Speaker 1: I'm just a fool. We fear and strange. Welcome to death,
Speaker 1: grief and other ship we don't discuss. I'm Kyle McMahon.
Speaker 1: In November, my beloved mo Mom had passed. That was
Speaker 1: really where Mom went downhill. Up until then, Mom was
Speaker 1: fighting through thick and thin, determined to beat this horrible disease.
Speaker 1: There were so many ups and downs. It was a
Speaker 1: roller coaster of emotion. We'd get great news and I'd
Speaker 1: hold on to that and that would get me through,
Speaker 1: at least for a while. When doubt or anxiety would
Speaker 1: start creeping in, I'd remind myself of the good news
Speaker 1: the doctor had shared during her last appointment. No matter
Speaker 1: how small that good news was, I was holding onto
Speaker 1: it with a death grip. It was those small bits
Speaker 1: of hope that got me through each day. As it
Speaker 1: got closer to the next appointment, those good feelings would
Speaker 1: slowly turn to doubt as each hour brought us closer
Speaker 1: to her updated status. Doubt would turn to despair, and
Speaker 1: despair would turn into anxiety and depression. When the next
Speaker 1: appointment came around, I'd anxiously wait with my phone in hand,
Speaker 1: counting down the minutes until I expected a phone call
Speaker 1: from Mom or Dad with the update. Sometimes those updates
Speaker 1: were positive and other times they weren't. As we had
Speaker 1: been going through these ups and downs of Mom's cancer
Speaker 1: journey over the last two years, it was really really
Speaker 1: taking a toll on me. I had splotches of gray
Speaker 1: hair that just appeared overnight, as if I had seen
Speaker 1: a ghost. I was losing weight because I would go
Speaker 1: through periods of not wanting to eat anything at all,
Speaker 1: because I just didn't feel like eating. There were days
Speaker 1: when I had to block it all out just to
Speaker 1: survive the day. I'd become fearful of going too far
Speaker 1: from home in case I got a call that I'd
Speaker 1: have to run over to my parents house for some
Speaker 1: unspecified reason I had created in my mind. And now
Speaker 1: that I knew Mom's time was limited, all of that
Speaker 1: was happening more and more frequently. I could see what
Speaker 1: it was doing to her. She had lost so much
Speaker 1: weight in just a couple of months. She was nearly
Speaker 1: skin and bones. She was holding on for me and
Speaker 1: for Dad, but I could see that her grip was loosening,
Speaker 1: and it was through no fault of her own. She'd
Speaker 1: still have some good days, but they were becoming further
Speaker 1: and farther between. I'd see she posted some inspiring saying
Speaker 1: or photo on Facebook, and I'd get so excited because
Speaker 1: I knew that meant she was feeling well, at least
Speaker 1: well enough to be on her phone for that moment.
Speaker 1: Her text to me became less frequent too. That's when
Speaker 1: it really started hitting home for me. I was her
Speaker 1: baby boy, her entire world. If I didn't see her
Speaker 1: or didn't talk to her on the phone, we would
Speaker 1: have definitely texted back and forth. I continued to text
Speaker 1: her each morning with hearts and a good morning to
Speaker 1: let her know I was thinking of her and I
Speaker 1: love her. As the days went on, I was at
Speaker 1: my parents nearly every day just to sit with her,
Speaker 1: to talk with her, to tell her how much I
Speaker 1: love her, even if it was only for a few minutes.
Speaker 1: I began to remember what she had begun asking me
Speaker 1: just a few months before her diagnosis took a turn
Speaker 1: for the worst, and it made so much more sense now.
Speaker 1: Just out of the blue, one day, she said to me,
Speaker 1: straight up, Kyle, I need to know you're gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: And I was angry for her asking such a thing. Mom,
Speaker 1: What are you talking about You're not going anywhere, so
Speaker 1: of course I'm gonna be okay. I was legitimately mad
Speaker 1: at her for asking me such an insane question. I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, are you giving up hope? Is that
Speaker 1: why you're asking me this? She'd dropped it, and then
Speaker 1: a few days later bring it up again, and she
Speaker 1: would get the same response from me. Finally, after we
Speaker 1: got the news that her options had become very limited,
Speaker 1: she asked me once again, Kyle, please for me, I
Speaker 1: need to know that you're gonna be okay. I started
Speaker 1: crying and I gave her a big hug. I don't
Speaker 1: know how, Mom, but of course I'll be okay. She
Speaker 1: told me to promise her. I promise you. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how I'm gonna do it, but I will find
Speaker 1: a way to be okay. I promise you. Mom passed
Speaker 1: that night. Of course, we all have different definitions of
Speaker 1: what okay means. I knew in many ways I would
Speaker 1: not be okay when she goes. How could I possibly
Speaker 1: be okay with my rock being torn from me? What
Speaker 1: she was really asking me, though, it was for me
Speaker 1: to promise her that I will make it through this,
Speaker 1: that I'll make it through this life without her. If
Speaker 1: you think about it, this was really a brilliant move
Speaker 1: by my mom. How could you look someone in the
Speaker 1: eyes on their deathbed and lie to them? I certainly couldn't,
Speaker 1: And she knew that getting me to promise her that
Speaker 1: I would make it through was her way of being
Speaker 1: assured that I wouldn't sink so low into a cycle
Speaker 1: of despair and depression and sadness that I do something
Speaker 1: irrational and irreversible. I know that by promising her that
Speaker 1: I would make it through, that gave her the peace
Speaker 1: and ultimately the permission to let go. When I think
Speaker 1: about those final days, I instantly fill up. By that point,
Speaker 1: Mom couldn't get out of bed on her own. She
Speaker 1: needed help just to eat. This is not the woman
Speaker 1: who just a few months prior to that was driving
Speaker 1: herself around and filming instructional dance videos with my dad
Speaker 1: in their living room. Cancer was stealing my mom right
Speaker 1: in front of me, and I was powerless to stop it.
Speaker 1: I held out for a last minute miracle, but I
Speaker 1: was even starting to doubt that. You know, it was
Speaker 1: getting really bad for me, because I started binging unsolved
Speaker 1: mysteries for hours every single day. I was retreating into
Speaker 1: my bubble more and more often, and to be honest,
Speaker 1: it was safe there. I'd go and visit Mom, and
Speaker 1: although I'd sit with her and talk about all kinds
Speaker 1: of stories about her life growing up or my life
Speaker 1: growing up, and that made me and her happy, the
Speaker 1: second I got out the door, I'd barely make it
Speaker 1: to my car before I just start sobbing. I knew
Speaker 1: that she was nearing death, and no amount of praying,
Speaker 1: no amount of anger, no amount of sadness, no amount
Speaker 1: of action was going to change that. I cherished every
Speaker 1: moment that I could spend with her. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I couldn't spend too much time with her
Speaker 1: because she'd start getting in serious pain, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: just stand by and watch my mom crying and wailing
Speaker 1: in pain. I just couldn't do it, no matter how
Speaker 1: hard I wanted to be by her side every single
Speaker 1: second until the end. Thankfully, Dad did do it, and
Speaker 1: I knew that she couldn't be in better hands than
Speaker 1: those of the love of her life. She trusted him
Speaker 1: with her care and her life, and so did I.
