10 Real Life Near-Death Experiences in the Press & Media: Global Evidence of the Near-Death (3 page)

‘
If I lie down on my bed I must be here, but if I lie down in my grave I may be elsewhere.’
- Stevie Smith -
Selected Poems

This is a particularly fascinating case as the person who had the near-death experience in 2008 is actually an academic neurosurgeon, namely one Dr Eben Alexander. 

Dr Eben Alexander is the author of the autobiographical book
Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife
which was published in the latter half of 2012 and which has made
the New York Times Best Sellers List.
  Much global interest has been shown by the account of his experience, and interviews and articles abound in the media, for example, The Washington Post,
Super Soul Sunday
on Oprah Winfrey’s network, YouTube, The Daily Mail, Newsweek magazine cover story etc.

Eben Alexander III was born in December 1953 in North Carolina, a son of a neurosurgeon.  He attended the Phillips Exeter Academy, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Duke University of Medicine.  He is certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery and the American College of Surgeons and has taught at many universities and hospitals.  He has also authored or co-authored many chapters and papers in medical journals and has given presentations at medical centres and conferences around the world.

What makes Eben’s story very interesting indeed is that he had always, prior to his own brush with death, believed that there were good scientific explanations for the near-death experiences described by those who had them.  Indeed, with his fine understanding of the human brain, Eben had previously rejected professed journeys outside of the earthly sphere as simply being a by-product of what happened to a human being during a traumatic episode. 

Many doctors and scientists believe that as consciousness and brain activity are related, that the brain, and in particular the cortex, actually
produces
that consciousness. Eben, having himself experienced a week in a coma, now believes that this is not so.

It was in the early hours of the morning of 10
th
November 2008 that Eben began to feel very ill indeed with an intense headache.  It transpired that he had contracted acute bacterial meningitis.  Acute bacterial meningitis is a swiftly evolving bacterial inflammatory attack of the subarachnoid space – found within the layers of tissue covering the brain and spinal cord.  In fact he was found to have acquired ‘spontaneous E. coli meningitis’ which has a less than one in 10,000,000 annual occurrence and is very often fatal.

Within four hours he was in a deep coma and was given a very poor medical prognosis, all of which was well documented by the medical staff throughout his hospital stay with, amongst many other procedures, CT scans and neurological examinations.  His entire cortex – the ‘human’ part of the brain, the bit that controls thought and emotion – had shut down.  His body was unresponsive and his higher-order brain functions were totally offline.   His chances of survival, as he at first did not respond to the triple antibiotic regime, looked very bleak indeed.

During seven days of lying in a very deep coma Eben found that his brain-free consciousness travelled to another larger dimension of the universe, a transition to a realm beyond the physical.  He explained that rather than consciousness ending once earthly awareness ceased, he now felt that ‘consciousness exists beyond the body’.

During his journey he said he saw white-pink puffed up clouds against the deep blue-black backdrop of the sky.  Above the clouds he saw advanced, higher forms of beings – like angels, like birds - who were so happy that they created a glorious chant as they moved – a sound that he could almost feel more than he could hear.  These beings had a transparency to them and moved in flocks, shimmering as they flew.  

His travelling companion – perhaps his guardian angel - he later spoke of in the afterlife was a young woman who, amid millions of butterflies, spoke to him, imparting very pointed messages.  Although she didn’t speak in the conventional sense Eben somehow understood the messages she was giving him, in that:

He was loved and cherished forever. 

He could do no wrong. 

He had nothing to fear. 

Eben instinctively knew her messages to be sincere and true.  The love was unconditional. 

The way this woman looked at Eben made him feel very special, not in the sense of being in love, or loving a friend - no, the way she looked at him transcended such feelings – it was something much higher, holding all those types of love within itself and being much bigger than all of them. 

She told him that he would be shown many things with her but that eventually he would have to go back.  A warm wind began to blow.  Eben has described how he then wordlessly - as ‘language’ as we know it did not exist in this place - put questions to a divine being that he sensed at work behind the wind.  He felt that this being had a loving presence which was everywhere and in everything.  As he received the answers he says he then understood concepts that would have taken him years to fully grasp in his earthly life.

