NDEs: A brush with the hereafter

By Maria Kegel

JAKARTA (JP): For some of us, near-death experiences (NDEs) are something too mysterious, too unfathomable and, yes, downright scary to think about.

For others, they are a confirmation of their faith that life goes on after our physical being dies.

Last July, a British scientist's research on heart attack patients with NDEs was presented to his peers at the California Institute of Technology, suggesting that consciousness may continue after a person is clinically dead and the brain stops functioning.

This extensive research on NDEs has resulted in the formation of a foundation to further collect data and fund research to pursue studies of whether there is life after death and if a human soul exists.

A neurologist at Gatot Soebroto Army Hospital in Central Jakarta, Dr. Hardhi Pranata, said NDES were usually experienced by near-drowning victims and heart attack patients, and he had heard many such stories from patients who shared some or all of the signs of what researchers define as NDEs.

"Some people say they have an out-of-body experience, others meet dead relatives, and some say they enter a tunnel and see a beautiful garden and meet very polite people. Obviously, this experience differs with everyone," he said.

NDEs cross all cultures, races, ages and religions, with many patients worldwide also reporting with amazing similarity feelings of peace and joy, seeing a bright light or a menacing darkness, entering another realm and having conversations with dead relatives or other entities.

Others have reported losing awareness of their bodies, time speeding up or slowing down and heightened senses.

Most survivors who have had an NDE report that the experience is incredibly powerful and it changes their lives. Although most have had happy experiences, there are some who report terrifying or unpleasant NDEs.

Even though the experiences Hardhi has heard from patients has opened his mind to what may exist beyond this world, he offered a medical explanation as to what might cause them.

"A lack of oxygen, for example, in near-drowning victims, results from inadequate breathing or hypoxia and that can cause a lack of oxygen in the blood, with the end result being cerebral hypoxia.

"While a heart attack causes a lack of blood circulation and one of the complications of that is cerebral hypoxemia.

"When a patient suffers cerebral hypoxia or hypoxemia, he or she can have temporary or irreversible brain dysfunction. Both hypoxemia and hypoxia cause a person to become disoriented and prone to hallucinations."

At the same time, however, Hardhi said he could not explain the details patients could recall during their out-of-body experiences, such as doctors' appearances and conversations, even though the patient's brain had stopped functioning.

"Some patients have said they knew what I was doing to them, like CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), and they describe my actions -- that I cannot explain medically."

Predeath vision

Equally mysterious as NDEs are predeath visions, a term researchers have given to real experiences a dying patient has while he or she is still conscious, and in which reality is not distorted or altered.

Case studies of these visions say that dying patients often see God, angels, dead relatives or visions of heaven superimposed upon reality or present at the deathbed.

Some health professionals, as well as grieving family members, have reported that not only do these visions help those facing death to find peace and comfort, but they are emotionally healing to those who hear them, especially the patient's loved ones.

Dr. Triatmo Budijuwono, a cardiologist at the RSPAD Gatot Soebroto Hospital, recounted a predeath vision from a female heart patient who was dying from heart failure.

In her case, she was not told she was dying, yet in the hour of her death she said she saw her father and mother coming to her on a horse and carriage, asking her to go with them, he said.

Dr. Adil Pasaribu, a surgeon specializing in digestive surgical cancer at Dharmais hospital, said he often attends to dying patients in their last hours.

One such patient was in her final stages of untreatable cancer several months ago. She was extremely weak and her abdomen was terribly swollen because of her tumor, yet she refused sedation, and was conscious until she passed away.

Her sister told Adil that from midnight the patient had a recurring vision, and the vision came again the morning he was present, minutes before she took her last breath.

She announced that there were angels, many of them, surrounding her at her bedside, while at the same time she could still see us, he said. Her face assumed an expression of peace after she said a prayer and she died peacefully.

"I wasn't sure she knew what angels were as she hadn't been brought up believing in them, she had never gone to church or read the Bible, yet she was seeing them at her death bed," he said.

Adil said most terminally ill patients were afraid of dying, but there were others who, even though they were in the last stages of cancer, which would have been excruciating, with incredible pain that even painkillers could not stop, were able to face their last hours with peace.

"Why, when their level of pain must be so extreme, can they be peaceful and not scream for drugs or grimace in pain," he said.

These patients, he said, were unique in that they could accept the incredible pain with peace and it taught him to listen and learn from them.

"I've learned lessons from these patients, and the one thing I have learned is that when we are dying, we are in God's hands, and it's a peaceful experience. By knowing this, you can fully accept death," Adil said.