How Do You Explain That?

We all have random thoughts or ideas that pop into our heads (I hope). What if they aren't random at all? Maybe they are sentences of a larger story, phonemes of a different consciousness? We return to so-called random thoughts (or they return to us) periodically, unpredictably.  Random and unpredictable are not exact synonyms. Lodged deep in consciousness, often dormant, ideas can be awakened by a smell, a moment of deja vu, a song, or for no reason we can conceive. The thought could be a personal experience, from fiction, non-fiction, and sometimes from that place in between.

My dad, at the height of his professional academic career, based in Department of Psychology at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, was one of, if not the foremost, expert in studies of Near Death Experiences (NDEs). I was in grade school for most of that era and recall several dad and son lunches at the local health food restaurant near his campus office and my school where I heard tales from his research.

With great animation he'd share stories from his work, often unaware of the carrot shaving hanging from his mustache. It's hard to imagine an 11 year-old boy asking his father to tell him about academic research, at least not that 11 year-old boy pictured below at left, circa 1981.  My dad didn't tell me much about the science of his research, although there was plenty. Rather, he shared stories from which the science was derived. Working with people who had NDEs, my dad had some really good stories. I now realize I was just as interested in the content of the story as I was in listening to my dad tell it. 

The common elements of the NDE are well known now - out of body, tunnel, light, love, life review, yada yada yada. However, the bullet points of the experience aren't nearly as gripping as the individual accounts of the person who has had one. You won't have to look far on the internet to read such stories (Google Results: 229,000,000 for "Near Death Experiences"). Whatever your interpretation, sometimes it's just interesting to hear a story. Here is a paraphrased account of one of the many extraordinary stories my dad told me over a meal, or in the car, and or while playing cribbage. 

A woman, blind from birth, was traveling to a city that she'd never been to before in her life. As I recall, the city is Philadelphia. In the course of her visit she steps out in front of a bus. Wham. She's sent by ambulance to the emergency room of the hospital, unconscious the from the moment of impact.

As she's being attended to her vital signs fade. She feels herself floating out of her body. She's now aware - can SEE - herself on the gurney. This woman, who's never had the gift of sight can SEE the room, the physicians, and nurses. She can distinguish colors, never having actually seen them before. She floats higher in the room, up to the ceiling corner. She then passes through the walls of her room until she floats outside, up and beyond the hospital. 

She finds herself moving at infinite speed through a darkness, a tunnel, at the end of which is the brightest, but somehow not blinding light one could possibly ever, ever imagine. And even what you're imagining can't begin to approach what the light looks and feels like. 

She suddenly has a sense of being "somewhere else," some kind of more spiritual world. She SEES all of this. Her thoughts are as clear as they've ever been, her observations sharp and quick. She is then in the presence of Love, maybe in the form of family, or a vision of an all loving being. Communication is mind to mind - an understanding.

Next is a life review, where she relives actions and feelings in her life. Not only does she feel the emotional impact she's had on others in her life, She SEES it, too. She can later describe it as only someone who saw it could.

But then the choice is made to not stay; a decision is made to return to her body. When she is resuscitated and able to speak (but still, of course, blind) she recounts the experience. She accurately describes the doctors and the scene in the room when she died, using language only a person with sight could. She even told them about a file folder she SAW on top of a tall filing cabinet, out of view from those standing on the floor. 

She told them that she'd SEEN a red sneaker. On the outside of a hospital window. Several stories above the floor she was on. She told them exactly where she SAW it. They went to that room. They opened that window. Out on that ledge was that one red sneaker.

Of all the scores of Near Death Experiences my dad shared with me over the years, this is the one that comes to mind first.

My dad is still telling stories. Here he is on a somewhat recent trip to Palestine.

Stay tuned.