P.M.H.Atwater, L.H.D., Ph.D. (Hon.)

P. O. Box 7691

Charlottesville, VA 22906-7691, www.cinemind.com

reprinted wtih permission of the author © 1998
Vital Signs Newsletter,

I began my research in 1978 after meeting Elisabeth Kubler-Ross at O’Hare Airport in Chicago and finding out during our long conversation (her plane was late) that what I had been through was universal in occurrence and pattern, and that it had a name, “the near-death experience.” My time with Elisabeth was a beginning, engendering more questions than it did answers, but at least it gave me direction - something I didn’t have before. Within months I was having sessions with other experiencers as myself, intently observing their every move and nuance of language as they described what happened to them, and was still happening. Seeing myself reflected in their eyes, hearing my story repeated from their lips, was as sobering as it was instructive. Three years later Kenneth Ring telephoned to say that he had heard about what I was doing and could we talk. We did. The rest is history.

Throughout my nineteen years of research, I have always cross-compared whatever I found with discoveries I made during the sixties and early seventies when I interviewed people actively engaged in spiritual awakenings and transformations of consciousness. If you include this prior effort, I have spent thirty years investigating “otherworld journeys” and the impact they have on individuals, families, communities. Coming from this broader background, I want to tackle a subject crucial to the positive integration of the near-death experience, and that is. . . psychic ability.

Fact: if you weren’t psychic before your near-death experience, you become so afterward. If you were psychic before, you become even more so. Attempts to disprove this have only strengthened the mountain of evidence supporting it.

I speak to this fact in every book I have ever written and I’m doing so once again, for it is that important.

Child experiencers face the same superstition adults experiencers do: if you’re psychic, you’re considered possessed of the devil. Scientific types believe in essentially the same admonition although their jargon differs: if you can’t put it under a microscope, it doesn’t exist. Wrong on both counts!

It matters not whether you term that which seems to be paranormal as “psychic” or “intuitive” or “gifts of the spirit,” the ability is the same differing only by intent of usage and how described.

From the earliest days of my near-death research,

I recognized that the phenomenon seems to somehow enhance, enlarge, and expand whatever potentials and characteristics were present in the individual beforehand. This “across-the-board” expansion encompasses most of the aftereffects, but especially the emergence of psychic abilities. Actually, psychic abilities are more akin to enlargements of one’s perceptual range of the electromagnetic spectrum and the extension of faculties normal to us, than any type of anomaly, fantasy, or curse.

It is possible to extend and broaden our five faculties of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell to embrace psychic dimensions (beyond reliance on physical form), and collective/spiritual realms (grander realities, the larger view). Since the average person is only aware of 1/60th of what goes on around him or her, these extensions are advantageous and enriching, enabling individuals to circumvent whatever factors may seem to limit the knowledge and wisdom they can access. I consider faculty extensions to be quite practical and easily learned or refined via classes, how-to-books, or as a result of the desire to do so and the will to try. * (see chart on page 7)

The “flowering” of psychic abilities is usually quite unexpected for near-death survivors, which, I believe, accounts for why so many experiencers have difficulty handling them. The power of social and religious “taboos,” however, may be the greater stumbling block. I suspect, though, that psychic abilities are simply the outworking of limbic enhancements in the brain/mind assembly and have nothing to do with anything “mysterious” or paranormal.

It is typical after reviving from death to continue to see manifestations from The Other Side, have out-of-body experiences, know who’s on the phone before it rings, “live” the future before it occurs, “see through” people’s motives, communicate freely with the varied “voices” of nature, and so forth. None of this is unusual, or a sign of mental instability.

Psychic abilities, like latent talents, surface readily when one’s consciousness alters in spiritual development. The same is true with near-death states. Once you recognize this and commit to harnessing and refining these abilities, your life becomes more positive, efficient, easier, and fun - not to mention, colorful.

Truly, the psychic is the gift of spirit and the poetry of consciousness. We are enriched beyond measure by its presence.

