NDE's

Plant biologist and artist, Kevin Songer lives with Marfan Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that has caused many problems and painful difficulties in his life. In 2011 he had to undergo a very serious operation for a dissected aorta.

The operation involves placing the patient on cardio-pulmonary by-pass and cooling them down to a temperature of less than 20 degrees C. The patient's head is packed in ice and the EEG is completely flat before the repair is undertaken. No experience at all should be possible in this state and yet he saw his chest wide open and the surgeons cutting and sewing in the graft that is used to fix this extremely serious problem.  

I contacted Kevin by email and he very kindly agreed to let me reproduce his near death experience, which he believes occurred during the operation, here. He has also kindly agreed to answer some additional questions which I intend to post here with his permission (of course).  

Kevin's experience occurred while he was having his first open heart surgery in the emergency room at Jacksonville's Memorial Hospital in Florida, where he lives.

"After driving myself to Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville (I know, I should have called 911 but I did not) and stumbling into the ER, the young surgeon on call determined my aorta was dissected root to foot.  He told me that he wanted to go in and replace the aortic valve and install a Dacron graft up to the aortic arch.

To do so I'd have to have my body cooled (hypothermia) and my heart put on bypass while they repaired the critically damaged cardiovascular system.

The entire  operation took about ten or so hours.  Recovery was difficult to say the least and I even had to go back through additional open heart surgery to mitigate subsequent heart infections.  Wearing the wound vac over my heart was tough, as was enduring the three months of 24/7 IV antibiotics and anti fungal medications.

While I was lying on the operating table during my aortic root and arch replacement my self awareness began to take a life of its own, separate from my body.

I can clearly remember what was happening, even to this day.  Unlike a dream that seems real at the time but fades from memory after a few short days, the NDE experience I had that day is as ever clear now as two and a half years ago.

I was so very aware of myself and knew exactly who I was.  My body however was on the operating table below with the doctors and nurses hovering over, cutting sewing and doing whatever thoracic surgeons and their teams do when installing mechanical heart valves and Dacron aorta grafts.

I was quite content, feeling safe and happy where I was, 'hovering' above the operating table.

Looking around I could see many people praying for me and sending me good thoughts.  This was interesting I thought, but I honestly was more interested in what I could see not in the operating room, but in another part of my self-awareness.  There was an amazing place of really cool colors and sound I was witnessing.  I could fly, soar and felt very, very at home.

After the entire experience I felt somewhat guilty at not worrying about those people left behind on the earth while I was "partying" in the afterlife.  I knew my wife and kids and family would be OK.  I did not worry about them what-so-ever in my NDE state.  

I did not even think of calling out to the doctors and nurses.  There was no doubt my body was on the operating table and I could see much of what was going on.
  
During my NDE I  was a self aware 'spirit', yet I had form too.  My form was not so much a preoccupying factor though as I 'hovered' in the air above the table.  I know my self awareness had form because I was bumping against the ceiling as I floated upwards.  When I'd bump the ceiling, my form would float back down towards the other side of the room.  The floating up, bumping the ceiling and floating back down repeated itself over and over until I began taking notice of this occurrence.

The whole bumping into the ceiling thing really pissed me off. Not because bumping hurt or anything, but because I was aware of an amazing array of new sounds and senses I was catching a glimpse of and I wanted to explore more.  There were so many beautiful colors I'd never seen before and sounds and scents and hues and textures and stuff I cannot even describe.  There was a new existence out there that I was tasting and I wanted more of it, a place where I felt immense love and acceptance and belonging.

So many were there with me too.  This place where my self awareness was, was a very good city or town or wherever- whatever it was.  I did not want to leave.  As soon as a beautiful new form would pass by and I felt drawn to it, the bumping would start again.  That damned ceiling!

The bumping meant I was not going to die.  I knew this as I continued to bump, and it disappointed me. I wanted to stay and explore this new place full of wonder and beauty.  As I floated up, bumped and floated back down I knew that if I were going to die, I'd float straight through the ceiling, out into this place of wonder.  The bumping meant I was going to stay.  My earthly body was keeping me in the room.

