Duane's NDE

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A LIFE AFTER DEATH EXPERIENCE

BY DUANE

It was a bright beautiful Monday morning in early July nineteen-ninety. Finally another day off if you want to call it that I had worked the previous afternoon and all night so it was way past bedtime. Still it was time for my once a week all day adventure with my daughters and other single parent kids in the neighborhood a pretty regular routine the past few months. There would be no biking, shooting or hiking this day, it was going to be hot today and the vote for rafting had no opposition.

As I started to call out the supplies to be gathered up for the trip I remembered that my neighbor had recently purchased a new life vest and offered to lend it to me anytime so life jackets were added to the list. I quickly dismissed the thought of taking the neighbor up on his generous offer though and fought it off repeatedly thinking to myself that the vest might get scratched or soiled.

Three hours six kids and two rafts later we were unloading my mom’s van on the boat ramp at the river. The four preteen girls, two of them my daughters, went with me in the eight-man raft leaving the two man for our seventeen-year-old neighbor and his younger brother.

Down the ramp and into the river we went finally starting our adventure. The pleasantly cool morning had given way to a scorching afternoon and the cool water was a welcome refuge. As there were only four oars and five of us in the large raft I quickly took the point sitting on the very front of the raft with my legs hanging over while each of the girls straddled the sides oars in hand and we were off. The girls quickly had us out into the main current.

I stretched out my legs to get my feet in the water thinking to myself this is the life. As we rounded the first bend in the river the water was moving quite a bit faster. I let myself fall backward with a splat onto the bottom of the raft leaving the girls to maneuver us through the rapids as they were not to severe at the time. The girls did very well at getting us through the first couple of hours on the river so I continued to ride on the front of the raft with them in control while I would fall back into the raft as we hit the worst parts of the river.

Splash I was in the water, it was fast and furious, the raft had hit a rock just under the surface leaving me to fend for myself in the worst part of the river yet. So thinking not to be injured by the stones, sliding so swiftly beneath, I laid on my back pointing my feet downstream trying to float as high in the water as possible. The raft was already many yards behind me but I was through the worst of it and now in some deep water the current slowly moving me upstream. Not being in the sharpest state mentally, as some twenty- four hours had passed without sleep, by the time I figured out that moving upstream was not a good thing it was to late.

Under I went having just enough time to suck in part of a breath of air before the undertow swallowed me up. The angry water grabbed and pulled at me the surface was so near but I could not get there nor could the bottom or the large car sized boulder near me be touched. It was about this time that an understanding of how serious things were hit full force. I was going to drown and could do nothing about it. Panic hit and with all of the strength my fatigued body had left I fought to get to the surface to fill my lungs with even a single breath of air.

But reality quickly set in and the breath even the very life I had fought so hard to keep burst out leaving me alone in the dark with but a single thought. I can do this. It was peaceful now no more swirling water no more panic or fear or senses of any kind just the thought that it was ok to let go of life. After all working three jobs sleeping four to five hours a night five days a week and not at all the other two was not much of a life anyway I thought.

Then as if I was a toddler and my father had grabbed me by my Osh-Kosh overalls and lifted me over his head I was standing several feet above the water. I could feel the sun shining down warming my face but no longer was it to bright to look at. The gentle breeze was comforting my thoughts turned to the sound it made rustling through the vibrant green leaves of a large tree to my left.

My focus on the tree left me actually feeling the breeze blowing through the leaves as if the leaves were my fingers and the tree was a part of me. All of my senses were heightened color brighter sight crisper and better defined the smells and slight mist of water on my skin were wonderful. A bird began to sing behind me and as the melody gained my attention it was as if the trees and brush hiding it parted and I had full view of this tiny creature.

Not only could it be seen and heard but I could feel that the bird was happy even joyous just to exist and this feeling became a part of me. Although much of what was going on around me was to my left, right or behind me I did not have to turn to witness it for I could see a full three-hundred and sixty degrees around me comprehending many things going on in the immediate vicinity at once.

As I stood in awe of what was going on a voice came, clear as the voice of one very near you, asking me “what do you want to do”. Turning my attention to the sight before me I began to take a survey as it were checking to see what could be done. My youngest daughter was just climbing out of the water some seventy-five yards downstream near the raft. The oldest had already walked some thirty or forty yards along the rocky bank upstream of the raft. I on the other hand was here and my lifeless body there which was no problem for me as my old life was as much of a dream to me at the moment as the afterlife is to most of us now.