Emily Williams Kelly, PhD, is Research Assistant Professor, Division of Personality Studies, University of Virginia. She and some of her colleagues will soon be publishing a book that examines the extraordinary phenomena, entitled Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century, published by Rowman & Littlefield.

www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/DOPS

Most of us are probably well aware that the overwhelming assumption among modern Western scientists, philosophers, and other intellectual leaders of our society is that mind, or consciousness, or what many of us still refer to as the “soul,” is merely the product of vastly complicated brain processes. From the observation that we lose consciousness when we receive a severe bump on the head, to the minute measurements with modern neuroimaging techniques of what seems to be going on in the brain when we see, remember, or feel something, the conclusion that “mind is what the brain does” has become ever more rigidly entrenched in science. And the inevitable corollary of such a belief is that, when the brain dies, so does the mind.

For more than a century some scientists have attempted to bridge the ever-widening gulf between religious and scientific dogma on this question of

survival after death by studying a wide range of experiences that suggest that the mind is, in fact, much more than mechanical brain processes (for references to some of the vast literature in this area, see the website of our research unit at the University of Virginia, given at the end of the article). One type of experience that has been reported for centuries, and that has gained widespread recognition in recent years, is the “near-death experience,” or NDE. Such experiences often occur when a person is seriously ill or even near death, but then recovers. During an NDE, the person may seem to be out of his or her body and watching what is going on around the body, such as at the scene of an accident or in an emergency room of the hospital. Most people report that they no longer felt pain but instead felt extreme peace or joy during the NDE, and many report experiences such as going through a dark space toward a bright light, encountering deceased loved ones or other persons, or seeing an unrecognized place of great beauty.

Many scientists dismiss such experiences as merely hallucinations of a dying brain, or a psychological defense against the fear of dying, or even dreams or “false memories” engendered by what the person may have expected or hoped to experience at the moment of death. But are such explanations adequate? Thus far, such physiological and psychological theories remain speculative and are unable to account for the array of features that have been consistently reported among thousands of cases and in different cultures and times. Perhaps even more significantly, they also are unable to explain why such experiences are often profoundly life-changing, especially in erasing the person’s fear of death.

Several features of NDE’s in particular call into question whether conventional psychophysiological theories will ever explain NDEs, and they suggest instead that NDEs may be precisely what most of those who experience them think they are, namely, a foretaste of what is to come after death. One such feature is the experience of feeling separated from the physical body, especially when this is accompanied by a “veridical” perception, the perception of real events that the person could not have learned about in any ordinary sensory way. For example, in a case in our collection at the

University of Virginia, a woman in childbirth reported being out of her body and going to the hospital waiting room, where she saw her mother, a nonsmoker, smoking a cigarette, which the mother later admitted having done because she was so nervous. Such experiences are related to the almost innumerable reports, of spontaneous experiences as well as experimental studies, in which a person seems to have become aware of distant events by “psi” (that is, telepathy or clairvoyance). The literature on such experiences is voluminous (again, see our website for references to some of this literature), and thus far no conventional or materialistic theories can explain psi, whether psi in a controlled laboratory experiment or psi in an NDE. Instead, such experiences suggest that mind is more than the brain and has means of perceiving other than the five physical senses.

Another feature that seems better explained by a survival hypothesis than by a materialistic one is the perception that many people have during an NDE of deceased persons, usually a loved one who seems either to be welcoming the person or to be sending him or her back. It is important to note here that similar experiences occur to those who, unlike NDErs, actually do go on to die. I have talked with hospice nurses, doctors, and other workers who report that, in the hours or perhaps days before death, many people seem to see, hear, or converse with people who are not physically present, these almost invariably being deceased loved ones. And in a recent survey that I did asking people about a variety of unusual experiences, the most commonly reported experience was being at the bedside of a person who seemed to be having such a “deathbed vision.” In contrast to these visions occurring near death, hallucinations clearly caused by drugs or delirium are often of fantastical figures or images. Also, apparitions seen by waking, healthy persons often involve living persons, which we rarely find reported in connection with NDEs or deathbed visions.

