The feeling of leaving your body,
Witnessing the fight to save your life,
travelling through darkness towards a warm and welcoming light…
Many have come forward after accidents and injuries, experiencing something so vivid, it convinces them of a life beyond the physical.
But are these incidents real or merely hallucinations to protect us from the trauma?
Interestingly, most of these accounts follow similar descriptions and rarely include frightening encounters of hell, pain, or suffering. Even those with questionable morals or little religious guidance have reported peace, love and tranquillity in their experiences.
Near death experiences or NDAs have been reported throughout the world, but how do they compare in different countries and are they influenced by cultural or religious beliefs?
Accounts in the US for example, often speak of the person meeting Jesus and being comforted by his presence or words. But is this type of experience only reported by Christians?
Is there something different for each belief, an afterlife to match your religious expectations? And what about the agnostics and atheist?
1) Homosexual account:
Religion dictates that gay people will either burn in hell or not be accepted into heaven. Yet Dr Liz Dale, a clinical psychologist in the US who researched NDEs from the LGBT community, found quite the opposite. In fact, 73% of cases spoke of a warm welcoming light and feelings of overwhelming love, with hardly any accounts listing the horrors that we would associate with hell.
Christian Andréason, singer, songwriter producer and gay man, shared an account that happened in June 1995. After an accidental overdose of pain medication, combined with anesthesia during a dental operation, he experienced a brush with death that led to a very vivid NDE, now popular on many websites. Although he goes into great depth (the length & detail of his account would have you believe he was there for years), there are some interesting statements:
During a brief amount of time, my spirit travelled through what I know and now call, “the Heavenly Realm.” During the experience, all time stopped … and two minutes of Earth time turned into what seemed to be days, weeks and even months. I saw an uncountable amount of wonderful places that were not of this world and many spiritual truths were Lovingly and generously revealed to me with mind-bending answers. Almost the whole time I was guided mostly by a being that appeared in the form of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Following us were three other guides who all appeared as men. All were robed with a beautiful glistening white, diamond-like material. I could also distinguish that they had Light coming from underneath their garments. I knew that this Light was their true bodies.
When I got to Heaven, one of the first things I asked was about the very issue of bisexuality, as it had caused me a great deal of concern my whole life. My lady guide walked me to a room that had a large screen in it. On the screen, I saw two forms of Light conjoining with one another in the act of making Love. My guide then asked me to tell her which was the male and which was the female? I said, "I dunno!" She smiled at me and said it does not matter. She went on to say that the two Lights were what God saw when he looked upon us. She explained that God always sees us as our higher selves and that gender is a very temporary thing that will not be around forever. It was further explained to me that God himself is both a Mother essence and a Father essence to us, therefore; God fully understands our attractions for members of similar genders. It was told to me (or rather I was reminded) that there are no mistakes in the way each of us were made. God knew what each of us would be challenged and blessed with. We each act according to our heart (or developed Soul center) and as we mature Spiritually, we come up higher each time.
…I was then shown the time we call the beginning of Creation. There was a huge explosion, coming from a singing, pulsing, Joy-filled ball of bright Golden Light. I knew that I had been a part of this great Light, as have the rest of us.
…toward the end of my experience, I stood in the wonderful presence of a great Being of brightness and knew with my whole heart that I was in the midst of my Creator, who is a being of unconditional Love and infinite Light.
2) Asian account:
Jia Ming, a Taiwanese woman suffered fulminant Hepatitis and acute kidney failure in 1989. While in Taichung Veteran's General Hospital, she experienced the following NDE:
...Her spirit floated upward and Jia saw many objects that had not being seen on Earth, such as a spaceship-like satellite or UFO.
Later, she arrived in a space where there was a tall chair, like a throne that was emanating light. There were ten giant, winged-creatures standing next to the throne, she was unable to see their faces but felt no fear. It was a soft, gentle atmosphere in that realm. I could hear their communications. However, they were not spoken words but communicated with a harmonic sound. I felt they were being kind-hearted and protective. I also stepped on the path of netherworld where it was a narrow, flagstone-made road. I remember thinking that in that dimension, there was no name for roads; yet, people named everything on Earth.
Jia then found herself in a multi-dimensional realm where souls were judged. As she led a good life and committed no evil, she experienced no suffering. However, she was aware of souls around her who had committed wrong doings on Earth and they were now in tremendous pain there, feeling all of the agony, torment and suffering from the people they hurt.
I wandered about for a while, and then I heard my brother calling my name. So, I moved toward sound of the voice. My spirit entered back into the body. Once I knew that I was in my flesh, I desperately tried to twist my body to draw their attention to me. After much effort, my stiff body started to move. Although I could not open my eyes and tongue was still rigid, there was a nurse who finally noticed I was alive. She ran over to inform my sister to come to the intensive care unit. The whole family was crying with joy.
3) Muslim account:
Hazim, a Muslim soldier from Syria experienced the following during an NDE in 2018 (translation from original Arabic):
In one of the war battles in the desert, our unit was subjected to a ferocious attack. During which, my body was full of shrapnel. I was bleeding badly, especially from my feet. Due to the intensification of the battle, I was not immediately treated, and it took me about two hours to reach the nearest hospital. When I got to the hospital, I was almost dead from loss of blood. I was at the lowest level of conscious. The last thing I remembered was the doctors surrounding me as we went into the operating room. Suddenly, I found myself in another cosmic dimension. It was a strange place that I saw for the first time. I was in a place like empty space over pink clouds. There were huge metal circles spinning high in the skyscrapers, and there were two spiritual Beings talking via telepathy. One of them gave a command to the other, saying, 'Clear his memory and prepare a new body for him,' as it happens in reincarnation. Then I was placed in one of the giant metal circles and it started spinning. My memory began to fade away little by little until I forgot everything and no longer remembered even my name, who I am, or where I was. Then suddenly the one Being gave the other Being the opposite command, saying, 'Bring him back to life because he has a job to do.' Then I entered into a long, dark tunnel in which I was like light or energy and was moving faster than the speed of light. I felt that I was atoms, burning in the tunnel and moving at the highest speed in the universe. I felt intense pain from the intensity of the speed. Then I reached the end point of the tunnel where there was a giant white shining light. When I reached the light, I felt absolutely comfortable. After that, I woke up in a hospital room, and the doctors told me that I had miraculously survived.
4) Agnostic account:
Richard, a Frenchman and agnostic who suffered a heart attack in 1990 experienced the following:
One evening when going back to my room, I got a tremendous pain in my chest and fainted.
I immediately left my body, seeing my double on the bed. I was propelled towards the sky.
I found myself crossing a black tunnel, but the tunnel was not made of matter. It is difficult to describe; there was a sound or a kind of music the whole time of crossing. I saw an intense light at the end of the tunnel. The light was not aggressive. It was a good light, of which I had absolutely no fear. I was aware of this goodness, of this very restful state. As I approached the end of the tunnel, I saw a silhouette. As I got about two or three meters from the silhouette, it lifted its arm and pointed its finger towards the other end of the tunnel, from where I had come.
I found myself projected with the speed of light, if I can say so, back into my body. The first breath was horrible, as if my lungs were burning. I think it's like the first breath of a newborn.
It took time to share this experience with anyone and I didn’t have the courage to speak about it openly until several years later.
Are these accounts real, or hallucinations created by the brain to deal with trauma?
If they are real, does religion, sexual orientation or maintaining Kosher actually make a difference?
Have you experienced an NDE?
Share your thoughts with our community!
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