Episode 153: Children’s Near Death Experiences

Published Sep 22, 2023, 4:00 PM

Sandra explores and shares with you the exciting research of Melvin Morse, M.D.

You're listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM paranormal podcast network, where we offer you podcasts of the supernatural and the unexplained. Get ready now for Shades of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain.

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Hi.

I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been on a journey to prove the existence of life after death. On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we now know that our loved ones have survived physical debt, and so will we. Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. I'd like to start out this episode with a public service announcement. I have hit the age where my doctor recommended that I have a colonoscopy. Probably not what we want to talk about on Shades of the Afterlife, but we don't want to be in the afterlife anytime soon. So I just want to let everyone know that if you are a person who's in the fifties and it's recommended, I certainly did have my fear and anxiety. I think that's normal. But cancer, and especially colon cancer, is one of the top three kinds of cancer that can take us out of this life. And just by having a colonoscopy, you can decrease your odds of getting colon cancer by almost one hundred percent. So I was shocked, surprised, and delighted to find out how absolutely easy it was. Even the god awful prep that everybody talks about. They've changed the formula so it is not as horrendous as one may think. And then going into the appointment, I was greeted by a nice volunteer who welcomed me. A nice team of doctors and nurses explained everything. And you will find this funny because just before they gave me the anesthesia to put me in that dreamy state, the doctor said, what do you do for work? And I said, oh, I'm the host of Shades of the Afterlife and author of the book We Don't Die, a skeptics discovery of life after death, and there were several people in that room. They said, well, what's your name? They were jotting it down. They wanted to know the website. The doctor said, no near death experiences today, and I said, hey, I just interviewed doctor Moody a couple episodes ago. We had a good laugh. The next thing you know, they said, Sandra, you're all done, and that was it. Gave me some ginger ale, a few cookies and I was on my way. I say this because it's such a private kind of procedure to go through, but it can save your life, so take it from one of the biggest scaredy cats around. It was easy and people are so kind. They treat you like they would treat family. So go do it if you're of that age. Now onto this show. When I interviewed a doctor Raymond Moody and his co writer Paul Perry, Paul spoke about near death experiences of children and the books he's written with Melvin Morse. So I thought to perhaps I could read you some stories about children who have had a near death experience. Is I'll never forget sitting on an airplane with a guy and he ended up telling me about his son's One of his sons was learning to be potty trained, and the other son was by the father's side, or so he thought, But they were at a campground by a lake. The young son, who was only a few years old, ran down to the water because he thought he could swim on his own, but of course he couldn't, and the father quickly realized the sun wasn't there, found him floating in the water, was able to revive him, and when the son woke up in the hospital, the son told the father, you know, he didn't need to be scared, daddy, because I was with the big face in the sun, and the big face in the sun told this boy it was not his time to go. The father had felt a lot of guilt for not keeping an eye on the sun, and I asked the dad, how did this boy grow up? And at that time he was a teenager, and he said he just had the overwhelming urge to always help people. And that's a common denominator with most people who have near death experiences, this feeling of wanting to give. So I thought we'd do some research and learn a little bit and hear some stories about kids and near death experiences. So here's the first one. At the age of ten, Chris developed seriously high blood pressure from a kidney problem. The danger became so acute that doctors transplanted one of his mother's kidneys into his body. After the transplant, a low grade fever developed that doctors couldn't control. Finally, racked with stomach pain and losing strength, he was admitted to the hospital for further tests. The results were grim bacteria introduced into his body during the kidney transplant had invaded his heart, causing his aortic valve to swell. Surgeons were forced to perform heart valve surgery, during which young Chris died and was revived. What he said was substantiated by his mother, who had been at his bedside when he came out of surgery and told her this marvelous story, the same one he told me later. I woke up from surgery and there was my mom. I couldn't wait to tell her what had happened. While I was on the operating table, I said, I have a wonderful secret to tell you, Mom. I've been climbing a staircase to Heaven. It was such a good and peaceful feeling