Following complications during surgery, a woman named Fiona temporarily died, leading to an experience of the afterlife, she believed. Fiona’s said she saw colours she could not even imagine, before being taken from her body and seeing the world in a different light.
Fiona wrote on the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF): “Before the experience, I had problems breathing and dreamed that I was in a swimming pool and gasping for air. I could not swim to the surface and felt like I was suffocating.
“Then a thought entered my mind that I should find the stairs to get out of the pool. I found them, climbed and climbed until I suddenly found some air.
“At one point, I saw very intense colours. The colour red was too intense. so I decided to focus on one of the white walls of the small area I was in.
“It was not a real room. Soon thereafter, I saw a most beautiful blue colour.
“The blue was a gorgeous and awesome color. The entire area I was in became blue.
“Then I left my body. I do not remember going through a tunnel; it all happened quickly.
“I did experience a most exquisite light. It was not hard to the eyes and it was a very special light unlike what we see here on earth. It was vastly peaceful and gracious.
“The peacefulness is what I remember most. At one point, I was above my house and saw my husband and daughter at the sink.
“I wanted to be with them, especially my daughter. A voice, neither male nor female, asked me if I wanted to go back. I wanted to go back.”
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“A lot of people describe a sensation of separating from themselves and watching doctors and nurses working on them.”
Dr Parnia said there are scientific explanations for the reaction, and says seeing people is not evidence of the afterlife, but more likely the brain just scanning itself as a survival technique.
He said thanks to modern technology and science “death does not have to be limited to philosophy and religion, but it can be explored through science”.
He added: “They can hear things and record all conversations that are going on around them.”
