The reason behind so many NDE’s
There was a man here this week who is wheelchair bound. He has been coming every year for 25 years and is well known. We talked for a few minutes the other night and he related to me that 17 years ago he was in an automobile accident and was dead for 9 minutes. That got my attention. He also mentioned that he experienced heaven while ‘dead’ and perhaps one day we could talk about it.
Now that I am almost 76 years old, the thought of my death becomes more real, it does not seem as impossible as it was when I was younger. I have lost more than a few friends over the course of the last decade, so I suppose that it is only natural that the reality of my demise is getting easier to accept, though perhaps not as much as I would like.
People who have had a powerful NDE experience, no matter what they believed before the event, tend to come out differently when they return. It can often be a difficult transition for them; some significant relationships usually end. Atheists frequently become believers, believers find that what they believed before their experience does not fit, so they have to struggle with finding a place where they will feel welcomed and understood. It is not an easy road to travel.
I try to imagine what it would be like for me to ‘die’ and then come back. To have an experience when my heart stopped and my brain was no longer able to function, and yet, I would still have an understanding of a world that is more real than this one. Even though I am a man of faith, this does boggle my mind a tad. In some ways, it is easier to believe that there is nothing after death, for this is the only life we know, with our bodies and yes of course our brains and minds. The mind is the key I would think. The concept of the neuroplasticity of the brain points out for many that it is the mind that controls the brain, that the mind does not simply emerge from the brain but is what forms it by thought and action that is chosen and then processed by the brain.
Perhaps the reason so many NDEs are being experienced is to speak to the rest of us, who today, even if we have faith, may find it still difficult to believe on a deep heart-felt level that there is more for us. There is a term that is used for how many of us live if not all the time, then much of the time, it is called “practical atheism”. Living as if God did not exist, even though we may profess some kind of faith or spiritual path, but do not live it or perhaps really on a deeper level, do not believe it at all.-BrMD
