Showing posts with label near death experience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label near death experience. Show all posts

Monday

Eben Alexander on the Science of the Flipside


Here's an excellent scientific analysis of the flipside from a scientist. 


Mnemosyne, Goddess of Memory

This interview with Dr. Eben Alexander which includes reference to Ed Kelly's work (who I met with at UVA along with Dr Greyson as reported in "it's a Wonderful Afterlife") is worth reading and repeating.

(I will add my flipside comments where *noted.)




Dr. Eben Alexander on His Near-Death Experience—and What He’s Learned About Consciousness

In 2008, Eben Alexander, M.D., an academic neurosurgeon for over twenty-five years, including fifteen years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston, fell into a deep coma due to bacterial meningitis, from a particularly vicious strain of ecoli. 

After a week in a deep coma, his doctors put his survival rate well below 10 percent, with the caveat that if he did somehow emerge, he would be in a nursing home for the rest of his life. 

Not only did he make a full and miraculous recovery, but he recounted an incredibly deep and profound near-death experience from his time in this coma, when the neocortex of his brain was completely shut down. He was effectively dead, without a functioning brain—and from a materialist view of science, certainly not a brain that could manifest his experience, which he documents in great detail in the New York Times #1 bestseller, Proof of Heaven.

As a neurosurgeon, he had heard stories from patients about their own NDE’s, which he had casually dismissed as hallucinations, never taking the time to entertain or explore what his patients recounted, or what it could possibly mean. 

As he writes in Proof of Heaven, “Like many other scientific skeptics, I refused to even review the data relevant to the questions concerning these phenomena. I prejudged the data, and those providing it, because my limited perspective failed to provide the foggiest notion of how such things might actually happen.” He goes on to add, “Those who assert that there is no evidence for phenomena indicative of extended consciousness, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, are willfully ignorant. They believe they know the truth without needing to look at the facts.”

Since his near-death experience, Alexander has taken a bit of a right turn to explore, as the philosopher David Chalmers calls it, “the hard problem of consciousness,” which essentially boils down to whether the brain creates consciousness, or whether we are spiritual beings living a physical existence, where the brain functions as more of a filter. 

In Alexander’s latest, even more fascinating book, Living in a Mindful Universe, he explores the science behind all of it in great detail, as well as discussions about everything from where the brain stores memories (hint: nobody knows), to what the other side might be able to teach us about our reality today.
Nasa Photo of "Home"
Q&A with Eben Alexander, M.D.

Q: Before your near-death experience, you explained that you would have considered yourself a “skeptic,” without really understanding what that meant—in your book, you describe the concept of pseudo-skeptics as well. How has your stance changed based on your own experience, and everything you’ve learned since?

A: Before my coma, I would say I was an open-minded skeptic. The pseudo-skeptics, in contrast, are those who have made up their minds based on their prejudices, and who prove to be remarkably resistant to accepting empirical data or reasoned arguments. Many critics of spirituality, psi, and paranormal experiences, especially those who write publicly in disparaging terms about other’s sharing of such experiences, are simply pseudo-skeptics. Living in a Mindful Universe challenges many of those fundamental beliefs directly, in an effort to more broadly explain all of the empirical evidence of human experience. 

Having had a personally transformative experience of my own, my stance is now far more open, because I see possibilities for a worldview that is more comprehensive, synthesizing the evidence for our spiritual nature living in a spiritual universe along lines that fully accept the frontier science emerging from quantum physics and cosmology.

Q: What is the materialist view of consciousness?

A: Conventional science can be called reductive materialism, or physicalism—basically, that only the physical world exists. This means that thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and memories are merely epiphenomena of the physical workings of the brain, and thus have no real existence in their own right. 

Thus, according to materialism, consciousness is no more than the confusing result of the chemical reactions and electrical fluxes in the substance of the brain. Major consequences of this view are that our existence is birth-to-death, and nothing more, and that free will itself is a complete illusion. If conscious awareness is nothing more than chemical reactions, there is no place for “free will” to play a role.

“The brain is more a prison from which our conscious awareness is liberated at the time of bodily death, enabling a robust afterlife that also involves reincarnation.”

My new view, and one that is emerging in neuroscience and philosophy of mind, is the exact opposite: that soul/spirit is what exists, and projects all of apparent physical reality from within itself. The brain is more a prison from which our conscious awareness is liberated at the time of bodily death, enabling a robust afterlife that also involves reincarnation. Our choices matter tremendously, and thus free will is a crucial component of evolving reality.

Q: What do we know about the brain and what can we prove?

A: We know a tremendous amount about the brain and its workings, including the evidence that it is not the producer of consciousness at all. 

The best clinical examples are terminal lucidity, acquired savant syndromes, and hallucinogenic substance studies. In the cases of terminal lucidity, elderly demented patients become much more reflective and communicative around the time of death, in ways that would be impossible if the brain were somehow producing consciousness. 

(*NOTE: See Dr. Bruce Greyson's youtube talk "Is Consciousness Produced by the Brain" on youtube, or reproduced in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife")

Acquired savant syndrome occurs when some form of brain damage—such as a head injury, stroke, or autism—allows for superhuman mental feats of memory, calculation, gnosis, etc. 

The emerging evidence from functional MRI (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) studies of patients on serotinergic hallucinogenic drugs (like psilocybin, DMT [ayuhuasca], LSD, etc.) reveal the most profound of such drug experiences are associated with the greatest shutting down of the physical brain’s activity. 

This shocking finding of such experiments is fully consistent with my own amazing explosion of rich, vibrant, ultra-real conscious awareness—that accompanied the progressive damage to my neocortex during severe gram-negative bacterial meningitis, rendering me comatose for a week in November 2008.

“We need to accept that full explanation of mind and consciousness must involve investigation beyond just the physical substance of the brain.”

