The best documented instance of an Near Death Experience (or Life After Death) is the case of Pam Reynolds. In 1991, Reynolds was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had to undergo very complex surgery called "hypothermic cardiac arrest." This is a procedure where the body temperature is lowered, the heartbeat and breathing stopped, the blood is drained from the body, and the brain waves are totally flat.
From 11:05 a.m. to 12:00 noon, Reynolds was clinically dead with flat EEG during the operation and in this timeframe she had a near-death experience. After coming back she was able to describe the instruments used during the operation and even conversations between the staff in the operating room. Both the instruments used and the conversations was later confirmed by the doctor and nurse.
Furthermore, her ears where plugged with a sound device that would make it impossible for her to hear anything. Dr. Spetzler, who carried out the operation, later said that, "At that stage in the operation, nobody can observe, hear, in that state...I don't have an explanation for it." There is no explanation and Pam's case is one of the strongest signs of life after death that have ever been recorded and monitored by science.
The case of Pam Reynolds is not only a case of clinical death beyond reasonable doubt, but also provides a clear case of "veridical perception," where things seen or heard by the person during the NDE are later confirmed by others. In the study of veridical perception some studies have shown remarkable results. In one study of 16 cases, 88 percent of perceptions outside the body appeared to be accurate and 31 percent could be confirmed by objective means. In another study involving 93 cases, 92 percent appeared to be completely accurate with 35 percent being confirmed by objective means.
Even with verifiable veridical perception as evidence there will be skeptics, and therefore, I have also examined my own experience from a skeptical point of view. I asked myself whether my episode could not simply be a recreation of input that I had collected subconsciously throughout my life, let us say from movies. But my experience was so real and so far beyond my own sensibilities that I do not see how I could have imagined it.
This is a common conclusion after the experience, and the International Association of Near-Death Studies (IANDS) tells us that people usually report that the experience is "hyper-real" and more real than the life we know in this dimension.
Therefore, I have little doubt about the reality of my experience, and researcher Margot Grey confirms that this is typical: "To the near-death survivor there is seldom any uncertainty." One of her accounts describes this by saying that "there is no doubt in my mind that what I experienced was real."
In one study, The Southern California Study, "Ninety-six percent considered the experience real and not a dream, claiming that the contents of the experience were unlike anything they'd ever had in a dream." One more thing to be said again in this relation is that the sense of realness stays with the experiencer. Usually people are able to recall the experience with perfect clarity many years afterward. In contrast, dreams and illusions are easier forgotten and disregarded as unreal.
