Near-death experiences are not the rare and elusive phenomena that people might expect.
In fact, according to a study called the AWARE-II led by Dr. Sam Parnia, one in five cardiac arrest patients reported having similar experiences: “a sense of floating above their own body, a panoramic sweep of their life’s memories, a feeling of profound calm that had nothing to do with the chaos happening around them”
Parnia argues that these experiences cannot be easily dismissed as “a trick of a disordered or dying brain, But rather a unique human experience that emerges on the brink of death.”
Instead of signs of lowered brain activity as would be expected when the brain is receiving no oxygen, his study found heightened level of brain activity.
Parnia’s research led him to believe that there is something beyond the natural realm that is happening in the body.
“Consciousness may be a separate entity from the brain,” he said. “That entity continues, and it persists even when the brain does not appear to be functioning.”
Other studies show that those who have had NDE’s had their view of eternity profoundly impacted.
Related: Lee Strobel’s THE CASE FOR HEAVEN Coming to Theaters This Spring
According to University of Virginia psychiatrist Bruce Greyson’s research, prior to their NDEs, 22% of patients believed in an afterlife, but after their experience it rose to 92%, while the fear of death dropped a staggering 89%.
“Most who have near-death experiences say, ‘I can’t tell you what happened. There are no words for it,’” Greyson said. “Whatever happens after death — and I think something does — it’s so far beyond our imagination that there’s no point in trying to speculate about it.”
One former skeptic, John Burke, didn’t believe in Jesus, let alone near-death experiences, until his father was dying of cancer and somebody gave his father a book about NDEs that Burke ended up reading as well. He was particularly intrigued by the people who claimed to have encountered Jesus in those moments.
“[S]o many saw Jesus,” he said. “I was like, ‘I better be open to the Bible.’ So I started reading, and studying the Bible, came to faith.”
He would go onto study 1,500 cases of NDEs that inspired his book Imagine the God of Heaven where he reveals the common thread in those that have had NDEs and how it relates to the Bible and what it says about eternity.
“The thing that I like to point out is that many of these people that I’ve interviewed and write about, they were CEOs, they were spine surgeons, commercial airline pilots, bank presidents, lawyers,” he said. “They don’t need money, and they have nothing to gain by making up crazy, wild stories about dying and going to heaven and seeing Jesus, and yet, they consistently say it was the most real thing that ever happened to them.”
Author and former skeptic of the faith himself Lee Strobel’s brush with death several years back due to a rare medical condition piqued his curiosity into the afterlife. That eventually lead him to investigate evidence of the afterlife that culminated in the book and the follow up documentary THE CASE FOR HEAVEN.
“It gives credibility to what the Bible tells us.,” Strobel told Guidepost. “We have corroboration that can give us confidence that the Bible’s teachings about surviving death are accurate. Like I said, I came into this as a skeptic thinking that I was going to discover this is an over-hyped phenomenon. But I walk away from this study with an increased confidence that the Bible is true.”
First-hand accounts of near-death experiences such as the book and subsequent HEAVEN IS FOR REAL that tells the story Colton Burpo who after an emergency surgery visits heaven where he meets Jesus,long-lost relatives including a sister who was miscarried that Colton had no prior knowledge of, found a captive audience as well.
These accounts of the afterlife should stir up “homesickness for our real home,” as Strobel puts it, and a longing to be with Jesus.
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