During my long recovery period I revisited this plane of self awareness several times.  Two and a half years later I do not see this land so much anymore, except for those once-in-a-while nights where deep sleep takes me there.

Having my heart disconnected from my body and being cooled to hypothermia levels gave me a chance to see different things.

I do believe I almost died.  I also believe I caught a glimpse of what happens beyond our present self-awareness.  I am really glad I am here today to see my teens raised and spend days with my wife, friends and family.  Looking forward to many more years here before I drop dead.

But get ready for a cool adventure when it is your time to go.  Been there, done that and it is amazing!

More to follow.

Kevin wrote this in addition to the post above.

As my heart and body were separated during bypass I woke up floating just below the operating room ceiling.  Before I'd only seen the operating room in a highly medicated state as I was being wheeled in on the gurney.

Now though, I could see every detail of me on the table with a team of doctors and nurses working on my body, talking, moving and doing whatever doctors and nurses do during a major surgery.  My heart was clearly visible inside my open chest.  I remember asking myself if I was dreaming.  I was lucid and everything was incredulously clear.

Off in the distance I could see throngs of people I knew and others did not know.  They were all sending me good thoughts and praying fervently.  I did not have any feelings of fear but rather a sensation of curiosity.  I knew my wife Judy was in the waiting room and I knew she was going to be OK no matter what.  There was no sense of panic or helplessness.  In fact I felt very much at peace, relaxed and filled or covered with a bright feeling of love.

Looking up I could see through the ceiling.  Beyond the roof lay another world, one filled with what I can only describe as an immense, thick essence of love.  Everything was real, very real.  There were many beings, all very, very happy to see me, all just as real as the doctors and nurses in the room below.

But then the bumping started.  I tried to move towards 'those others' but for some reason was stuck below the ceiling.  Every time I would literally float up I'd bump into the ceiling and bounce back down into the air above the operating table.  At first I was frustrated at being able to see and hear the others but not being able to join them.

A calm voice informed me I was not going to leave my body permanently yet, that it was not my time to die that night.  'OK' I thought, 'this is really amazing'.  Before the dissection I had always worried about dying and what happened afterwards.  But the actual experience was not one of dread, not one of missing my wife and children, not one of regret of having to leave, but instead was one of excitement and anticipation.  And I had other beings to be there with me through it all.

Bright lights, unbelievable landscapes, colors, senses I've never experienced or imagined before and a warm, all encompassing love clothed and lay before me even as I bounced back down from the operating room ceiling.

I am a scientist trained in formal, demonstrable proof and have always questioned near-death accounts like mine, that is until it happened to me. I also flatly reject any suggestion that experience was imagined and I really don't care if the reader believes it or not.  This is my experience, one no one can take from me.

After my surgeon woke me hours later and as I began a very long recovery path, the out of body event stayed in my memory with startling detail, and continues to do so even today.

Subsequently there had to be a second open heart operation to clear a thick mass of fungal growth around my heart from complications arising out of the first surgery.  Months later I was finally home.

Here are the answers to the questions I put to Kevin Songer  :

Question 1.

For instance, when you said you were above looking down on yourself (your physical body) ...you mentioned seeing the surgeons cutting and sewing etc. Did you therefore see that your chest had been opened up ? Your EEG would have been flat by then so you shouldn't have had any experience whatsoever. 

"After being in the phase one (first phase area where I found myself moving down a path, surrounded on all sides by forms with energies acknowledging my presence) I moved into a 'cloud' and came out of it floating in the operating room directly above my body, the doctors and operating equipment.

This "visual" was highly crisp and detailed - like stepping from a cool dream into real life. I could hear doctors talking - surgery stuff.  I remember my surgeon and the PA (Physicians assistant)  in great detail as well as the nurses and equipment.  They were huddled over my body.  I think I was probably 20 feet away from them and they were moving arms etc doing the surgery.  I recall wanting to be back in the phase one place really bad and I was a little upset that I was back in the operating room.

