Research and Findings of NDE’s

From: The Crossover Experience: Life After Death - DJ Kadagian, Gregory Shushan PhD, Dr. Pim van Lomell

According to Pew Research, 72% of all Americans and 85% of Christians believe in heaven and an afterlife.⁠

In a state of clinical death, most often brought on by cardiac arrest:

• The respiratory center near the brainstem stops functioning, evidenced by the cessation of breathing.
  
  
• Blood flow to the brain stops altogether.
  
  
• There is a complete loss of electrical activity in the cerebral cortex which results in a flat EEG.
  
  
• All brain functioning ceases, and it becomes impossible to be conscious or to form memories.

NDE reports worldwide are striking in their similarity, regardless of a person’s culture, race, gender, sexuality, or religious beliefs. Another commonality is the permanent shift in attitudes and beliefs that follow an NDE. Changes that do not occur with those having reported clinical death who did not also experience an NDE.

75% transitioning into new careers⁠
54% reporting major life changes

This phenomenon also supports the theory of non-local consciousness — a consciousness beyond and apart from our physical bodies. With our growing understanding of quantum physics, much of this data is being revealed as having a basis in science as well. It has become clear that we are much more than the physical, material world we see around us. We are much more than our bodies. Death is not an end to our being; it is merely a transition into a different, more expansive existence.

Within two years, 12 patients out of 50 survivors of cardiac arrest in the past told me about their NDE.

Near-death experiences contributed to the formation of afterlife beliefs in all these largely independent, unconnected ancient civilizations.

I unearthed over 70 Native American NDEs or references to them, along with more than 20 statements that their afterlife beliefs were based directly on such experiences. Similarly, from Polynesia and Melanesia, I found 36 NDEs alongside 19 statements that they were the source of afterlife beliefs.

We know that the occurrence of NDEs is not due to expectations and prior religious beliefs, otherwise, they would not happen to atheists and very young children. It’s clear that we’re not creating the experience, but our cultural backgrounds and our individuality act as filters for it. Even as we’re experiencing it, our minds help to give it form and structure through the symbols and metaphors that help us to make sense of our reality. In other words, we’re co-creating the experience, together with…whatever causes NDEs in the first place. 

Whether we interpret a near-death experience as literal or symbolic, it has an intensely deep meaning to all who visit this realm. It is, no doubt, a very different world. Is it literal? Is it symbolic? Is it both? This realm seems to communicate in the in-between. In the language of metaphor. And this is not a language that lends itself easily to the scientific method. 

In prospective studies, individuals are followed over time, and data about them is collected as their characteristics or circumstances change. In retrospective studies, individuals are interviewed and information is collected about past events.

Four inherent qualities, unique to a near-death experience, that “inoculates” the data, to a degree, from recall or misclassification bias are:

1. NDE testimonials have remained remarkably consistent over decades — even millennia.

2. NDEs are universally described as “more real than real.”

3. NDEs are so clear and powerful that they are remembered as if they had “just happened yesterday.”

4. Those who have had an NDE state that the experience was the most significant event in their life. In short, the details of an NDE are not easily confused or forgotten — even over time.