Search for “the hard problem of consciousness” to find more of the absolute dead end this kind of thinking has yielded about the nature of consciousness, and the relationship between brain and mind. From a physicalist perspective, the problem of how consciousness might arise from the physical brain becomes the impossible problem. 

We need to accept that full explanation of mind and consciousness must involve investigation beyond just the physical substance of the brain. 

One of the most renowned neurosurgeons in the 20th century, Dr. Wilder Penfield of Montreal, spent his career studying the effects of electrical brain stimulation in awake patients, and is thus a scientist in better position than most others to discuss this mind-body problem in detail. In his 1975 book Mystery of the Mind, he made it very clear that the brain does not explain the mind, thus is not the producer of consciousness itself, nor is it the harbor of “free will,” or even the repository of memory storage.


"Home" courtesy NASA
Q: Why do you believe there is such a chasm between materialist or physicalist science and those who believe that the soul survives death/is not created by the mind? Why is it so difficult for both belief systems to coexist?

A: The scientific revolution began approximately four hundred years ago, when the likes of Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and others were trying to define the laws of causality in the physical world. If they strayed too close to the realm of mind or consciousness, they risked being burned at the stake. 
Scientist Giordano Bruno

(*NOTE: Giordano Bruno, as I mention in "Hacking the Afterlife" was burned at the stake because of his "out of body experience."  He had an OBE that revealed to him that we aren't the only solar system, and that as he "traveled through space" he saw that other solar systems revolved around suns.  He spoke about it publicly, eventually getting him a one way trip to the stake.)

Over the centuries, physics was viewed as the study of the physical world, and thus, from a scientific perspective, the physical was the basis of all of reality. This necessitated the supposition that humans and their awareness of the world was just another subcategory of the physical.

The problem is they failed to realize that subjective reality is the only thing any human being can possibly know to exist, and that our mind is intimately involved not only with perceiving the world around us, but also in generating the emerging reality.

Quantum physics, the most proven theory in the history of science, insists on putting consciousness back in primary position as the initiator of all of emerging reality, yet the modern physics community has difficulty relinquishing the many-century notion that the world can be explained through physical matter alone. Many quantum physicists are advised to “shut up and calculate.” That is, to pay no attention to the completely counter-intuitive and bizarre properties of the subatomic world that appear in quantum mechanics experiments.

“The problem is they failed to realize that subjective reality is the only thing any human being can possibly know to exist.”

Materialism is the easy science, the low-hanging fruit, and very much held onto by those who simply want to claim some knowledge of reality, even though it fails miserably at explaining anything about conscious awareness itself, or all manner of human experiences, both mundane and exotic. 

The answer comes in adopting a much grander world view, notably that of metaphysical idealism: that consciousness is fundamental in the universe, and that all else, including the observable physical universe, emerges from consciousness.

Q: As a neurosurgeon, it seems that your opinion about the function of the brain has changed, from believing it creates consciousness to wondering if it isn’t some sort of filter. What do you believe the function of the brain really is, and what does science currently support?

A: Filter theory makes the most sense to me—that the physical brain serves as a filter, only allowing in limited states of conscious awareness. 

(*NOTE: In Dr. Greyson's interview, he points out that those filters appear to "die" with patients that have Alzheimer's - he cited that 70% of the hospice care workers report their patients "regaining full memory" just prior to death - either minutes, hours or sometimes days.  As if the "filters keeping conscious thought" outside of their brains have died; when these patients' brains are studied via autopsy, they're shown to be atrophied and incapable of memory.  Unless memory is not soley a function of the brain.)

The brain certainly manages many functions of the human body and gives us our linguistic capabilities and ability to analyze and solve problems. But these seemingly superior traits (as compared to other species) often serve to limit us from the full spectrum of what is possible. 

The production model of physicalism (that is, that the physical brain creates consciousness out of the purely physical matter of the brain) is the least reasonable of the options to explain consciousness, and fails miserably at providing any explanatory potential.


Sunset is a sunrise elsewhere. Always transforming.

Q: Is there a way to prove any of this?

A: The evidence that the materialist “brain-produces-consciousness” model is wrong is all around us. To the scientific-minded who want to pursue it, I recommend Ed Kelly’s two extraordinary books Irreducible Mind and Beyond Physicalism. 

(*I met with Ed Kelly PhD when researching "It's a Wonderful Afterlife." )

Conventional science has been guilty of suppressing and denying a mountain of evidence over decades, simply calling all manner of such human experiences (remote viewing, out-of-body experiences, precognition, past life memories in children, NDEs, shared death experiences, etc.) “hallucinations,” instead of studying them in more detail and trying to understand them. 

Sooner or later, sheer frustration about the failed world view of materialism is inevitable, and the result will be the extinction of that world view, in favor of one far more capable of explaining the wide variety of human experiences to be fathomed.

Q: For people who want to explore their consciousness on a deeper level, what do you suggest? Is there anything that you’ve experienced since that is NDE-like?

A: The worldview of idealism (that our consciousness creates all of unfolding reality) opens the door to the extraordinary potential each and every one of us has to influence our lives. We are all a part of this consciousness and it’s incumbent on each of us to uncover the truth of who we truly are.

“The veil is part of the ‘programmed forgetting,’ an intentional loss of memories from past lives and between lives that gives us ‘skin in the game.'”

Beginning around two years after the coma (in 2010), I started investigating binaural beat sound technology, a form of brain entrainment, utilizing a timing circuit in the lower brainstem. I wanted to duplicate the neocortical inactivation experienced during my coma, but without coming so close to death. Binaural beats have been crucial during my soul journey of the last few years, allowing me to reconnect with the realms, beings, and fundamental forces of love that I first encountered during my NDE. 

