Q: Do all near death experiences happen in a hospital? Does that explain seeing the “light”? If not….what are some other common NDE’s that aren’t so easily explained by being brought back in a hospital setting?
A. We get a lot of questions about near death experiences. Many people ask (or claim) that NDE’s can easily be discounted by the surroundings people find themselves in, when they happen to “die”. For example? Many skeptics will say that the “light” experience, is related to the very bright hospital lights that most of us experience, while very much alive. (and if you are lying on a bed in a hospital operating room there is no doubt, that light experience is intensified, with very easily explainable factors)
But the truth is, the vast majority of NDE’s do NOT take place in a medical setting, let alone hospitals. Many people have near death experiences on a daily basis, and largely, these happen in just about every type of setting you can imagine. Drowning nde’s are fairly common, and the spiritual elements of the experience largely take place in the actual water, and NOT in a hospital or ambulance. (we’ve read about 50 of these in the last month for a short book we’re compiling, and about 80% of these folks never went to a hospital at all)
The following NDE story is a random one, but captures the spirit of what it feels like to drown, from the perspective of an NDE.
It was as if my mind separated from my body. I became an observer, as I had no control over what was happening. Very quickly, I tired and gulped a lot of water and then breathed in the water. I no longer had a desire to breathe and all resistance ceased. As I began to sink to the bottom of the pit, I felt intense sadness that my life was ending and that my parents would be hurt immensely. At 3 feet deep, it is pitch black and I could not see the hand in front of you.
However, as I began to die, things got brighter when I dropped to about 15 feet deep. I was on the bottom of the pit and able to see everything around me. I started to get curious, as my mind did not feel like it was dying. I began to accept death and was not scared. At that moment, a voice, spoke to me and said this. ‘Jay. It is not your time.’ It seemed loud; yet, how could it be? Something took control of my arms as I lay spread eagle. I was pushed up like a bird flapping its wings. As I approached the surface, I could feel control start to come back.
I broke the surface near the girl who had been looking for me. She said it was pitch black. Anyway, I grabbed and started to pull uncontrollably on her. Then I had to push her away, so I would not drown her too. Again, I went under. When I came up again, she was behind me and started kicking me in to shore. Mind you, I was not breathing yet since my lungs were completely full of water. As she kicked me in the back, it helped to get the water out of my lungs by forcing me to cough when she kicked. Eventually, she kicked my to shore as I was too weak to swim to it. Then, I vomited a huge amount of water and then fell asleep for 3 hours as she watched over me. She told me I had been under for 5 minutes and she was going to get help when I surfaced.
That experience led me to believe that while we live in this world, we are also watched over by something. I remember feeling acceptance at the realization that dying was only the end of the body and not of me.
http://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1jay_h_probable_nde.html
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