No feelings of pain or sorrow only such peace and love as few have ever known. After gathering this information it was like I simply bundled it up in a neat little package added a bit of no comprehend and handed it to the entity that had asked the question. The response was immediate “what do you want to do” and the answer much the same as the survey was taken again.

As I looked at my eldest daughter, whom I found out later was trying to guide the older boys to what then was my lifeless body, it was as if someone took me and threw me inside of her. I saw from her eyes heard with her ears and understood all that she knew and felt at that moment but was only a bystander in her world.

This twelve-year-old faced with this terrible situation was about as calm and logical as anyone could possibly be. My sister is ok now, she had also fallen from the raft and been caught in the same undertow but had a life jacket on so was safe, the other girls are ok too. Now I have to save of my dad. These were her immediate thoughts. Then as fast as I had been introduced into my daughters world I was returned to my own and stood above the water in the same spot as before.

The voice came again “What do you want to do”? It asked. Finally I understood I needed to choose between the icon before me of raising my daughters and the life I had so recently left. Or this new existence and a life I knew was with my heavenly father for I could feel his love emanating from a point up and to my left just behind me.

A love that reminded me of the peace and contentment one feels as a small child being rocked gently in the arms of their mother after a perfect day. So strong was this feeling of love, peace and well being that I was torn as to what should be done. There was no coercion for me to choose this or that nor was I led to believe that one choice would be better than the other.

The matter was entirely up to me. Knowing that my daughters really did need me, and how much I truly loved them, I almost reluctantly made the choice to return and do all in my power to raise them the best I could. To communicate this decision I simply took all the information and feelings gathered and handed it as a whole to my friend whom was never seen. Saying that “ I wanted this” that is the icon before me and all that it represented.

Then I was told “you have to give all you've got”. This brought on another search looking for “ all I had “ it came up empty as my body was there and I was here. The words came again exactly the same, which resulted in the same exact search. Just prior to being told to give it my all again I was given information, a bunch of it, but not in word still it was communicated to me that I must choose to be in my body because no one was going to put me there. This information was stamped with the urgency a father might have for a child in immediate danger.

Upon making a conscience choice to be in my body again the water once again raged about me grabbing and pulling me down but to no avail as I had the strength of a locomotive. Nothing could hold me back from reaching the surface. Upon there reaching I exhaled all the crud in my lungs and traded for a deep breath of life. My lungs hurt so badly that the thought occurred that I would rather just drown.

I fought off the almost overwhelming desire to just give up and thought I whispered was later told yelled for help, as the young men in the small raft were just a few feet away. With a couple strokes of the oars they were next to me. Grabbing the rope on the side of the raft I found that there was plenty of energy left in me and I swam beside the raft helping to get it through the rapids to the bank.

Explaining what had just transpired took some doing and left doubters among the group. That is until they were each told what they were doing and in some cases thinking while I was under the water. Doubts were quickly erased. The rest of our trip was extremely peaceful and fulfilling seeing deer and other wildlife along the bank only a few feet away added to this. We were very late getting to our destination and calling for a ride home my mother was very worried about us. You know how mothers can be.

I was nearing the end of my probationary phase at my fulltime job so had to be there the next day. I worked although barely able to walk and every cell in my body from the hair on my head to my toenails being in extreme pain. Over the next few days the pain slowly faded leaving me with a sure knowledge of many things I had not even imagined and a chance to watch my daughters grow.

I testify to the truth of this experience, as do those who were on the river with me they know that this happened. I also testify that God is, he loves us and is aware and mindful of even the smallest things in our lives and on this earth. The gift of agency the ability to act according to our own desires and associate one with another in the sphere of his creations is awesome.

I pray that we might thank him for our very existence here and treat one another and his creations with the respect and kindness due them.

Early in her medical career, the late Barbara R. Rommer, M.D. realized that most of her patients were unable to fully experience the joy of life because of their fear of dying. “That fact stabled at my soul,” Rommer, then a Fort Lauderdale, Florida internist, told me in a 2000 interview.  It also explained the motivation underlying her research in the field of near-death experiences (NDEs).  From 1994 until her death in 2004, Rommer interviewed more than 500 people who had reported NDEs.  She was the author of Blessings in Disguise, a book reporting on her research of the NDE.   

I realize that I am not sufficiently detached from the earthly attraction of life to be allowed myself to pierce the veil.  But am I for this reason to say that these things do not exist?”

ANOTHER MUST READ WITH BEST ACCOUNT OF THE OTHER SIDE IS "TESTIMONY OF LIGHT," BY HELEN GREAVES/FRANCES BANKS COLLABORATION.