In particular, I’ve found the tones developed by Kevin Kossi and Karen Newell of Sacred Acoustics to be especially powerful. I have partaken in past life regressions, and feel they also help in this journey of discovery, but tend to default to self-generated investigations by exploring within consciousness through Sacred Acoustics audio recordings. I have had broad success at revisiting the spiritual realms I encountered during my coma and continue to develop my connection with my higher soul.

(*NOTE: My exploration of binaural beats included a head-ache, so I've focused on merely "asking questions" to someone who has had a near death event, or perhaps a recurring dream.  If the architecture of the afterlife is a known quantity (and it appears to be, without structure per se, but with words that evoke a memory, as in "council" "soul group" etc.)

Q: Can you tell us more about binaural beats?

A: Binaural beats are a phenomenon discovered by mid-nineteenth century Prussian physicist Heinrich Wilhelm Dove, who found that presentation of slightly different frequency, pure tones to the two ears (varying by anywhere from less than 1 Hz to ~ 25 Hz with each other) engendered a wavering sensation in the perception of the sound. 

The frequency of the wavering results from the arithmetic difference between the two tones, i.e. 100 Hz in one ear combined with 104 Hz in the other ear leads to a 4-Hz wavering sound. Others have investigated the alterations in consciousness associated with this binaural beat phenomenon, especially in enhancing out of body and remote viewing experiences.

Various benefits of binaural beats include reducing constant mind chatter, improved sleep, less anxiety, emotional release, spiritual guidance, enhanced intuition. Everyone is unique and it is important to try firsthand to see for yourself what results might be achieved. Karen and I regularly teach workshops on how precisely to do this, and free training videos are available at Sacred Acoustics, along with a free 20-minute sample recording.
Take a left past the galaxy to get "home."
Q: Why do you think the veil exists, i.e., what do you believe that we are here to learn?

A: I believe that fundamentally the universe exists so that sentient beings can learn and teach in this “soul school,” the sum result of which is the evolution of consciousness itself. Such learning necessitates that we not be privy to all that is known by our higher soul. 

However, we reconnect with the spiritual realm after bodily death, in the process of a life review; encounters with the souls of those in our soul group; and re-immersion into that ocean of unconditional love represented by God and similar concepts by those who have had such rich, spiritually transformative experiences. We can also access our higher soul through prolonged and extensive programs of “going within,” or meditation, practiced throughout our lives.

(*NOTE: "Soul Group" is not referring to James Brown or other groups of singers. (joke) However it is referenced quite a bit by Michael Newton, where I first found it in my research.  I've filmed 40 sessions of people visiting their "soul group" - I've done 5 sessions myself, and visited my "soul group" and "classrooms" and "libraries" and "councils" in the between lives realm.  Afterlife is a misnomer in the sense that life doesn't end, nor is it something that occurs "after we are here."  According to the research, some part of our consciousness is always "back home" - participating in events there while we participate in events here.  That's not opinion, belief, or theory - it's just based on the thousands of cases Michael Newton, Dr. Helen Wambach and the 40 sessions I've filmed claim.)

The veil is part of the “programmed forgetting,” (*NOTE: Scott De Tamble, hypnotherapist in Claremont (lightbetweenlives.com) calls this "Forget-me-juice.") an intentional loss of memories from past lives and between lives that gives us “skin in the game.” 

That is the emotional buy-in to our status as “individual souls” to live our lives to the fullest. Hardships serve as the engine for our soul’s growth and the growth of other souls with whom we are connected.

(*NOTE: Mnemosyne.  Remember her? Used to be very popular. Her name was cited prior to every Greek play so the actors "could remember."If you look up the Goddess of Memory, Mnemosoyne, you'll find that when someone dies, they take a drink from the river Lethe to "regain all of the memories of their lifetimes," and a drink from the river Mnemosyne when they return - to "forget all of them". Apparently, an accurate description of the process.)

Reprinted from Goop
Eben Alexander, M.D. spent more than twenty-five years as an academic neurosurgeon, including fifteen at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston. In 2008, he had a near-death experience that has led him to deeply explore the complexities of consciousness, which he writes about in the books: Living in a Mindful Universe, Proof of Heaven, and The Map of Heaven.


Mnemosyne.  Remember her? Used to be very popular. Her name
was cited prior to every Greek play so the actors "could remember."

Thursday

A Trip To the Council on the Flipside


That danged afterlife "council" again. Same council I report in "Flipside" and "Hacking the Afterlife" and visit LIVE ON AIR during my interview with Heather Wade on Art Bell's radio show last week. 


A council of my peeps in Ladakh
You don't need a Near Death Experience to get your life upright again. It helps but so does learning why you're here on the planet.


MAY 25, 2017
A Near-Death Survivor's Advice On Knowing What You Should Do With Your Life
Cherie Aimee

"I remember re-entering my body and finding myself in a hospital with a stiff and overbearing neck brace. I had just spoken to a “council” of six shadow figures, who told me I had more work to do in the world and asked me if I wanted to do it. I said yes, and was returned back to earth.

Hours earlier, I had been wakeboarding and hit a near-fatal wave that sent me to the hospital unconscious. What transpired when I was unconscious would dramatically shape the course of my life.

I experienced what scientists refer to as a “Near-Death Experience,” in which thousands of case studies report sensations of leaving their bodies, spending time in an otherworldly realm, meeting spiritual beings, and feeling a sense of connectedness to all things.

After my NDE, my sense of what mattered most in life was turned upside down. I used to wake up most mornings with a nagging sense that there was more I was meant to be doing with my life, without having any idea of how to do it.

Maybe you can relate to this nagging feeling or are like the 50% of other Millennials that want more direction in their lives.

While most of us will never experience an NDE—statistically they affect just 5% of the population—we can all gain value and perspective from those who live to tell about one. If you’re unsure about what you want to do with your life, NDE survivors can help shed light on what might be the right next step for you.

