Karina was afraid to die. When it was discovered that her cancer had relapsed, she was terrified of what might be on the other side of life.
A statistician by profession, she was an atheist with a scientific mind and believed that only “darkness and emptiness that will last forever” await us ahead. At night, these images tormented her, causing bouts of acute anxiety. Friends tried to calm her down, saying that two-thirds of the planet’s population did not share her nihilism, believing that the soul continues its journey, incarnating in subsequent lives. In response, Karina objected that the same two-thirds believe that they have the right to beat their wives …
The only consolation I could tell her was that only a very presumptuous person would claim to know what awaits us after death. However, every doctor had in his life amazing meetings with people who survived clinical death (their electroencephalogram remained absolutely flat for several minutes) and returned to life … And although I was not specifically interested in this issue, several patients told me about similar experiences.
Each of them realized that he had died, was on the other side of life. They saw a radiance that accepted them, radiating great love and kindness. Often they met long-dead people. They treated them very gently, telling them that their time had not yet come and that they had to return.
Many returned with regret and distinctly remembered the pain of being reunited with their tormented body. This experience completely changed the survivors: they began to better express emotions in words, became more open, learned to rejoice in the fact that life was around them. And, most importantly, they were no longer afraid of what might await them after death.
Since we do not know for sure, everyone has the right to choose for himself what to believe in: in frightening darkness or reassuring peace.
The details of these confessions can be found in all cultures, throughout human history. A bright glow, a feeling of indescribable elation and lightness, the feeling of a body floating through a tunnel – all these signs are found in such stories so often that one can suspect hallucinations provoked by a lack of oxygen.
But how then to explain that the patients, according to them, hovering over the heads of the doctors who resuscitated their bodies, described in detail what was happening in the ward and even repeated the words spoken there?
Is it possible to compare ordinary hallucinations caused by temporary brain asphyxia with an experience that completely transforms those who experience it? In one startling study, Dutch scientists interviewed 344 people who came back to life after cardiac arrest.
12% of the respondents experienced a condition that strictly meets the criteria for clinical death. A quarter of them said that they hovered over their own body. One man, who by all objective criteria was unconscious, was even able to tell the puzzled nurse where she had put his false teeth, removing it before intubation.
For scientifically minded people like Karina and me, such observations present a serious dilemma.
On the one hand, we are accustomed to explaining any phenomena on the basis of scientific principles and knowledge. But the scientific approach is poorly compatible with the probability of a conscious life after death …
On the other hand, the scientific mind obliges us not to discard reliable observations just because they cannot be explained within our theories. Meanwhile, cases of clinical death are common, and their descriptions are quite reliable.
After our conversation, Karina remained confused. But then, a few months later, she brought me a cassette of a documentary filmed by the American psychiatrist Raymond Moody, a pioneer in near-death studies in the United States. In this film, eight “returnees” tell how what they experienced forever freed them from the fear of death. I could see from Karina’s face that her soul had become calmer. Then I did not continue the conversation with her on this subject.
In the end, since we cannot know for sure, everyone has the right to choose for himself what to believe in – whether it is darkness and emptiness that frightens us, or light and peace that reassures us.