1. “According to our concept, which is based on the reported aspects of consciousness experienced during cardiac arrest, we can conclude that our consciousness could be based on fields of information, consisting of waves, and that it originates in the phase-space”.
Q: If we assume that consciousness originates in, yet is outside of the brain, can we call this consciousness “spirit” and when is this spirit able to intertwine with another spiritual existence?
2. “During life we can receive aspects of our consciousness into our body as our waking consciousness. During cardiac arrest, the functioning of the brain and of other cells in our body stops because of anoxia. The electromagnetic fields of our neurons and other cells disappear, and the possibility of resonance, the interface between consciousness and our physical body is interrupted, and our heightened consciousness may be experienced outside the body, sometimes in another dimension without our material concept of time and space”.
Q. My first experience was a NDE due to severe pneumonia at age 15. The body’s function had been subdued and the brain was in stasis.
In November 2001, at my age 60, after the World Trade Center Tragedy, my mind was preoccupied with how supposedly; Islamists, or religious people could commit such acts. I then attempted and succeeded in executing two similar near-death episodes. I placed myself into a trance by using self-hypnosis. I mentally repeated the words “How is this possible” until mental oblivion set in, then the subconscious or spirit seemed to take over and my spiritual adventure began.
After my last two experiences my mind was somewhat trance-like or in a daze for a couple of days and my spirit seemed to pre-occupy my mental faculties for several months afterwards, endeavouring to interpret what had transpired. I have since that time unsuccessfully attempted to repeat these episodes several times. Does your research confirm that deep mental stress could be a contributing factor toward these incidents?
3. “Such understanding fundamentally changes one’s opinion about death, because of the almost unavoidable conclusion that at the time of physical death consciousness will continue to be experienced in another dimension, in an invisible and immaterial world, the phase-space, in which all past, present and future is enclosed. Research on NDE cannot give us the irrefutable scientific proof of this conclusion, because people with an NDE did not quite die, but they all were very, very close to death, without a functioning brain”.
Q. Is this phase-space possibly the fourth dimension? Science has recently somewhat replicated NDE’s through inductions of electrical currents on the brain and people have experienced bliss and seeing invisible lights, but have you had any patients experience more than one vivid, graphic experience similar to mine?
4. “The conclusion that consciousness can be experienced independently of brain function might well induce a huge change in the scientific paradigm in western medicine, and could have practical implications in actual medical and ethical problems such as the care for comatose or dying patients, euthanasia, abortion, and the removal of organs for transplantation from somebody in the dying process with a beating heart in a warm body but a diagnosis of brain death”.
Q. Isn’t a brain dead person diagnosed as completely being incapable of receiving stimuli?
“There are still more questions than answers, but, based on the aforementioned theoretical aspects of the obviously experienced continuity of our consciousness, we finally should consider the possibility that death, like birth, may well be a mere passing from one state of consciousness to another”.
Q. I agree. Will you conduct further research that extends past NDE’s in order to find out if other people have had similar experiences as I have? Is there a possibility that the people who are written about in the Bible had spiritual interactions and that these interactions were then interpreted by preconditioned minds; hence we have various religions?
I look forward to your response.
K.
Dr.Lommel’s responded.
Dear K,
Thank you for mailing to me your near-death experience. The response from your father is what you usually hear from people who have experienced such an experience and try to communicate about it. This is such a hard confrontation. But I also know, that many, many people are open for it, and I also know that this is not a dream, hallucination or a vivid imagination.
Be careful in communicating about your experience, and listen to your intuition in finding people who want to listen. Be patient. I wish you all the best.
Q1. You can call consciousness outside the brain "spirit", if you like, but this can be confusing because not everybody has the same ideas about what exactly "spirit" should be. And there are several "levels" of consciousness, waking consciousness, dreaming consciousness, "subconsciousness", collective human consciousness, morphogenetic consciousness, higher consciousness, cosmic consciousness, and Divine consciousness. All these levels of consciousness are interconnected, and available, also during our life in our body.
Q2. I agree with you that also deep mental stress can facilitate the access to other levels or other aspects of our consciousness, See also answer Q1. But also NDE, meditation, regression therapy, isolation, depression, terminal illness and other circumstances can facilitate this effect.
Q3. This phase-space is a higher dimensional space, presumably not just the fourth dimension, according to Quantum Mechanics. Induced experiences are never the same as a NDE, sometimes several elements can be experienced, like flashes of the past, a feeling of not being in the body, or a period of unconsciousness, but aspects like a life-review, or transformation after the experience are hardly mentioned after induced experiences.