Perhaps the most important point to note about NDEs, however, and certainly the one most difficult to explain by any conventional physical theory of mind, is that many of them occur at a time when physiological functioning is shutting down or severely impaired. Yet, most people report that their

senses, thoughts, memories, and emotions during the NDE are intense and vivid, “more real than real,” as some have described it. Although scientific understanding of the brain and nervous system is still very much in its infancy, there is a growing consensus among neuroscientists that there is, in some sense, a “global workspace” in the brain, that is, a network of neural activity that is necessary for there to be conscious awareness. During cardiac arrest, and also during general anesthesia (two conditions frequently associated with NDEs) that minimal activity has been temporarily abolished. And yet people are reporting vivid, complex experiences, including awareness of events going on while their “global workspace” was shut down.

There are two ways to view the undeniable connection between mind and brain. The current, and overwhelmingly predominant view, is that the brain produces the mind. But an alternative to this “production” model is what William James called the “transmission” model. In this view, the brain is a kind of filter, narrowing and shaping conscious experience to allow optimal functioning in the physical world. Under ordinary conditions of life, the mind is thus highly dependent on the brain. But under non-ordinary conditions, the filter may be “loosened” allowing for an altered or even expanded consciousness. The inverse relationship between mind and brain seen in connection with NDEs – that is, the intensification of mental functioning at a time when physiological functioning is decreasing – is difficult to account for with the current “production” models of mind and brain. But it is exactly what we would expect to happen near death if the brain is instead a filter of consciousness.

The major task of scientific investigators of the question of survival after death is to collect, examine, and study all extraordinary phenomena suggesting, as NDEs do, that consciousness is not wholly dependent on the brain, as it ordinarily appears to be, but is something far more extensive and complex.

Since ancient times spiritual teachers have described paths and practices that a person could follow to achieve health, happiness, and peace of mind. A considerable body of recent research indicates that any kind of spiritual practice is likely to improve ones prognosis for recovering from a serious illness. Many of these approaches to spirituality involve learning to quiet the mind, rather than adhering to a prescribed religious belief. These meditative practices are inherent aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, mystical Christianity, Kabalistic Judaism, Sufism, and other mystic paths. What is indicated in the subtext of these teachings is that as one learns to quiet his or her mind, one is likely to encounter psychic-like experiences or perceptions. For example, in The Sutras of Patanjali, the Hindu master tells us that on the way to transcendence we may experience many kinds of amazing visions, such as the ability to see into the distance, or into the future; and to diagnose illnesses, and also to cure them. However, we are admonished not to become attached to these abilities – that they are mere phenomena standing as stumbling blocks on the path to enlightenment. I will briefly describe some of the laboratory evidence for some of these remarkable phenomena of our unbounded consciousness, and their implications for science, mental health, and peace of mind.

What do many spiritual healers, mystics, and scientists have in common? The answer is that they are all in touch with each other and the world through their interconnected minds. In remote viewing research into psychic phenomena conducted at Stanford Research Institute during the 1970’s, we observed the in-flow of information that is the hallmark of psychic perception. We also saw an out-flow of intention that occupies a role in facilitating distant healing. Our purpose here is to show that the in-flow and the out-flow reside as dual modalities on either side of the quiet mind, and that self awareness can arise between these two flows. We have also noticed that narrowly focusing on exotic phenomena, and the seeming omniscience available from ESP, may be just a trap that prevents us from discovering who we really are, and what our actual purpose together here might be. However, as I describe in my recent book, Limitless Mind: A Guide to Remote Viewing and Transformation of Consciousness, I feel that whenever any one person demonstrates an ability beyond the ordinary, it is an inspiration to the rest of us, as an indication of our immense and still largely undeveloped human potential.

The scientific and spiritual implications of psychic abilities illuminate our observation that we live in a profoundly interconnected world. The most exciting research in quantum physics today is the investigation of what physicist David Bohm calls quantum-interconnectedness or nonlocal correlations. It has now been demonstrated repeatedly, in laboratories around the world, that quanta of light that are emitted in opposite directions from a source at the speed of light, maintain their connection to one another, and that each little photon is affected by what happens to its twin, many kilometers away. 1. This surprising coherence between distant entities is called nonlocality. In writing on the philosophical implications of nonlocality, physicist Henry Stapp of the University of California at Berkeley states that this quantum connection could be the “most profound discovery in all of science.” 2. Psychic abilities and remote viewing are demonstrations of our personal experience with such nonlocal connections in consciousness. Mind-to-mind connections, which transcend our ordinary understanding of space and time, allow us access to expanded awareness, which is entirely consistent with life in a nonlocal world – this connection is what a physicist means by nonlocality. To the healer, it gives rise to what physician Larry Dossey refers to in his book Reinventing Medicine, as Era-III healing of a distant patient through the intentionality of the healer. 3. Our knowledge of these remarkable abilities allows us to awaken each morning in wonder at the fact that our expanded awareness is not limited by either time or space. It should have become clear to us by now, that although we reside in bodies, there is more to us than skin and bones. Our quiet moments of self inquiry can reveal what that “more” is.