Eben continued to move forward and entered an immensely large, but surprisingly comforting, void.  Although it was pitch black it was also brimming over with light which seemed to come from an orb, so bright in fact that it was more brilliant than a million suns. Eben has said that it was as if he was being born into a bigger world with the orb leading him through it and helping him to understand what the divine presence was trying to convey.

His journey ended soon afterwards and on the morning of the seventh day in the hospital as Eben’s doctors were deciding whether to discontinue treatment, his eyes opened.  He was back.

Since telling his story, Eben Alexander has faced some staunch criticism, in particular, but understandably, from his peers in the scientific world.  For example, Sam Harris, a neuroscientist, has queried that even if Eben’s entire cortex had shut down, then how could he be sure that his experiences occurred during that time and not in the period when the cortex was functioning again?

In November 2012 Eben responded to his critics in a Newsweek article and said:

‘My synapses – the spaces between the neurons of the brain that support the electrochemical activity that makes the brain function – were not simply compromised during my experience – they were stopped.  Only isolated pockets of deep cortical neurons were still spluttering, but no broad networks capable of generating anything like what we call consciousness.’

He further hit back at his critics by saying that according to what his doctors had told him concerning the brain tests they were doing on him, there was no way that any of the functions including vision, hearing, emotion, memory, language or logic could possibly have been intact.

Eben also replied to the criticism by stating:

‘I know that my experience happened within coma because of certain anchors to earth time in memory.’ 

Eben has stated that he will continue to investigate the true nature of consciousness and although he still considers himself a man of science and a doctor, he is now in touch with the spiritual realm and knows that his perspective will never be the same as it was before he experienced this world of consciousness beyond the body.

‘Death - the last sleep?  No, it is the final awakening.’
- Walter Scott

The following case is one of the most well known near-death experiences that the general public has been made aware of, the story having been aired on television (including the well respected BBC and their documentary
The Day I Died
which was seen in 2002) and debated extensively in the medical world and in scientific journals.  Pam’s incredible story also featured in a book about near-death experiences by Dr Michael Sabom
called
Light & Death
published in 1998. 

The reason this is such a famous case is because the lady in question was under close medical supervision and fully instrumented at the time of her NDE, as she was undergoing a planned operation for a very serious condition.  Because of the nature of the operation, a lot of documented data was made by the medical personnel at the time of the procedure and this, together with several observations about the procedure made by the patient after the event which were later confirmed as accurate by the medical staff, have made her story a very compelling one.

Pam Reynolds was born in 1956, her home town being Atlanta, Georgia.  She was a singer/songwriter and worked closely with her husband at his recording studio.

One hot August day in 1991, at the age of thirty-five, Pam was in Virginia Beach, Va, with her husband, William or ‘Butch’ as he was known, where they were promoting a new record, when Pam found she could no longer speak and was having difficulty moving parts of her body.  She subsequently saw her physician and thereafter a neurologist who diagnosed through a scan that she had a large aneurysm in her brain, close to the brain stem.  Her survival predictions at this stage were nil. 

Fortunately she was then seen by a Dr Robert Spetzler – a highly skilled, but fairly young, neurosurgeon at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona – who suggested a procedure called ‘hypothermic cardiac arrest’ (also known as a cardiac standstill operation) could be undertaken which should improve Pam’s outcome.  However this was a risky operation - the aneurysm was very large and the risk of rupture was quite considerable but the alternative, well……..

After Pam received general anaesthesia in the operating room, the surgeons taped Pam’s eyes shut and small ear plugs with speakers were put into her ears.  These speakers made very loud clicking sounds but their purpose was to measure the brain stem activity which would let the surgeons know when her brain was non-responsive and they could proceed with the operation. 

A thermistor was placed to measure core body temperature and EEG electrodes were taped to Pam’s head to record cerebral cortical brain activity.  Dr Spetzler began the surgery by opening the scalp and carving out a section of the skull with a Midas Rex bone saw.  It is at the beginning of the surgery, but prior to cardiac standstill, that the first part of Pam’s NDE is believed to have begun. 