Meet Cherie Aimée, a fellow “NDEr” whose story is a well-known medical miracle to the world’s leading cardiothoracic surgeons. After dying in her husband’s arms, she sustained no heart beat for 90 minutes. Since then, she’s been interviewed by major news and TV networks, is a #1 bestselling author and an international motivational speaker, and has built a six figure company around living life with no regrets: Live Big Be Happy."

reprinted from Forbes Magazine: https://www.forbes.com/sites/julesschroeder/2017/05/25/a-near-death-survivors-advice-on-knowing-what-you-should-do-with-your-life/2/#f4f381c2722f

Here's Aimee talking about her experience.


What jumped out at me is this mention of meeting with her "council."

The question I have is "What council?"

Turns out, according to Michael Newton's career of writing about this "between lives" arena, we all have a council.  We meet with them prior to coming to our lives, and then upon our return, where they ask us "So? How did you do?"

They appear to serve as a kind of doctoral thesis panel - experts in their field who keep an eye on you and all your lifetimes, and show you images of what it is you did or experienced during your life that reflects what you "set out to do."

A little bit like Albert Brooks' film "Defending Your Life."




The council reference is consistent with the reports I've been cataloging for the past decade, that Michael Newton cataloged in his books for 30 years (Journey of Souls). 

Everyone - every single one of us - has a council, and we encounter them when we're off the planet - that could be because we've had a traumatic injury - a near death experience. 

Some people encounter that group with hallucinogens, some run into them through deep hypnosis hypnotherapy - and I've been showing people how you can access your own council without any drugs, hypnosis or meditation. And I did so on the radio show "Midnight in the Desert" with Heather Wade, and I visited my own council in the first of five between life sessions - which I filmed for "flipside" and transcribed the session for the books, which include "it's a wonderful afterlife" and "hacking the afterlife." 

The fact that Forbes would choose to print this - is because after her near death experience, it altered her business acumen, gave her insight to what she was doing on the planet, and made her life a more enjoyable adventure. That's not true with everyone who has a near death experience, but it is true with those who are able to remember, process, and eventually learn from the experience. Even the readers of Forbes.

There's a council story I mention in "flipside." 

When wrestler Dave Schultz was killed, his father's eulogy included the story when his son came to him as a little boy and asked if he could tell him a secret. His father, Philip said "sure, Dave." He said "I went to my council and asked them if I could teach a lesson in love." 

His dad asked who the council was. He told him "old men with white hair." His father said "and you came to teach a lesson in love?" Yes, his son said "but dad, I won't be here very long." I stumbled across this story printed in the Philadelphia newspaper account of the funeral. That wasn't an NDE or a hypnosis account but a memory of a young boy sharing a secret with his father - a story forgotten until his son was taken from him.

I've taken dozens of trips to visit councils.  My own I've visited twice in the five sessions I've done.  Not everyone visits their council in their near death experience, or in their between life hypnotherapy session.  I've found that if you can access some portion of your between life world - which apparently is accessible while you're fully conscious - you can ask your guide(s) to help you access your council.




And it's there where you begin to see who or what you are.

Don't take my word for it. Ask your council.


Tuesday

"Just Be"

I'm sharing this story from Colorado, because it's essentially what I've been filming and studying for the past decade.

What's going on over on the Flipside?


IANDS (mentioned in the article) is a place for people who've experienced near death experiences to meet up and share their stories. (I'm appearing at the Santa Barbara chapter on March 8th, and the Orange County Chapter on March 11th. (link is from a talk I gave there in 2012, but it's the same place, just on March 11th, 2017) 

I've given a number of talks at the International Association for Near Death Studies - it's a group put together by scientists which allows people to share their experiences in a non judgmental way.  People are given the space to talk about whatever happened to them.

In my case, I've been examining what happened to them, and comparing it to what other people say has happened to them - sometimes under deep hypnosis, sometimes not.  And I'm finding (Michael Newton found this to be the case way before I came to his research "Journey of Souls" etc) that people are consistently saying THE SAME THINGS about the Afterlife.

That's why I've written these books and made the documentary "Flipside."


Because when you read and compare and watch these accounts, you also can see for yourself that they're talking about the same place (relatively.)

So here's an account from Fox News in Colorado:

‘Near Death Experiencers’ Meetup members share their stories

By Macy Egeland

Published: February 22, 2017 

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — .....

They call themselves Near Death Experiencers, and some members of this Meetup say they have died and come back. The Near Death Experiencers group in Colorado Springs has more than 100 members. They say they’re a rarity that can share an important message.

It’s something we’ve all wondered, whether you’re religious or not: what happens to us when our lives come to an end?

“We all want to serve and help others to share the message of love,” organizer Theresa Diaz said. Now they’re sharing what they saw in the afterlife.

“It educates people on what the experience of dying is like and the other side to hopefully alleviate fears for people for their own death and their own passing, as well as for loved ones that maybe have or have not passed yet,” Diaz said.

For the members who say they have experienced death themselves, there’s no question about what lies beyond. “I wish that I could put it into words,” Dea Dewitt-Maltby said. “Seven years later, I’m still fighting for the words. It has changed my life completely.”

Dewitt-Maltby lives in Salida, and back in 2008 she was driving home from a shopping trip in Colorado Springs. While she was driving along Highway 115 right by Fort Carson, she hit a rut on the side of the road and lost control.

“I was being directed into the path of an oncoming 18-wheeler, and I knew that I couldn’t survive a crash like that,” Dewitt-Maltby said. “I just remember thinking ‘let me be the only one that dies in this accident,’ and that was the last thing I remember until I found myself hanging upside down in the vehicle and not able to move. I was crushed in between the steering wheel and the roof of the car.”

