Did you ever see that bright light in a near death experience?

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   baygirl33posted 12 years ago

   Did you ever see that bright light in a near death experience?
   
   Where is that " bright light" that is seen in a near death experience-in your head or somewhere else?

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   Catherine Kaneposted 12 years ago

   I saw it once when I had a near death drowning experience.
   
   For the record, while I think physiology has some input in this, I believe that it's more than that....

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   Civil War Bobposted 12 years ago

   For me it would have been the left front headlight of a '51 Dodge whose door handle caught me in the face as I stepped between two parked cars!  If I'd have attacked 2 seconds earlier in that snowball fight, I might not be answering this question...or I might have one more 'up your street' of inquiry, as my Brit friends would say!

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   Denise Handlonposted 12 years ago

   Interesting question.  I haven't had a near death experience, however, many of my meditation experiences take me to a dark, vast space which is stillness.  As I merge with this space a feeling of sublime love and peace envelopes me.  If I stay in that space and just observe a pinpoint, brilliant white light shines out in the distance like a far off beam from a lighthouse.  If I follow that beam of light it gets larger, fills the space, gets bright and intense and there is another merging with this light which becomes clarity, a sense of supreme knowledge, peace, and brilliancy-
   
   At this point in my life I can't say that I am 'afraid' of death.  My 'death' experiences from meditation and the nothingness of this black space, is one of peace and love. 
   
   How are you doing?  I hope you are well.  Hugs to you.

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   edhanposted 12 years ago

   I had a near death with the car's accident. But I do not see the bright light as most people are saying about it.

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   anancelesteposted 12 years ago

   
   
   I have been clinically dead twice; The first time, I don't remember anything ( stroke+ cardiac arrest) I just woke up two days later confused.  The second time, 5 years later right before my 23 birthday, I had two mild heart attacks in 24 hours. Those I was very aware. While they were working on me, I saw a white surrounding light, like a slow flash. I passed out.
   
   I was an ER nurse back then, when I told one of the doctors that works the department with me. He explained to me, that in most cases that bright light is electrical charges produced in the brain perceived by the optic nerve, while the dendrites and axons of the brain dies. I was a little disillusioned, I actually thought that I was going to heaven.

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      Catherine Kaneposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I think it's important to keep in mind that, just because some people present a physiological explanation, that doesn't mean it's the total, accurate explanation of what's happening

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   CR Rookwoodposted 12 years ago

   Yes. It happened very fast, like a VERY rapid swing between dark and light extremes of experience. I was going through a very traumatic time and things kept getting darker and darker and more and more frightening. Literally the air seemed to grow thicker and darker, and also the emotions and perceptions. Very scary.
   
   Right at the point I felt I could not stand another second of it, I said a spontaneous prayer and it was like, whoosh--right up my spine and out of the top of my head into this brilliant white light that isn't really very easy to explain (or even recall) but it was marked by complete love and complete knowledge fused with the light--like the light was this vast living being of which we are all a part.
   
   Also, inside the experience it was clear that time as we know it is a very small and somewhat artificial phenomenon--kind of like a thin string running through a vast ocean. Time is pinched and small, the universe is endless and expansive, something like that.
   
   I didn't come back and start my own religion or anything, but the experience did get help me to get through the rest of the bad stuff, the painful stuff, and it did change my outlook drastically. Whenever I would start to take all the suffering personally, I would think of that light and I'd keeping going forward.
   
   I think probably a lot of people have had this experience and just are embarrassed to talk about it because they know someone will say it's just lack of oxygen or whatever. But if you read the literature and if you've been through it yourself you know it is more than that.
   
   We are living in an Age that wants to reduce everything to matter, as if we are just meat with a little electricity running through us and once the spark goes out, that's it, we're mulch.
   
   I am 99.99% sure that is not correct, but even if the .01% turns out to be true and we are just sparky meat, I stil choose not to believe it because it is kind of vile. If nobody knows for sure what is going on, why choose to believe something vile?
   
   Thanks for the question! I hope you get lots of interesting answers.

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