Pam heard a natural D musical note and she said that this sound made her come out of the top of her own head where she looked down and saw several things in the operating room. She said she saw twenty people around the table and heard an awful sound like a dentist’s drill which reminded her of the handle on her electric toothbrush. This drill had a dent at the top where the saw connected to the handle and which had interchangeable blades which were then put in what looked like a socket wrench case.  She said she heard it whirl into action but didn’t see where it was being used.  How could Pam see and hear such things when her eyes were taped shut and her ears were plugged with speakers emitting clicking sounds?

As Dr Spetzler continued the procedure a female cardiac surgeon located the femoral artery and vein in Pam’s right groin which appeared to be too small to take the large flow of blood from the heart-lung machine.  The surgeon therefore prepared the left femoral artery and vein for use.  Pam said afterwards that she overheard a female voice saying that her veins and arteries were very small and Dr Spetzler (she thought) say, ‘Use the other side.’

The operation continued and the heart-lung machine was connected to Pam’s body, her blood was cooled down to 60˚F (16˚C) and once cardiac arrest was complete and the brain stem no longer responded to the clicks from the ear speakers, they knew that the brain had shut down. Clinically, she was dead. The heart-lung machine was therefore disconnected and the blood was drained from her head. The second part of Pam’s experience is
thought
to have begun around this point.

Pam said she felt like she was being pulled – but she wanted to be pulled – through a tunnel into a bright light.  Very early on in the tunnel Pam said she heard her dead grandmother calling her towards the light and so she moved towards it with no fear.  She said she saw and spoke to some deceased relatives and friends who were all surrounded in light – in fact Pam felt as if she was sitting in the middle of a light bulb - but it was her grandmother and an uncle who prevented her from moving any further forward into the light.  They explained that she needed to retrace her steps and that she could not go on any further because if she did, she would not be able to get back into her own body.

The operation continued and the aneurysm had been deflated and removed.  The heart-lung machine had been put back on and Pam began to receive warm blood back into her body. 

Her brain stem started to respond again to the clicks from the ear speakers.  The EEG screen started to show electrical movement from her brain.  It is possible that as this was happening, and as Pam later reported, her grandmother and uncle were feeding her with ‘sparkly’ things and she felt that she was being made strong.

A ventricular fibrillation (a heartbeat irregularity – which can be fatal) problem then occurred which necessitated two paddles being placed on Pam’s chest.  Her heart had to be ‘shocked’ twice but this fortunately resolved the issue and the situation was stabilised. 

Pam’s journey continued as she said that her uncle took her back through the tunnel.  Part of her wanted to go back as she needed to look after her children but when she saw her body she initially said she didn’t want to return to it as it looked dead and she was frightened.  Then she noticed that her body made a jump (possibly caused by the defibrillation to start up her heart).  Her uncle seemed to push her, the tunnel seemed to push her and her body seemed to pull her.  She dived into what she said felt like a pool of ice water.

As Pam’s body temperature climbed to 90˚F (32˚C) and the heart-lung machine was turned off, music in the background began to play and Pam regained consciousness.  She made a full recovery.

Naturally, as she began to come round from the ordeal of what turned out to be about a seven hour operation; Pam initially assumed that she had been hallucinating.  However, Michael Sabom, who is a cardiologist in Atlanta and who researches near-death experiences, had with Pam’s permission, got her records sent to him from the surgery.  He was staggered by what he found.

According to these records there were a total of twenty doctors in the operating room.  The bone saw did in fact resemble an electric toothbrush rather than a saw like instrument (photographs were obtained) and there had indeed been a conversation about the veins in her leg.  How could she have been aware of all of this, when her eyes had been taped shut and her ears plugged with speakers emitting noises? 

Some might say that
part
of the explanation might be that Pam may have experienced ‘anaesthesia awareness’ at times during the procedure whereby a person is conscious but cannot move.  Others would argue that the anaesthesia and the non-responsive brain caused by the hypothermia would mean that Pam could not form or retain memories for a major part of the operation.  Indeed, these believers would say that Pam Reynolds is proof positive that the mind can operate when the brain is stilled.

Like so many others who have had a near-death experience, Pam has said that her NDE had a profound effect on her life.  She said that she became a less judgmental and more idealistic person.

Pam Reynolds unfortunately died on 22 May 2010 of heart failure in Atlanta at Emory University Hospital.  She left behind a husband, four daughters, a son, her mother and sister, two brothers and six grandchildren.