"I entered into a dark tunnel and suddenly I was in a place filled up with love and a beautiful, bright light. The place seemed holy. My father, who had died two years earlier, was there, as were my grandparents. Everyone was happy to see me, but my father told me it was not my time and I would be going back. Just as I turned to go, I caught sight of Elvis! He was standing in this place of intense bright light. He just came over to me, took my hand and said: 'Hi Bev, do you remember me?'."
If such experiences are real and not hallucinations, critics argue, why does Elvis appear in the place commonly inhabited by God? And what about those who see Jesus? Or Buddha? Or children who report seeing pets or parents not yet dead?
Simply stated, there are common elements shared by all NDErs. These seem to be intrinsic to the experience, and usually include the sense of leaving one's body, of traveling through a tunnel, and of seeing a bright light. Along with this so-called core experience come secondary embellishments, which account for the differences in NDE reports. The descriptions of various details and people are more personal aspects of NDEs, which are derived from an individual's life course and cultural background--what they have learned from their religious practices and what their image is of God and heaven.
To some researchers, the symbols serve to help make sense of the experience. Whereas a bright white light and a feeling of warmth and ,peace might not fully convey the notion that one has "died," the point is driven home in greetings by dead relatives or pets, as well as a personification of God as Buddha or Jesus--even Elvis Presley. For the Midwestern teacher, Elvis may have inspired the same awe in her life that she felt when she met the Light.
That still leaves open the question whether NDEs are a uniquely Western experience. Does a woman from Boise, say, have the same type of experience as an African farmer? Morse cites the work of Dr. Nsama Mumbwe of the University of Zambia. The African physician wondered whether NDEs were strictly an American phenomenon, and, if not, how the accounts of Third World subjects would differ from those of Westemers.
Studying 15 NDErs in Lusaka, Zambia, Mumbwe found that all had had the same core experience as those in other parts of the world.
That isn't to say there aren't cultural differences:
o Many of the Africans interpreted the event as somewhat evil; half thought the experience signified that they were somehow "bewitched." Another called it a "bad women."
o Among 400 Japanese NDErs, many reported seeing long, dark rivers and beautiful flowers, two common symbols that frequently appear as images in Japanese art.
o East Indians sometimes see heaven as a giant bureaucracy, and frequently report being sent back because of clerical errors!
o Americans and English say they are sent back for love or to perform a job.
o Natives of Micronesia often see heaven as similar to a large, brightly lit American city with loud, noisy cars and tall buildings.
To Morse and other investigators, these experiences are not as different as they seem. It is merely the individual interpretations that differ. Many report that their NDEs are, like dreams, "difficult to put into words." That forces them to borrow images from personal experience and apply them to their NDE. And the discrepancies found in reports do not signify mass hysteria or hallucinations. On the contrary, the similarities across a wide variety of cultures, ages, and religions support the idea that being near death not only triggers a specific type of experience, but that the experience is "transcendental"--that there is entry into another dimension of being.
A Trip of the Brain or a Journey of the Mind?
There has long been a "medical-school bias"--as Morse puts it--against near death experiences. Dismissed for years as hallucinations, patients' stories were routinely ignored by their doctors, and grant money for research has been scarce.
Slowly, however, the once-taboo subject is coming under the neuropsychiatric microscope. Decades ago, before the advent of modern neuroscience, the famous Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield identified an area of the brain that gives rise to near-death experiences. When he electrically stimulated certain sites of the temporal lobe, patients reported retrieving vivid memories as if they were.actually "seeing" them. The findings prompted some researchers to search for a neurophysical explanation for NDEs--as some episode of temporal-lobe dysfunction. The implication of this line of investigation is that NDEs take place entirely within the brain, courtesy of some chemical shift or misfiring neuron.
Researchers have pursued endorphins as a cause of the euphoria and visions of heaven; compression of the optic nerve by lack of oxygen as a cause of the tunnel image; and, most recently, the neurotransmitter serotonin, putatively released by the stress of dying, to explain the typical NDE phenomena. But a direct causeand-effect relationship has yet to be established.
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