I felt wonderful. I was on a staircase and it was dark, and I started climbing upward. I got about half way up the staircase and I decided not to go any higher. I wanted to go on up, but I knew I wouldn't come back if I went too high. That would hurt my mom and dad. Since my little brother has already died, they wouldn't have anyone to take care of. Chris then turned around and went down the staircase. When he reached the bottom, he felt himself slip back into his body. Months later, Chris had completely forgotten about this experience. Chris just didn't forget the staircase. He had been treated with many narcotics and valium, all of which cause amnesia. His case and those similar to it make me think that everyone who has almost died may possibly have had a near death experience. Perhaps they frequently don't remember them because the drugs given to them erase memory. So this story and some of the others I'll be sharing are from the book Closer to the Light, Learning from the Near Death Experiences of Children by doctor Melvin Morse with co author Paul Perry. Let me tell you a little bit about doctor Morse. Melvin Morse, MD is an acclaimed pediatrician, voted one of America's best doctors, an author of books on near death experiences and the spirituality of death and dying. He was described by NBC News as doing more than any other scientist to prove the existence of life after death. He was an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington for twenty years. His international bestseller, Closer to the Light describes the near death experiences of children. This was based on his studies at Seattle Children's Hospital. His second book, Transformed by the Light, documented the long term positive transformation of children who had near death experiences. His third book, Party Visions details the shared dying experiences of children and adults. His latest book is called Where God Lives and it is an award winning book discussing spiritual neuroscience in exactly how our brains are connected to the universe. You can find out more about doctor Morse at melvinmorsemd dot com. So he is definitely someone we can believe. This next story is about Kurt. Kurt was a seven year old with severe muscular dystrophy. Because of this disease, he was unable to breathe very well, and he needed to breathe oxygen from a tank to live. Kurt became progressively sicker and finally developed pneumonia, which usually marks the end of a muscular dystrophe's victim's life. Near the end, he was in intensive care when his heart stopped. The doctors gave him closed heart massage, pushing on his chest with their palms, and restored his heart beat. Still, he was completely without heartbeat for three minutes. When I spoke to Kurt, hours after his resuscitation, he was very much at peace. He knew he was going to die soon and seemed relieved to know his physical grief was nearing an end. His recent experience, Kurt said, had shown him a world without pain. When his heart had stopped beating, Kurt suddenly found himself outside his body, watching the doctors and nurses work to revive him. I saw Bonnie, one of the nurses, and I said hi to her. Then everything became dark until I saw angels. I was in a beautiful place with flowers and rainbows, where everything was white, like it had its own light. I talked to several people while I was there, including Jesus who wanted me to stay with him. I wanted to stay there, but we decided I had to come back and see my parents again. I'm not afraid to go to that place. I tried to get Kurt to draw what he had seen, but he was too weak to hold a pencil. He died a few weeks after we spoke. I wish the family had been present at my interview to hear their son's description of what had happened to him. This interview took place in the emergency room at the children's hospital. I did not feel comfortable telling his parents about the experience right away, and I know that the nurses who were present did not tell the family either. I have anguished over this case many times. I realized that I should have shared what I knew with Kurt's family right away, but neither I nor any of the other medical personnel present felt that a hospital environment allowed for a discussion of this kind. As one of the doctors present said, for me to say to a family and by the way, your son thought he went to heaven during a resuscitation would have made me feel like I was crazy. Medical school didn't teach me to talk about things like that. I know with more and more doctors having experiences like this, and also great books like the recent interview I just did with Raymond Moody. With all of those experiences coming from doctors, I think it will help this conversation to be more open and so doctors and patients can express what they feel and what they experience. So let's go to the break and we'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.

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Listen anytime, any place. Hey everyone, it's the Wizard of Weird Joshua pe Warren. And now here's more Shades of the Afterlife.

Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain, and today we're talking about children's near death experiences through the eyes of doctor Melvin Morse. Now, how did he get involved with all of this?

