Children are the most unsullied, honest, carefree, and open minded people.
Watch them closely and they will show you many truths you may have forgotten about life.
Listen to them, and they will say exactly what they feel without intent to hurt with their words.

They are very close to their instincts about people. They have an affinity with animals, and they have a close connection to the nature around them.

Children feel good about their bodies and are unashamed of them, they are not naturally afraid of the world, or afraid to seem silly, nor do they embarrass easily.

They say seemingly strange and belly busting things sometimes. They have a great hunger to understand; the constant why of things. And they can, in an instant, remind us why so many things are meaningless, how some things are just too important to ignore. They have a constant hope within, a startlingly open mind to the possibilities of the human spirit.

Children like adults also have near death experiences. Many children throughout the world without knowledge of religion, politics, societal standards or even what the meaning of death truly is have been to the brink of permanent death and have come back to tell the adults around them what they saw, what they felt, and what messages they now want us to know. These accounts mirror nearly exactly with adults who have near death experiences.

It appears also through research that children often times have premonitions of their own deaths though they may not fully understand these premonitions. Children who suffer incurable fatal illnesses have often been the comforters of parents and family members, preparing others for their eventual death in a very matter of fact way most times without any fear of the future event.

These children and the children who have had near death experiences always feel a powerful need to educate adults on death and dying.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross  a pioneer in the study of death, dying and grief, has recounted dozens of pre-death premonitions of death concerning children. She recounts a seven year old boy dying of leukemia:
"In an unusual mixture of mysticism and courage, he said, "Mother turn off the oxygen, I don't need it anymore."
With a big smile on his face, he said: "It is time," and then he left."

She recounts a four year old girl who was murdered, who had a vivid dream the night before her murder:
The girl was very excited, said that she had been to heaven, that it was "really, really, real," and that she saw Jesus, "a beautiful golden heaven with gold angels, diamonds, and jewels and she had fun there.
She told her mother not to worry because Jesus would take care of her" and then went out to play. She was murdered only hours later. (1)

Dr. Melvin Morse a pediatrician and neuroscientist, has been studying the near death experiences of children since 1980.

Through his research and study he says he has discovered a God Spot. The biological link, he says, where we are connected to the interactive Universe. Dr. Morse also says:

"Our right temporal lobe permits the opening of a quantum connection with non local reality, at the point of death. Children who have experienced this "quantum connection" describe it as a "light that had a lot of good things in it" (age 5), or "I saw the sun and it had a happy face for me" (age 3 years), "you'll see, Dr. Morse, heaven is fun" (age 7), most intriguingly, "I went into a huge noodle when I died, well it must have been a tunnel because I don't think noodles have rainbows in them. (age 5)."

P.M.H. Atwater is a noted authority on the near death experiences of adults, and especially children. Atwater has conducted extensive research since 1978 interviewing over 4,000 adults and children relating their experiences.

She has authored many books on the subject and is invited to speak around the globe regarding the near death experience.

In her research report: ACADEMY OF SPIRITUALITY AND PARANORMAL STUDIES, INC.; ANNUAL CONFERENCE, 2007 PROCEEDINGS; CHILDREN'S NEAR-DEATH STATES: NEW RESEARCH, A NEW MODEL, P.M.H. Atwater states:

"Clearly, 70% of children's near-death scenarios involve angel visitations. Tiny ones are not as explicit as older kids, yet the majority describe them as winged and either white or black or colored "like real folks are."

The very young seldom use the term "angel;" rather, they speak of "the people" or describe loving beings made of light."

"Youngsters are also met by deceased relatives and friends (verified later on); deceased animals and pets (sensations of being licked, rubbed, or pawed quite vivid); religious figures (described as being more wonderful than angels); God (for the very young experienced as the greatest of fathers or grandfathers, for those in school or older as a sphere of all-knowing light); and people very much alive, a rarity (usually a favorite teacher or playmate - figure lasts only long enough to calm the child then is usually replaced by beings more typical of "other worlds" (such as angels or bright ones)."

The paper is quite interesting and you can read it in full here.

Children have a different concept of death than do adults but their experiences
reveal a simple core that appears to be universal to our experience of dying. They have less repressed fears, societal and historical baggage than do adults, and are very straightforward in relating their experiences with near death.

In 1972 the term Lazarus Complex was coined for people relating such experiences of near death. Certainly near death experiences were not taken seriously then, as they are now, and hardly studied in any scientific way or to the extent that it is studied now.