Stanford Research Institute (SRI) conducted investigations into the human mind’s capacity for expanded awareness, also called remote viewing, in which people are able to envision distant places, as well as future events and activities. For two decades SRI’s research was supported by the CIA and other government agencies. I was co-founder along with Harold Puthoff, of this once secret program which began in 1972. Our task was to learn to understand psychic abilities, and to use these abilities to gather information about the Soviet Union during the Cold War. We have since found, from years of experience, that people can quickly learn to do remote viewing, and can frequently incorporate this direct knowing of the world -- both present and future -- into their lives.

For a phenomenon thought in many circles not to exist, we certainly know a great deal about how to increase and decrease ESP’s accuracy and reliability. Remote viewers can often contact, experi-

ence and describe a hidden object, or a remote natural or architectural site, based on the presence of a cooperative person at the distant location; or alternatively when presented with geographical coordinates, or some other target demarcation -- which we call an address. Shape, form and color are described much more reliably than the target’s name, function, or other analytical information. In addition to vivid visual imagery, viewers sometimes describe associated feelings, sounds, smells and even electrical or magnetic fields. Blueprint accuracy has occasionally been achieved in these double-blind experiments, and reliability in a series can be as high as 80 per cent.

We do not yet know the physics underlying psychic abilities. However, researchers in the field of parapsychology agree on the undeniable observation that it is no more difficult to psychically describe a picture or an event in the future, than to describe such a target in the present, when it is hidden from view. It is as though our bodies reside in the familiar four-dimensional geometry of Einstein’s space-time, while our consciousness has access to another aspect of this nonlocal geometry that allows us to find a mental path of zero distance to seemingly distant locations. This is how a physicist expresses such an idea, while mystics for the past three millennia tell us from their experience that “separation is an illusion – and we are all one in spirit, or consciousness.” From such experimentation in many laboratories, it is clear that we significantly misapprehend the physical nature of the space-time in which we reside. It is this knowledge, together with our experience, that drives our passion to understand and learn more about the universe and the transformational opportunities offered us.

References
1. S. Freedman and J. Clauser, “Experimental test of local hidden variable theories,” Physical Review Letters, 28, 1972, 934-941; and N. Gisin, “Violation of Bell inequalities by photons more than 10 km apart,” Physical Review Letters, 81 (17), 1998, 3563-3566.
2. Henry Stapp in Menas Kafatos and Robert Nadeau, The Conscious Universe: Parts and Wholes in Physical Reality, New York: Springer Verlag, 2000, p.70.
3. Larry Dossey, Reinventing Medicine : Beyond Mind-Body to a New Era of Healing. Harper Collins, 1999.

P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D.

www.cinemind.com/atwater

exerpted from two of P.M.H. Atwater's books - Beyond the Light: The Mysteries and Revelations of Near-Death Experiences and We Live Forever: The Real Truth About Death

Your body goes limp. Your heart stops. No more air flows in or out. You lose sight, feeling, and movement - although the ability to hear goes last. Identity ceases. The "you" that you once were becomes only a memory. There is no pain at the moment of death. Only peaceful silence...calm...quiet. But you still exist.

It is not easy to breathe. In fact, it is easier, more comfortable, and infinitely more natural not to breathe. The biggest surprise for most people in dying is to realize that dying does not end life. Whether darkness or light comes next, or some kind of event, be it positive, negative, or somewhere in-between, expected or unexpected, the biggest surprise of all is to realize you are still you. You can still think, you can still remember, you can still see, hear, move, reason, wonder, feel, question, and tell jokes - if you wish.