So?

I want to read From the beginning of his book Closer to the Light, first published in nineteen ninety, he says, I stood over Crystal's lifeless body in the intensive care unit and wondered whether this little girl could be saved. A few hours earlier, she had been found floating face down in a Ymca swimming pool. No one knew how long she had been uncovered conscious or exactly what happened to cause her to lose consciousness. One of the lifeguards guessed that some of the boys playing alongside the pool had accidentally knocked her into the water. Someone else mentioned to the police that maybe she had bumped her head on the bottom of the pool and had lost consciousness that way. It could have even been an epileptic seizure. I thought, I didn't really expect to find out what had happened. The machines to which she was now hooked up told a grim story. An emergency cat scan showed massive swelling of her brain. She had no gag reflex. An artificial lung machine was breathing for her. In the blunt jargon of the emergency room physicians, she was a train wreck. Looking back, even now, I would guess that she only had a ten percent chance of surviving. I was the doctor who resuscitated her in the emergency room. After the accident, I was serving my internship in pediatrics in a small town in Idaho, and would be starting my residency a few months later in Seattle. I had previously been doing research on brain tumors, and at a national conference had presented a paper on the effects of chemotherapy on childhood leukemia. In between the world of academia studies and rat brain research, in which I tested the effects of various medicines on white rats, I wanted to sandwich in some practical medicine. Medicine probably doesn't get more practical than poor Crystal's case. She was one of the sickest children I had ever cared for. Despite all of our efforts, I was sure she was going to die.

Still.