Speaker 1: I knew that there was not another person on this
Speaker 1: earth as perfectly equipped as Dad to help Mom. Dad's
Speaker 1: military experience had given him the gifts of being able
Speaker 1: to take care of Mom, from helping her to eat,
Speaker 1: to giving her the right meds at the right time,
Speaker 1: to helping her sleep. Dad did it all. As I
Speaker 1: had mentioned before, Mom had always been the caretaker for
Speaker 1: me and Dad throughout both of our lives. Bills, Mom
Speaker 1: had taken care of him, dinner, Mom's already got it
Speaker 1: planned out. Clothes. Mom knew exactly how to dress Dad
Speaker 1: to make him look his best, so she'd update his
Speaker 1: wardrobe often. Mom has everything taken care of here, so
Speaker 1: Dad can go and just worry about work. It wasn't
Speaker 1: always easy, but Mom had literally taken care of Dad
Speaker 1: and I from day one where we never even had
Speaker 1: to think about it, through deployments and homecomings and promotions.
Speaker 1: Mom stood by him and me through it all. And
Speaker 1: now here was Mom unable to do any of it,
Speaker 1: unable some nights to even muster the strength of bringing
Speaker 1: the water bottle to her lips. But there was Dad
Speaker 1: right by her side as Mom had been by his.
Speaker 1: On a larger scale, it was truly a beautiful switch,
Speaker 1: but at ground level, it was a devastating one. You
Speaker 1: have to watch your wife, who has been so strong
Speaker 1: throughout her life mentally and physically, to be in the
Speaker 1: state to have to watch your mom or anyone you
Speaker 1: love go through this. It's painful, it's traumatic, it's horrible,
Speaker 1: it's not fair, and it's something that truly never ever
Speaker 1: leaves you. I can never thank Dad enough for the
Speaker 1: strength he displayed for me and for Mom. He got
Speaker 1: her through like she was there every step of the
Speaker 1: way throughout his life personally and professionally. Here was Dad
Speaker 1: helping Mom along every step of the way out of
Speaker 1: hers I wouldn't have had it any other way, and
Speaker 1: more importantly, Mom wouldn't have had it any other way either.
Speaker 1: They aren't just a husband and wife, their friends and
Speaker 1: how many people can honestly say that in their marriage
Speaker 1: they enjoyed doing things together. They enjoy just being together.
Speaker 1: They always have each other's backs, even until the very
Speaker 1: end of Mom's life. I was binging unsolved mysteries when
Speaker 1: I got a text from Dad, I'm outside. It was
Speaker 1: strange to have Dad stopped by unannounced. I mean, of
Speaker 1: course I didn't care. My parents were free to come
Speaker 1: over whenever they wanted, just as I did at their
Speaker 1: house my entire life. But it was an odd thing
Speaker 1: for Dad to do without letting me know he was
Speaker 1: coming ahead of time, so I knew that something was
Speaker 1: going on. I came outside to meet him, and I
Speaker 1: could see he had been crying. He said, immediately, they're
Speaker 1: running out of options, Kyle. We both just broke down
Speaker 1: and hugged, and he said to me, I don't know
Speaker 1: how we're gonna do it, but we'll get through this together.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe the words that I had just heard.
Speaker 1: I had sensed that it was coming, but when it
Speaker 1: actually comes, there's nothing you can do to prepare yourself
Speaker 1: for it. Dad had been so optimistic and so war
Speaker 1: ready throughout Mom's cancer journey. To hear him say those words,
Speaker 1: I knew that he meant it. Just a few weeks
Speaker 1: after that, Dad called me to say that Mom's time
Speaker 1: was getting very very short. You would have to call
Speaker 1: a priest to give her her final rights. I was
Speaker 1: a half hour away working on a project with fright
Speaker 1: Land Haunted Attractions. I couldn't believe the words that I
Speaker 1: was hearing. It wasn't real to me. None of it
Speaker 1: felt real at all. It was like a movie that
Speaker 1: I was watching, not something that was actually happening to me.
Speaker 1: I immediately left and drove the half hour back to
Speaker 1: my parents house. My mind was racing. I'm sobbing my
Speaker 1: heart breaking. Dad had said that the doctors think the
Speaker 1: TPN bag, the bag that was essentially feeding her, was
Speaker 1: also feeding the cancer. It was growing quickly, so much
Speaker 1: so that some of her organs were starting to show
Speaker 1: signs of failure. This was all happening so very fast,
Speaker 1: way too fast. I drove right to my parents house
Speaker 1: and ran in and just sat with Mom and hugged
Speaker 1: her and kissed her and cried. What can I do?
Speaker 1: What can I say? There was nothing that someone can
Speaker 1: do to change the situation, and that hurts even more.
Speaker 1: At this point, that probably hurts the most. I stayed
Speaker 1: and hung out with Mom for a while, and once
Speaker 1: she started feeling the pains, I mentally had to go.
Speaker 1: Before I had left, Mom and I just sat together
Speaker 1: and cried and hugged and talked. She said to me,
Speaker 1: whenever you're having a bad day, talked to me. I'm there.
Speaker 1: Whenever you need me, Just talk to me, even if
Speaker 1: you don't see me, I'm there with you. Always, and
Speaker 1: if there's anyone on this earth that would move heaven
Speaker 1: in hell to find a way to still be with me,
Speaker 1: it's Mom. I believe her when she tells me that
Speaker 1: she'll be with me forever. And with that converse station,
Speaker 1: I realized that we're getting really close to the end.
Speaker 1: This woman, the most influential and consequential person in my world,
Speaker 1: in my entire life, she was preparing to soon leave it,
Speaker 1: and none of it felt real. The next few days,
Speaker 1: like so much of this journey, we're just a blur.
Speaker 1: Until that day the priest came to my parents house
Speaker 1: and gave Mom her last rites. I was in the
Speaker 1: room physically, but for some reason, it was like I
Speaker 1: was watching it as an outsider. How is this even happening.
