The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

Is There Life After Death?

For time immemorial humans have asked the question, “Is there life after death?”. No one knows the answer to this question, nor can anyone know the answer to this question. All we have is our faith and the experiences of those that were near or clinically dead but revived from their near or clinical death. No science can definitively determine if there is life after death. However, there is some science that can lead to the conclusion that life after death is a strong possibility. This science is explored in the book, “Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences” by Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry as they stated:

“There is currently more scientific evidence to the reality of near death experience (NDE) than there is for how to effectively treat certain forms of cancer,” states radiation oncologist Dr. Jeffrey Long is his groundbreaking new book Evidence of the Afterlife. In 1998 Dr. Long and his wife, Jody, began the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NEDRF) with the goal of creating a forum for near death “experiencers” to share their stories. Grounded in first-hand evidence culled from over 1,600 verified NDE accounts, Evidence of the Afterlife presents the strongest argument yet for the underlying truth of those who have died and returned to share their tales.”

Dr. Jeffrey Long, M.D. is one of the few medical or scientific persons who have examined the evidence from the personal stories of people who have experienced a near death experience. As he has stated in his book:

“I am a man of science, and as a result I have examined the data from the NDERF study in a scientific way. At NDERF we explored all of the elements in the NDEs of more than one thousand people, examining consistency among the accounts. In reaching conclusions about the accounts, we followed a basic scientific principle: What is real is consistently seen among many different observations.”

His scientific way is to carefully prepare questionnaires to be answered by people who claim that they have had NDEs, then reject those questionnaires that are inconsistent or contradictory in their responses to the questions. He is then left with testimonies of NDEs that cannot be explained medically, and to those testimonies, he looks for the commonality of NDE experience and applies statistical methods to their testimony. While this is not rigorous science, as it is impossible to do scientific experiments on NDEs without endangering the life of the person being experimented upon. Therefore, his scientific methodology is the best that can be utilized in researching NDEs. From these testimonies, he has culled twelve common elements of NDEs:

1. Out-of-Body Experience
2. Heighten Senses
3. Intense and Generally Positive Emotions or Feelings
4. Passing Into or Through a Tunnel
5. Encountering a Mystical or Brilliant Light
6. Encountering Other Beings, Either Mystical Beings or Deceased Relatives or Friends
7. A Sense of Alteration of Time or Space
8. Life Review
9. Encountering Unworldly (“Heavenly”) Realms
10. Encountering or Learning Special Knowledge
11. Encountering a Boundary or Barrier
12. A Return to the Body, Either Voluntary or Involuntary

From this research, he has concluded that NDEs are real and prove that there is life after death. His nine proofs that support his conclusion are:

1. Lucid Death
2. Out of Body
3. Blind Sight
4. Impossibly Conscious
5. Perfect Playback
6. Family Reunion
7. From the Mouth of Babes
8. Worldwide Consistency
9. Changed Lives

In his conclusion of this book, Dr. Long states:

“This book has important implications for religion. The great religions have always spoken to the belief in God and an afterlife. The evidence of near-death-experiences points to an afterlife and a universe governed by a vastly loving intelligence. Near-death-experiences consistently reveal that death is not an end but rather a transition to an afterlife. This is a profoundly inspiring thought us all and our loved ones.”

His efforts were the first NDE research to be based on a large-scale database of testimonies, but other researchers have also compiled testimonies of NDEs. All this research on NDEs should give pause to everyone to consider the very real possibility that there is life after death. It should also give comfort to those that are contemplating or approaching their death or those contemplating or experiencing the death of a loved one, that death is not the end of life but the beginning of a new, better, loving, joyful, and beautiful existence.

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As Dr. Long has noted, the first common element of Near-Death-Experience (NDE) is an Out-of-Body Experience (OBE). I believe in Out-of-Body Experiences, as I once had an Out-of-Body Experience of my own.

As a young lad of about thirteen years old, I went to my Boy Scout troop meeting after school. As it was a cool sunny spring day, the troop decided to play dodgeball in the yard outside of the church where the meeting was held. After forty minutes of strenuous dodgeball, the troop was dismissed, and I walked a quarter mile to my house. Upon arriving home, I immediately went upstairs to my bedroom and took off my glasses, then laid down flat on my back with my arms crossed over my chest. After about a minute, I felt a lightness, and I could not feel my heart beating nor my lungs breathing. Indeed, I could not feel anything except lightness. I opened my eyes and looked down at my motionless body from the ceiling of my bedroom. I looked around my bed area, and everything was crystal clear and in its place. This was extraordinary, given my extreme nearsightedness and other vision problems. I then looked out of my bedroom window and clearly saw what was happening in the yard and street below my bedroom window. I did not hear anything, as there was no sound to hear even before I lay down. After looking back at my body, I felt extremely anxious that if I did not return to my body, I would never return. I remember clawing back to my body, and when I touched it, I was back in my body. I opened my eyes, felt my heartbeat and breathing, then sat up on the edge of my bed, feeling normal. After about five minutes, I then went back to normal sleep. I knew this OBE was no dream due to the reality of my observations when I was out of body, and I have never had a dream before or since that was this starkly real.

Five years later, I discovered that I had been born with a heart murmur, which my doctor informed me meant that I had marked limitations of physical activity. I would be comfortable at rest, but more than ordinary activity causes fatigue, palpitations, or shortness of breath. I had always wondered why after about twenty minutes of arduous physical activity, I could not keep up with the rest of the guys—and this was the answer. After I had learned about my heart murmur, I began to wonder if the arduous dodgeball and walking home physical activities had any bearing on my OBE. Perhaps I experienced some form of a cardiac problem that was the start of an NDE. I will never know, but I do know for sure that I had an OBE.

This leads me to believe that NDEs have a basis in reality, which also leads me to believe in an afterlife.