We tried everything we could think of. One episode with Crystal remains vivid in my mind even today. I was trying to thread a small catheter into one of her arteries so we could get an exact reading of the oxygen in her blood. The procedure, called arterial catheterization, is particularly difficult and bloody, since an incision into an artery is required. I explained the procedure to her father and told him that he and the other family members might want to wait in the hall until the line was inserted. He consulted with his wife and the others and came back with another suggestion. He asked if they could hold a prayer vigil around her bed while I threaded the device into her artery. Why not, I thought, she's going to die anyway, Maybe this will help them cope with their grief. The family held hands around her bed and began to pray. Crystal lay flat and lifeless as breathing machines and monitors beeped and buzzed, and several IV tubes gave her fluids and medication. Two nurses and arrest vatory therapist were there with me. One push of the needle, and the blood began spurting from the arterial line. We all did our jobs quickly and nervously. It seems now that the calmest people in the room were the members of Crystal's family. As the blood spurted out, they began to pray out loud. How can they be so calm? I thought, isn't it obvious that she is going to die? Three days later, she made a full recovery. Her case was one of those medical mysteries that demonstrate the power of the human organism to rebound. People sometimes cross the threshold of death only to return in full health. Why it happens is impossible to say, but it happened with Crystal, whose neurological testing showed she had made a full recovery. When she was feeling well enough, I had her come in for a follow up examination. One of the things I wanted to know was what she remembered about her near drowning. The answer was important to the type of treatment she would receive as an outpatient. Had she been hit on the head, had someone held her underwater? I marveled at Cristel when she came into the office. She was a pretty girl with long blonde hair and a shy, frightened manner. There was nothing abnormal in her walk or mannerisms. She was just another nine year old kid. Crystal clearly remembered me. After introducing myself, she turned to her mother and said, that's the one with the beard. First, there was this tall doctor who didn't have a beard, and then he came in. Her statement was correct. The first into the emergency room was a tall, clean shaven physician named Bill. Cristel remembered more. First I was in the big room, and then they moved me to a smaller room where they did X rays on me. She accurately noted such details as having a tube down my nose, which was her description of nasal intubation. Most physicians intubate orally, and that is the most common way that it is represented on television. She accurately described many other details of her experience. I remember being amazed at the events she recollected. Even though her eyes had been closed and she had been profoundly comatose during the entire experience, she still saw what was going on. I asked her an open ended question, what do you remember about being in the swimming pool? Do you mean, when I visited the Heavenly Father, she replied, WHOA. I thought that's a good place to start. Tell me about meeting the Heavenly Father. I met Jesus and the Heavenly Father, she said. Maybe it was the shocked look on my face, or maybe it was shyness, but that was it for the day. She became very embarrassed and would speak no more. I scheduled her for another appointment the following week. What she told me during our next meeting changed my life. She remembered nothing about the drowning itself. Her first memory was of darkness and the feeling that she was so heavy she couldn't move. Then a tunnel opened, and through that tunnel came Elizabeth. Elizabeth was tall and nice, she said, with bright golden hair. She accompanied Cristel up the tunnel, where she saw her late grandfather and met several other people. Among her new friends were two young boys souls waiting to be born, named Andy and Mark, who played with her and introduced her to many people. At one point in the voyage, Cristel was given and a glimpse of her home. She was allowed to wander throughout the house, watching her brothers and sisters play with their toys in their rooms. One of her brothers was playing with a Gi Joe, pushing him around the room in a jeep. One of her sisters was combing the hair of a barbie doll and singing a popular rock song. She drifted into the kitchen and watched her mother preparing a meal of roast chicken and rice. Then she looked into the living room and she saw her father sitting on the couch, staring quietly ahead. She assumed he was worrying about her in the hospital. Later, when Christel mentioned this to her parents, she shocked them with her vivid details about the clothes they were wearing, their positions in the house, even the food her mother was cooking. Finally, Elizabeth, who seemed to be a guardian angel to Christel, took her to meet the Heavenly Father in Jesus. The Heavenly Father asked if she wanted to go home. Crystal cried. She said she wanted to stay with him. Then Jesus asked her if she wanted to see her mother again. Yes, she replied, then she awoke. It took her almost an hour to tell this story. She was extremely shy, but told the tale in such a powerful and compelling way that I believed her. Throughout the telling of her experience, she drew pictures of the people she had met in heaven. Elizabeth was drawn as a pleasant, smiling stick figure with white clothing. Mark and Andy looked like drawings of any ordinary schoolmate. Clearly, this had been a fun event for a child so young. She didn't yet have a concept of religious or mystical experience. She was aware that something had happened that she didn't quite understand. I didn't understand it either. I began to investigate. First, I went to the nurses in the intensive care unit, who told me that the first words out of her mouth when she awoke were where are Mark and Andy? Then I probed her family's religious beliefs. I wanted to see if she had been heavily indoctrinated with belief in guardian angels and tunnels in heaven. The answer from her mother was an emphatic no. She was a middle of the road Mormon. No one in the family had mentioned anything that would trigger the images that came to Crystal at the brink of death. I spent hours talking with Cristel's parents trying to discover any factors in her upbringing that could have influenced her experience. I couldn't find any. My deepest instinct told me that nothing in Cristel's experience was taught to her before her drown Her experience was fresh, not recalled memory. Then I began looking through medical literature, and that's when I found doctor Raymond Moody and his research on near death experiences. Back in nineteen eighty two, a Gallop poll estimated that eight million people had experienced near death experiences. Now in twenty twenty three, they say about seventeen percent of people who die have come back to tell these stories. Myself, along with many people back in my really skeptical days, thought that near death experiences was just part of the brain shutting down. But earlier this year, a study done by over a dozen scientists with the New York Academy of Sciences have announced that near death experiences are definitely not hallucinations, but they made no claim as to what they actually are. Because you see, people are in a heightened state of alertness. They are seeing things with their mind's eye that are actually happening. So let's go to our break and when we come back, I'm going to play a sound clip of doctor Morris. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.

Stay there, Sandra will be right back.

Hi. This is Wuija Board expert Karen A. Dolman, and you're listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.

And now back to Sandra Champlain and Shades of the Afterlife.

Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. I don't know what it is about humanity, but it's so easy for us not to believe and immediately go to there's no proof of this where in reality, people have been studying the afterlife for a long long time, probably since the dawn of civilization. I'd like you to hear some words from doctor Morse. Years ago, we had a wonderful talk show host and comedian named Joan Rivers. The quality of this recording isn't great, but the words spoken are so Let's listen.

What is a near death experience?

Near death experiences happen to people who are clinically dead, people whose hearts have stopped beating, their eyes are fixed and dilated, and yet they're receuscitated by medical technology. So they've enjoy a drink of death right and then resuscitated by our medical technology.

How do you know that when they have these experiences and they say they've seen something, In other words.

What they say is extraordinary. They say that at the time, like Crystal, who I resuscitated myself, who was without a heartbeat for nineteen minutes. She says that during that time she floated out of her body, she could see everything I was doing to her. I saw you put a tube in my nose, she told me. And then they say that they go down a dark tunnel to a heavenly realm, a place that's beautiful and bright and loving. One boy said to me, there was a lot of good things in that light, so it's a place of love for them.

How do you know induced by drugs and medication.

Jonah, I'm a pediatrician. I studied these experiences for eight years at Seattle Children's Hospital, and I studied hundreds and hundreds of children who were treated with drugs and who had a lack of oxygen to their brain, but were not in your death not one of those children had this experience. Only children who come to the brink of death, who are clinically dead, have this experience. So it's not something caused by drugs. It's not some sort of hallucination.

How young was this the young as that you spoke to, I could describe this to you.

The youngest child I've ever interviewed was a child who was aged three or four, who had this experience at nine months of age.

And can remember it that clearly.

As clear as you and I are talking here, who said, very well, it's interesting the way it came up. His parents took him to a Christmas pageant and he's started screaming and crying and saying, that's not Jesus, that's not Jesus, because he felt he had seen Jesus as part of his near death experience. Now they don't all see Jesus, you know, each one sees you have a different religion.

You know what if you were a Buddhist child.

Oh, then they see Buddhist religious figures. Or One child that I spoke with didn't have any religious training. So she told me that doctors dressed in white came to her and I said, well, how did you know there are doctors? She said, well, they were all dressed in white and they had light bulbs in their bodies glowing. They were glowing, so, you know, she called them doctors, but a religious child would call them you know whatever, God or whatever. These are not particularly religious experiences. They're spiritual experiences that happened to people when they die.

Another of the several hundred children Melmorese has interviewed is fifteen year old Chris, who nearly died of a bronchial infection and saw her grandparents in a great white light.

And she was telling me that it's your choice to make no one to make that choice.

And if you want to stay here with us, you're welcome.

Do you want to go back there others calling and waiting before you go back, You're welcome to go back, but make their.

Choice come to you.

Moost believes that the fact that children, some of whom are just toddlers, are having these experiences is as close to proof of life after death as spiritual proof gets.

They just they're so matter of fact about it. They're just the you know, they're obviously they have no secondary gain. You know, they're not going to be on a talk show. They're not going to write a best selling book about it. They have no reason to invent the story. They just they just, if anything, they have reason to not tell the story because they think that they'll be laughed at. They they think they're crazy. When you've had a child condescendingly pat you on the hand and say you'll see doctor Morris, Heaven is fun, you know, like I have. You tend to pay a lot more attention to these experiences. But I see our society as having a deep spiritual craving for this kind of information. Every time I interview someone, it gets just gives me chills. I go, it must be true.

They had bad experience the doctors. Did any child come back? A really rotten child comes back?

I bet it's great.

Enough to here because it's warm, and that man was not friendly enough.

I've interviewed dozens and dozens and dozens of children who've had this experience. I've never heard a negative, unpleasant experience. Adults frequently do, but not children.

You know.

I've just got to tell you. One thing is that one girl told me life is for a living, and this light is for later. And these children, although they have no fear of death. They have an extraordinary vigor and love of life.