I wasn't happy and felt myself floating back up to the ceiling, then 'bumping' off the ceiling and coming back towards my body several times.  I instinctively knew that I was not to die because I reasoned that if I was going to die, I'd be back in that really strange place that I liked.  At that point I felt significant disappointment but the type A provider (that is natural for me)  kicked in and I knew I would be back with my family and I was needed. 

(So) Yes - I vividly saw my chest open and inner plumbing being worked."

Question 2.

Did you tell the surgeons afterwards that you had an OBE during surgery ? And if so, what was their response

"Yes, once I had recovered I did mention to my surgeon and he nodded expressionlessly.  I had a rough re-entry - immediately threw up all over my incisions upon awakening and coated myself with vomit - my wife couldn't get the nurses to clean me up so I went for a good four hours or so before being cleaned. 

Within a week I had developed an infection on my aorta and heart that required another open heart surgery to clean out the infection via 'pressure washing' with antifungals and antibiotics.  I really thought this next surgery even though planned - (might kill me) (note my first surgery was an unplanned emergency) - but the second surgery was planned )- they'll go in and clean out the infection (endocarditis) - I was really, really 'stoked up' about going back to this phase one place again! 

I did not want the surgery and was afraid I might not come out of it but the upside was (the thought of ) experiencing this NDE once more - the little bit I had been exposed to had had a highly addicting effect on me - one I wanted to go back and experience again - but alas it was nothing but 'black' from the time I was put under for second surgery until the time the surgeon woke me up. 

My very first thought upon wakening was, "CRAP I didn't get to go back to that place!!"  I was grateful to be awake but I did also experience some sort of depression afterwards about not getting to experience the phase one place/plane/area."

Question 3.

For the perennial sceptics and others who simply don't believe that such a thing as the human 'spirit' (or a separate consciousness) exists, please could you elaborate on what it felt like to be in that state and what characteristics it possessed ?

"I'd say.. I was ..there, who I am ...here... in so much as I recognized the (familiar) ability to assess my surroundings, including 'others' and to analyse what was happening and reason through the experience while I was there. 

There is no doubt in my mind that this happened.  As I mentioned I was really looking forward to going back to that place during my second open heart surgery - the one where the doctor cleaned the slimy green 'gloop' infection from around my heart.

I encountered a deep sense of disappointment when I awoke from the second surgery and had only experienced nothing - just black... until I awoke once again. This reinforced the reality of my NDE experience in my thoughts.  Of course the second surgery was not emergency room spur of the moment, it was planned... so I don't think I was ever  'dead' during the second surgery.  But back to the first place I went out of body - it was full of patent colours, flowing moving, full of melodious sounds akin to birds and voices singing, very peaceful yet not lullaby like - quite energizing to the contrary. 

There were flying "beings" like giant butterflies all around and there were 'upright' beings walking or moving on the path where I was.  Lots of 'vegetation' - like being in a tropical butterfly-house only much more brighter, colourful and very, very peaceful!  There was a sort of 'terra firma' or ground it was all based upon with varying changes in topography  Seems like I can remember two beings of particular interest nearby that seemed to take an interest in me... but I can't remember anything said between them and me, just that they were aware of me and 'looking at' or sensing me. 

While I was there I was able to recognize that I had left the world and my family and I was in a new place and would not be seeing my family again.  As I stated earlier I had no regret to having left - it all seemed so natural !  This really stuck out later because I am an 'alpha male' who loves and fiercely protects my family - I'd never think of leaving them!

I have no concept of the amount of time I was in that place - time did not seem to be a sense I had to deal with - again I am a Type A aggressive time manager here... so that didn't make sense much to me later." 