You are still alive, very much alive. Actually, you're more alive after death than at any time since you were last born. Only the way of all this is different; different because you no longer wear a dense body to filter and amplify the various sensations you had once regarded as the only valid indicators of what constitutes life. You had always been taught one has to wear a body to live.

If you expect to die when you die you will be disappointed.

The only thing dying does is help you release, slough off, and discard the "jacket" you once wore (more commonly referred to as a body). When you die you lose your body. That's all there is to it. Nothing else is lost. You are not your body. It is just something you wear for a while, because living in the earth-plane is infinitely more meaningful and more involved if you are encased in its trappings and subject to its rules.

What Death Is

There is a step-up of energy at the moment of death, an increase in speed as if you are suddenly vibrating faster than before. Using radio as an analogy, this speed-up is comparable to having lived all your life at a certain radio frequency when all of a sudden someone comes along and flips the dial. That flip shifts you to another, higher wavelength. The original frequency where you once existed is still there. It did not change. Everything is still just the same as it was. Only you changed, only you speeded up to allow entry into the next radio frequency on the dial.

As is true with all radios and radio stations, there can be bleed-overs or distortions of transmission signals due to interference patterns. These can allow or force frequencies to coexist or commingle for indefinite periods of time. Normally, most shifts up the dial are fast and efficient; but, occasionally, one can run into interference, perhaps from a strong emotion, a sense of duty, or a need to fulfill a vow, or keep a promise. This interference could allow coexistence of frequencies for a few seconds, days, or even years (perhaps explaining hauntings); but, sooner or later, eventually, every given vibrational frequency will seek out or be nudged to where it belongs. You fit your particular spot on the dial by your speed of vibration. You cannot coexist forever where you do not belong. Who can say how many spots there are on the dial or how many frequencies there are to inhabit. No one knows. You shift frequencies in dying. You switch over to life on another wave-length. You are still a spot on the dial but you move up or down a notch or two. You don't die when you die. You shift your consciousness and speed of vibration.

Emily Williams Kelly, Ph.D.

Research Assistant Professor

Division of Personality Studies

University of Virginia Health System

P. O. Box 800152

Charlottesville, VA 22908-0152

www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/DOPS

ewc2r@virginia.edu

Research at the University of Virginia

An inevitable part of life is death. However much we may try to put it aside, it surfaces at every stage of our lives as we are confronted with the deaths of grandparents, parents, spouses, friends, siblings, even children, and, finally, with our own. At each encounter with death, we may find ourselves not only facing the loss; we may also find ourselves asking, What happens after we die?

Many people, of course, have found the answer to this question in their religious beliefs. It may be less well known that many people have also had experiences – sometimes quite profound and life-changing experiences – that have convinced them that death is not the end of the road. Whether it is their religious faith, or personal experiences, or both, about 75% of Americans say that they believe in some form of life after death.

Despite these numbers, however, there is another strong current of thought, growing steadily for at least 150 years, that runs directly counter to belief in any kind of survival after death. Modern science, medicine, and philosophy are overwhelmingly rooted in materialism, according to which mind, or human personality, or what many call the soul, is identical to, or generated by, the brain and nervous system. On this view, the notion that it might survive the death of the physical body is nonsense, a vestige of pre-scientific ways of viewing the world.

Both of these beliefs cannot be true simultaneously. Is there any way to resolve the apparent discrepancy? A handful of people over the past century have thought that science itself can be put to the task of studying this most momentous question. Specifically, they have believed that we may learn much by studying the experiences people have that are suggestive of survival after death.

What kinds of experiences do people report? And how common are they? Unfortunately, we cannot yet answer the latter question, because there have not been any systematic, in-depth studies addressing this question. We can, however, begin to answer the first question because a few individuals have, over the past 120 years, amassed quite large collections of experiences reported to them. At the University of Virginia, for example, we have a small research unit that for 40 years has been collecting and investigating reports of experiences suggesting survival after death. The primary areas of research at our unit have been two: first, cases of very young children who seem to have memories of a previous life and who, in many instances, have birthmarks or birth defects that seem related to the previous life; and second, near-death experiences, the unusual experiences sometimes reported by people who are either physiologically near death but then recover, or who fear that they are about to die but do not. A couple of years ago, however, we conducted a study to try to learn more about other kinds of experiences suggesting survival after death. In the remainder of this article, I will briefly describe some of the kinds of experiences that were reported to us.