Many educated people who heard the stories about the levitations and other mediumstic phenomena surrounding Daniel Dunglas Home (pronounced “Hoom”) dismissed them as so much humbug, suggesting that Home was either a magician or hypnotist, or that the witnesses had had too much to drink.

However, there were so many stories about Home from credible people that Sir William Crookes, one of England’s most distinguished scientists, decided to investigate. Crookes, later admitted that he undertook his investigation intent on demonstrating fraud. He opined that the increased employment of scientific methods would drive such stories into the unknown limbo of magic and necromancy.

But upon closely observing and studying Home, Crookes, who discovered the element thallium, and later invented the radiometer, the spinthariscope, and the Crookes tube, a high-vacuum tube which contributed to the discovery of the X-ray, changed his views.

“The most striking cases of levitation which I have witnessed have been with Mr. Home,” Crookes wrote after 28 “sittings” with Home over a two-year period (1870-71), stating that he saw Home levitated on three different occasions and that there were at least a hundred recorded instances of Home rising from the ground in the presence of many credible witnesses. In one of the levitations, Crookes passed his hands under Home’s feet and over his head to rule out any kind of invisible wires, as was suggested by some of Crookes’ scientific colleagues.

Crookes referred to Home “being levitated” rather than Home having the ability to levitate himself, as Home claimed his “spirit controls” were lifting him. In fact, when levitating in the upright position, Home’s arms were usually rigid and drawn above his head, as if he were grasping the unseen power raising him from the floor. When he went horizontal, it was as if invisible hands were supporting his body.

Home’s most famous levitation is said to have taken place on December 16, 1868 on the third floor of the Ashley House, the London mansion of Lord Lindsay. It was witnessed by Lord Lindsay, Lord Adare, and Captain Charles Wynne. After the three men and Home were seated, Home slumped in his chair and went into a trance. He then got up and walked out of the room.

The three men apparently didn’t know what to make of the departure and remained seated. They then heard the sound of a window in the adjoining room being raised. They looked out the window in their room and saw Home standing on air, three stories above the ground. Home then floated to the closed window out of which they were looking, opened it, stepped into the room, went to his chair, and sat down, still in a trance state.

As the three men questioned what they had seen and wondered how Home got out the window in the adjoining room, which was open only a foot or so, Home got up from his chair, walked to the other room, went through the open space, head first, and then floated back in the same window, feet first.

On March 4, 1869, Adare, Wynne, and Adare’s father, the Earl of Dunraven, accompanied Home on a tour of the ruins of Adare Abbey. There they observed Home leave the ground and float horizontally for, according to Adare, “at least ten or twelve yards.”
In addition to levitations, Crookes and his guests witnessed floating tables, luminous “spirit hands,” beautiful music coming from an accordion floating in the air, while also hearing the spirit voices. In one sitting, Ellen Crookes, Sir William’s wife, was levitated while sitting in a chair. All of it took place in clear light.

Crookes asked the communicating spirits why there was so much tomfoolery and they explained that they had just learned how to produce such phenomena and were experimenting on their side just as Crookes was on his side. Voices were sometimes heard in which one invisible being seemed to be instructing another invisible being on how to effect the levitation.

Many affluent and distinguished people were among the observers at the Crookes home, including Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, co-originator with Charles Darwin of the natural selection theory of evolution. On one occasion, Wallace and Crookes, two of the world’s most famous scientists, were crawling around on their hands and knees under a levitating table searching for some kind of physical explanation.

In his book, Perspectives in Psychical Research, Wallace, defended Crookes against attacks by other scientists who had concluded that Home was a magician and that Crookes had been duped. One of the critics, Sir David Brewster, sat with Home and saw a table levitate right in front of him, but still concluded that since there was no natural explanation for what he saw that Home had to be a magician. Brewster scoffed at the idea that spirits played a part in it and saw no other explanation beyond sleight of hand that was beyond his understanding.

“To reject the recorded evidence on this subject is to reject all human testimony whatever; for no fact in sacred or profane history is supported by a stronger array of proofs,” Crookes wrote, stating that he took every possible precaution to rule out fraud.
– Michael E. Tymn

THERAPIST SHARES IN ADCs

Hania Stromberg, an Albuquerque, NM psychotherapist, has never thought of herself as being clairvoyant or clairaudient. But recent experiences with clients undergoing Induced After Death Communication (IADC) therapy suggest that she has some kind of gift, as she reports being able to share in the contact her clients seem to be having with deceased loved ones.

“Occasionally I get visual impressions or pictures, but it is not always visual,” she explains. “I always have a strong sense of the presence of the deceased, often hear something they try to convey. It is either an auditory experience or sort of an auditory thought impression that I know is not mine.”

