| 7 Days Out-Of-Body Odyssey Convinces Scientist Of Heaven's Existence by semid4lyfe(m): 7:37pm On Oct 09, 2012 |
A skeptical scientist who had spent his career studying the mechanics of the brain and dismissing patient tales of journeys to heavenly realms has revealed his extraordinary conversion after his own encounter with the afterlife during a near-death experience.
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Dr Eben Alexander spent 15 years as an academic neurosurgeon at Harvard but he was struck with a nearly fatal bout of bacterial meningitis in 2008 and had no brain activity when he lay comatose for seven days at a Virginia hospital.
Though he was unconscious and unresponsive during that period, he is now describing a 'hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey' to a place beyond, filled with butterflies and resounding music that has shaken his scientific viewpoint on human consciousness.
He says he entered a place filled with clouds and the sound of chanting, and was met by a beautiful blue-eyed woman.
Dr Alexander describes his paradigm shift from focusing solely on the scientific make up of the brain to considering the spiritual realm of the mind, in a deeply reflective essay in Newsweek in advance of the release of his book, Proof of Heaven.
'As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences,' he writes in his article, explaining how he had previously relied on 'good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.'
Though he considered himself a nominal Christian he said he lacked the faith to believe in eternal life. When his patients would tell tales of going to heaven during near death experiences, he relied on 'current medical understanding of the brain and mind' and disregarded them as wishful thinking.
But after he became the patient, he says he 'experienced something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death.'
The 58-year-old has an impressive pedigree. His ancestors were well regarded politicians and prominent fixtures in society in Tennessee. His father was Chief of Neurosurgery at Wake Forest University from 1948 to 1978.
The younger Alexander graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and received his bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975. He earned his medical degree from Duke in 1980.
He spent 15 years teaching neurology at Harvard Medical School and the University of Virginia - lecturing on and researching brain mapping, the treatment of brain tumors and trying to understand cognition.
In 2008, the father-of-two was in 'good health and good shape,' preparing to embark on a hike with his son of a volcano in South America, he said in a July interview about the ordeal with Skeptiko.
Little did he know that he would soon become a patient at the very hospital where he taught.
The doctor's life was nearly cut short on November 10, 2008, when he awoke at 4:30am to get ready to go to work at the Lynchburg General Hospital in Virginia, where he worked as a neurosurgeon.
All of a sudden, he developed a severe pain in his back and within 15 minutes he was paralyzed in anguish and could barely even move.
His wife, Holley, rushed in to assist him and began to rub his back to relieve the tension but his condition worsened.
Before he began convulsing in a seizure, his last words to his wife were, 'Don't call 911,' and he lost consciousness and has no memory of what happened for an entire week.
Fortunately for him, his wife disregarded his advice and he was rushed to an area hospital and was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis.
'My entire cortex - the part of the brain that controls thought and emotion and that in essence makes us human - had shut down,' he writes in his essay.
'Doctors determined that I had somehow contracted a very rare bacterial meningitis that mostly attacks newborns. E. coli bacteria had penetrated my cerebrospinal fluid and were eating my brain,' he added.
He was placed on a ventilator at the intensive care unit and for six days he was treated with triple antibiotics to fight the bacteria but his brain had little functionality and he was unresponsive, leaving doctors to believe he would not recover.
As his family prepared for the worst, on the seventh day he suddenly opened his eyes. His breathing tube was removed and he miraculously told doctors, 'Thank you.'
He suffered from amnesia and could not remember his life at all prior to his illness and remained in a haze for the first few days after he came out of the coma.
As he recovered though, he began to recall vivid memories of a magical mental experience during his time in the coma.
'There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind - my conscious, inner self - was alive and well.
'While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility,' he writes.
He says he entered a 'place of clouds - big, puffy and pink-white,' filled with butterflies and angel-like creatures that were 'simply different from anything I have known on this planet. They were more advanced. Higher forms.'
In this heavenly realm, he says he heard 'a sound, huge and booming like a glorious chant, came down from above,' providing him with a sense of joy and awe.
A beautiful young woman accompanied him during his stay, 'she was young, and I remember what she looked like in complete detail. She had high cheekbones and deep-blue eyes. Golden brown tresses framed her lovely face.'
Alexander admits his description might sound like something straight out of Hollywood, but to skeptics he says he has a clear sense that is was indeed real and 'not some fantasy, passing and insubstantial.'
After his remarkable experience in 2008, Alexander says the impact has been both on the professional and the spiritual.
Now the scientist has committed his energy to 'investigating the true nature of consciousness and making the fact that we are more, much more, than our physical brains as clear as I can, both to my fellow scientists and to people at large.'
But the self-described Christian-in-name-only, now says his experience with heaven has deepened his understanding of God and strengthened his faith.
'At the very heart of my journey [is this], that we are loved and accepted unconditionally by a God even more grand and unfathomably glorious than the one I’d learned,' he concludes. Culled from Daily Mail UK via lindaikeji..com 2 Likes |
| Re: 7 Days Out-Of-Body Odyssey Convinces Scientist Of Heaven's Existence by alexleo(m): 3:56pm On Oct 10, 2012 |
God is always making this manifest yet people deceive themselves. |
| Re: 7 Days Out-Of-Body Odyssey Convinces Scientist Of Heaven's Existence by mkmyers45(m): 5:00pm On Oct 10, 2012 |
Bull..so he was listening to country,butterfly and walking with a hollywood playboy model in his dream and thats heaven? He wasn't a christain or muslim so how manage? Sorry but its bullshyte and im not buying any book |
| Re: 7 Days Out-Of-Body Odyssey Convinces Scientist Of Heaven's Existence by Nobody: 7:19pm On Oct 10, 2012 |
lol.. white heaven.. blue eyed, butterflies.. and the blacks are happy as usual.. 2 Likes |
| Re: 7 Days Out-Of-Body Odyssey Convinces Scientist Of Heaven's Existence by benodic: 7:53pm On Oct 10, 2012 |
this is what i have been trying at length to explain in my various postings in the thread" Where Do People Go When They Die?"
it is only when you have the experience that you will understand what truth really is. you have a choice when to find out. you can do that now by trying the spiritual exercises especially the singing of the HU which can take you consciously into the inner worlds or you can wait until you have a near death experience or even until you die. the choice is up to you. |
| Re: 7 Days Out-Of-Body Odyssey Convinces Scientist Of Heaven's Existence by EvilBrain1(m): 2:49am On Oct 11, 2012 |
A guy had meningitis, which by the way is basically a brain infection. He had some funny dreams while in a coma, woke up and decided to write a book about them. And you guys accept this as proof that there heaven exists? Seriously?!?
So if I were to write a book about the malaria dream I had last month, you people would buy it and start threads on Nairaland claiming that it was incontrovertible proof of heaven? And I just so happen to be a surgeon too. That means my malaria dream book is much more credible than if it had been written by some random person who who isn't a doctor.
God made $tupid people so that guys like Dr. Eben Alexander could sell books to them and get rich. (Just joking, there is no god. $tupid people, please don't be offended.) |
| Re: 7 Days Out-Of-Body Odyssey Convinces Scientist Of Heaven's Existence by wiegraf: 6:55am On Oct 11, 2012 |
This is a scientist? He's a bit like all those good paradoxes thrown around here. A 7 foot dwarf, a married bachelor, a peaceful muslim, religious truth, a decent nigerian civil servant, etc
Ah, the daily mail... 1 Like |
| Re: 7 Days Out-Of-Body Odyssey Convinces Scientist Of Heaven's Existence by wiegraf: 9:47am On Oct 13, 2012 |
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