NDE: Near-Death Experience

Reported Near Death Experiences tend to be something like the following. Someone clinically dies, but they experience no lapse in consciousness. Instead, they might see someone working on their body, and they see it from a vantage that is outside that body. They often report encountering a very bright light that doesn’t hurt their eyes, but fills them instead with a deep peace and a sense of unconditional love. The dead person is revived and arrives back in their body with a jolt, but is later able to report details they “could not possibly have known” about what happened in the vicinity of their body while they were dead.

Some will listen to such testimonies and feel vindicated in their beliefs. Some will feel hopeful. Others will dismiss these episodes as illusions created by electro-chemical activity in the brain just before death or upon revival. But how is a formerly dead person able to describe details of events that occurred while they were dead? This raises questions about where consciousness actually resides.  Is there any evidence that brain cells produce consciousness?  Is it that we are only hearing about those cases where there was a successful guess about what happened?  And how about all those who have been resuscitated from clinical death but were unable to recall anything?  I get the impression that NDE’s are the exception rather than the rule, but maybe I’m wrong. One thing I do know is that if such experiences are reflective of how things really are, then I will have to substantially alter my theology.  Nothing in haste though….to many unanswered questions about NDE’s still.