Speaker 1: This has to be some sort of nightmare that I'll
Speaker 1: wake up from and Mom will be okay. It just
Speaker 1: has to be. If you're unfamiliar, the last Rites are
Speaker 1: one of the catholics seven sacraments Baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, confession,
Speaker 1: anointing of the sick, Holy Orders, and matrimony. The last
Speaker 1: Rites are an incorporation of the sacraments of confession, the
Speaker 1: anointing of the sick and the Eucharist combined with the
Speaker 1: Our Father and Apostles creed prayers. It's performed when someone
Speaker 1: is very close to their death. And now here I
Speaker 1: am in my parents room, surrounded by my aunts and
Speaker 1: uncles and cousin, watching the last rites being performed on
Speaker 1: my mom. We had just gone through this a few
Speaker 1: months before with my incredible mo Mom Joan, who I
Speaker 1: was so very close with, and almost a year to
Speaker 1: the day before that, we had gone through it with
Speaker 1: my loving grandmother Audrey. And while of course the loss
Speaker 1: of my grandmother's was hard, they were a bit more expected,
Speaker 1: as both were well into their eighties golden years and
Speaker 1: had lived long, happy lives. But my mom is nowhere
Speaker 1: near her eighties. I just helped her film a dance
Speaker 1: video a few months ago. This is not the way
Speaker 1: it was supposed to work. This is not how this
Speaker 1: is supposed to go. And with father here, this is
Speaker 1: all but an assurance that Mom will go. It's like
Speaker 1: this is seiling her fate. There will be no fourth
Speaker 1: quarter miracle. And no matter how much I tried, I
Speaker 1: just couldn't stop this freight train coming straight for us.
Speaker 1: Lord Jesus Christ, you chose to share our human nature,
Speaker 1: to redeem all people and to heal the sick. Look
Speaker 1: with compassion upon your servant joe Anne, whom we have
Speaker 1: anointed in your name with this holy oil for the
Speaker 1: healing of her body and spirit. Support her with your power,
Speaker 1: Comfort her with your protection, and give her the strength
Speaker 1: to fight against evil. Since you have given her a
Speaker 1: share in your own passion, Help her to find hope
Speaker 1: and suffering for you, our Lord, forever and ever. Amen.
Speaker 1: And with that it was done. My beautiful mom had
Speaker 1: just been given her last rights. A priest had come
Speaker 1: into the home that my mom and dad built together
Speaker 1: over decades, and surrounded by our family, gave Mom her
Speaker 1: last rights in just minutes. The United States Catechism for
Speaker 1: Adults states that quote, when the sacrament of anointing of
Speaker 1: the sick is given, the hoped for effect is that,
Speaker 1: if it be God's will, the person be physically healed
Speaker 1: of illness. But even if there is no physical healing,
Speaker 1: the primary effect of the sacrament is a spiritual healing,
Speaker 1: by which the sick person receives the Holy Spirit's gift
Speaker 1: of peace and courage to deal with the difficulties that
Speaker 1: accompany serious illness or the frailty of old age end quote.
Speaker 1: That's so absolutely crazy to me. I guess it wasn't
Speaker 1: in God's will for Mom to not die a horrible
Speaker 1: death from fucking can't sir. I guess it was God's
Speaker 1: will to make his best, most selfless servants suffer unnecessarily
Speaker 1: my feelings aside. I know Mom was happy that she
Speaker 1: received her last rights, just as my mom had done
Speaker 1: just a few months prior. So in the end, I
Speaker 1: was happy that she was happy. We all talked and
Speaker 1: hugged and cried, and then Mom spent time one on
Speaker 1: one with everyone individually. I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be at my parents house for Mom
Speaker 1: and for Dad, but I also felt like I was
Speaker 1: breaking apart, like I was just physically breaking apart. I'd
Speaker 1: go into my old room, quietly, closed the door and
Speaker 1: just cry. I put my face into the pillow to
Speaker 1: muffle the sounds because I didn't want to upset Mom.
Speaker 1: Jason texted me and said that he'd be over in
Speaker 1: a few minutes, so I was counting down the seconds.
Speaker 1: When he arrived, we hugged and I warned him. Mom
Speaker 1: didn't look the same as she did when he last
Speaker 1: saw her. Eventually, he did go into my parents bedroom
Speaker 1: and he talked to Mom alone one on one. I
Speaker 1: went back into my old bedroom and just cried, and
Speaker 1: at one point I could hear Mom crying through my
Speaker 1: door and through her door, and I could hear Jason two.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to know what was being said. That
Speaker 1: was their final time together. She loves Jason, and she
Speaker 1: always told everyone he's the son of my heart. Dad
Speaker 1: always jokes that Mom got stuck with me, but she
Speaker 1: handpicked Jason, and now here was his final moments here
Speaker 1: on earth with the woman who was like a second
Speaker 1: mom to him since we were kids. Eventually, he knocked
Speaker 1: on my bedroom door to let me know who was done,
Speaker 1: and so we went outside and talked. His eyes were bloodshot, red,
Speaker 1: tears streaming down his face, and we hugged as he
Speaker 1: told me, I wasn't ready for that. She just doesn't
Speaker 1: look like her, and Jason was spot on. Mom didn't
Speaker 1: look like she normally looked. Cancer was ravaging her body.
Speaker 1: By the second, her pure snow white skin had turned yellowish,
Speaker 1: her beautiful face had become skeletal, her body frail, her
Speaker 1: mind and her heart were there though, as big as
Speaker 1: they ever were. Jason told me that he had promised
Speaker 1: her he'd watch over me, and that made me cry
Speaker 1: even more. Here was my mom, literally on her deathbed,
Speaker 1: still more concerned about how I will be than being
Speaker 1: concerned over what she's going through. But that's Mom, always
Speaker 1: thinking of others. As Jason and the rest of my
Speaker 1: family said there goodbyes to each other and to me,
Speaker 1: and friends were popping over to say they're goodbyes to Mom,
Speaker 1: I couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't really happy
Speaker 1: in ing. It really was a feeling that started when
Speaker 1: she was diagnosed, and a feeling that continues to this
Speaker 1: very day. I can't believe any of it is real.
Speaker 1: I intellectually know that it's happening, but it doesn't feel real.
Speaker 1: I would also fantasize that maybe once she passes, she'll
Speaker 1: come back. I had read during one of my Google
Speaker 1: fons of googling everything related to the latest and pancreatic
Speaker 1: cancer treatments, that there was this woman who had cancer.
Speaker 1: She was then pronounced clinically dead, and then she came back.
Speaker 1: Her name is Anita more Johnny, and she wrote a
Speaker 1: book about her experience called Dying to be Me my
Speaker 1: journey from cancer to near death to true healing and
Speaker 1: Anita and her story just suddenly popped in my mind
Speaker 1: as I was standing outside of my parents house. Maybe
Speaker 1: that would be mom. Maybe God will pull through with
Speaker 1: that last minute miracle. I believe that it can happen.
Speaker 1: Now will it happen? That is the question. Near death experiences,
Speaker 1: referred to as n d s are much more common
Speaker 1: than we think. While once thought to be pseudo science,
Speaker 1: more and more research has been done on the phenomena
Speaker 1: and the data is showing that something is happening with
Speaker 1: these people that cannot be explained. In a group of
Speaker 1: doctors in China inadvertently captured some interesting data when a
Speaker 1: patient when under cardiac arrest while undergoing a brain scan.