Reported most frequently in this study were deathbed visions. These are experiences of people who, shortly before they die, seem to see or talk to people who are not physically there, usually deceased loved ones who often seem to have come to take the dying person away. A typical experience was the following:

"Right before my grandma died she looked up with a beautiful smile and said ‘Hi, Edward’ [this was my grandpa]. I have missed you so much. Then she died."

Another person reported:

"My best friend was in a huge auto accident and was dying. He was talking to his Mom. She had died the summer before, and he was saying that he was so happy to see her. Also, he said he could see his baby sister, who had died when she was just 2 years old."

Occasionally, people at the dying person’s bedside will see someone or something:

"When my father died, I saw what I feel was his soul leave his body. It was like a shimmer, like when you look at the road on a hot day, as close as I can describe it."

We have talked with many nurses, particularly hospice nurses, who say that experiences like these are extremely common among dying patients. Unfortunately, they also say that family members are often puzzled and upset when they witness such experiences. Few people seem aware that many other dying people have had similar experiences, and most people – including doctors – attribute them to hallucinations caused by illness or drugs. What little we do know about such experiences suggests that they are not merely hallucinations, but clearly we need in-depth studies to see just how common these experiences are, and to learn more about when and why they occur.

Another common type of experience is what we call "crisis" experiences. Many people have reported seeing, while awake and in good health, an apparition of someone at about the time that person was dying, unbeknownst to the percipient. For example, one man wrote to us:

"I saw my grandfather walking down the hall of my house, which is 1200 miles from his in Kentucky. He died of a massive coronary. When I saw him, he was almost opaque in appearance, as if you were viewing a hologram. I received a phone call 2 days later that he had passed. The time I saw him almost precisely coincides with the time of his death, [but] I was not told of his death for 2 days. I was extremely close to him, and the family frankly was trying to figure out which one of them should tell me."

Another person described the following experience:

"When I was 18 years old and still living at my parents’..., I was awakened at 1 a.m. I opened my eyes and saw my boyfriend’s brother-in-law standing at the foot of my bed. I don’t know why, but I felt scared. I looked into his eyes and screamed. My parents ran into my room, turned on the light, and sat on my bed. I told them what happened, and they said it was a dream, so go back to bed. Just as they were walking out of my room, the telephone rang. My mom answered the phone, and said it was my boyfriend. He apologized to her for calling that late, but just wanted to tell us that his sister found her husband (his brother-in-law) dead in their apartment when she arrived home from work around 11 that night."

Many other people have reported dreams that coincided closely with a death:

"I had a dream that my uncle in France had died, and later that evening his son called my mother to inform her that her brother had died early that morning."

Other people have a sudden intuition, or what we call a "telepathic impression," about a death:

"My father died of an MI when I was 10 years old. This was quite unexpected... he was 42 years old. I told my teacher that my father had died and shortly thereafter, a close friend of my mother arrived to pick me up."

We all know the song about the clock stopping when the old man died. There are also many experiences reported, not of clocks stopping, but of some other kind of physical event that took

place at the time of a death. Here is one:

"The day my Grandma died I was headed out to work about 3 a.m. I knew she was very sick, and I had planned to fly to New Jersey later that day to see her because I knew time was short. As I went to put the key in the car, I felt this overwhelming presence, and all of a sudden my driver window shattered, and I thought to myself Grandma just died. As I got to work, I could not shake the feeling of Grandma right next to me. The phone call came; Grandma died at the same time I felt her and the window shattered. I felt this was Grandma’s way of telling me she is gone."

Crisis experiences such as these have been reported for centuries and were a major focus of research during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They are surely much more common than most of us realize. Numerous such experiences have been reported in books and journal articles; over a hundred were reported in our recent study alone.

