Belitionlee: Near-Death Experience: Religion or Science?

wtkr - It sounded like a story dreamed up by a little boy. But to understand what Colton Burpo said, you have to hear his journey.

It all started on a trip to Colorado. Colton complained of a stomach ache. After a trip to the doctor, his diagnosis was the flu.

Back home in Nebraska, another doctor's visit, but still no improvement. Then, Colton went downhill fast.

It turns out, he was misdiagnosed. The then-three-year-old had a ruptured appendix.

While in surgery, his parents, Todd and Sonya, prayed in separate rooms. They thought they had lost their little boy.

After a difficult recovery, Colton survived, but the things Colton did and said after the surgery were out of the ordinary.

Until a drive past the hospital, four months after surgery, none of it made sense. His dad jokingly asked Colton if he wanted to go back to the hospital.

Todd said, "I'm looking at him in the mirror, and he says that the angels sang to me. I looked and he is just dead serious."

While in heaven, Colton says he saw many things and met many people, including Pop, his great-grandfather, who died 30 years before Colton was born.

But Colton says he didn't look like the photo in his house. A picture sent months later by his grandmother was more like the man he met, a young man without glasses.

The most surprising part of Colton's story was when Colton confessed to his mother that he had more than one sister. But he only has one sister. His parents never told him about the miscarriage.

Colton says, "She looked familiar and she started giving me hugs and told me she was glad to have someone from her family up there."

Over time, the young man's visions became more real, from his description of Jesus, to his talks with God, even a discussion about Armageddon.

The Burpo family has accepted and embraced their little boy's unbelievable story. They put the words on pages and prayed for guidance.

Todd says, "I kind of laid my fleece down. I don't know how to publish a book, but if you really want me to do this, you're going to have to have the publishing industry find me."

And somehow that happened. So far, 500,000 books have been printed. Bookstores across the country are trying to get more copies.

They're on eBook readers, audio tape, and it made the New York Times Bestseller list. And now Colton, now 11, continues to share his testimony of what he says he saw in heaven.

Todd says, "I don't know why He picked us. God did a remarkable miracle for us."

Is heaven for real? If you're a person of faith, you may accept this as a real experience, or you may opt for a more medical or scientific explanation, like an overactive dream state.

As for the Burpo family, they now have renewed faith that you will eventually be reunited with your loved ones, and that heaven is for real.

Click for video

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livescience - Several years ago, when Colton Burpo was 4 years old, he underwent cardiac arrest and was resuscitated during emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix. Four months later, Colton started saying strange things to his father, a Nebraskan pastor named Todd, and his mother, Sonja, about his near-death experience (NDE).

Colton recounted rising up out of the operating room, looking down on the doctors and his praying parents from above, and floating away to heaven, where he met his dead grandfather, his unborn sister who had died in a miscarriage, Jesus and God. In the New York Times bestseller "Heaven is for Real" (Thomas Nelson 2010), Todd Burpo tells the story of his son's trip to heaven and back.

Judging by book sales, this young boy's out-of-body experience in the operating room has given a great deal of encouragement to many people's religious beliefs. But what about those who don't believe in the Christian idea of heaven, but who also don't feel comfortable calling a 4-year-old a liar? Is there a scientific explanation for what happened to Colton?

Recent research seems to show that there is.

Several studies, such as a study by Slovenian researchers published in the journal Critical Care last year, have found that NDEs are quite common. Around 20 percent of heart attack survivors report events such as moving toward a bright light, feelings of peace and joy, or profound spiritual experiences.

According to the study, that subset of patients also had elevated levels of carbon dioxide in their blood compared with patients who did not have NDEs, a condition that causes ”anoxia,” or oxygen deprivation in the brain.

Anoxia, in turn, causes euphoria, visions of light tunnels, hallucinations and other typical symptoms of NDEs. In other words, anoxia is likely what causes the phenomena.

That may not be the end of the story, however.