When you came out of it and you try to explain what happened to you, the people to believe you did. Your friends believe you did, your parents, the doctors and nurses.

Well, really, I think it depends what kind of a family are from.

I told my mom.

At first she thought she told me.

She said, what movies have you been watching?

Crystal? Yeah, I felt like that, But after I kept telling her.

She told me that after a seven year old tells you these things time and time over again, with.

Every detail you start, you can't help believe it. What about you do they believe you?

Is a good kids in school?

The people do it. Originally I didn't tell anyone because the doctors and nurse had been I didn't even believe I was sick. When I was in the hospital, they told me I was over reacting, and so when I came to they told me I was just hallucinating, and to me, that was such a special event and I wanted to believe it was true. So I never told anyone until a while later. I told a friend, how did you find apple?

These children?

Do you ask them or do they just volunteer to you.

These are not volunteers. I studied your death experiences in children for eight years and I systematically interviewed every survivor of cardiac arrest at Seattle Children's Hospital. So these are children. I went to them and said, do you remember anything about the time that you were asleep, unconscious or whatever. But no, these aren't volunteers that have come to me saying oh, I've got a wacky story to tell you. Not at all. In fact, half of the children I talked to had never even told their parents about the experience.

Well, you spoke to them.

Well, the book is fascinating and it's very comforting also, and I'm glad you came back, whatever reason you came back this night to have you to here, and I thank you so much. The book is quote quote in real life.

I love the quote life is for living and the light is for later. Here's another story. June, an eight year old girl nearly drowned in a swimming pool when her hair became caught in the drain. Her parents, an emergency medical team, and finally emergency room doctors gave her CPR for more than forty five minutes before her heart began beating again. She made a full neurological recovery in less than six weeks. The story would have ended there had the bicycle incident not happened. June was writing down on her driveway toward the street when her mother shouted from the house for her to be careful. Distracted by her mother's voice, June rode into the street and was almost hit by a passing car. Did you want me to die again, shouted June from across the street. I might not come back next time. June then told her mother what had happened when her life almost ended in the swimming pool. The story so worried June's mother that she asked her family doctor to refer them to a psychiatrist. Knowing my interest, the doctor instead referred them to me. Here's June's story. All I remember was my hair getting stuck in the drain and then blacking out. The next thing I knew, I floated out of my body. I could see myself under the water, but I wasn't afraid. Suddenly I started going up a tunnel, and before I could think about it, I found myself in heaven. I know it was heaven because everything was bright and everyone was cheerful. A nice man asked me if I wanted to stay there. I thought about staying. I really did, but I said I want to be back with my family. Then I got to come back. This patient has full recall of the event. Not only does she remember its intense spiritual nature, but she can now totally recall the events of the resuscitation, from the time the paramedics reached her in the backyard to the work done on her in the emergency room. And Mark's story is among the most fascinating near death experiences Because of his age. When it happened, he was only nine months old. It wasn't until he was seven that Mark told his parents about his remarkable experience. At the age of nine months, Mark had severe bronchiolitis. While in the emergency he had a full cardiopulmonary arrest for more than forty minutes. Doctors worked to revive him and finally did. Most people show signs of mental retardation from experiences such as this, but not Mark. He had a full recovery and has shown normal growth and development since crossing the threshold of death. Mark first mentioned his near death experience when he was three years old then, following a Christmas pageant, he said that God didn't look like the man in the play they had just seen. When his father asked him what he meant, Mark told him what had happened during that frantic night two years earlier. I saw nurses and doctors standing over me, trying to wake me up. I flew out of the room and went to the waiting room, where I saw Grandpa and Grandma crying and holding each other. I think they thought I was going to die. He then reported seeing a long, dark tunnel and crawling up into it. He said it was difficult to crawl without a helping hand, but he couldn't say who was helping him. At the end of this tunnel was a bright light that kept him going. At the end of the tunnel, he found a bright place and ran through the fields with God. He was very animated. When he described this run with God. He said that one can double jump in heaven and run without effort. God then asked if he wanted to go back home. Mark said no, but God told him he would come back again some other day. Mark remembered his experience vividly until the age of five, when the doctors removed the trachea tube they had inserted to remedy a problem of a floppy windpipe. Then the memory of the experience began to fade. Now Mark is a well adjusted teenager who has high hopes of becoming a physical therapist or an athletic trainer. I wanted to leave you with some quotes before the break. A Persian proverb says children are the bridge to heaven. Henry Ward Beecher said, children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven. Children are the keys of paradise, and in this case, children are showing us all about paradise. So let's go to the break and we'll be back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Pironormal Podcast Network.