Perhaps even more common than crisis cases, however, are experiences in which people see an apparition, hear a voice, or strongly sense the presence of someone they know to be dead. One woman wrote to us:

"I was in my bedroom laying in bed getting ready for sleep. I looked up, and in a chair across the room was my grandfather just sitting. He had passed away the day before."

In this case, and even more so in the next one, we might conjecture that the deceased person had come to say goodbye to a loved one:

"I saw an older lady looking at my newborn daughter in her crib when I got up to use the bathroom. It was my grandmother who passed away while I was pregnant."

The feeling of a sense of presence is difficult to describe, but for those who have had such an experience, it is nonetheless very vivid and real:

"I was simply driving home one evening when I had the distinct feeling that my deceased father was in the car with me. It wasn’t a creepy feeling, like a ghost was there; it was just a very real feeling like he was still alive and riding in my passenger’s seat . . . just like we were going out to pick up a pizza or something. I KNEW it couldn’t be real, but I had to fight myself not to turn my head and look to see if he was actually sitting there."

Another common experience involves smelling something associated with a deceased person, such as perfume, aftershave, tobacco, or a favorite flower. For example:

"I have smelled my deceased father which was a smell of smoke and whiskey in a clean bedroom where there was no smoke or whiskey present. I knew immediately who it was."

Sometimes more than one person is present and smells the smell, suggesting something more objective than an hallucination:

"My mother-in law passed on in ‘99. After she had died, my husband and I had returned home. As we walked up the walkway to our front door, there was a sudden burst of fragrance. Very overwhelming and strong. My husband and I looked at each other, and both commented that it smelled like his mother’s cologne. It seemed to come out of nowhere and was very strong for about ten to twenty seconds, then it was gone."

Sometimes people will report physical events that seem to involve a deceased person:

"A friend of mine and I were talking about my deceased son, and how happy he would be if he knew I’d gotten legal custody of his son, when all at once 4 glasses, hanging on hooks under the cabinet, started to move. They moved so hard I thought they would break. After 5 min. they stopped moving. When my daughter came over that evening, I was telling her about it, and they started moving and hitting against one another all over again. My daughter said, ‘Mom, I think Johnny’s telling you he’s happy.’ Those glasses have moved for no reason several times when we discuss my deceased son."

In a few cases, the deceased person seemed to have some clear purpose in appearing or otherwise making his or her presence known:

"I was driving home from work and was in a big hurry. I was, at that time, a single mother with two young boys, so I constantly worried about them and tried to be home at a certain time. I was about to change lanes when I heard, as plainly as day, my father’s voice come from the back seat, yelling ‘Butchie, look out.’ No other person ever called me Butchie, and my father had been dead for three years. When I immediately stayed in my lane, a pick-up truck came around on the wrong side. Had I changed lanes, I am certain I would have had a very serious accident."

Another case was even more dramatic:

"I was half asleep on the couch in my living room. I remember my great-grandfather motioning to me to follow him. (I had only seen pictures of him as a child and knew him through the stories from my grandmother). I got up and followed him down the hall into the bathroom. He pointed to the mirror. I looked at the mirror and saw myself with a huge red scar across my neck, going from my left collar to my right ear. I remember looking at my great-grandfather and thinking (or saying) what is it? He then vanished as suddenly as he appeared. I heard a crash in the living room. The mirror hanging above the couch I had been sleeping on, had fallen, broken, and sliced the cushion completely in half. I realized if I had been still lying there, I would have been close to decapitated at the same angle of the scar I saw."

These are just a few examples of the kinds of experiences people commonly have that suggest the survival of a deceased loved one. But what is perhaps the most surprising thing to me is not the experiences themselves, but the fact that so few people in our society seem to be aware of them, or how common they are. One of the reasons for this is that there are few people identifying and studying such experiences, and few reliable publications about them. But another important reason is that people collecting reports are often working in isolation. Perhaps what is most needed now is some collaborative effort, both to learn about as many new cases as possible and to pool the existing, but isolated, collections of reports so that we can begin to look en masse at what people are experiencing. Such a collaborative effort would help all of us – researchers, bereaved persons, and the general public – recognize that these are widespread phenomena, and it might also help us begin to understand better the nature and meaning of experiences bearing on the question of survival after death.