Speaker 1: What they found was that the brain scan showed the
Speaker 1: same exact type of brain activity before and after the
Speaker 1: heart stop that someone does when they're recalling memories in
Speaker 1: their life. This is super interesting because this tracks with
Speaker 1: so many nd ears experiences of their life flashing before
Speaker 1: their eyes right before they passed. But how much science
Speaker 1: is behind near death experiences? Surprisingly, there's a lot, and
Speaker 1: the science is growing every day, I sat down with
Speaker 1: Dr Janice Holden, the president of International Association for Near
Speaker 1: Death Studies, to discuss near death experiences. Dr Holden was
Speaker 1: the perfect person to discuss this with as she served
Speaker 1: as a professor at the University of North Texas and
Speaker 1: the Counseling Program, retiring as Professor Emirata. Her research career
Speaker 1: over thirty one years at u n T focused on
Speaker 1: near death experiences and after death communication. I wanted to
Speaker 1: know if there was some kind of typical experience that
Speaker 1: people had before they pass Dr Holden explains near death
Speaker 1: experiences occur during any close brush with death, and so
Speaker 1: if a person is very ill or has a very
Speaker 1: serious injury, and they might have a near death experience.
Speaker 1: And what we know now from researches that of all
Speaker 1: the people who survive a close brush with death from whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, a car accident, surgery, you know, any any illness,
Speaker 1: anything you can think of about don't remember anything unusual.
Speaker 1: But about ten to twenty percent remember their consciousness functioning
Speaker 1: very lucidly. And the two main aspects of the experience, well,
Speaker 1: there's the experience that some people have of their consciousness
Speaker 1: actually leaving their body and at the end of the
Speaker 1: experience returning to their body. But in between, they are
Speaker 1: perceiving the material world from a position outside their body,
Speaker 1: and or they're perceiving and interacting with beings and environments
Speaker 1: that are not of the material world. And so those
Speaker 1: those two, those are the two main aspects of the experience.
Speaker 1: My it's interesting that you say that because my mom
Speaker 1: who passed just about three months before. My mom, I
Speaker 1: was lucky enough to be able to sit with her
Speaker 1: in her final hours and hold her hand, and and
Speaker 1: she began talking to her mom who you know, she
Speaker 1: was talking to her as if she was standing at
Speaker 1: her bedside, and it got me to thinking it was
Speaker 1: plain at day to her. I didn't know exactly what
Speaker 1: was happening, but I didn't certainly want to ruin that,
Speaker 1: you know, so as as she was talking to me,
Speaker 1: I was going with it. Yeah. Is that something that's
Speaker 1: common that that people report seeing their loved ones to
Speaker 1: kind of bring them to the other side or Well,
Speaker 1: what you're describing is there there are a group of
Speaker 1: different phenomena surrounding death, and what you're describing is what's
Speaker 1: called nearing death awareness, where someone who's terminally ill and
Speaker 1: they're about to die, often sees deceased loved ones, so
Speaker 1: they have actually after death communication with deceased loved ones,
Speaker 1: and the purpose of the communication it's virtually always very
Speaker 1: comforting to the dying person, and the purpose seems to
Speaker 1: be to reassure them that, uh, they're not going to
Speaker 1: be alone in their transition process, that that there will
Speaker 1: be people there who love and care for them. Is
Speaker 1: that unknown? Why? I read somewhere that some doctors somewhere
Speaker 1: was like, oh, well, that's just lack of oxygen to
Speaker 1: the brain or something. But to me, from what I've
Speaker 1: read and seen, there's got to be more to it
Speaker 1: than that that people are specifically seeing that specific thing
Speaker 1: over and over and over again people, no matter what
Speaker 1: the culture and that sort of thing. Is there a
Speaker 1: science behind that? Is it as of yet unexplainable? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, most of these experiences are just personal, subjective
Speaker 1: experiences that can't be verified objectively. But there is a
Speaker 1: phenomenon and that's really been the primary focus of my research.
Speaker 1: Uh for the reason that we're we're getting at um
Speaker 1: called vertical perception, and that's where during the experience, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's a an experience like your grandmother had, or
Speaker 1: a near death experience, or some other death related experience
Speaker 1: like after death communication. That can happen to people under
Speaker 1: any circumstances where they'll have perceived the presence of their
Speaker 1: deceased loved one. There's this phenomenon where um they get
Speaker 1: information from the experience that based on the condition position,
Speaker 1: everything they know, they couldn't possibly know this, and yet
Speaker 1: it's later verified to be accurate. So, for example, in
Speaker 1: after death communication, there's a man whom his name is
Speaker 1: John Wigglesworth. His father died and a few days after
Speaker 1: he was at his parents house helping his mom clean
Speaker 1: out his father's stuff, and he remembered that his father
Speaker 1: had told him a few years before that he the
Speaker 1: father had bought a gun and just wanted it in
Speaker 1: the house for protection. He hadn't told anybody about it,
Speaker 1: even his wife. He didn't want her to be worried
Speaker 1: about it, and he kept it in the closet in
Speaker 1: his bedroom, up on a shelf. And so he said
Speaker 1: to his son, you know, John, whenever the time comes,
Speaker 1: I hope you'll go and retrieve it from the house,
Speaker 1: because your mom wouldn't know what to do with it.
Speaker 1: So here he is in the perfect opportunity and he
Speaker 1: searches all around belongs to re short. He didn't find
Speaker 1: it there, he didn't find it anywhere, safe deposit box car.
Speaker 1: He just looked everywhere, could not find the gun. Thought well,
Speaker 1: maybe his father had gotten rid of it and hadn't
Speaker 1: mentioned it. He he just didn't know. So a few
Speaker 1: days later, he's asleep and he has this experience while
Speaker 1: he's asleep, which I'm not going to call a dream,
Speaker 1: because when people have these experiences, they usually report that
Speaker 1: they're qualitatively different than a dream. You know, dreams are
Speaker 1: irrational and and emotional, and these just seem like very
Speaker 1: genuine encounters with the discarnate, which is, you know, a
Speaker 1: word for the deceased. And in this experience, he's in
Speaker 1: his parents home and he's walking down the stairs into
Speaker 1: the basement and his father's calling to him from above,
Speaker 1: and he's saying, you know, go down the stairs, down
Speaker 1: the hall, into my dark room. Keep going into the
Speaker 1: dark room. Across the room to this cabinet. Pulled the
Speaker 1: cabinet away from the wall, and you'll find the gun
Speaker 1: lodged between the cabinet and the wall. And so the
Speaker 1: next morning, John wakes up. He remembers his experience. He
Speaker 1: wrestles with himself. He thinks, you know, that can't possibly
Speaker 1: be dreams, are you know, fantasy? But it gets the
Speaker 1: better of him. He goes to his parents house, Mom,
Speaker 1: you minded fell look around now whatever. He goes downstairs
Speaker 1: into the dark room to the cabinet, pulls it away
Speaker 1: from the wall. There's the gun. And if he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know why my father moved it. I don't
Speaker 1: know why you put it there. He never told me.
Speaker 1: I never knew, except I learned from him after he passed.