Kevin is a scientist (plant biology) and like most (I think it's fair to say) prefers to remain at the very least, agnostic about whether or not there is a permanent continuation of consciousness or an "afterlife" which is still considered to be an irrational, unscientific notion aligned with self delusion, sentiment and superstition (although that is certainly changing)   

"It has been almost seven years now but the experience is as fresh as it was then.  Personally, at this stage in my life I am sceptical of an afterlife in general.  I think we probably go back to nothingness after we die - but this is the scientist in me.  But between that NDE and the fact I can believe the universe is self-directing and self-healing I have to say that my belief of nothingness after death may be flawed. 

But I am not convinced (that there is an afterlife). The NDE I had is the only thing I can look to that could convince me of another plane of existence.  The NDE was very real.  I was in surgery for over ten hours.  Thee nurses would tell my wife they and the doctors were doing their best to replace my aorta.  My body was chilled (to 18 degrees C) and I (body, heart & lungs) was on the cardio pulmonary-bypass pump.

I never thought much about trying to make a point or argue one way or another about what happens when we die. I believe I left this world.  Then I got re-stuck back into my body.  I know what happened but am not sure what to make of it.  It was really interesting though.  As for the operating room that was a second phase - one where I'd left the fantasy world I write about above.  The operating room experience was more cold and sterile - I explained it before.  I knew I was going to go back into my body."
 
The extreme hypothermic protocol of this operation stops brain and organ function completely (in order to prevent the decay of the cells) and the patient is effectively dead as is explained in this link that Kevin sent me. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11389464  "The patient is indistinguishable from someone who is actually dead."

Surgeons use cold to suspend life - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk
Image caption Extreme cooling is used to stop a patient's heart during life-saving surgery Heart surgeons are using extreme cooling to allow them to stop a patient's heart long enough to carry out surgery and then revive them. "The body is essentially in true, real-life, suspended animation, with no ...
  
Because of my own personal view that if one can be conscious when your brain is totally non-functional, and that strongly suggests a continuation of life, [i]I asked Kevin for more clarity on his existential thoughts on what the experience meant/means to him and what seem quite logical and reasonable implications for the possibility of an "Afterlife." [/i]

"I do not know. I just don't know.  What I experienced was real and I think what I experienced was a part of me that was not new - a part that has always existed - knowledge of who I was and my reasoning ability and my ability to move about.  This was not a simple NDE but quite complex - hard for me to think it wasn't real or hard to think it was just imagined. 

I went back and looked at the ER notes and I was cooled to 18 degrees C so there was no brain activity - like the article I sent.. I was essentially lifeless, body-wise.  But there was mostly a continuum of awareness and being. As to an afterlife I would not be surprised because as I said I see the universe as self directing and self correcting - but the easy way out for me is to say that we go back to nothingness - but I can't say this with full conviction either.  Guess we will find out one day...probably...who knows...

Based on this statement, I asked again about his out of body experience which clearly occurred when he had no brain activity. 

I absolutely know with certainty that it was me floating in the operating room. Beyond doubt. No doubt. My body on the gurney was not me.

But I re-inhabited it (the body) later.

Question 4.

In question 3 I was trying to get a handle on what kind of "form" or "body" you were in when you were floating around. Some people have described this form as an etheric copy (a rough copy) of their physical body or a kind of 'energy body' made of 'light' that seems intangible but nevertheless is definitely "something", whatever it is.

Please could you shed any light on this...? Were you perhaps aware of a kind of "spiritual" (not the best word) body ? The entities you saw must have had form ?

Not spiritual. I was real. They were real. Very real. Like the art I draw. Form, energy, substance and being. Nothing ethereal it was all hardcopy real !

( PS - I am honoured to share this with you and others - I have no agenda with my NDE but to share what happened to me. Kevin. )

With many thanks to plant biologist, artist and lawyer, Kevin Songer

This is very interesting report of an end of life experience told to me by a really nice lady who responded to me on line after she'd posted a brief summary of it in the comments section of a you tube video on death bed visions. She told me she had no problem with others seeing it but unfortunately I haven't been able to contact her again to get her permission to post it here so I will delete it in a few days.

