Shared Near-Death Experience?

by Michael Grosso:

I recently heard a story from somebody who was at the bedside of a dying loved one.   People who come close to death often report extraordinary experiences—a world beyond suddenly opens up to the dying person’s consciousness—a world of light, love, and people who previously had passed.  These experiences are not only a challenge to science but radically change the people who have them.

One aspect of these experiences is rarely reported but is extremely interesting from a theoretical point of view. The person at the bedside of a dying loved one mentioned above had an extraordinary experience. He shared, as he put it, the “journey to the light” joining in the experience of dying person.  The effect of the experience on the dying person was transformative, but the person who shared the experience was also deeply move and changed.   

So here we have a double mystery; first, the transformative effects on people actually near physical death; but the second surprise is that bystanders to the dying person can somehow enter into the transformative space of the dying person.  This is strange because it suggests that a healthy person can, under certain circumstances, temporarily enter the ‘next’ or ‘other’ or ‘after’ world.  This, I suppose, would be like another person entering my dream space while I’m having a dream—could anything be more intimate?

So, how is possible to share the near-death experience of another person?   Clearly, the only way two brains can interact is by means of sensory signaling.  Viewing ourselves as just physical organisms, sharing a near-death experience would be impossible.  In fact, the classic near-death experience itself would be impossible.

We have to look to our minds to understand how sharing a near-death is possible. Assume that telepathy is a fact of nature—the evidence is overwhelming—then telepathy shows how minds can and do directly interact.  So it is possible to ‘enter’ the mind of another.  Sharing a near-death experience with a dying person might be an elaborate form of telepathic rapport.

I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has had an experience in which they seemed to tune into the experience of a dying person.  In my next post, I want to explore the idea of a possible global near-death experience.  (See my The Final Choice: Death or Transcendence? (2018). It is, after all, during supreme stress that higher forms of consciousness can suddenly break open.  As we edge toward increasing global disturbances, we should see signs breaking out everywhere of a new consciousness.