Speaker 1: So there are accounts of people who found like missing
Speaker 1: wills and things that like the discarnate had taped an
Speaker 1: insurance document in the nightstand, pull out the drawer and
Speaker 1: had taped it up above like this. So it's something
Speaker 1: you would never find unless you knew to look there,
Speaker 1: and he had hidden it there, and they found it
Speaker 1: and got his insurance benefit. And there are cases like
Speaker 1: this of near death experiences where like a woman is
Speaker 1: in surgery and um, she unexpectedly flatlines, and so important
Speaker 1: to know that in the surgery, um, they were doing
Speaker 1: some kind of abdominal surgery, and so her face and
Speaker 1: head were completely covered, her eyes were taped shut. After
Speaker 1: a few minutes they're able to resuscitate her. Of course,
Speaker 1: the whole time she remains completely anesthetized. They finished the surgery,
Speaker 1: take her to recovery, and they're The surgeon comes to
Speaker 1: see her once she's you know, awakened kind of back,
Speaker 1: to find out how she's doing, and she says to him,
Speaker 1: I know that I died during the surgery. And he's like,
Speaker 1: how do you know that? And she said, well, because
Speaker 1: I saw, from says up above looking through the ceiling,
Speaker 1: and I could see, you know, you did this, and
Speaker 1: this person did that, and then somebody came in and
Speaker 1: did this and then left. So they were only there
Speaker 1: during the cardiac resuscitation part. When she was complete, she
Speaker 1: was dead actually, And he's astounded because all that is accurate.
Speaker 1: But then which in my thinking, it's like if he
Speaker 1: knew anything, which a lot of doctors don't. But there's
Speaker 1: extensive research and there are hundreds of accounts like this,
Speaker 1: But she said, um, like I said, I was up
Speaker 1: above the ceiling looking through and I could see into
Speaker 1: the adjacent operating room and there they were amputating a
Speaker 1: man's leg, and when they finished, they put the leg
Speaker 1: into a yellow plastic bag to dispose of it. And
Speaker 1: he's like, what, because he says, I don't even know it.
Speaker 1: Else is being scheduled in the hospital. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't pay attention. But now, of course it's a couple
Speaker 1: hours after the surgery, and he goes to the hospital
Speaker 1: records and finds out that, in fact, while he was
Speaker 1: doing the surgery on her, they were amputating a man's
Speaker 1: leg in the next Star operating room, And because it
Speaker 1: was specialized for amputation, he'd never been in it before,
Speaker 1: but at this particular moment it was empty, so he
Speaker 1: went and peeked in, and there he saw the yellow
Speaker 1: plastic bags they used to dispose of amputated body parts,
Speaker 1: and so it's kind of like, how could she know this? Well?
Speaker 1: As I said, there are hundreds of accounts like this,
Speaker 1: and just recently they've been collected into a book called
Speaker 1: The Self Does Not Die. So you can read one
Speaker 1: account after another, most of them submitted by physicians who
Speaker 1: were the witnesses to verify that what the person reported
Speaker 1: was accurate, and they're from all over the world, and
Speaker 1: it's just very very indicative that Even though most of
Speaker 1: these types of experiences, near death experiences, nearing death awareness
Speaker 1: after death communication are subjective and don't include vertical information,
Speaker 1: those that do are almost always completely accurate. And when
Speaker 1: they happen to people who are during the perception, their
Speaker 1: heart was stopped, so they were essentially dead for you know, temporarily,
Speaker 1: and the information they received was very idiosyncratic and nothing
Speaker 1: that they could have possibly known. Like one man um
Speaker 1: during his surgical crisis, left his body and he floated
Speaker 1: up through the hospital floors and when he of course,
Speaker 1: they resuscitated and finish the surgery. When he came to,
Speaker 1: he was talking to an ears and he's and he
Speaker 1: told her what happened, and he said it was really
Speaker 1: weird though, because the floor right above the operating room
Speaker 1: there were like people who were frozen in place, and
Speaker 1: these computer modules and and he just described various things.
Speaker 1: Well unbeknownst to him, how why would he know right
Speaker 1: above the operating room was their training room where they
Speaker 1: had mannequins and you know, where they practiced CPR and
Speaker 1: all these different things with the computers and the and
Speaker 1: all the kind of stuff that he saw. But he
Speaker 1: saw it while he was rising up through the hospital
Speaker 1: room levels. So you know, how could somebody know that
Speaker 1: unless their consciousness really was out of their body. So
Speaker 1: these these vertical experience indicate that the experiences that don't
Speaker 1: involve vertical information maybe just as objectively real even though
Speaker 1: they don't have the evidence for them. That's incredible and
Speaker 1: for me it makes sense. But you know, as as
Speaker 1: a as also a science type person, it's also undeniable,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I mean, when you have
Speaker 1: all of these accounts of like you said, there's no
Speaker 1: way that you could know these things, that is something
Speaker 1: that there's something to do that you know right right. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, interestingly, people who are I don't call them skeptics,
Speaker 1: I call them cynics because they're they're not just skeptic
Speaker 1: really means open mindedly, you know, just staying neutral and
Speaker 1: trying to get all the information. But there are people
Speaker 1: who just believe that this is not possible, and so
Speaker 1: they try to put forth explanations for how these things
Speaker 1: can happen, like, um, oh, the person must have overheard
Speaker 1: nurses talking about this and don't remember overhearing it. Well,
Speaker 1: that might happen in one situation, but when you've got
Speaker 1: you know, more than a hundred accounts, and nobody is
Speaker 1: saying I actually heard people talking about this, and just then,
Speaker 1: you know, kindued up the image. They're not saying that,
Speaker 1: they're saying I experienced this. It just doesn't it doesn't
Speaker 1: hold water. What is some of the other phenomenon you know,
Speaker 1: you talked about in regards to my my mom with
Speaker 1: the visiting of loved ones? What are some of the
Speaker 1: other phenomenon that is either you know, common or has
Speaker 1: happened or well. Um, The two things that I'm most
Speaker 1: knowledgeable about, though I do have knowledge of some of
Speaker 1: the other kinds of phenomena that happened around death are
Speaker 1: near death experiences where the person does have a close
Speaker 1: brush with death that then they survive and go on
Speaker 1: to you know, live the rest of their life. And
Speaker 1: after death communication where a living person and perceives the
Speaker 1: presence of a deceased loved one, and that presence can
Speaker 1: take any of a number of forms. Um and so
Speaker 1: so both of those things happen, So they're um in
Speaker 1: terms of the experience that experiences themselves. Of course, they're
Speaker 1: different because in the near death experience, the person's uh
Speaker 1: for the almost all near death experiences or experiencers will
Speaker 1: say that their consciousness was outside their body and either
Speaker 1: observing the material world or observing and interacting with beings
Speaker 1: and environments not of the material world. And after death communication,
Speaker 1: the living person continues to just live, you know, and
Speaker 1: they don't have the sense of their consciousness leaving their body.
Speaker 1: They had the sense of the deceased coming to be
Speaker 1: with them, as in the case of your your grandmother's experience.
Speaker 1: So so phenomenologically they're different, but um. But what they
Speaker 1: have in common is that in the Western world, um,
Speaker 1: at least many cultures of the Western world, not all. UM,
Speaker 1: these phenomena, because they involve interaction with with non material
Speaker 1: beings and environments, they're just looked on negatively. Um as uh.