I nursed my dad at home until he died, so I was with him 24 hours ..the last 2 weeks was so interesting, I was sitting on my computer, and my dad was watching football, when all of a sudden he asked me, "Who is that there," I looked over to where he pointed, and of course saw nothing, so I said to him, "Dad I don't see anyone." He looked at me surprised and a little angry, "Don't you see him?" he said. 

I must add I began feeling a little 'creeped out' by now, as I could see on his face he was seeing someone and did not understand...this was the beginning of an amazing 2 weeks, my father saw my sister who had died 1 year before, and my mom who had died 9 weeks before...my grandmother and many more who had passed away.....I won't go into all the details....but when my father started seeing all this I started to question him, because he began to realize he was standing in both worlds....

He told me about the beautiful birds, the beautiful trees...and all the people...I feel privileged to have been able to nurse him and listen to what he had to say, he was amazed himself... but he did realize it was the world of the dead and said that world was together with our world...strange, but I understood what he meant.

I think there is a thin curtain in between these worlds, no other way to explain it...my dad passed peacefully while I held his hand, he kept asking me the time....like he knew what time he was going to die. It changed me as a person...I always believed death was just black nothing...the end....but after my dads death, I know there is another world and we will see the ones we love....it also took away my fear of death...its more of how will I die, than death itself that bothers me.

I asked her if he had been on any drugs ?

No it was not the drugs, my father was clear of mind, watched his football every evening before he died, and we did talk about what was happening. Much more happened, I just tried to relate it briefly (what happened)

Did he perhaps expect to have this kind of experience ? 

Thanks, yes and you are right it was something my father never expected, he was an atheist My mom had died 9 weeks before also at home, I nursed both at the same time....anyway when my mom died, we had the funeral, and I was driving away, and we saw the smoke coming out the crematorium...and my dad pointed to it saying to me, "There.. that's your mom now!" That's how much of an atheist he was. But I must say, he knew it was not just going up in smoke when you die, and so do I now.....

I don't know what there is, but I do know there is something, and its beautiful. So much more, happened, which I carry very close to my heart. Its not something I talk about a lot, because people are just not ready for it...

It must have been tough to lose your mother and father in such quick succession. (I expressed my condolences)

Yes it was tough, but I must say the experience, made my grieving easier, although I miss them very much, I am at peace knowing they are all together. My dad was in the Netherlands army when they made war with Indonesia, he would tell us the stories of the terrible things that happened in this war, while we where growing up. Things he had done, he had to kill people, something I think bothered him his whole life....

My dad also saw some of these people he had killed (in that war) a few days before he died. He was very upset.... I thought maybe they were angry with him...so I asked him, and he said no... they had forgiven him. I have a feeling they came to help him also to cross over. My dad was confronting his past... also things of 50 to 60 years back, things I never knew about, but checked after he died.  I looked up about this war, as I did not know much about it, and it was indeed a black page in the Netherlands history....*Note (most countries have many black pages)

I think if more people, cared for their loved ones at home, we would all realize that death is not something to fear. Its a shame so many people die alone in hospitals, or care homes. People are scared of death, and I say that because I was looking after my mom and dad at home, both where dying. In the beginning people (living relatives) come, but then it gets less and less... people don't want to confront it, to look in the eyes of someone who's dying. Even family come less, but then the funerals are packed out 

*I've posted this here simply for ease although of course it would belong in death bed visions, but I'm not going to leave it up.

[Content truncated and quote tags inserted to comply with our copyright guidelines. --Laird]

This is a remarkable report from a medically retired anaesthesiologist. It was published on a question and answer forum and has received over 100,000 views and many comments so I can see no reason why it shouldn't be available for comment here.

Christopher Yerington, M.D. Medicine & Anesthesiology, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (1998)

In 11 years and over 15,000 anesthetics … I only had one, the strangest experience.
“Frank” (not the patient’s real name) was in emergency heart surgery in the late evening while I was on 24-hour call, about 11pm, I think, was when the case began.
Frank was basically dead upon arrival to the operating room and ‘trying to put Frank under’ was not challenging… as all I had to do was maintain Frank’s horrific vital signs as the surgical team crashed onto cardiopulmonary bypass.