Dewitt-Maltby was badly injured. Her lungs had been crushed by the impact. But the only thing she could think about was her dog, Reebok, who ran away after the crash. “I remember just looking up and saying if there is a God, you made my dog, and you’re the only one who can protect him,” she said. “Please protect my dog. And within a millisecond, it was like this light came down out of the ambulance, the roof of the ambulance, it came into my face, permeated my whole body, filled me with peace and with the knowing that my dog was okay, that I was okay and that everything was taken care of. It literally went down through my entire body.”

And that was just the first of her unexplainable experiences. Dewitt-Maltby spent the next 12 days in a coma. “I knew that I no longer was connected to my body,” she said. “I knew that it was just consciousness. I was enveloped in these beautiful colors and these beautiful sounds and I knew I was being held.”

“It was as if that essence, and I’ll call that essence God, stroked the left side of my face, only I didn’t have a face, it was just the essence of me, and said, ‘just be,’” she said. “And for the first time in my life I understood what that meant. When that happened, it was as if somebody waved their hand and the whole universe opened up. And all of a sudden I’m out in this wonderful universe and there’s a million stars. Only they weren’t stars, they were souls. I had totally forgotten about this realm. I had totally forgotten about this life.”

Over the following days, Dewitt-Maltby began to recover and eventually came out of the coma a new person. She was also reunited with Reebok, who was found safe and uninjured. “Now I’d have to say I don’t have faith or belief, I have a knowing that there truly is life beyond this life and there truly is a fabulous essence of love that created us,” Dewitt-Maltby said.

It’s a belief she shares with many others who say they have had near-death experiences. Many of them say they encountered similar scenarios and feelings while they were on the other side. “The universe talks to us every single day, but are we listening? Sometimes I think near death experiences are just a rap upside the head for people,” Dewitt-Maltby said.

“We need support for one another because otherwise you feel kind of strange that you’ve had this experience and so you want to feel like you’re not alone. So we have each other to share our stories,” Diaz said. With stories so bizarre, this group is used to the skeptics.

But still, they want to share their stories and give those who believe a better idea of what lies ahead in the afterlife. “I don’t think any of us have all the answers, but we do know there’s something far greater than this reality that we’re living in,” Dewitt-Maltby said. “You don’t have to have a near death experience to find the doorway in between this world and the next.”

Dewitt-Maltby was also featured on a show called “I Survived Beyond and Back.” Dewitt-Maltby, Diaz, and the Meetup group’s creator, Roy Hill, have all written books about their experiences. They meet once a month.

There is an International Association for Near-Death Studies Convention in Denver this August. (I'll be speaking there.)

According to the International Association for Near Death Studies, near death experiencers often go through one of more of these scenarios:

Floating
Looking down at their body
Entering a tunnel
Moving toward a light
Seeing intense colors and music
Being met by others
Feeling unconditionally loved and at peace
Experiencing a life review
Seeing a border between life and death
Having a reluctance to return
Feeling no pain
Having no sense of time


These are the hallmarks of the near death experience.  They're also the hallmarks of what people say about the between lives realm when they access it while under deep hypnosis, or in some other fashion.

Consistently.

Across the globe. Doesn't matter if they've had a near death experience before, if they're atheists, agnostic or religious. When it comes to their descriptions of the flipside, they're consistent.  

Why does it matter? What's the big hurry to understand the flipside? Who cares?


Once you wrap your mind around the fact that we are here temporarily, you see that we choose to come here. And for those of us who plan on coming back, doesn't it make sense to leave behind a clean campground?  Let's pretend for a moment that what I'm saying is true, is accurate.

Doesn't it make sense to leave behind fresh water, fresh air and clean earth... if not for our children, but for our own return?

If it's true what these people are saying - that between lives we are all equal, there is no hierarchy - that we come here to learn lessons in love - doesn't it make sense to see adversity as something to surpass, to move beyond? To see our fellow humans here on the planet as what they really are? People from the same source that we are from?  People that deserves the same level of insight, learning and teaching that we deserve?

We currently are living in a time of challenges - but no more so than any era on earth, any epoch of this planet. Except perhaps that we are in imminent danger of losing the planet. Of losing what this place was, is, and could still be.  All we need to do is open our eyes... and "just be."

My two cents.


Monday

A Near Death Experience that mirrors the Flipside reports

I'm a member of IANDS and have been asked to share my research at a number of their chapters. It's the International Association for Near Death Studies, a wonderful organization, created by scientists and others to share, study, examine without prejudice, experiences people have had during a near death experience.  I spoke at their recent convention in Orlando.


I got the following NDE report in my email today and wanted to share it with fans of FlipsideThis NDE was reported to the organization, and is presented here anonymously. All rights to this story, and reproduction is copyrighted by IANDS. 

The person experiencing this event has a number of things happen that exactly mirror what people under deep hypnosis (as pioneered by Michael Newton, and reported on in "Flipside: A Tourist's Guide on How to Navigate the Afterlife.")  Michael Newton had over 7000 clients over the course of his 30 year career say roughly the same things about the journey of souls (as reported in his books "Journey of Souls" "Destiny of Souls" "Live Between Lives" and "Memories of the Afterlife") where they describe this same journey over and over again - it didn't matter what the person's gender or background was, they all had roughly the same experience. 

Dr. Helen Wambach ("Life Before Life") reported the same results from her work about a decade prior to Michael Newton's - a psychologist who used hypnosis to ask people about their journey, and cataloged them. She had over 2000 people say the same things about the journey - choosing our lifetimes (which is reported in this NDE).


Dr. Bruce Greyson (Dean Radin/Youtube)
After meeting Dr. Bruce Greyson, founder of IANDS at the University of Virginia, he pointed out to me that science doesn't consider "hypnosis" to be a valid scientific tool.  I pointed out that it apparently didn't matter who asked the questions, or where on the planet the questions were asked, people had the same replies about their journey.  But as a result of that conversation, I expanded my research in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" to include people who had near death experiences, and then people who had near death experiences, but also examined them afterwards via hypnosis, to see if they could access new information from them.