Speaker 1: You know, the prevailing view in sciences and materialism, the
Speaker 1: idea that everything arises from a physical source. And so
Speaker 1: if you have an experience like this, it's just your
Speaker 1: mind playing tricks on you. You know, like you said,
Speaker 1: lack of oxygen to the brain, blah blah blah, and um.
Speaker 1: The problem is that, like with things like um after
Speaker 1: death communication, people have those experiences when they're perfectly healthy,
Speaker 1: so there's no of oxygen to the brain or um
Speaker 1: any other explanation that can consistently explain all cases. And
Speaker 1: the same is true with near death experiences. We know
Speaker 1: from research that in cases where people who survived cardiac
Speaker 1: arrest were monitored for their blood oxygen level, there was
Speaker 1: no relationship between how much oxygen was in their brain
Speaker 1: and whether or not they reported a near death experience.
Speaker 1: So that explanation just doesn't hold water and um, and
Speaker 1: the same can be said of every theory that's developed.
Speaker 1: Like one physician thought that more people who have had
Speaker 1: near death experiences also report sleep sleep paralysis. So so
Speaker 1: this one doctor hypothesized that there might be a relationship
Speaker 1: with sleep paralysis, and he found higher reports of sleep
Speaker 1: paralysis among near death experiencers, but not everybody. You know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of your death experiencers who have
Speaker 1: never experienced sleep paralysis. So it just doesn't it just
Speaker 1: doesn't hold water. And so you can just go through
Speaker 1: the list and and essentially shoot down the validity of
Speaker 1: anything that's been explained, except and then when you take
Speaker 1: political perception on the other hand, and say, you know,
Speaker 1: there are all these cases where people have gotten information
Speaker 1: that there's just no way to explain how they could
Speaker 1: have gotten except that they were actually like out of
Speaker 1: their body or communicating with a deceased loved one. Then
Speaker 1: you know, it's it just points to the that there's
Speaker 1: a reality to the experiences. And what I find interesting
Speaker 1: about this is that there are so many commonalities. And
Speaker 1: again it's it's irregardless of religion or spirituality or you know,
Speaker 1: where they live or whatever. What are some of those Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, you're absolutely right that we know from
Speaker 1: research that near death experiences are equal opportunity experiences. They
Speaker 1: happen to every demographic, anything, any characteristic you can think
Speaker 1: of it differentiates people. Has not shown a differentiation for
Speaker 1: near death experiences, so they just happened to everybody, anybody.
Speaker 1: Um So, some people actually report the experience of leaving
Speaker 1: their body, their consciousness leaving their body, not everybody does.
Speaker 1: And then some near death experiencers report perceiving the material
Speaker 1: world from above, and usually it's above their body, outside
Speaker 1: their body, usually above, and in that process, the material
Speaker 1: world appears just the same as it does to us,
Speaker 1: you know, when we're in our bodies, and their additional
Speaker 1: factors like our features, like the person can both see
Speaker 1: and see through a wall. The person their location changes
Speaker 1: based they move at the speed of thought, like if
Speaker 1: the person thinks, oh my gosh, you know, um, I
Speaker 1: must be dead. They're looking down, they see this body
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, oh wait a minute, that's that's me. Well,
Speaker 1: I must be dead. Oh my gosh, I wonder where
Speaker 1: mom and dad are and then boom, there in the
Speaker 1: waiting room of the hospital where mom and dad are sitting.
Speaker 1: Mom is praying, Dad is reading magazine. And you know,
Speaker 1: of course, later the person can report what they were
Speaker 1: doing at the time of the of the medical crisis.
Speaker 1: So there's that perception of the physical world, um, and
Speaker 1: these special features of being in that in that state.
Speaker 1: And then some people have an experience of uh moving
Speaker 1: rapidly through some structure or through space and like really fast,
Speaker 1: like hum you know, Star Wars kind of speed. And
Speaker 1: sometimes they perceive that they're moving through something that looks
Speaker 1: like a tunnel. But the tunnel is different to different people,
Speaker 1: Like some say it's dark with the light at the end.
Speaker 1: Some say that the tunnel itself is light and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. So, and it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: a tunnel, it could be a space or something like that.
Speaker 1: But typically there's movement towards a light, and once the
Speaker 1: person I'm calling their consciousness, the person you know, reaches
Speaker 1: the light, they discovered that the light is a being
Speaker 1: and this being exudes absolute complete knowledge of the person
Speaker 1: and absolute complete love, and so the person feels absolutely known,
Speaker 1: absolutely loved, and a lot their death experiencers who never
Speaker 1: met each other say that the experience of being in
Speaker 1: the light is coming home with capital H O M E.
Speaker 1: This is this is like where they essentially feel the safest,
Speaker 1: feel like they're from. They know it's familiar and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Well, while in the presence of the
Speaker 1: being of light, some people have a life review and
Speaker 1: they both review and re experience typically every moment of
Speaker 1: their life, but also simultaneously, while they're re experiencing it personally,
Speaker 1: they're also at the same time observing it as a
Speaker 1: third person and and they're also experiencing being every person
Speaker 1: with whom they interacted, so that if they said something
Speaker 1: nice to the person, they experience being the person and
Speaker 1: receiving that positive message and how that felt. If they
Speaker 1: mistreated the person, they experience the mistreatment and um not
Speaker 1: uncommonly when people you know, inevitably encounter situations where they
Speaker 1: mistreated somebody else they feel like shame or regret or
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, and the Being of Light is
Speaker 1: not judgmental. They tends to be kind of philosophical and
Speaker 1: most often inviting the person to reflect on what they
Speaker 1: learned from that experience. And so when you know, to
Speaker 1: fast forward a little bit after the person is you know,
Speaker 1: survives and returns to physical life. This is one of
Speaker 1: the aspects of the near death experience that's most impactful
Speaker 1: because then now people know everything I do to you,
Speaker 1: say to you, even think about you, I'm gonna experience
Speaker 1: being on the receiving end of that. And so it
Speaker 1: informs people's decisions moment to moment, and um not in
Speaker 1: a burden some way, because there's also the knowledge that
Speaker 1: you know, if I screw up, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be like damned or anything like that, but just the
Speaker 1: they're not wanting to engender in other people the suffering
Speaker 1: that they know that they would be engendering if they
Speaker 1: do something you know, harmful. So then often people sometimes
Speaker 1: following the encounter with the Being of Light, they moved
Speaker 1: to other trans material you know, not of the material
Speaker 1: world environments and encounter deceased loved ones like you know,
Speaker 1: you would see your grandmother again or um, your mom
Speaker 1: or that sort of thing, and also interact with other
Speaker 1: spiritual beings um some of whom may seem to maybe
Speaker 1: have lived as humans and some not necessarily and usually
Speaker 1: for there's like wisdom, guidance and things like that that
Speaker 1: is engendered for the person, and there maybe other aspects,
Speaker 1: you know. Sometimes people encounter these beautiful environments. Sometimes they're preternatural.