Keep it here on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Sanders Champlain will be right back.

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Now Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife.

I'm Sandra Champlain and if you are enjoying these stories, please go to Melvin Morse, MD and check out his website. He's got the books Closer to the Light where God Lives Parting Visions. Just to give you a taste of Closer to the Light that I've been reading from. I'm only up to page thirty six out of two hundred and forty one pages, so you know there's a lot more stories in there, So that's Closer to the Light. Do you ever wonder what your passion is? And maybe it changes throughout the course of your life, but could you so imagine doing the amount of research or investigation and sharing. Like doctor Morse said, doesn't have to be about the afterlife. It could be whatever that is for you follow it. I believe we're all divinely guided and what's important is new experiences and being able to share them and make a difference for another. So let's do some more reading. This is six year old Daniel, who was struck by a car while riding his bicycle and received a severe head trauma. He was comatosed for two weeks. He remembers almost nothing of the accident or of the moments before. He says, he remembers taking his bicycle out of the garage and riding down the driveway. His most vivid memory is what happened after he was struck. He says, I was standing there watching the doctors load me into the ambulance when I saw that I was out of my body. My mom was crying and everyone was in a hurry. When I got to the hospital, I watched the doctors put tubes in me. I looked yucky because I was bloody and bruised. I then went down a tunnel that was dark. At the end of the tunnel was a bright light. I wasn't sad, and I wasn't happy, but I did want to get to that light. When I got to it, I met three men. One was very tall and the other two were short. Behind them was a rainbow bridge that stretched across the sky. They seemed nice, but I was kind of afraid of them anyway. All of a sudden, I was back in my body. I looked down at my feet and the men were there. Then they disappeared and I was completely back. This experience made Daniel believe that other worlds exist. It was also somewhat frightening for him because he thought that these men were going to take him to a place away from his parents. But they seemed nice, Daniel told me, But I didn't want to leave my mom and dad. Next, doctor Morse talks about pre death visions, and he says for thousands of years, pre death visions were accepted as part of the dying process, before death became the domain of the hospital, these visions were common and expected. French historian Philippe Aires has documented that before one thousand AD, people had entirely different death experiences than the ones we have today. When the dying person felt his time was near, he usually reviewed his life, his achievements and failures, and wept for the sorrow he felt in knowing he wouldn't see family or friends again. The dying person then asked forgiveness of friends and family for any trespasses he might have committed in the life he was about to leave. Usually, said Ares, the dying would tell of visions of God and of seeing those who had died before them. How different dying is today. Patients who have pre death visions are treated for anxiety with narcotics and valium, both of which erase short term memory and prevent patients from remembering any visions or near death experiences they may have had. These visions are a forgotten aspect of life's mysterious process and just a reminder Doctor Christopher Kerr with Life is but a dream book with the dozens of pre death visions people see while in hospice. So this is the story of Seth. Seth was an eleven year old patient of mine who was dying of lymph In his last days, he was hospitalized with severe untreatable pneumonia. Though he was having difficulty breathing and was in constant pain, he was given very few drugs such as morphine and valium because they make breathing more difficult. Three days before Seth died, a circle of loved ones gathered around his bed. They were startled when Seth suddenly sat upright and announced that Jesus was in the room. He then asked for everyone to pray with him. At about three am, Seth sat up again, startling the four people who had gathered around the bed to pray. There are beautiful colors in the sky, he shouted, There are beautiful colors and even more colors. You can double jump up here double jump. At four am, an extraordinary event occurred. They were joined by a woman who said that she had received a strong premonition that she had to visit Seth right away. She was not known to Seth's parents, but her son was a playmate of Seth's. She had no