All ND-experiences are personal experiences, where finding words for it is very difficult, and cultural, demographic and religious factors play a role in this. So I have never heard a similar experience ever.
Q4. Brain-dead is a sometimes very difficult diagnosis. But when the brain has no function any more, without circulation in the brain, there should be no access to stimuli whatsoever according current medical science, which "believes" that consciousness is exclusively produced in and located in the brain.
With kind regards,
Pim van Lommel, cardiologist
4. Transcendology
Transcendology is the study of transcending, or going beyond, empiricism, and ascertaining a priori the fundamental principles of human knowledge.
Abraham, Moses, Jesus and others were "messenger of God" whose mind interpreted their spirit's interaction with the Spirit of God according to his conditioning in that time period. Subsequent messengers were Muhammad, Ahmad, and Bahá’u’lláh. The mind's ability to interpret the spirit's interactions and messages, is often deficient. The mind also misinterprets these interactions due to its prior conditioning; hence we have the creation of various religions. There will always be subsequent messengers as long as mankind exists.
Jesus’ baptism by John at the age of thirty marked the turning point in his life. His spirit interacted with the Spirit of God and he now had a mission. He has been appropriately symbolically called the "Son of God" and "Prince of Peace". The title “son or daughter of God” is also applicable to all people who live righteously. Messengers, or "Men of God" who contributed to the compilation of the scriptures or writings in the Qur’an, Bible and Torah were inspired by God to give us guidelines to live by.
Our spirit has the ability to interact with God’s spirit via deep meditation. Meditation is the attempt to raise the self-conscious mind to the level of its spiritual counterpart, to unite manas with a ray from buddhi. It is a positive attitude of mind, a state of consciousness rather than a system or a time period of intensive thinking. It corresponds in its more perfect form to the ecstasy of Plotinus, which he defines as “the liberation of the mind from its finite consciousness, becoming one and identified with the Infinite.” It is silent prayer in one real sense, for the heart aspires upwards to become freed from all desire for personal benefit, and the
mind frames no specific object, but both unite in the aspiration; not my will, but thine, be done. When engaged in at the outset of the day, or on retiring to sleep, it often takes the form of reflecting profoundly and impersonally on spiritual teachings, as well as self-examination, attuning of the mind and heart to calm and unselfish thought and feelings, as well as the endeavor to realize in consciousness one's highest ideals of duty, purity, and truth, and inducing thereby a general harmonizing and one-pointed adjustment of the whole nature.
The spirit or soul exists in the collective mental processes of the subconscious the subconscious part of the mind and is also where the mental processes of creativity originate. The conscience adds to and stores life experiences into the subconscious of the mind, which is the spirit or soul. If the conscience is anesthetized by other than righteous conduct the existence of the spirit gradually fades and is eventually extinguished.
Existence is reality. When physical existence ceases, conclusions are often surmised that all existence ceases and spirituality is sometimes perceived to be an illusion in the physical dimension. The Ultimate Reality is spiritual and is often an illusion to the physical reality.
It is of no importance during our physical life whether a spiritual existence or God exists or not if one so chooses. Whether or not one believes in a spirit or God really makes no difference. Righteous living determines the continuance and destiny of our spirit/soul. One's life can be enhanced by receiving solace and being comforted during life's trials and tribulations and by having our spirit rejoice by a belief and hope of a spiritual continuance after physical death. The alternative is despair of a complete and useless death forever.
Hope and inspiration rejoices our spirit and gives us a reason for continuing during hopeless times. There is a reason for our existence just like there is a reason for the existence of everything in the universe.
We are here mainly to gather experiences that will add to the glory of God.
5. The Pithiness Of Life
The pithiness of my life engulfs my senses
Words project within my spirit that seem to speak
The relenting of the mind, it dominates the all.
My “I” absolved within its hold.
Am I the I that lives within this life, am I the spirit there within?
The conscience troubles my understanding
Am I still the I, or is the I my transcendation?
My spirit I beseech thee, where does this journey end?
“I am spirit, I now control this voyage”.
“Let meditation absolve the bonds within”, I am told
I now freely go where I must go.
The peaceful flight, the brilliant light, I am now there.
The puzzlement of it all is now upon me
I am here I am there; I am everywhere.
A part of me is within, the beauty beyond belief.
The peace was my calm relief.
