over four decades of research. Our culture has tended to view dying as the end of our consciousness, the end of our existence — a dreaded prospect that for many people evokes fear and anxiety. But Dr Greyson shows how scientific revelations about the dying process can support an alternative theory. Dying could be the threshold between one form of consciousness and another, not an ending but a transition. This new perspective on the nature of death can transform the fear of dying that pervades our culture into a healthy view of it as one more milestone in the course of our lives. After challenges us to reconsider these experiences and what they can teach us about the relationship between our brain and our mind, expanding our understanding of consciousness, and of what it means to be human.




Dying to Be Me


Book Description

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! "I had the choice to come back ... or not. I chose to return when I realized that 'heaven' is a state, not a place" In this truly inspirational memoir, Anita Moorjani relates how, after fighting cancer for almost four years, her body began shutting down—overwhelmed by the malignant cells spreading throughout her system. As her organs failed, she entered into an extraordinary near-death experience where she realized her inherent worth . . . and the actual cause of her disease. Upon regaining consciousness, Anita found that her condition had improved so rapidly that she was released from the hospital within weeks—without a trace of cancer in her body! Within this enhanced e-book, Anita recounts—in words and on video—stories of her childhood in Hong Kong, her challenge to establish her career and find true love, as well as how she eventually ended up in that hospital bed where she defied all medical knowledge. In "Dying to Be Me," Anita Freely shares all she has learned about illness, healing, fear, "being love," and the true magnificence of each and every human being!




Near Death Volume 1


Book Description

Meet Markham, a professional killer who has a near-death experience during a botched mission. Determined to avoid ever returning to the Hell he glimpsed, Markham has dedicated himself to balancing the scales. He's going to save a life for every life he's taken. And he's taken a lot of lives... The critically acclaimed crime series is collected for the first time, featuring exclusive bonus material.




Consciousness Beyond Life


Book Description

As a cardiologist, Pim van Lommel was struck by the number of his patients who claimed to have near-death experiences as a result of their heart attacks. As a scientist, this was difficult for him to accept: Wouldn't it be scientifically irresponsible of him to ignore the evidence of these stories? Faced with this dilemma, van Lommel decided to design a research study to investigate the phenomenon under the controlled environment of a cluster of hospitals with a medically trained staff. For more than twenty years van Lommel systematically studied such near-death experiences in a wide variety of hospital patients who survived a cardiac arrest. In 2001, he and his fellow researchers published his study on near-death experiences in the renowned medical journal The Lancet. The article caused an international sensation as it was the first scientifically rigorous study of this phenomenon. Now available for the first time in English, van Lommel offers an in-depth presentation of his results and theories in this book that has already sold over 125,000 copies in Europe. Van Lommel provides scientific evidence that the near-death phenomenon is an authentic experience that cannot be attributed to imagination, psychosis, or oxygen deprivation. He further reveals that after such a profound experience, most patients' personalities undergo a permanent change. In van Lommel's opinion, the current views on the relationship between the brain and consciousness held by most physicians, philosophers, and psychologists are too narrow for a proper understanding of the phenomenon. In Consciousness Beyond Life, van Lommel shows that our consciousness does not always coincide with brain functions and that, remarkably and significantly, consciousness can even be experienced separate from the body.