explanation for why she would suddenly visit Seth at four a m. Except to explain that she had had a vivid dream about Seth and had felt a need to visit him that was overpowering. By dawn, it seemed that life was almost over for Seth. His breathing was labored and his heart was pounding like that of a marathon runners. Even then, little Seth had more to communicate. Opening his eyes wide, he asked his grieving parents to let me go. Don't be afraid, he said, I've seen God, angels and shepherds. I see the white horse. As sick as he was, Seth still begged his family not to feel sorry for him. He had seen where he was going and it was a joyous and wondrous place. It's wonderful, It's beautiful, he said, his hand held out in front of him. Soon he laid back and fell asleep. Seth never regained consciousness and died two days later. Seth's visions and the incidents surrounding them intrigued me. Seth's mother believes that through God's mediation, Seth communicated with his friend's mother. Although she knew he had been hospitalized, it was during the period of his most powerful visions that she had her vision of Seth. Although I have nothing scientific to base this on, I think coincidence was far too great for these periods of vision activity not to be connected in some way paranormal occurrences aside. Seth's beautiful visions consoled his family by reassuring his parents that he was going to a joyous and wondrous place with God. Seth brought his family closer together instead of suffering the shattering loss that so many families experience when they lose a child, Seth's family left the hospital knowing that they had done everything they could to save their son. They also firmly believed that he was safely at rest in God's hands. Just beautiful stories in this book. Wow, I could go on and on. Closer to the Light by Melvin Morse. I love learning that a thousand years ago, this is what people believed, and I do think when modern medicine came about, instead of people dying at home with their families, they're in an institution or they're in the hospital. So many times in old books that I've read of people dying at home, these occurrences are quite normal to hear, these stories of loved ones being in the room before someone passes. I honestly didn't know though, about the narcotics erasing memories for people. I think that's very interesting. Certainly, we need to have pain medication, we do if we are suffering, but I'm wondering if there's some we can take that may also not wipe away our memory. Something to pursue. I hope you've enjoyed today. I sure have. If you haven't already heard my news of my Patreon club, you may want to hear this if you are somebody who really enjoys the work that I do on my podcasts. I have a list of over five hundred and fifty hours between my two shows of all the afterlife podcasts I've done. If you'd like to receive early bird episodes commercial free of We Don't Die Radio and get that full list that you can search and click on anything. Head over to We Don'tdie dot com and they're on the front page. You'll find the Patreon club. No pressure to do that. Those are just for those diehard people, No pun intended that like my work. Also, while atwdotdie dot com, please go to the store page and register for our free weekly Sunday gathering. It is the most empowering online Sunday service going not religious at all, And in each gathering there is a medium demonstration where you can see just how close our loved ones are my friends. They are around us, they love us, They work through our imagination and our feelings to let us know they're right here. But like these children say, it's glorious where we're going to. Not to be afraid. I know easier said than done, but we'll be greeted, will be helped across the finish line, our loved ones will be there. But while we're here, I do think there's something here that is of real value. So go after your dreams, make mistakes, get messy, we can always clean up, live, love, forgive, experience, and have fun as after life pioneer Elizabeth Koobler Ross says there are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn. Learning lessons is a little like reaching maturity. You're not suddenly more happy, wealthy, or powerful, but you understand the world around you better and you're at peace with yourself. And death is simply a shedding of the physical body, like the butterfly shedding its cocoon. It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to grow. This is Sandra Champlain. You've been listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast am Paranormal podcast Network.

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Shades of the Afterlife

What waits for us on the other side? That's a question that people have asked for ages. Each week on 
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