That's what led me to "Hacking the Afterlife" - which goes further afield, speaking to mediums who appear to be able to access people no longer on the planet.  But in the case of this report, I wanted to point out that there is a journey to a "library" for this person - which is consistent in the flipside reports; no library is every described precisely the same, just as no rainbow is the same to everyone - we all observe them from our own perspective.  


Great libary - wikimedia
I'd also point out that it "appears" that there is no time on the flipside, this has been a source of discussion in most of my books.  What I'm getting is that time exists over there, just "relatively differently."  What appears to be things happening simultaneously, is also an experience.  It's just that it's so different than what is experienced here, it "feels that way."  What I've learned is that the future is not set - there are likely outcomes, so no one can see or predict the future precisely because it is not locked in stone.  People do have free will - to change their minds - and when they do, the future changes as well.

It also implies that life is predetermined - but it's no more so than a play is pre-determined.  We get on stage with 3 x 5 cards, know what people we're supposed to encounter and what role we want to play - but that can change at any time. We have to improvise to adjust with whatever happens, and that's where the lessons come into play. We may sign up to experience something difficult, or to play the role of someone difficult, but we have the ability to say "No thanks, I'm done playing that role, I'm putting my rifle down, and no longer doing what I was tasked (and agreed) to do."  Free will means just that - we are free to change our minds.

But that's a matter of fine tuning - and also its important to remember that not everyone has this same experience.  They may be similar, but everyone sees or experiences these events differently.  That being said, it's worth repeating.  Here is the anonymous story that I got in my email today from IANDS.

"The following is the Monthly Near-Death Experience (NDE) for October 2016, provided as a service to members of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS). This selection was taken from accounts submitted to IANDS and is provided here anonymously.

Following an accident, this woman felt she spent 60 years in heaven and learned everything there was to know about the universe. When she was sent back to her body, it was difficult to fit into it, although she had only been gone 30 minutes in Earth time. She shares some of the things she learned; for example, that nothing is right or wrong, and that there is no time. She explains that our brain filters reality while we are in our bodies, and it creates the appearance of linear time. She affirms that we choose our lives and that everything that happens is essential for our learning."

_______________________________________________________________
Sixty Years in Heaven, Thirty Minutes Earth Time – from www.iands.org:

It was a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon of the Labor Day long weekend 1977. My friend and co-worker picked me up to go to a BBQ at a friend’s house. As we were proceeding through an intersection, a sports car ran the light and slammed right into the side of us. 
I remember hearing a crunch of metal and a huge jolt as we skidded towards the curb. Then everything slowed down and I remember watching the windshield shatter in slow motion. It looked like frost forming on glass. I looked out the passenger window and watched as the concrete light pole got closer and closer. I "knew" I wouldn't have a chance of getting out of this alive! As that thought was in my mind, everything stopped, no sound, no movement, everything seemed suspended in mid-air! I "felt" a presence surround me, then a SWOOSHING sound, like helicopter blades were really close.

All of a sudden, I was moving up, really fast. I felt like I was being embraced very gently, someone or something was holding me, and I knew I would be OK. The sound got louder and we went faster. All I could see (or sense) was white light, very bright but I could look at it—no problem.  I remember looking up and seeing white, then looking down and seeing the accident scene; it was surreal.  I felt a huge sense of peace and calmness. I knew everything would be fine. We "arrived" at the foot of a very large cobblestone path. Ahead I could "see" a large city to the left and a beautiful field to the right. A babbling stream ran along the path. The city was constructed of luminescent glass; the buildings shimmered in radiant colors I had never seen before!  I could see children, adults, cats, dogs, birds, butterflies (lots of butterflies), and every kind of animal, playing and singing in the meadow. I wanted to immediately join them!

It was then I could "see" my "guide" (for lack of a better word). He was very handsome and about 30/35 years old. He was dressed in a brown/beige robe and I immediately knew that I knew him! 

(Note from RM: In Newton's books he mentions that we all have a "spirit guide" and some have more than one. In the 35 sessions of hypnosis I've filmed, there has always been at least one guide to help us along.)

He smiled and said (actually it was telepathic), "come on, follow me."  I was led to one of the buildings. As we approached, the buildings got higher and higher until they disappeared into the clouds.  We entered into what looked to be a library of sorts; it had multiple levels and it was made of marble and dark wood. All I could see were scrolls, from top to bottom. Most were rolled, some were cloth, some were raspy paper, some were flat and etched in marble. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen! Lots of "people" were there, bustling around. They ALL looked at me and seemed very happy to see me. Some even cheered!

(Note from RM: Not everyone sees a library of souls during their hypnosis session, or during a near death experience. But I have had people explore these libraries, examine "books" or "scrolls" or "golden cups" or even "video screens" where people explore and examine previous lives.)

I was then led to a room that resembled a conservatory. As soon as I was left alone, the walls came to life! 360 degrees of "movies" all projected at once. I watched the domino effect of what harsh and unkind words and actions would do to people, how it would start with one person and spiral down to 300 people. I "felt" the anger and sadness of everyone! I thought I was going to explode! I was emotionally shaken to the core. That was the only semi-negative thing that happened to me during my visit there. 

(Note from RM: this "past life review" is often reported in NDE's but also in between life hypnosis sessions. We get a chance to "feel" all the joy or negative actions we've done to others. It's a powerful experience.  It also points to the idea that we don't want to harm others - because we will experience the pain they've felt.  It's part of our learning experience in the classroom of life.)

I was asked to return to the "library" as I was to start my studies, as in reading the scrolls (it was more like downloading into my consciousness). I read and studied there for 60 years!!! Most were people’s lives from beginning to end. I was allowed to "feel" the emotions of most people. Some were vibrant, some were sort of boring. A lot that was downloaded was information.

