From Life to Death, Beyond and Back

2021-07-01

From Life to Death, Beyond and Back

Dr. Thomas Fleischmann has been an emergency fhysician since 1982 and has worked as the director of emergency medical units in Germany and Switzerland. He is also a member of the British College of Emergency Medicine and the European Society for Emergency Medicine. Author of several books and academic papers on this topic.

Throughout his career he assisted over 2000 cases of people that approached the line between life and death and had the opportunity to rescue some of them from dying, bringing them back.

Dr. Fleischmann says that there are many illnesses and injuries, but only four ways to die.  They are:

  1. A person suddenly dies from one minute to the other;
  2. The health condition of a person deteriorates in a rapid and constantly way
  3. The illness sets in and the health deteriorates. The person receives therapy and gets a little bit better, but then illness gets stronger again, and the health deteriorates once more. The circle repeats over and over and this person approaches death.
  4. Person with very low activity level, probably immobile, that slowly progresses towards death.

By far, most people die the way 3 and the most rapidly progressing kind of way to die is No. 4. Many would like to die No. 1 but the scientific evidences(*) say that not even 10% of us will die No. 1

This leads us to an interesting reflection, once that the way we would like to die can be very different from the way we will actually die.

We all have different genders, ages, personalities and lives, but there is one thing that we have in common: we will die.

Can we look what’s happening to us beyond death, and what we will experience shortly after we have died?

Dr. Fleischmann says we can! We can look beyond death, based on the experiences shares  of those people who have been reanimated and came back to life. 20% where from de Western countries and more than 30% where from the Eastern countries, and the reports of information that they shared were called near-death experiences.

Those reports happened all over the world,  showed striking similarities and revealed a pattern:

Dr. Fleischmann mentions that the first phase of near-death experiences reveal there is a sudden change, all pain, anxiety, fear and noises are gone and there’s just peace, calmness and tranquillity. Some report joy and others have an insight: “this is what we cal death”

The second phase of near-death experiences is again a sudden change and those people report that they’re floating above themselves and see themselves lying down on the stretcher, see the emergency physicians and nurses trying everything to bring them back. They can see and listen from above what’s happening, and the personality of the person who is gone is still the same, but they have left their body. This is called out-of-body experiences.

Dr. Fleischmann says there is no explanation for these experiences because people can report everything the emergency team said when they come back, but there is no brain activity at all.  There is no scientific explanation, but the phenomenon is there.

In the third phase there is also a sudden change, and those people who have a near-death experience describe that they are in a dark, confined space, but 89% to 99% say it is comfortable, pleasant, warm and soothing. Just 1% to 2% describes it as frightening and say that there are terrible noises, smells and creatures.

In the fourth stage, they report that out of the complete blackness, a light begins to shine. This light is far away, very warm, bright and attractive. Towards this light, out of the blackness, a tunnel is starting to form, and they are attracted towards it, starting to fly towards this light.

In the fifth stage, only 10% of those who have a near-death experience reports a sudden change with a beautiful surrounding; beautiful colours and music and a feeling of unconditional love. It may happen that people who have near-death experiences in this stage have a flash forward through their whole life. Some, also, describe that they meet relatives who have died before and are greeted by them. They also report this being made out of light and unconditional love, and they are very happy to be in that place.

Yet, half of those who were in this stage say that at this point,  they decided to come back, maybe because they feel that there is a task in their life which is not fulfilled yet, and has to be fulfilled. The other half reports that either the relatives or the being out of light tells them to go back because there is something that still has to be done in life.

Dr. Thomas Fleischmann also reports that after near-death experiences people reveal personal changes, and they get more empathic, social oriented and may lose their interest in material values. They turn more spiritual and lose their fear of dying.

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