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Heaven Is Real: A Doctor?s Experience With the Afterlife

Champ Kind

Champ Kind

New member
I debated posting this to an established thread but decided that a) there wasn't exactly a good fit with existing topics and b) this was likely good enough on its own.

I'm not coming at this with any agenda or bias.  Personally, I found it heart-warming.  I'm sure that upon greater analysis there are plenty of ways to discredit what the author has written.  I have not wanted to do that.  I just wanted to post here because, getting to know the community over the last little while, I think some of you may enjoy reading this and find it interesting.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/07/proof-of-heaven-a-doctor-s-experience-with-the-afterlife.html

 
Some interesting comments after the article. I always find the perspectives on these topics (religion, supernatural) more interesting than the topic itself.

 
There's a decent audio interview with Dr. Alexander at skeptiko... I think it's all transcribed there too.

http://www.skeptiko.com/154-neurosurgeon-dr-eben-alexander-near-death-experience/
 
Perhaps my view is simplistic, but it seems as though he's being somewhat hypocritical. I mean, these experiences that others have had are probably just as "real" to them. Yet previously, he would have explained it as delusions caused be activities in the cortex. Isn't the simpler solution that he simply experienced the same type of thing? I know he claims that his cortex was not functioning, but perhaps it was? Or perhaps it's not only the cortex that creates consciousness?
 
Here's another story of a doctor's near death experience:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765576971/Life-after-life-This-Wyoming-surgeon-says-she-believes.html?pg=all

There is out-of-body experience (OBE) and near-death experience (NDE).  Both are very similar, yet different.  In OBE, one can be awake, not dying.

My brother experienced OBE when he was younger.  He told me how frightened he was at first, literally seeing himself floating above his bed in spirit form, then being reassured by a deceased relative calming him and telling him this was a "gift" to show him that God is for real and that there really is a place "where we go".
My brother described that he saw a beautiful white light.  He could feel being pushed back gently on the bed.  It was an incredible experience.

There is always something about a "bright light" that everyone who has had these type of experiences tends to describe. 

I once read a story about a woman from South America who had described her near-death experience.  She had been involved in an road accident, practically left for death.  She remembers seeing herself being revived frantically by the paramedics at the scene.  She had felt her spirit detach from her body, was watching everything while 'hovering' above, and also described a beautiful bright white light, something representing God, peace and comfort, a feeling so reassuring, etc,, etc.

The woman then remembers herself being slowly pushed back into her lying body at the point where she was revived and brought back to life.  Later, when people asked her if she was afraid of dying, she told them not at all because there is a place indescribably beautiful, the place of God.

When my own father died in 2004 from cancer, just minutes before he died, he pulled off his oxygen mask, his bed blanket, motioned my mother (his wife), saying "look up there"!  Whereas my mom replied "(name), I don't see anything, where"?  My Dad kept saying "it's so beautiful, the light...everyone is up there...that's where I'm going..."
Within minutes, my father passed away, his eyes still open, still warm to the touch, clinically dead...

I'll probably never forget that as long as I live.  At least, the pain of losing a loved one is eased by the fact that I now know my Dad is in a much better place.

 
Sorry, but early on he admits he's a Christian, and then -- surprise! -- he conjures a vision of heaven exactly like that which Christianity promotes.  None of this is proof; it's wish-fulfillment.
 
I'm certainly not an expert on Christianity, so I can't comment on what they promote, but I wonder if what he experienced is a human archetype. Why else (other than him telling the truth) would so many have similar descriptions of the so-called afterlife?

Perhaps Christians' vision of the afterlife (though I understand how simplistic it is to lump all Christians together) is simply their interpretation of what we all hold in our subconscious?
 
My view is this: We have generally the same visions during NDE because were all wired the same. Im sure theres something within the brains wiring that triggers the same responses.

 
DMT, eh?

From: http://deoxy.org/dmt

...the most powerful of all psychedelic hallucinogens is a part of normal human metabolism...

DMT concentrates in the human cerebrospinal fluid on a 24 hour cycle and it reaches its peak between 3 and 4 am in most people and that's when deep REM sleep is happening.

 
I really have a hard time reading all of that and not thinking "Boy, there sure is a lot we don't know about the human brain" as opposed to "Boy, we sure do know a lot about heaven."
 
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