This will be hard to explain, but I'll do my best. We (here on earth) have a role to play. We choose our lives even before we are born...whether we chose a good life or a bad one...it matters not, because there is NO good or bad...it's just your chosen role...and ALL lives lived are essential for our evolution and development. That's why we have memory. WE LEARN AND GROW because we have different lifestyles, beliefs, opinions, etc. Sorry to say this, BUT even the most evil—death, destruction, disease—is essential! Think about it, if everything was ALWAYS good and going your way, if all relationships were good and everyone got what they wanted, over the years it would get pretty boring and stagnant. I know it sounds wonderful, but it wouldn’t let us grow much, would it? 

Also, something else that might be hard to comprehend is that there is no such thing as time! Your life is happening all at once, meaning your past/ present/ future are all one bubble. It's our brain (filter) that makes this so-called time linear. Huh? I know...strange! That might raise questions of "free will." Do we have it? Yes and no. Just because your life is predetermined, you don't know what the outcome will be. Things can change on a dime. Always remember that!  I knew everything about the universe...why/ how/ what's the point of it all? I was there for so long it was hard not to know everything! When I returned, I couldn't remember a lot of information that I had received. I assumed it was intentional.

(Note from RM: As mentioned, "things can change on a dime."  Things change because people can and do change their minds about what they signed up for. Like an actor suddenly shifting gears on stage and saying "I don't like this part I'm playing. I'm going to play someone else now. I learned my lesson, let's switch this up.")

I will never forget when I was told I had to go back. I was stunned. I wanted to stay. I argued. I didn't win. I made a deal though—that when I did return I would stay. But I guess I had said that before, apparently many times! So I had to squeeze my big expanse back into that tiny body that was, by now, half way laying outside that wrecked car. I couldn't fit very well. It took me 6 months to get comfortable. I came to in the ambulance. The EMT was glad to see me he said. My friend that was driving spent 3 months in hospital: broken pelvis/ arm/ femur/ crushed foot. I walked away without a scratch. The insurance adjuster was amazed I got out alive, let alone nothing broken. Huh, imagine that! So now you know time is irrelevant! 60 years in heaven/ 30 minutes earth time! So, that about concludes my experience. Lots of other things happened there, but this is long enough! LOL.

(Note from RM: This time element is repeated in my reports. On this blog there's a discussion of how "two months" feels like a "millisecond" - and in my books, how 25 years here felt like "ten minutes" over there. Of course it's relative - but if 30 minutes here feels like 60 years over there, or 30 years here feels like ten minutes over there - you can see how time exists over there, but just in a really different paradigm.  If 25 years here feels like ten minutes, then 250 years would feel like 100 minutes, and 2500 years would feel like 1000 minutes - or roughly 20 some hours.  So running into someone who lived 2500 years ago, wouldn't seem all that long ago from a Flipside perspective.  I haven't been able to get my mind around how to describe it - perhaps what it looks like from a hummingbird's perspective - but use the example of "it feels like being inside a pool of water" to being "outside the pool of water" - to describe being in these different realms.)

FOOTNOTE: I decided to share this after almost 40 years because of an odd series of events that happened to me recently. The main one was I discovered who my "guide" was. He was with me the whole time I was there. When I retired, I returned to my small home town and I happened to walk by a church. I looked toward it and then it hit me (LIKE A TON OF BRICKS), my guide was a friend and school mate that passed when he was 12 years old. It was him, without a doubt in my mind! I knew I knew him.

(Note from RM: This is "new information."  If this person was "creating" or imagining that person as his or her guide, they would have instantly recognized him from their past. But in this case, they did not recognize him, other than the feeling of knowing him for a long time. Dr. Eben Alexander ("Proof of Heaven") had a similar experience, his "spirit guide" was a woman he'd never met before but seemed like he'd known forever. Later, he discovered that she was a sister who died, a sister he wasn't aware of and had never met in this lifetime. But in his near death experience, he recognized her as someone he'd known "forever."  Only afterwards did he discover who she was - "new information" that can't be ascribed to cryptomnesia or hypoxia. My two cents.)

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Saturday

Near Death Experiences and National Geographic

David Bennett ("voyage of purpose") quoted here, tells his amazing story in my book "Its a Wonderful Afterlife Vol 1." 

What's fascinating about David's experience is he saw into the future, experienced himself surviving cancer, so when decades later, the doctor came to give him the bad news that he had weeks to live, he recognized this new doc's face from his NDE decades earlier. 

When the doc said "you won't survive this" he knew he would survive it and told him so. "You're in denial" the doc said. Turns out the doc was the one in denial. 

Good to see national geo opening up their field of vision.

From National Geographic's website:

"Coming Back From the Brink of Death"

What you see and feel in a near-death experience can profoundly change the rest of your life.

Photographic pairing showing David Bennett, who had a near-death experience

"One night off the California coast in 1983 David Bennett, chief engineer on a research vessel, and his crew tried to outrun a storm in an inflatable boat. About a mile from shore the boat was capsized by a 30-foot wave, and they were tossed into the chilly Pacific. His life vest was faulty, so his lungs filled with water. He remembers feeling total bliss. Something or someone told him it wasn’t his time, though, and after 18 minutes underwater he popped up to the surface. His crewmates, who were all floating on the water, were shocked to see him."

You can see an interview with David here, that is the source of the chapter in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife Volume One"






Photographic pairing showing Tony Cicoria, who had a near-death experience


"At a family picnic at upstate New York’s Sleepy Hollow Lake, Tony Cicoria, an orthopedic surgeon, had just tried to call his mother on the phone. An approaching storm sent a lightning bolt through the phone into his head, stopping his heart. Cicoria says he felt himself leave his body, moving through walls toward a blue-white light, eager to be one with God. He emerged from his near-death experience with a sudden passion for classical piano, creating melodies that seemed to download, unbidden, into his brain. He came to believe he’d been spared so that he could channel “the music from heaven.”

