I think that I had a near death experience shortly after my transplantation. How can I find out if it was real?

Near death experiences can occur any time that a person is fatally ill. They seem to be reported most commonly after an acute or traumatic event like an accident or an arrest of the heart. Since some transplant candidates and recipients are prone to sudden changes in their health, near death experiences have been reported both before and while recovering from transplantation. Many patients have told us that they do not talk about their experience with the transplant team for fear that they will be considered to be crazy.

Several books have been written about near death experiences. Some of these are listed in Appendix I. Dr. Raymond Moody, a physician, spoke with over 1,000 people who reported having had a near death experience. He found that there was a great consistency among these reports. In his book Life After Life (1975) he recorded the following composite description of a near death experience. This description includes the most common features of these events. Your experience may have had some or all of these characteristics.

"A man is dying and as he reaches the point of greatest distress, he hears himself pronounced dead by his doctor. He begins to hear an uncomfortab1e noise, a loud ringing or buzzing, and at the same time feels himself moving very rapidly through a long dark tunnel. After this, he suddenly finds himself outside of his own physical body, but still in the immediate physical environment, and he sees his own body from a distance, as though he is a spectator. He watches the resuscitation attempt from this unusual vantage point and is in a state of emotional upheaval."

"After a while, he collects himself and becomes more accustomed to his odd condition. He notices that he still has a 'body,' but one of a very different nature and with very different powers from the physical body he has left behind. Soon other things begin to happen. Others come to meet and to help him. He glimpses the spirits of relatives and friends who have already died, and a loving, warm spirit of a kind he has never encountered before--a being of light--appears before him. This being asks him a question, non-verbally, and stimulates him to evaluate his life. A panoramic, instantaneous playback of the major events of his life occurs. At some point he finds himself approaching some sort of barrier or border, apparently representing the limit between earthly life and the next life. Yet, he finds that he must go back to the earth that the time for his death has not yet come. At this point he resists, for by now he is taken up with his experiences in the afterlife and does not wish to return. He is overwhelmed by intense feelings of joy, love, and peace. But shortly, he reunites with his physical body and lives."

"He feels changed as a result of the experience. Less afraid, less nervous. Different things seem to interest him. Later he tries to tell others, but he has trouble doing so. In the first place, he can find no human words adequate to describe these seemingly 'unearthly ' episodes. He also finds that others scoff so he stops telling other people. Still the experience affects his life profoundly, especially his views about death and its relationship to life."

Experts disagree about what causes the near death experience. Some call it imagination. Others believe the visual images to be caused by changes in the eye during acute illness. Still others consider the experience to result from actual contact with another realm of existence, or with an afterlife. Others believe it a type of religious conversion. So far, nobody has been able to prove what causes these events in all people who describe them. It may be that there are different causes in different people. We can tell you that there is no evidence that a near death experience is a sign of mental illness.

For our purposes, it does not really matter what causes these experiences. What is important to realize, is that their occurrence can exert a powerful influence on your life. As we discussed, any event that reminds you of your own mortality can cause you to reflect seriously on your life. It is not uncommon for people to reflect at length, on the meaning of their lives after having a near death experience. This can be a productive and healing activity. However, well before making any major life decisions as a result of this reflection, we would encourage you to discuss your thoughts with others around you. These may be close friends or family, a professional person or someone from the clergy.

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