Want to have less stress? Have a near-death experience
(NDE). A new study shows that people who have had NDEs
are better had handling stress. Researcher Willoughby B.
Britton says, "We found that people who have these
experiences are just the opposite of what people think. They
aren't more likely to run away from stress."
Anahad O'Connor writes in the New York Times that
some scientists believe NDEs may be a healthy coping
mechanism that protects against the traumatic stress of
dying?and helps with future stress, if you survive. Britton
compared a group of people who reported near-death
experiences with a group that had not, and found the NDE
group showed patterns of brain activity similar to that seen in
temporal lobe epileptics, who often describe undergoing
spiritual out-of-body events during seizures. However, unlike
epilepsy, the abnormal activity was not in the right temporal
lobe. Instead, it appeared in the left temporal lobe.
She also found that people who'd had NDEs had abnormal
sleep patterns, but they took an unusually long time to move
into REM (rapid eye movement, or deep, sleep). Britton
says, "This is the first study to show these kinds of
neurological differences in people who have near-death
experiences."
Psychiatrist C. Bruce Greyson, who studied hundreds of
people with NDEs, says, "?People who have NDEs tend to be
a little healthier than others. They seem to have positive
coping skills." He thinks NDEs protect people who experience
traumatic events from developing post traumatic stress
disorder. He says, "We don't know yet whether these were
pre-existing characteristics that caused the NDE or whether
they are the result of the experience."
But he wants to find out. He's starting a study where he
interviews heart patients before and after surgery to implant
automatic defibrillators in their chests. During this operation,
the patients are briefly put into cardiac arrest, meaning some
of them will have NDEs. He says, "There are so many things
to measure?anxiety, depression, adjustment, acceptance of
death. We're still just scratching the surface. There's a whole
lot more to be done."
Stacy Rector writes in the Coppell (CA) Gazette about a
group called IANDS (International
Association for Near-Death Studies), which meets once a
month in a local church. One member says, "There are so
many people out there that are ashamed and skeptical.
People do raise their eyebrows, and I did, too?I was the
world's greatest skeptic." In one experience, she was dying
when suddenly she saw someone standing near her. She felt
the person had come for her but then he said, "She's not
ready." She recognized her dead brother, who told her, "Don't
be afraid." She then received a premonition about a medicine
that made her well again.
Another time, she had just passed her annual mammogram
when she had a dream about her deceased brother. He told
her to look in the corner of the room, where she saw the
letter "C." She went back to the doctor, found out she had
breast cancer and was cured. Now she is a volunteer who
visits AIDS patients and hospices.
Scientists never seem to consider that the reason NDEs are
less tense is that the universal human fear of death has been
removed from their lives. Scientists also don't acknowledge
that some people can heal?despite the
proof.