Millions around the world have testified to their near death experiences for centuries just as people have testified to their afterlife communications with their loved ones.

In many studies, the numbers of near death experiences have either increased in recent times, or perhaps only now reported more often.

Of course with our advanced modern state of civilization we are more prone to accident, disease, war, murder, not to mention the alarming rise in suicides. But perhaps we are now starting to take seriously the very concept of death, of afterlife, of continuation.
We have in our present time become more desperate in our search for meaning.

Most doctors, surgeons, and scientists interpret near death experiences as "distortions of perception while the brain is malfunctioning."

They say that near death experiences can be explained by the "dynamics of disintegration of cerebral function caused by different resistances to anoxia of the various areas of the central nervous system."

Psychiatric literature too seems to be in general agreement that they are "triggered by death anxiety, psychologic stress, and the fear of death."

These experiences have also been described in literature as resulting from "temporal lobe seizures, electrical stimulation studies, or otherwise arising from deep temporal lobe and related structures."

Neurologist philosopher Arnold Mandell says that the kingdom of heaven can be found in this area of the temporal lobe. He reports cases of temporal lobe seizures that mirror not only near death experiences but also mystical states. (2)

Of course, the culture and conditioning of the experiencer plays a role in the experience.
But the core of the experience is the same across the globe.

Everyone has always agreed :
seeing a light, being in a tunnel, seeing dead relatives or pets, sensing a Godlike being, deciding to return to the body, a sense of peace and joy.

Unless one has had a near death experience, it may be hard to believe that this experience is a real thing not explained in physiological or psychiatric terminology.
One's religious or scientific beliefs may play a role in either belief or disbelief. But millions of people have had these experiences.

Thousands upon thousands of these experiences are documented.
If one leans towards the scientific, medical, or psychiatric explanation of a malfunction in brain wave or in a shorting or misfiring in the temporal lobe, it is easier to dismiss these experiences.

But if you have had an NDE, known someone who has had this experience, or have been the witness to an immediate accounting, this is not so easily explained away by a temporal lobe malfunction.

A study done at Boston's Childrens Hospital released in 1990 found that "60 pediatric intensive care units nurses at Boston Children's Hospital described a total of 13 pediatric NDEs. Seven of these experiences were told to nurses immediately after recovery, and one was reported during the experience. Unlike our study of cardiac arrest and coma, these children's diagnoses were cancer, cystic fibrosis, renal transplantation, and postoperative surgery, demonstrating that NDEs occur in a wide variety of clinical situations. " (3)

Pulitzer Prize winning author Ernest Becker believes that a large portion of our brains are devoted to perceiving such experiences.

I agree with him completely when he says that "We are a death-denying society and any discussion of taboo topics surrounding death is culturally difficult. Death-related visions may be as real as any other human experience and such experiences can radically change our society's perception of death."

It's also time we personally went further into this study rather than simply resigning ourselves to an antiquated belief system from science and medicine that for the most part, we accept as "more than likely."

Perhaps, the remarkable increasing frequency of near death experiences, the documented accounts and continued research done in this area, will reveal an even more likely cause: death-related visions are a natural part of the human response to death and are not pathological hallucinations or psychiatric fantasies.

In 1997, a poll by U.S. News & World Report revealed that in the United States, 15 million people had had a near death experience.
That translates to one-third of those whom nearly die, or who are pronounced clinically dead but are later revived.

Melvin Morse, in his book Closer to the Light, puts the figure of children having had a near death experience at 70%. That means, under the same circumstances, children are twice as likely as adults to experience a near-death episode.

P.M.H. Atwater says:

To understand children's cases, we must keep in mind that kids are tuned to different harmonics than adults.

Concepts of life or death leave them with puzzled faces. "I don't end or begin anywhere," a youngster once told me.
"I just reach out and catch the next wave that goes by and hop a ride. That's how I got here."

(1) Kübler-Ross, E. On children and death, New York, MacMillan Publishing, 1983.
(2) Mandell A. Toward a psychobiology of transcendence: god in the brain. In Davidson, Davidson (eds). The psychobiology of consciousness. New York, Plenum Press, 1980:54-86.
(3) Levin C, Curley M. Near death experiences in children. Reported at Perspective on Change: Forces Shaping Practice for the Clinical Nurse Specialist, Boston Children's Hospital, Octover 11, 1990.