A woman, known only as Ramona M to protect her anonymity, has recounted escaping from an accidental death after “existing outside” her body. Incredibly, she believes only a paranormal premonition immediately prior to car crash give her information that may have saved her life.
Ramona recounted the apparent 2003 incident to the Near-Death Experience Foundation (NDERF) site.
She said: I was trying to get home, running late for curfew, and driving home on county roads late at night.
“It had been raining, so the roads were slippery and it was extremely foggy.
“A car was tailgating me and it made me nervous. So, I sped up and kept speeding up.
“I still felt like the car was following too closely. On an S-turn, I felt the back end of the car coming up around.
“I had just had a driver’s training course that taught me exactly how to correct this.”
However, at this point, she believes she “clearly left my body” and acquired a higher state of consciousness that may have resulted in saying her life.
She said: “Before I could act, I heard a powerful voice and felt like I didn’t have a choice in what to do.
“At the same time, I also had a most peaceful sense of surrender come over me.
“The voice told me, ‘Take your hands off the wheel’. Time slowed down as the back end of the car came around.
“It felt like I was up above and watching the car.
“In slow motion, the back end of the car came around and shot across the road. The back end crashed into a hydro-pole.”
And it was at this point Ramona believes: “everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning.”
“I was completely unscratched. The rest is hazy, how I got out, how the ambulance and fire truck came. I remember smelling gas everywhere.
“A woman approached me but there was never a sign of the car behind me or if it even existed.”
However, despite such compelling first-hand evidence, the overwhelming majority of scientists believe near-death experiences are in fact associated with increased brain activity in extraordinary circumstances.
One prominent study saw University of Michigan researchers induce cardiac arrest in rats while simultaneously monitoring their brain activity.
They found a significant surge in brain activity in the final few seconds of the rodents’ lives.
Professor Jimo Borjigin, said: “This study, performed in animals, is the first dealing with what happens to the neurophysiological state of the dying brain.
“We reasoned if near-death experience stems from brain activity, neural correlates of consciousness should be identifiable in humans or animals even after the cessation of cerebral blood flow.
“The prediction that we would find some signs of conscious activity in the brain during cardiac arrest was confirmed with the data.”