A research collaboration called AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), led by Sam Parnias at the University of Southampton in the U.K., is studying NDEs and out-of-body experiences in the hope of learning more about consciousness and the relationship between the mind and the brain. In 2009, Parnias told the press, "At least 10 to 20 percent of people who have been brought back to life will tell us they had consciousness present, and a proportion of them will tell us they were able to see doctors and nurses working on them as if they’re looking from above.

"When people have died, their brain goes into a flatline state, so consciousness shouldn’t be present. But it could also be that [doctors] did something amazing to get blood into their brains.”

Parnias is also testing the possibility that the mind really does momentarily separate from the brain during death. He has initiated the placement of boards with symbols on them in intensive care units in 21 hospitals worldwide. The symbols are unobservable to people in hospital beds, but they are visible to observers looking down from above. Over the next three years, Parnias and his colleagues will collect data on whether or not patients who have out-of-body experiences report seeing the symbols.

The researchers hope to provide a definitive answer to the question of whether out-of-body phenomena are real, or merely hallucinations arising in oxygen-deprived brains.

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Near-Death Experience - A Few Accounts

Account #1 - It happened in May, 1992. I was driving a '68 Spitfire convertible and a friend was riding as a passenger. We were driving on a narrow country road and as we entered a 90 degree turn one of the back tires separated from the rim (i.e. blew out). The car spun around and slid off the road backwards while still spinning. A 3-4 foot drop off at the edge of the road gave the car enough momentum to flip endwise.

I clearly remember most of the events leading up to the car leaving the road. I remember I was laying on my back in the grass as the car pushed me down the hill. It felt like I was under a bulldozer. As I looked up, I saw the car as it was hovering above me, balanced on the back fender. I watched it as is fell upon me. An instant before the impact, I had a very lucid memory of a conversation I between me and and my friend (who was riding with me) about convertibles. I had casually made the comment, "convertibles are nice, but if you rolled one, you'd be dead for sure!" Talk about irony...

As the car hit me, I heard a loud crunch, then everything changed instantly. It was like sitting in a movie theater watching a crash scene and then the film breaks. You suddenly realize that you are in a theater and the crash (and the associated stress, excitement, etc.) are just an illusion.

There was no discontinuity of consciousness. My first thought was "well, I guess this is what it's like to be dead". There was no fear or anxiety. I wondered what happened to my friend. Was he dead, too? I thought that I should look for him, but realized that I had no body. Actually, there was no physical reality whatsoever. Physical movement had no meaning.

On the other hand, I knew that this new place had some type of dimension. I just didn't know what it was. It seemed like I was in an area of "lesser concentration" surrounded an area of "greater concentration" located at a "distance". The "area of greater concentration" felt like it might be a "city" of some kind. I sensed that there were many entities there. I also had a feeling that I would also eventually go there as well.

I decided to wait for someone or something to make contact with me. I assumed that whoever or whatever entities existed in this new reality knew I had arrived. There was no worry whatsoever and I felt very comfortable just waiting.

While I waited I become aware of how good I felt. I'd go so far as to say it was a feeling of peaceful bliss. That's an understatement, but it's hard to describe the actual feeling. It seemed that my efforts in life were like mowing the lawn on a very hot, very humid summer day. This place was like coming inside to air conditioning and drinking cold lemonade while sitting in big cushy chair.

I was thinking about these feelings when I felt something "move" near me. At that point, I realized the meaning of "movement" in this place. I was in an emotional space. The movement was the movement of emotions. I realize now that we all are aware of this type of movement and use related phrases in our everyday language. For example, we say "I feel close to her", "He seems distant", or "We are drifting apart". Since my NDE, I realize that I exist in this "other place" at the same time as I exist in this physical space. This was true before the NDE as well, but I didn't realize it. (Yes, I know it sounds strange.)

