The life review is one aspect of the near death experience that doesn’t get the full attention it should. I say this because life reviews say much about the nature of NDEs and what is really causing them. It adds significant weight to the idea they are genuine spiritual occurrences and works strongly against any idea they are simply a result of a dying brain trying to comfort itself in it's last few moments.
To believe this remarkable phenomena is simply the result of a dying brain stretches credibility to the limit. For one thing why would a dying brain, which is allegedly trying to comfort itself, dredge up so many inconvenient facts from the past, such as kicking the neighbour’s cat when you were 10 years old for instance. One of the core features of life reviews is that you get to experience everything that you ever did to everyone else in your life as if you were them at the time it happened. You literally take on their perspective and feel all the emotions and pain you inflicted on them. And to top it all off you get to feel all the indirect effects of your actions, such as how it impacted the people close to them for example. Why can't the brain think of a better way to comfort itself whilst it is dying?
To believe this remarkable phenomena is simply the result of a dying brain stretches credibility to the limit. For one thing why would a dying brain, which is allegedly trying to comfort itself, dredge up so many inconvenient facts from the past, such as kicking the neighbour’s cat when you were 10 years old for instance. One of the core features of life reviews is that you get to experience everything that you ever did to everyone else in your life as if you were them at the time it happened. You literally take on their perspective and feel all the emotions and pain you inflicted on them. And to top it all off you get to feel all the indirect effects of your actions, such as how it impacted the people close to them for example. Why can't the brain think of a better way to comfort itself whilst it is dying?
The consistency of the experience is another thing that demands some attention. This surely works against any idea this is some sort of elaborate hallucination. Why do so many people experience it in exactly the same way? You never hear someone say they experienced just a portion of their life, or it involved only the pleasant events. Nor is there ever any notion that the events are played out sequentially in time. Everything is experienced all at once. I have never heard any account deviate from this baseline fact. Also no-one ever seems to claim their life review revolved exclusively around their own personal thoughts and feelings and not also the feelings of all the people they impacted over the course of their life. Nor is there ever a claim that judgement came from some outside agent such as god. Why doesn't anyone claim this last point especially? Surely some people should be claiming to be judged by god? That's the standard non-atheist view of what happens when people die. To my knowledge that has never happened, and I have read a lot of accounts.
Another feature always present in life reviews is that it is experienced from an elevated perspective of unconditional love. This has the general affect of magnifying considerably the feelings of remorse felt about all the suffering one has inflicted on others during the course of their life. The subsequent feelings of remorse can be very intense indeed!
As could be expected all of these features compound together to produce some very unpleasant life reviews. But what accounts for all this consistency? There is a lot of details here, with a corresponding potential for a lot of discrepancies between accounts. Yet there never appears to be any. What gives?
(to be continued)
Another feature always present in life reviews is that it is experienced from an elevated perspective of unconditional love. This has the general affect of magnifying considerably the feelings of remorse felt about all the suffering one has inflicted on others during the course of their life. The subsequent feelings of remorse can be very intense indeed!
As could be expected all of these features compound together to produce some very unpleasant life reviews. But what accounts for all this consistency? There is a lot of details here, with a corresponding potential for a lot of discrepancies between accounts. Yet there never appears to be any. What gives?
(to be continued)
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