In one such shared experience, a client was grieving the death of his mother and felt much guilt about having not fulfilled certain obligations. As Stromberg was administering the eye movements which are part of the induction process, she felt a “presence” entering the room and then saw a woman in colorful dress and high heels. The woman, the client’s deceased mother, addressed the client by a special name of endearment and began discussing problems the client was having.

After the session, Stromberg compared her notes with what the client related and all were confirmed – the colorful dress, the high heels, the special term of endearment, the subject of the conversation.

“Every time I induce an ADC I feel an invisible portal opening up and a Divine energy pouring into my office,” Stromberg continues. “It is difficult to explain, but I would describe the energy as that of a palpable peace and exhilaration at the same time, and I suspect it is probably the essential healing factor in these experiences.”

IADC is a revolutionary new form of grief therapy discovered in 1995 by Dr. Allan Botkin, a clinical psychologist practicing in Libertyville, Illinois. It results in patients (i.e., clients) experiencing the presence of deceased loved ones, occasionally with deceased enemies. There is often communication between the deceased and the patient.
‘My clients have experienced it in a variety of forms – auditory, sentient, olfactory, not always visual, sometimes a combination of different sensory perceptions,” says Stromberg.

IADC is an offshoot of EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy, which was discovered by Dr. Francine Shapiro of California in 1987. While focusing on the therapist’s hand, the patient is asked to move the eyes left or right rhythmically and focus on a disturbing thought, feeling, image, or sensation. In IADC therapy, people grieving the death of someone, or otherwise disturbed by someone’s death, are asked to focus directly on their sadness during the eye movements.

The typical IADC involves the patient having seen or heard a deceased person and that deceased person having told him or her that everything is okay and not to grieve. In a number of cases, the deceased person has related information previously unknown to the patient. The therapy works with people of all beliefs, including atheists and skeptics. The end result is that the majority of patients (roughly 70 percent) overcome the grief.

Since being trained in IADC by Botkin in 2004, Stromberg, who received her Master of Arts degree from the University of New Mexico and her Master of Clinical Social Work from the University of Kansas, has done around 40 IADC sessions with about 30 of them successes. “Some didn’t really want to apply themselves,” she explains the failures. “I guess their fears got in the way, even though they made the initial decision to give it a try, and others tried perhaps too hard, and that was blocking their experience. And still some just would not have it, for reasons not clear to me at all.”

She adds that among the 10 or so who did not perceive the deceased or got only a vague awareness of the entity, she experienced the presence of the entity as vividly as she has with the 30 successful cases. Botkin points out that among those who don’t report contact with the deceased, many still experience a high reduction in grief.

While Stromberg speaks of entities and alludes to spirits, she prefers not to take a position relative to the phenomenon, leaving it to the client’s own interpretation. “I talk about it as an experience,” she explains. “My position is that it is an unknown and the significance of it is that those who experience it obtain a degree of peace and happiness, and very often people who are deep in grief leave with joy.”

Stromberg states that prior to her IADC experiences she had no specific belief about the survival of consciousness at death. At the same time, she admits to having a long-standing interest in spiritual matters. “But I was never particularly interested in mediumship, after-death communication, that type of thing,” she clarifies. “In fact, I always shied away from people who had had such experiences. It just didn’t appeal to me. It has come as a surprise to me that I am sensitive to experiencing the deceased during the sessions.”

When there is very personal information coming through to the client, Stromberg does not hear it. “I am not privy to that and I do not pick up on it.”

Botkin states that he has had a few other therapists report shared experiences, but Stromberg has reported them more frequently and consistently than anyone else. “On the more professional and technical side of things, Hania is an astute clinician and has been one of the most skilled therapists I have trained with,” Botkin adds.

Stromberg laments the fact that many grieving people are not availing themselves of this dynamic therapy. “There are many people I know for whom it would be so appropriate, and I would imagine they would jump at it, but they don’t,” she says. “Mainstream thought is just not really open to it, and the facilitators of various support groups for grieving persons usually reject my offers to discuss IADC therapy in their groups.”

As she sees it, this rejection is either the result of the facilitators not believing the dead are still around us and have an impact on us, or they fear being criticized and scorned by their peers. “I also have attempted to interest some of my therapist friends, but I get only silence from them when I bring it up. The scientific mind is very much closed when it comes to this type of thing.”