I recognized the "movement" as being the movement of an entity. I "recognized" that this entity had been with me all my life. I don't know if it was what people call a guardian angel or if it was just another disassociated aspect of my psyche. However, I suddenly remembered that this entity had "spoken" to me many times earlier in my life. I had always labeled the communication as "intuition". The "speaking" was clear, yet didn't really involve words (although I *remember* the conversation as words).

The entity then asked me a series of questions. It asked, "Do you like where you are?" I said I thought it was fantastic -- I felt better than I ever had before. It then asked, "Do you want to stay here?" My first thought was that this was a silly question given my first answer, but I said, "Yeah, sure! I want to stay.". The entity then "reminded" me that I had not fulfilled my purpose yet. Suddenly, I remembered events that had happened before I was conceived. I had chosen to come to this physical existence for a particular reason. I wasn't supposed to know what that reason was until it was time to fulfill my purpose. I also knew that I could stay in this other place without fulfilling the purpose and it wouldn't be held against me. However, I felt it was better to go back ("to" Earth), fulfill my purpose, and then return.

As I had this thought, I started to have a spinning and falling sensation. It was like I was being poured through a funnel. As I spun, I slowly felt the sensation of weight and solidity. When the spinning stopped, I opened my eyes. I was standing next the car at the bottom of a ravine. I observed, more with curiosity than terror, large amounts of blood flowing from my face. I again wondered what had happened to my friend. I called his name and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him still rolling in the grass as the result of being thrown from the car. The whole experience had happened in a fraction of a second.

I felt the presence of "grace" throughout the aftermath of the accident (and I still do). My injuries required 200 stitches worth of plastic surgery in my face and 40 stitches in my arm. However, I was able to leave the hospital after three days instead of the estimated three weeks. Although several doctors thought that my nose was damaged beyond repair, today my nose looks completely normal. You have to look closely to see any scars at all.

This experience changed my outlook on life and reality in more ways that I can describe in this message. I hesitated to post it since it didn't actually involve clinical death, but I thought somebody might find it meaningful (or at least interesting).

Account #2 - The date was SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 1979 about 9:30am. I was 25 years old and while driving my Fiat sports car I had an accident that sent my car into a concrete pilling at 70 M.P.H..

I don't recall the actual crash but yet the events before and after are very vivid in my mind. I was single yet lived with my girlfriend. The Saturday one week before the accident for some reason I went to bed early, unusual for a Saturday night! I awoke from a deep sleep with a feeling of fear and that something was watching me. The room was dark and out of the corner of the room appeared an Image of the Grim Reaper. The Image was blacker than the black of the room yet very clear without a face or sound just a feeling of total emptiness'.

The Image moved slowly across the room from one wall and then up through the ceiling it disappeared. I was not sick or on drugs and it scared me so bad that I couldn't fall back to sleep. For some reason I decided to take a drive in my car. It was about 2:00 a.m. and I got in my car and started driving to the exact spot of the accident. It was as if I were magnetically drawn there.

I got out of the car and stood there on the roadside just looking around with no reason why I was there or why death visited me in my bedroom. Understand that the crash site was not a normal place to stop a car and get out as it was on I-95 between exits. I pulled the car to the left side of the road and stopped exactly were I hit the concrete pilling.

The police found a phone book in my car with my parents number. They told my parents that I would not live through the night and they should come immediately. They lived 400 miles away. I was unconscious for 5 days before I woke up in the hospital.

The five days seemed only like seconds to me. I was told I was not drinking or on drugs. In fact because of the swelling in my head due to the brain concussion I wasn't allowed any pain medication or other drugs.

I remember floating above my body and seeing visions of my own funeral, my parents and girlfriend were all crying over my casket. Then I was starting to leave the hospital room and ascend to another place. As if the walls of the hospital where fading away and this world was disappearing another world was simultaneously appearing to me. I felt no pain and noticed my body was not breathing or did it have a heart beat.

This was heaven for me because it felt good and loving. I wanted to stay there forever. Soon I was before an old man who reminded me of (father time). Anyway he had many books that were labeled by planets and by years. The old man looked down on me as he was very large. Compared to my 5'--9" body he must have been 35'! He asked; "what is your name?"; I told him my last name only and he opened up the Book called Earth. Another Book appeared from this one and he opened the years' 1900-2000.

