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Speaker 1: Tell me what you loved was like before you died.

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Growing up, I was always interested in phenomena that were

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difficult to explain, and I grew up in the more

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liberal branch of the Lutheran Church, so I was raised

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in religion. And then in nineteen seventy eight I read

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Moody's book and it really captured my imagination, especially the

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phenomenon of verritical perception, where when people are in this

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near death experience and they experienced their consciousness functioning apart

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from their body, and they perceive things in the material

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world or the trans material world that involve information that

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they couldn't have known from any normal means, but then

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as confirmed as accurate. And then in the mid nineteen eighties,

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I was finishing my doctoral degree in counselor education and

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had to do a dissertation. I ended up doing it

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on something related to near death experiences. Doctor Mary Neil.

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I love when she says, you know, I'm not an

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imaginative person, so I could not have made this up.

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Because she's a physician. You know, physicians are among the

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most trusted profession and so to hear a physician talk

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about the kinds of things she experienced and learning that

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her son Willie was going to die before his eighteenth

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birthday and when he was only I think five at

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the time of her nd A lot of aspects that

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she experienced just very convincing. And also that her NDE

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occurred when her body was underwater, and they now have

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figured out that she was underwater for just a little

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over thirty minutes, so she was dead dead. And then

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to have this vivid experience that had these vertical components

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like Willy's passing and so forth. What I found is

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the same as true of near death experiences. There are

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certain features that are odd general features that you find

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across cultures and throughout history, but they manifest in a

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way that is reflective of the culture of the experiencer.

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And then beyond the cultural level, there's another one, more

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surface structure level, which is personal and so even within

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the same culture. So the example I use is one

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of these universal features is there's movement through space, and

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in the West, it's very common for people at some

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point in their NDE to talk about moving rapidly through

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a tunnel or some kind of enclosure something like that,

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and that tends to be it's not only in the West,

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but it's much more commonly reported in Western NDEs. So

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that's a cultural manifestation of movement. Now, just to take

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a minute to there's an example from a Maori woman

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Indigenous New Zealander, and in her end, she flew rapidly

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over au Taioa, which is the name of the indigenous

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name for New Zealand, to the leaping off place of souls.

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So she flew over and she talks about seeing all

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the rivers and things that she saw. So she didn't

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go through a tunnel, but she moved rapidly through space.

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So back to the Western NDEs. Moving through a tunnel

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seems to be a predominantly Western cultural expression of that

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universal theme of rapid movement through space. But if you

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hear three different people talk about the tunnel, you will

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not hear the same thing. And so there's a little

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boy who was five years old and he said, then

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I went really fast through a big noodle that was

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his reference point. A trucker said, then I went then

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I zoomed through a giant tailpipe. And then another person

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who said, you know, I went through this thing that

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had light and or it was dark and there was

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light at the end, and everybody just describes the tunnel differently.

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About half of people are given a choice to come back,

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and when they decide to come back, it's virtually always

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because of a love connection on earth that they still

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need to do something for that person or fulfill something.

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And then the other half of people either are forced

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to come back against their will. People become less materialistic,

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more concerned about others, and lose their fear of death

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because they now know that their consciousness is going to

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continue after their bodies demise and other kind of psychological changes.

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And then the first s stands for spiritual. People become

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more spiritual, usually less religious, but as we just said,

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not always, and become often like people will say, I

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just read one and one thing after another. I just

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you know, had this hunger to immerse myself in spiritual

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books and movies and things like that. And also people

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develop what in some religious contexts are called spiritual gifts,

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so they developed the ability to see the future, and

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also things that are questionable in some in some religions,

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like the ability to communicate with deceased entities, you know,

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people like a medium or or after death communication, which

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is after death is the direct communication with the person

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who for personal reasons. So that's back at the spiritual

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where people develop like precognition, telepathy. A lot of nd

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ears after I don't know if I should say a lot,

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but certainly a good number after their NDE there, it's

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like their boundaries between themselves and others and the world

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have kind of weakened and withinny of the veil, and

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a lot of endears can't go to parties because just

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being in a room with everybody with all their stuff

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that they get affected by and sometimes have to spend

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some time withdrawing socially in order to build up their boundaries,

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their psychic boundaries again and be able to manage social interaction.

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We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,

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and now back to the show. So it can be

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you know, a lot of us think, oh, wouldn't it

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be wonderful to see the future or know what people

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are thinking. Oh, it's you know, we're given these boundaries,

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I think for reasons that enable us to function in

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this world. One of the things I like to clarify

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about vertical perception is that it can be perception of

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the material world like the you know, the surgeon, or

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it can be perception of the trans material world. People

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have met deceased loved ones who were not yet known

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in the physical world to have died. I'm going to

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be using the words pleasurable and distressing, because even distressing

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experiences usually eventually bring about positive after effects, and conversely,

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pleasurable experiences can be very disruptive to people's lives and

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be quote unquote negative at least in the short term.

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So pleasurable experiences, as you said, dominated by feelings of peace, joy, love,

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and those sorts of things. Distressing experiences dominated by feelings

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such as terror, horror, isolation, that sort of thing. And

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there's been research about distressing NDEs, so I can speak

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to the results of the research, and we know that

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there are at least three types of distressing NDEs. The

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most common, most commonly reported. Isn't that bad in the

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sense that it has the same features as a pleasurable NDE,

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But for some reason the person is seems to be

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resisting and that's creating negativity. Like they're moving rapidly through

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a tunnel, but they don't want to be moving rapidly

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through a tunnel. They're like digging in their heels and

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it's making the experience unpleasant. Distance seems to be a

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factor in many many of those cases, and we also

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know that in some cases the person decides to just

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like relax and let it happen, and when it does,

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then it turns completely pleasurable. So when they let go

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of the resistance, it's good. So that's what's most commonly reported.

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Next most common are experiences of being absolutely alone forever.

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So it's an experience of absolute eternal isolation where there

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is complete clarity and consciousness of being absolutely alone forever,

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and it is a particular kind of hell because there's

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you know, there is nothing and no hope of anything.

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The first distressing and dee I ever heard from directly

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from a person was of this type, and it was

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in a support an I in support group and in

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one of them, I'm out in space. You know, I'm

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not connected to my body anymore. I'm out in space

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and there's a darkness over here. And I said to

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my therapist Julie, I'm suspended outside of darkness. So I

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was just hanging there and that was fine, But at

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some point I moved into the darkness. As I moved

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deeper and deeper. I said to Julie repeatedly, I'm losing

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my sense of myself. I'm losing And then at one

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point I said, I'm not me anymore. Now that it

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doesn't really make sense, except experientially it made perfect sense.

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I was not me anymore. I actually tried to remember

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how I got here, and I could not remember who

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I was, and I had no concept of jan or

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that identity at all. And I said to Julie, I'm

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one with the darkness. That is nothing, slash everything. I

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was in this darkness that was the pregnant void, the

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source of everything before it manifests into phenomena. And it

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was an experience of absolute peace, a very crystal clear awareness.

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There was nobody, nobody because nothing had manifested yet, so

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and I was still a center of consciousness. And also

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I have to say and also immediately I have to say,

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and part of everything. So it's not like I was

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just this just me an it was I wasn't me.

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I wasn't me anymore. So that for me was God.

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That's all that is. It's the everything before it manifests

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into anything. Having a sense of what my purpose is

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here and fulfilling it so you know, feeling a combination

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of being guided and making choices that seemed to fulfill

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a higher purpose.