{"id":65244,"date":"2018-09-15T21:32:14","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T03:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=65244"},"modified":"2018-09-15T21:32:14","modified_gmt":"2018-09-16T03:32:14","slug":"all-of-a-sudden-i-knew-that-i-was-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/09\/all-of-a-sudden-i-knew-that-i-was-dead.html","title":{"rendered":"“All of a sudden I knew that I was dead.”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NASA<\/a>
NASA public domain photograph<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still working my way through the passages that I\u2019ve marked in Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience<\/em>\u00a0(New York: HarperCollins, 2010).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here are two partial first-person acccounts of near-death experiences:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

All of a sudden I knew that I was dead. \u00a0This realization struck me as odd. \u00a0I hovered about twenty feet above my body, which was still on the operating table. \u00a0I was surrounded by doctors who were talking to one another, but I didn\u2019t hear their voices. \u00a0I also saw my husband waiting on a bench in a darkish room somewhere in the hospital. \u00a0He was nervous. \u00a0He was rolling a cigarette. \u00a0From one moment to the next I found myself flying through a tunnel. \u00a0It was extremely long, and I flew through it head-first. \u00a0The tunnel was virtually horizontal, but at a slight upward angle. \u00a0It was about 10 feet in diameter. \u00a0I heard a whizzing sound, like wind blowing past my ear, and in the distance I saw a bright light, which I was being sucked toward, but which still seemed a long way off. \u00a0And all this time I felt scared, powerless, and lonely, because nobody knew that I was aware that I was dead. \u00a0I wanted to either return or not be aware of my death. \u00a0But I clearly had no choice in the matter. . . . \u00a0The light that I was now approaching was of a kind that I\u2019d never seen before and that differs from any other kind such as sunlight. \u00a0It was white and extremely bright, and yet you could easily look at it.<\/strong> \u00a0(29)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the distance I saw a light that I had never seen on earth. \u00a0So pure, so intense, so perfect. \u00a0I knew it was a being I had to go to. \u00a0I don\u2019t know how this happened. \u00a0I didn\u2019t have to think, I knew everything. \u00a0I had no mobility problems anymore. \u00a0I had not body anymore. \u00a0This dead weight had gone. . . . \u00a0I passed through everything. \u00a0At once I realized: there\u2019s no time or space here. \u00a0We\u2019re always in the present here. \u00a0This gave me a great sense of peace. \u00a0I felt it as I experienced the Light. \u00a0It\u2019s the pinnacle of everything there is. \u00a0Of energy, of love especially, of warmth, of beauty.<\/strong> \u00a0(34)<\/span><\/p>\n

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***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some of you older folks out there will perhaps recall a comedian by the name of Sam Kinison. \u00a0He was loud, crude, and obnoxious, and was never a favroite of mine. \u00a0But he died far too young \u2014 aged only 38 \u2014 as the result of a 1992 car accident near Needles, California.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A reader of this blog named Derek has called my attention to an interesting passage in the Wikipedia entry on Sam Kinison<\/a>, which I quote here:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

His brother and the others begged him to lie down and he did with his best friend, Carl LaBove, who had been in the following van, holding his head in his hands. Initially, Kinison appeared to have suffered no serious injuries, but within minutes he suddenly said to no one in particular, \u201cI don\u2019t want to die. I don\u2019t want to die.\u201d LaBove later said, \u201cit was as if he was having a conversation, talking to someone else, some unseen person.\u201d Then there was a pause as if Kinison was listening to the other person speak. Then he asked \u201cBut why?\u201d and after another pause LaBove heard him clearly say: \u201cOkay, okay, okay.\u201d LaBove said, \u201cThe last \u2018okay\u2019 was so soft and at peace . . . \u00a0Whatever voice was talking to him gave him the right answer and he just relaxed with it. He said it so sweet, like he was talking to someone he loved.\u201d\u00a0Kinison then lost consciousness. Efforts to resuscitate him failed. Kinison died at the scene from internal injuries.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019m still working my way through the passages that I\u2019ve marked in Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience\u00a0(New York: HarperCollins, 2010). \u00a0 Here are two partial first-person acccounts of near-death experiences: \u00a0 All of a sudden I knew that I was dead. \u00a0This realization struck me as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"All of a sudden I knew that I was dead."<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    I'm still working my way through the passages that I've marked in Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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