After gazing in the Book he looked down on me and said; "you must go back it's not your time." I remember the wonderfully beautiful feeling overcoming me and thought; "I don't want to go back.. He must have heard my thoughts because he said to me "you have something to do before you can come here." I asked "what must I do as he said nothing and closed the Book."

As soon as the Book closed I awoke in my body again in extreme pain. My chest was crushed from the accident as well as a brain concussion. I was now back among the living but very confused. I do not fear death and know when we die we begin another life somewhere else.

Account #3 - At the age of 27, my heart stopped and I experienced an nde. I had been helping to polish furniture at my church & (unknown to me) was violently allergic to the polish. En route to work, driving down a main highway in Connecticut, I began to feel very weak & dizzy. I pulled off the highway & apparently my heart began to react to the polish. By the grace of God, I had pulled into a hospital parking lot where I was found passed out in my car. An older woman alerted the ER personnel & I was rushed to ER.

However, my experience was this: I realized I was in a very bright office with a man in white standing at my side and an administrative type, all in white, at a desk. This person began to ask me many questions about my life. I knew I was very ill & the minute I thought "WHY is he wasting time asking me all these questions?"-the other person began pushing me on a gurney down a long hallway. I got up & began to walk along beside the gureny & suddenly realized that half of my body was walking 'through' the wall. This scared & disoriented me.

I followed the person toward an ER room & watched the doctor & nurses begin to work on this very ill woman. I didn't recognize the body as mine. I asked, in a loud voice, "should I go to the waiting room while you work on this woman?" At that point, a nurse rushed right through me on her way out the door. No one answered me.

Then it seemed as though I were standing on a diving board which projected out from the body's feet. I could sense many people around me, encouraging me to jump, to not be afraid. I looked down into a stream which was strewn with boulders. I looked up at the wall & could see a hand holding a reel of movie tape...another hand began to pull the film away from the reel & I could see it was my life. I thought very vehemently NO WAY and then saw many particles of light in the corner of the room begin to gather together & form a person's shape. A believer in Jesus & angels, I immediately realized this might be "the end" for me & said NO!!!

Immediately, I was thrown back into my body. I 'awoke' and began to reach for my purse which was lying on the floor near the table on which I lay. I was mumbling "work, work" and the nurse said "not on your life, we just started your heart up again."

It turned out I was violently allergic to the furniture polish & my heart had stopped due to anaphylactic shock.

Soon, I moved to Boulder, CO where my life has improved vastly. I got out of a very bad marriage. However, my spiritual beliefs didn't really change. Nor am I such a finer person from the experience. The NDE ( and I had never heard of such things before this experience) was slightly frightening to me, but did make me realize that we do have a say whether we go onward or return to our bodies. It was also clear that there is a life review, or judgment, although my spirit was resisting it in that bright, white office.

I believe that everyone's nde (or death) is different because it has to fit in with our reality. My mother is a nurse & so the hospital setting fit in with what was really happening as well as a location that would make sense in my life experience. - www.nderf.org

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Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris' interview with philosophy of science and human consciousness scholar, Dr. James Fetzer. During the interview Mr. Tsakiris and Dr. Fetzer discuss evidence for the survival of consciousness, and whether this evidence undermines our current model of mind=brain consciousness: Dr. James Fetzer On Survival of Consciousness and Near-Death Experience (NDE) Science

NOTE: I don't discount that people truly feel that they underwent a spiritual revelation during similar circumstances....but a scientific explanation must be considered or at least combined with the ethereal accounts by the experiencers. I suppose some people will say the same can be said for alien abduction scenarios....comment with your thoughts. If you have experienced a similar event, feel free to go to the Astral Perceptions Forum or The Spirit Rescue International Haunted Help Forum and relate your story...Lon

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