The interactions of the all; most questions disappear;
Though one part of me is like a child
The spirit seeks answers. How can this be?
Are you the deity of whom my father preached?
Who is the you? Who is the I?
I see it now. I am a part of time.
A apart of God, the Great Spirit of all past.
I am within, tapping the mind of creation.
A fleeting thought appears; am I still the I part of my psyche?
Only for this small moment, I comprehend.
Now my psyche is overwhelmed with anticipation
The spirit, the mind is one of understanding
Love washes over me like a tide,
I go back to my beginning.
A child is born in the Baltic, I see it now, it is I
Within three periods, three revolutions around the sun
The mother with her child must flee oppression.
The father must remain to serve the cause
The second great war brings chaos like never before.
Refuge is now in the land where the confusion began.
A prisoner of war and five more periods pass,
The father is again united with his loved ones.
The family seeks then in the New World, a new beginning,
In the promised land promises fall short,
Life again is a struggle, twelve more periods pass,
Then pneumonia sets in.
The pain of breathing, the body almost succumbs.
It becomes a trial of survival; am I to die?
How well I remember, to God I did pray
If my life is to end, can I be with you?
I studied the scriptures; I read them to end.
Suddenly I, my spirit its first journey did take.
The glee, the adulation; I felt it all; A union with God.
But am I alive or has my spirit transcended?
The answers seem clear though not quite comprehended.
I look for a master, yet none do I see.
I feel the ecstasy of God; I am within
A gathering of souls. There, Jesus I now see.
Moses, Abraham and Jacob,
I know you all, I read of you.
And many more thereof, how can this be?
Be at peace my child, unison of thought I could feel
This is not yet your destiny, but soon,
Only then, when your mission is done.
I am back now at peace in my bed, my body heals quickly
Soon I forget. Was this but a dream?
A dream I eventually did think
As the years passed, I continued my life.
I am in my youth now, 18 periods since birth
I had dragons to slay, to conquer with mirth.
The armed services I then did join, to see Germany again
And to my surprise, an angel I met, a beautiful girl full of joy.
She stole my heart; she made me whole.
Could this be love, I wondered?
Should I let my spirit bond with this creature of beauty
Should I ask her to share my joys, my pains, my life?
As love transcends our spirits unite.
Our souls are like one.
She is now my wife.
As I reminisce now 45 years later, I wonder
Was it fate that brought us together?
I look at my two daughters, their families, their children.
I have proof that miracles really do happen
When our choices are right and then I am reminded
Of the love that has held us together every day and night.
But then I look back and wonder
Has the pithiness of my life
Had the effect that was delegated to me?
Your work is not yet done, my spirit, the I is again reminded.
Two more times within a short span
My spirit has again transcended the realm of time.
Into another dimension, the spiritual, the unity of souls
The progressive intelligence that inspires all
Those who seek guidance for the betterment of man.
My spirit is shown the beginning, the beginning of man
But who is before man, how did God, this unity begin?
Come with me my son and you will see.
The beginning of God was many, many eons ago,
Travel with me to the start of time
To the beginning of the universe and where life began
That life form seems foreign, yet it is full of love
A rationality there from sprang then two, then more
The unity of spirit upon their demise began.
Now we will go back to your world, the start of man.
In the distance I see a speck, like a kernel of sand
Is that my land, my earth amongst the vast expanse?
Yes, this is where your kind has fought over me
And killed its kind. Come I will show you,
&n
bsp; There is your Adam and your Eve
There also is Abraham, the leader of men
His wife and his children and the strife that began
When he talked about his God
It was the interaction of his spirit with ours
That puzzled his mind
He began to pray and worship and his missions began.
This guidance, though sometimes it has produced pain,
Has served man well. Man needed a God to rely on
To know that his life is not in vain.
Then there was Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed,
My messengers who inspired their people
To lift their spirits when life seems bleak.
Often during the physical lives of my messengers
The viciousness of man came out of a need for survival,
But if their spirit remained clean their soul is now a part of us.
The Crusades came, the killings, the enslavement
They said that it was logical and rational
That God was like a king, a ruler, a dominator.
Who needed man’s worship and obedience
They built churches, temples and mosques
This was not God’s making, it is the want of man.
The tragedies of late have burdened your soul
With an attempt to find answers.
We, the unity can guide and suggest, but it is up to you
To change the destiny of man.
Man desires to fight but eventually this too will end.
So complete your mission the best that you can.
Dear God I am but a simple man, I am not well learned.