Speaker 1: With grass, every blade of grass has its own consciousness
Speaker 1: and the beautiful music that is nothing like people see
Speaker 1: on earth. People say in these environments they see colors
Speaker 1: that they never saw on earth. And sometimes people see
Speaker 1: like cities of light and knowledge where entities are doing work.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know exactly what. So people see
Speaker 1: things like that as well. And then there's the return
Speaker 1: to the body against Some people experience actually returning re
Speaker 1: entering their physical body, and others don't. If they do
Speaker 1: perceive themselves leaving their body and are returning to their body,
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily the same between two people. One person
Speaker 1: might you know, the tap of their head, another through
Speaker 1: their chest, another just have a sense of a full
Speaker 1: body exit. It just it varies from person to person.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's the the experience itself. As I
Speaker 1: struggled with my own spiritual beliefs, I had to wonder
Speaker 1: if people that had near death experiences had any kind
Speaker 1: of similarities in their spiritual beliefs. Do Christians have nd
Speaker 1: ease less than Jewish people? Do atheists see a light
Speaker 1: and experience what a Christian person may call heaven? Coming
Speaker 1: up next, Dr Holden explains it all through mom's cancer journey,
Speaker 1: I had been going back and forth in a struggle
Speaker 1: with my faith. While I would definitely consider myself spiritual
Speaker 1: more than religious, I had fallen back on my Catholic
Speaker 1: upbringing and mom's time of need. After all, what better
Speaker 1: way to get through something than to rely on a
Speaker 1: higher power to do it for you. So that made
Speaker 1: me wonder do people who have strong religious faith experience
Speaker 1: nd ease more or less than somebody who doesn't believe
Speaker 1: in a higher power? Does one religion experience NDEs more
Speaker 1: than another? Dr Holden dives in, Sometimes it explicitly represents
Speaker 1: itself as Jesus. Let's say, sometimes the person themselves interprets
Speaker 1: they and they'll say, he didn't say he was Jesus,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure it was. And then sometimes the person
Speaker 1: will say, you know, I met this wise beyond anything
Speaker 1: being and they don't try to put a label on
Speaker 1: it at all. So it really just depends culture, including
Speaker 1: our cultural beliefs, including our religious beliefs, may influence what
Speaker 1: we see are how we see it. It certainly influences
Speaker 1: how we interpret it and so. But people are not
Speaker 1: in any way limited to perceiving things that their religious
Speaker 1: or cultural background prepared them for. Um. There are often
Speaker 1: surprising things that happened that contradict what the person would
Speaker 1: have thought. And one example is that sometimes in n
Speaker 1: d s people see previous lives and future lives, and
Speaker 1: this happens to people of all belief systems, even agnostics
Speaker 1: who don't believe that the consciousness even survives physical death
Speaker 1: more or less reincarnation or something like that. So after
Speaker 1: these experiences, people are much more likely to believe in
Speaker 1: reincarnation based on the their experience of what they knew,
Speaker 1: you know, um happened to them. And by the way,
Speaker 1: near death experiences people almost always report that the experience
Speaker 1: was as real or more real than this reality. And
Speaker 1: I remember when I was doing my dissertation, I read
Speaker 1: one of the participants responses to my question about the
Speaker 1: extent to which they believed the experience was real, and
Speaker 1: he wrote, the experience was more real than sitting here
Speaker 1: writing this response to you. I still get chills when
Speaker 1: I when I recount that, it just really struck me.
Speaker 1: Uh So, subjectively, people usually are not at all doubting
Speaker 1: of what they experience. Now, sometimes people are, um, they
Speaker 1: because the experience can be so different from what our
Speaker 1: culture prepares us for that it just like isn't making
Speaker 1: sense and can the person kind of tends to pooh
Speaker 1: pooh it. But then usually the experience continues to press
Speaker 1: itself on them, you know, and and they start to
Speaker 1: really consider the possibility that that there's a lot more
Speaker 1: than what our culture ever prepared us for. That's incredible.
Speaker 1: And they ramifications of that um challenge a lot of
Speaker 1: what we can explain in black and white, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's that's a powerful thing. It is what is
Speaker 1: something that you've seen? You know? When they come back,
Speaker 1: do they want to go back to that place again
Speaker 1: once their consciousness has come back to our place? Or
Speaker 1: are they content with I'm going to get there again,
Speaker 1: but now I have a different meaning with my life
Speaker 1: going forward, or or speak a little bit about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually both of what you said and and actually those
Speaker 1: things can coexist. I've heard a lot of near death
Speaker 1: experiencers talk about this deep longing to return to you know,
Speaker 1: this wonderful experience, um. And at the same time, in
Speaker 1: the experience, people tend to learn that our lives have meaning,
Speaker 1: our lives are important. We're here for a reason. The reason,
Speaker 1: according to near death experiencers in general, is to advance
Speaker 1: in our capacity to love and to acquire knowledge and
Speaker 1: so so at the same time that they really want
Speaker 1: that they're satisfied with I won't say satisfied, but they're
Speaker 1: willing to stay and and play out what they were
Speaker 1: intended to get from this lifetime. Mm hmm wow. What
Speaker 1: is if any um? Is there a trend in how people,
Speaker 1: you know, once they have come back and how they
Speaker 1: go forward from then, like for in other words, like
Speaker 1: do you see they start to volunteer more so you
Speaker 1: know anything like right, yeah, well yeah, And this is
Speaker 1: the other aspect that's been very well researched is the
Speaker 1: after effects of near death experiences, and generally speaking, you know,
Speaker 1: near death experiences themselves can range in depth, like somebody
Speaker 1: might just like pop out of their body, see the
Speaker 1: scene of the car accident and then pop back in
Speaker 1: and that's it. And other people have these extensive experiences
Speaker 1: with all these trans material entities and all this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And generally speaking, the deeper than near death experience,
Speaker 1: the more intense the after effect. But even that isn't
Speaker 1: always the case. I've seen some people who had very
Speaker 1: quick end ease who had pretty powerful after effects, and
Speaker 1: the after effects we know from research now tend to
Speaker 1: fall into what I like to categorize in four categories,
Speaker 1: so their psychological after effects. The biggest one is that
Speaker 1: almost everybody who's had a near death experience completely loses
Speaker 1: their fear of death. They know from experience that their
Speaker 1: consciousness is going to continue, so they don't have anything
Speaker 1: to fear. And like one near death experiencers said, dying
Speaker 1: is like walking from this room into the next. It's
Speaker 1: just like that. So there's no fear now. They may
Speaker 1: still fear the dying process nobody wants to suffer, but
Speaker 1: death itself they don't fear. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: they value life more and really appreciate that there are
Speaker 1: things that we can waste, that we can develop at
Speaker 1: this level of reality that aren't available at any other
Speaker 1: level of reality. So they appreciate the unique opportunity that
Speaker 1: life on earth brings. They tend to become much less
Speaker 1: materialistic concerned about material things. They still enjoy material things,
Speaker 1: but they just don't have the attachment to them that
Speaker 1: some people have, and and they become less concerned about
Speaker 1: things like fame and um, you know, other kind of
Speaker 1: fleeting fleeting things in physical existence. So those are some
Speaker 1: of the psychological aspects. UM. Then there are spiritual aspects,
Speaker 1: and many people after ends become very interested in spirituality
Speaker 1: and will read and like try out different churches and
Speaker 1: things like that. Interestingly, most end years, UH, if they
Speaker 1: were affiliated with religion prior to their n D, they
Speaker 1: disaffiliate after not because of like rejection, but just because
Speaker 1: no religion is big enough to explain everything they experienced.