Ninety minutes later it was decided that in order to repair the heart and aorta… we had to place Frank into complete circulatory arrest. Normally, any more time than 45 minutes of Circ-Arrest leads to bad outcomes.
We cooled Frank’s body and chilled his brain/head with ice and then discontinued Frank’s cardiopulmonary bypass machine for 94 minutes… no circulation for 94 minutes! Not good. About 5:30am we eventually got Frank to the ICU. I went home about 8am after 25 hours straight in the hospital.

Read the rest at https://www.quora.com/As-an-anesthesiolo...eone-under

Dr Yerington confirmed that the numbers and letters were correct in response to many questions.

Yes, he was correct. I can still recall the feelings when I was looking at the numbers myself, dumbfounded that everything I knew of science and logic may just not be enough to understand human existence. ~Chris

[This article has been reproduced with the kind permission of FATE Magazine --Laird]

I found this brief report on the net a few years ago. I have no reason to believe it is not genuine and honest but I can't be certain, of course. Nevertheless it would appear to be yet another veridical out of body experience which seem(s) to occur in hospitals not infrequently. 

I've left the last two paragraphs in, only to present it as a whole, but of course they are just his views.    

In the following lines I wish to share a most astonishing incident told to me by my nephew, Dr. S. J. Gandhi, a physician at the Ameya Hospital in Panvel, Maharashtra State, India. The story concerns the experience of a patient at his hospital.

Mrs. Rajwant K. had been diagnosed as having a thyroid disorder. Her husband was a truck driver of very ordinary means. Mrs. K. had been losing weight gradually, and had become quite a skeleton. She also had a swollen neck and was advised to have surgery.
During the surgery, it so happened that one of the surgeons cut an artery by mistake. The doctors were unable to stop the bleeding, and the patient was given a blood transfusion to sustain her life. One bottle was used, then two, three, and so on up to six, but no end to the bleeding was noticed.

The surgical team thought of calling in a senior doctor from a nearby city, but none was available. As a last measure they called in a young doctor from the local area. He came and saw that the bleeding was coming from a spot other than that from which they were trying to stop it. To the great relief of the attending doctors the bleeding ultimately stopped. The patient regained consciousness after some time, but the proposed operation for her ailment had to be dropped.

Later, my nephew Dr. Gandhi treated Mrs. K. non-surgically for her hyperthyroid condition. The treatment was successful, and Mrs. K. started gaining weight. Eventually she recovered fully.

One day when she was at his office, she told Dr. Gandhi what had transpired during the operation. She said she was looking at the entire operation from outside her body. She related exactly what happened. My nephew was very skeptical and did not believe her at first. So he decided to test her veracity by asking for the names and descriptions of the doctors who were present. To his utter surprise she stuttered out all the names.

Still having some lurking doubts, he decided to test her further. Dr. Gandhi had not seen the doctor who had been called last and on whose diagnosis she ultimately recovered. He arranged to call all the doctors a few days later and asked her to identify each of them by name. She did it! My nephew was sure that she could not have learned their names except from the conversations in the operating theatre that occurred when she was apparently unconscious.

I would not have believed this incident had it not been narrated to by my nephew whom I have no reason to doubt, and who has nothing to gain from this story.

This incident called to my mind the concept, so succinctly exposed in the Hindu scripture, of the human soul being quite separate from the body. Perhaps in no other religion has this distinction of the mind or soul and the body been so clearly set out as in Hinduism. It is not our eyes that see, not our ears that hear, not our nose that smells, and not our brain that thinks. There is no way we can identify ourselves as anything other than the body we are encased in, except when we come across such unusual experiences.