Could it be one big shared hallucination? “If the client and I are both hallucinating, then maybe all life is one big hallucination,” she responds, concluding with the comment that she does not see her ability to share in the IADC experiences as anything special on her part but as “a gift from God.” – Michael E. Tymn

When he went out for a run one day in 1983, Dr. Don Morse, a Temple University science professor, was like many of his scientific colleagues, not believing in anything beyond the material world. His views regarding a spiritual world and life after death began to change a few minutes into his workout.
As Morse exercised, things started spinning around in ever widening circles and everything began slowing down. His heart was racing and was so loud that he thought it would burst through his chest. Then it began to slow down and seemed to stop completely. He then fell to the ground. “I knew I was dying, but I wasn’t afraid,” recalls Morse, a 71-year-old resident of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, now retired. “The light was incredibly beautiful, and I felt wonderfully calm and secure with a benevolent presence beside me.”
Morse describes the light as being extremely bright and white. “It enveloped me so that I could see nothing but this light. I was not afraid. I felt secure, warm, and serene.” He then recalls seeing his whole life flash before him, including temper tantrums as a child, his victory in a dart-throwing contest, a hospital bout with colitis, asthma attacks, family visits, throwing a player out at home plate, shooting a winning basket, crying when the New York Giants lost a game, seeing his father die from lung cancer, getting married, seeing his three children born, doing a surgical procedure on the day President Kennedy was killed, receiving a Temple University research award, as well as many other events in his life.
When the life review ended, he remembers leaving his body, flying over the clouds, and arriving at Mt. Eden Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, where he observed his funeral…or what might have been his funeral had he decided not to return to his body. He recalls reading his obituary in the paper the next day. Shortly thereafter, he felt the sharp pain of an injection and realized he was still in the hospital. Morse had taken his run on the grounds of a large Philadelphia hospital, where he had been hospitalized after suffering a severe reaction to quinacrine, a drug used to treat a gastrointestinal disease. However, he felt strong enough that day to get in a little light exercise. Apparently, he wasn’t strong enough.
While Morse now understands that he was having a near-death experience, he didn’t recognize it as such then. “I was a research scientist who was well schooled in evolutionary biology, genetics, microbiology, immunology, and with some knowledge of archaeology, anthropology, cosmology, and quantum physics,” he muses. “At that time I had never heard of a NDE. I was an agnostic and considered it a hallucination. I pushed it to the back of my mind, although I’d often think about it.”
In 1995, following the death of his sister and some friends and relatives, Morse began suffering from a “general anxiety disorder” relating to his own mortality. He couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t exercise, couldn’t enjoy his food, and began experiencing abdominal cramps and neuralgic-like headaches. It was then that he began to try and make sense out of his NDE. “Even though I didn’t see the spiritual connection at first, the NDE did trigger a tremendous change in me,” Morse offers.
“Those 12 years between the NDE and the death anxiety were the most productive of my life. I could go to a lecture and be writing something on a tablet totally unrelated to what was being discussed, but I’d still know what was being talked about in the lecture. I could deal with all kinds of distractions that previously bothered me. From what I’ve read, that happens to a lot of people who have had NDEs. There’s something going on in the subconscious, both physically and psychologically.”
Morse began reading everything he could about near-death-experiences, out-of-body travel, apparitions, visions, dreams, spirit communication, the occult, past-life regressions, psychic phenomena, the paranormal, life after death, spiritual evolution, God and the universe, and found a preponderance of evidence that allowed him to formulate a rational depiction of the afterlife. His findings and views are now set forth in a book, Searching for Eternity (Eagle Wing Books, Inc., 2000)
Although some of his scientific colleagues may feel that Morse has “abandoned ship,” Morse says that he still believes in the scientific laws and principles he had learned and followed over his 45-year scientific career. “It’s just with the one law that science cannot and might never understand,” he continues. “That is the law that explains where we came from. In a nutshell, I cannot comprehend a universe that is intelligent enough to create itself with all of the million-to-one incredibly chance phenomena that eventually resulted in an intelligent human species. In addition, I cannot believe that 16 million people who have had near-death experiences, which mimic many of the great religions’ concepts of the afterlife, could have created it in their brains.”
Morse agrees with the eminent Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, that death is man’s greatest fear, especially in the second half of life. “Some people can suppress it, repress it, or deny it better than others,” he explains. “But we all have it. Some people go through life at a fantastic pace just to block out their thoughts on death.” To overcome this death anxiety, Morse advocates a holistic, integrative approach to stress management. That involves cultivating an awareness of death, grasping the fact that the consciousness does survive, and that death is merely a transition to another realm of existence.
“The more you learn about it,” he says, “the more you understand it and face it without too much stress or anxiety.” – Michael E. Tymn