NDEs: A brush with the hereafter

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.