The literature on extrasensory experiences is littered with countless incidents of how the spirit and the body are different. Here, however, is an example, empirically verified, which ought to boost our faith in religion, and the truth which is found in almost all religions, not excluding Christianity and Islam. It should prompt us to prefer good over evil, just over unjust in our daily lives, though we may all identify ourselves with our bodies during our temporary stay in the physical world without realizing its separateness from our real selves.

 — Sudhir M. H., N.Y.

This True Mystic Experience appeared in the November 2011 edition of FATE Magazine and has been reproduced here with FATE's kind permission.

[Edited by a moderator to eliminate copyright violation]

This is an interview with Dr Michael Sabom published in the Canadian magazine, Macleans, in 1982. For anyone interested in the phenomenon of NDE's I would highly recommend his book Recollections of death, which resulted from his meticulous (fair to say) scientific study (of NDE's) at Emory University School of Medicine and the Atlanta Veterans Administration Medical Center, working as a cardiologist (assistant) professor of medicine. 

Sceptics had no answer to the remarkable case reports in the book other than, well.. he must be in error because that can't happen. When you read the cases in detail however, you realise that unless Sabom is perpetrating a hoax (which is an absurd proposition) then there is no materialistic explanation for how the patients were able to somehow "observe" the scene of their own resuscitation.  

Dead men telling tales September 20 1982 

Q&A: MICHAEL SABOM

Maclean’s: Was there not a well-verified case that you did not use in your book?

Sabom: That was told to me by a respiratory therapist at another hospital in Atlanta who had helped resuscitate a man who had suffered a cardiac arrest. The next day the therapist went in to check on him, and the patient said, “You’re the man who helped do the resuscitation.” The therapist had come into the room after the man had lost consciousness, so this kind of piqued his interest, and he asked, “How do you know who I am?”

And the guy said, “During the resuscitation I looked down on what was going on in the room.” He told the respiratory therapist that during the resuscitation there was a nurse who was having difficulty getting a plastic lock off a cart and that the therapist reached out of his back pocket and handed her a pair of scissors to twist the lock off. The therapist was dumbfounded because that is indeed what he did. And this man had a black mask and bag over his face at the time and so he could not have seen it from where he was lying.

https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1982...ling-tales

Pete Morton, one of the patients in Sabom's study (mentioned above) reluctantly recounted another veridical out of body experience (to Sabom) which occurred during open heart surgery in January 1978. He initially told Sabom that he thought it would be "too much for him to swallow" but was persuaded to recount it anyway.

Many members will have already seen this but I'm (re)presenting it for those who haven't, so that they can see for themselves how persuasive these reports are and why the explanations offered by Susan Blackmore and co (and blithely accepted by the sceptics on here) simply don't work.  'Newcomers' to this phenomenon are unlikely to be aware of reports like this one, so it needs to be visible, IMHO.
 
When I left that room [prior to surgery], I was totally unconscious and don't have any awareness whatsoever as I was transported from there down to where they do the operation until all of a sudden the room is lit up, not as bright as I thought it ought to be. Then I became aware but, in fact, they had already done some stuff to me. They had finished draping me, the anesthesiologist had started his stuff, and all of a sudden I became aware of it... like I was in the room a couple of feet or so above my head, like I was another person in the room...

It was like I would think of something and I would see, in color and in a frame, what I wanted. I recall consciously... seeing two doctors stitch me up after the operation; Dr. C., I think it was because the hands were so large, injecting a syringe of something into my heart on two occasions, one on one side and another on the other side of the heart; the apparatus that they used to keep the ribs apart to make the aperture; some apparatus they put in this vein up here, some kind of readings that they were taking, an instrument up there; something shiny in his hand -- that was the anesthesiologist, I'm sure of that.

I couldn't see it all. And the fact that my head was covered and the rest of my body was draped with more than one sheet, separate sheets laid in layers. I knew it was my body. I always imagined that the lights would be brighter, but it didn't seem that bright. More like banks of fluorescent lights rather than a big high-powered beam... I was amazed that I had thought there would be blood all over the place, but there really wasn't that much blood. Not what I expected it to be... A lot of it was draped. I couldn't see my head too much but I could see from about my nipples down better....