Speaker 1: But some become even more involved in their in their religion.
Speaker 1: So there's no like one um pattern. But I will say,
Speaker 1: like I have a friend who's Catholic and he became
Speaker 1: a deacon after his near death experience, but in his
Speaker 1: first homily he talked about near death experiences. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like you just can't escape it. And uh,
Speaker 1: people develop what in some religious systems are called spiritual gifts.
Speaker 1: There's psychic abilities, people foresee the future, they know what
Speaker 1: other people are experiencing, telepathy, and even developed psychokinesis um so,
Speaker 1: which is the ability to move things without the use
Speaker 1: of physical force. So so there's the kind of spiritual thing.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about psychological and spiritual. Then there are
Speaker 1: physical changes. A lot of near death experiencers change their diet.
Speaker 1: Many stop eating meat. But I have an end to
Speaker 1: ear friend, Linda Jackman, who has to have meat every day.
Speaker 1: So again there's no one thing. But there are these tendencies,
Speaker 1: and they tend to need less sleep. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: there's this phenomenon related to psychokinesis where electronic things in
Speaker 1: their vicinity tend to malfunction and so cell phones drop,
Speaker 1: computers crash. But that that happens to all of us,
Speaker 1: but we know from research that it happens significantly more
Speaker 1: to people who have near death experiences. And we know
Speaker 1: that from that research that it happens more when they're
Speaker 1: emotionally aroused, and it could be anger or elation. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what the emotion and is. It's like emotionality
Speaker 1: generates some kind of energy that makes things go koflui
Speaker 1: around them. So the one thing that they usually have
Speaker 1: to learn to do if if that happens, is calm themselves.
Speaker 1: You know, if your computer crashes right in the middle
Speaker 1: of something, you tend to want to get more angry.
Speaker 1: What they know they have to do is um, you know,
Speaker 1: and and kind of and then the computer comes back
Speaker 1: and things work okay. So it's a kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting process. So we've talked about psychological, spiritual, physical, and
Speaker 1: then social, so all these other changes reverberate in people's
Speaker 1: social worlds. A lot of times people will say after
Speaker 1: their near death experience that when they regain consciousness following
Speaker 1: the experience or as soon as the experience was over,
Speaker 1: because you don't have to lose consciousness actually to have
Speaker 1: in your death experience, as soon as it was over,
Speaker 1: they felt transformed. They just felt different and their values
Speaker 1: were different, you know, the things that we've talked about,
Speaker 1: And so imagine if you're married, and again we know
Speaker 1: from research when people marry, they tend to have in Western,
Speaker 1: in you know, US culture, they tend to have similar values.
Speaker 1: And then if one of the people has a near
Speaker 1: death experience and their values veer off towards you know,
Speaker 1: non violence and you know, concern for others and no
Speaker 1: concern about going shopping again and can't watch TV anymore
Speaker 1: because of the violence on it and all that, those
Speaker 1: people tend to divorce. If their values diverge, they tend
Speaker 1: to divorce, and the divorce rate is higher than uh
Speaker 1: than the national average for if a person is married
Speaker 1: when they have their n D. But there are a
Speaker 1: few cases where the living person who never had a
Speaker 1: near death experience started out having somewhat more n D
Speaker 1: like values. And so then when this and has their
Speaker 1: n D E, their values converge and they report they
Speaker 1: stay together and they're happier than ever. So if values diverge,
Speaker 1: they divorce. If they converge, they continue. So those are
Speaker 1: that's just one of the ways that the social world reverberates.
Speaker 1: A lot of people change jobs. A mafia hitman who
Speaker 1: has had a near death experience just can't do it
Speaker 1: anymore and becomes a high school teacher. So I always
Speaker 1: laughed because I was a high school teacher once and
Speaker 1: I often thought that being able to hit people would
Speaker 1: be valuable. I'm just kidding. Um, Yeah, And people change
Speaker 1: their affiliations, they change the way their own priorities in life.
Speaker 1: So you know, the pastimes that they did, the organizations
Speaker 1: they affiliated themselves with, those all can change, and usually
Speaker 1: in the direction of you know, charity, caring, benefiting humanity
Speaker 1: and the planet and things like that. So there is,
Speaker 1: in fact, plenty of science behind near death experiences, and
Speaker 1: the science is growing every single day. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: there has to be something to this where so many
Speaker 1: people from all different walks of life have all experienced
Speaker 1: similar things, and for so many of them to be
Speaker 1: able to explain things that there's no way they would
Speaker 1: know what was happening on the floor above them, for instance,
Speaker 1: and what the people were wearing on that floor. How
Speaker 1: else would you know that there's definitely something to this,
Speaker 1: whether science can explain the specifics yet or not. So
Speaker 1: if Mom did go, could she come back? I prayed
Speaker 1: to God and every other deity known demand for that
Speaker 1: to happen, and ultimately only time would tell. It's quite
Speaker 1: clear that there's a growing mountain of science behind near
Speaker 1: death experiences. But it seems that, for whatever reason, NDEs
Speaker 1: have been much more often with people who had sudden
Speaker 1: deaths and ultimately rebirths. And while those last few days
Speaker 1: on Mom's cancer journey were so inconceivably hard, I did
Speaker 1: take comfort in Mom's words, I'll always be there. Just
Speaker 1: talk to me. I'm there and Mom had never broken
Speaker 1: a promise to me, and I believe with all of
Speaker 1: my heart that she won't start now. On the next
Speaker 1: episode of Death, Grief and Other Ship, we don't discuss
Speaker 1: I discuss the day I lost my mom and the
Speaker 1: ramifications of those moments in that final day. Then you've
Speaker 1: heard of midwives, but have you heard of death dulas.
Speaker 1: I speak with death dula Karen Karnats all about what
Speaker 1: death dulas do. Then I speak with Dr John Goodu,
Speaker 1: chief of Christiana Cares Hospice and Palliative Care, will explore
Speaker 1: the differences of hospice and palliative care, how to handle it,
Speaker 1: and more. For more information and resources, please visit our
Speaker 1: website at Death and Grief dot Show and joined the
Speaker 1: conversation on our Facebook and Twitter. Come mother, she said,
Speaker 1: she me me, I'm just school avertorny, I'm just school.
Speaker 1: Were over.