Photographic pairing showing Tricia Barker, who had a near-death experience

"A head-on collision landed Tricia Barker, then a college student, in an Austin, Texas, hospital, bleeding profusely, her spine broken. She says she felt herself separate from her body during surgery, hovering near the ceiling as she watched her monitor flatline. Moving through the hospital corridor, she says, she saw her stepfather, struggling with grief, buy a candy bar from a vending machine; it was this detail, a stress-induced indulgence he’d told no one about, that made Barker believe her movements really happened. Now a creative writing professor, she says she’s still guided by the spirits that accompanied her on the other side."

Photographic pairing with Carol Burke, who had a near-death experience

"Carol Burke was seriously injured in a car crash in the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport employee parking lot, requiring surgery to remove her spleen and repair numerous broken bones. She lost half her blood. Feeling herself floating near the ceiling of the hospital room, she could see her mother and a friend at the foot of the bed, afraid that she would not return. She remembers feeling nothing but peacefulness and love." 

Photographic pairing showing Ashlee Barnett, who had a near-death experience

"Ashlee Barnett was a college student when she had a serious car crash on a remote Texas highway. Her pelvis was shattered, her spleen had ruptured, and she was bleeding profusely. At the scene, she says, she moved between two worlds: chaos and pain on one side, as paramedics wielded the jaws of life; and one with white light, no pain, and no fear. Several years later she developed cancer, but her near-death experience made her confident that she would live. She has three children and counsels trauma survivors."

Photographic pairing showing Pam Kircher, who had a near-death experience

"Pam Kircher contracted meningitis at the age of six. She remembers being in her room in a small house outside St. Joseph, Missouri, looking down at a girl on the bed. Immediately after she recognized herself, she returned to her body. Fearing ridicule and ostracism, she kept this near-death experience secret for almost four decades, yet it motivated every life decision she made. She became a family-practice physician. Now retired, she works in hospice care and talks openly about her experience, hoping it will bring comfort to people at the end of their lives."


For more information on near death experiences, or to share one that you've experience, highly recommend checking into iands.org - where I met David Bennett.

Friday

Saturday Oct 10th, book talk -It's a Wonderful Afterlife- in Tustin, CA

Writer, filmmaker, director Rich Martini is in the house!! Saturday, October 10th, 2015!!

Featured Speaker

​Rich Martini

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Author, Filmmaker, Award-winning American film director, producer, screenwriter and freelance journalist
Date:          Saturday, ​ October 10, 2015
Time:         1:00-4:00 pm
Place:         Unity of Tustin, 14402 Prospect Ave., Tustin, CA
(Drive to the back of the church, turn left, and park.  Enter the 2nd door).
What happens after we die?
One of our most popular speakers, Rich Martini, award winning filmmaker and author of “Flipside: Journey to the Afterlife“, and “It’s a Wonderful Afterlife“, Volumes 1 and 2, is back to talk about the latest research into how near death experiences relate to between lives hypnotherapy, and first hand accounts of the ​flipside from people who are over there.
He’ll talk about evidence for life after death, via the “life between lives,” where we reportedly return to find our loved ones, soul mates and spiritual teachers based on the evidence of thousands of people who claim that under deep hypnosis, they saw and experienced the same basic things about the Afterlife.  And more,  how we are fully conscious between our various incarnations, and return to connect with loved ones and spiritual soul mates, together choosing how and when and with whom we’ll reincarnate;  why souls choose difficult lives in order to learn from their spiritually, no matter how difficult, strange or complex a life choice appears to be, ​how it’s made in advance, consciously, with the help of loved ones, soul mates and wise elders.
ABOUT RICH MARTINI
After Rich had several “Other” experiences, including the death of a soul mate, which revealed to him that there is more to life than is apparent, he started exploring and looking for more information and answers to the truth about life and death.
Flipside was his debut non-fiction book. The film documentary is distributed by Gaiam TV and Amazon Prime. After experiencing a dream visit with his friend on the other side, Martini went on a literary quest to find out how science and philosophy are currently explaining these phenomena.
He journeyed into Tibetan Philosophy, made documentaries in Tibet and India, and eventually was introduced to the work of the Newton Institute, founded by renowned author and hypnotherapist Dr. Michael Newton (Author of Journey of Souls). The book contains interviews with numerous hypnotherapists who talk about past life regression and life-between-life therapy, using the information to help patients examine their immortal identity.
Flipside went to #1 at Amazon (Kindle, all its genres) and Rich’s follow up series It’s a Wonderful Afterlife also went to #1 due to his appearances on “Coast to Coast” radio. It’s a Wonderful Afterlife expands his research into the afterlife, including interviews with Bruce Greyson, MD, Mario Beauregard, PhD, and Gary Schwartz, PhD, about consciousness existing outside the brain. The author interviews people who’ve had both near-death experiences and between-life hypnotherapy sessions and includes transcripts from between-life sessions….including his own.
In 1978, Rich graduated Magna Cum Laude from Boston University with a BA degree in Humanities. He attended USC Film School and received an MA degree in 2008 from their Master of Professional Writing Program.
Reviews
Richard has written a terrific book. Insightful, funny, provocative and deep; I highly recommend it!
~Robert Thurman (author of Why the Dalai Lama Matters)
Everyone should have a Richard Martini in their life.
~ Charles Grodin (Author of Just When I Thought I’d Heard Everything!)
Inspiring, well written and entertaining. The kind of book where once you have read it, you will no longer be able to see the world in the same way again.
~ Gary E. Schwartz PhD (Author of The Sacred Promise)
We viewed Flipside last night and were blown away about how good it is; the visuals were outstanding – the care taken in putting it all together really shows.
~​Michael Newton, PhD (Author of Journey of Souls)

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