[Sewing him up] they took some stitches inside me first before they did the outside. And then it was just like they sew you up. The shorter doctor started down here and worked this way. The other doctor could have started in the middle and worked up. They had a lot of trouble right here, but the rest of it was pretty fast... And the heart doesn't look like I thought it did. It's big. And this is after the doctor had taken little pieces of it off. It's not shaped like I thought it would be. My heart was shaped something like the continent of Africa, with it being larger up here and tapered down. Bean-shaped is another way you could describe it. Maybe mine is odd shaped...

[The surface was] pinkish and yellow. I thought the yellow part was fat tissue or something. Yucky, kind of. One general area to the right or left was darker than the rest instead of all being the same color... I could draw you a picture of the saw they used and the thing they used to separate the ribs with. It was always there and I can remember the details of that probably better than the other things. It was draped all around, but you could see the metal part of it. I think all they used that for was to keep it constantly open. They had instruments hanging around it that obscured it and they undid the clamps sometimes and stuck in sponges stuck on the clamps and there were hands so I couldn't see it constantly because it was obscured sometimes...

It seems Dr. C. did most everything from my left side. He cut pieces of my heart off. He raised it and twisted it this way and that way and took quite a bit of time examining it and looking at different things ... That thing they held my chest open with, that's real good steel with no rust, I mean, no discoloration. Real good, hard, shiny metal... [Stopping his heart] I sensed they did it with the needle when they injected something into my heart. That's scary when you see that thing go right into your heart…

All but one doctor had scuffs tied around his shoes and this joker had on white shoes which had blood all over them. I was wondering why this one doctor was in a pair of patent-leather white shoes in the operating room when the nurses and everybody had green covers that they put their shoes into and it was tied... I thought it was unsanitary. I don't know where he had been walking in those things, but it upset me.

I thought he ought to be covered like everybody else... And there was a doctor who had a bad little finger and it looked like he was going to lose his nail. There was a blood clot under his fingernail on his right hand. I could see it through his gloves, which were more or less transparent. It was real dark and I recognized it for what it was. He was the one who did the stitching and was on the opposite side of the table from Dr. C.

All the events (except the shoes and the bad fingernail) described above were checked by Sabom in the operation notes (which the patient had not seen) and were found to be accurate. The description of the heart, in colour (pinkish with yellow fat issue) and shape, is remarkably accurate (apparently) and the observation of one area being darker than the rest is particularly significant because this was the ventricular aneurysm that was resected (cut away) "They cut little pieces of my heart off" 

It is highly unlikely that a night-watchman (his job) would be familiar with how a diseased heart with this specific defect (aneurysm), looked like, in such detail.  

https://www.amazon.com/Recollections-Dea...0060148950
         

[Edited by a moderator to eliminate copyright violation]

Thus is an essay from Tom Harpur ( 1929–2017) Rhodes scholar/author/journalist and theologian. Some of his ideas were highly controversial, to say the least, but I found his critique of the phenomenon of NDE's to be within reason, fairly accurate, even today. 

Passage to Paradise Visions of Heaven have changed (April 1992) Macleans Magazine

Tom Harpur ( (April 24, 1929 – January 2, 2017) was an Anglican priest in a suburban Toronto parish when, in 1963, he took part in a research experiment organized by a British psychiatrist involving the hallucinogenic drug LSD. According to Harpur, his sensations after taking the drug resembled those described by people who have had near-death experiences. Still, Harpur, a journalist since 1971, has concluded after many years of research that near-death experiences are glimpses into the next world. His 1991 book, Life After Death, assembles evidence that death is only a passage into another phase of life. And he contends that the concept of heaven is based on reports from people through the ages who have had near-death experiences. 

For more: https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1992...o-paradise

http://ndeinfo.wmthost.com/ndemovies/TLCPart1.wmv

Presenting here in TLC life after Death part one beginning at 6.33. featuring Pam Reynolds