Into The Light

Near Death Experience Phenomena

Published in 1975, Life after Life focuses public attention on the near-death experience (NDE) like never before. Moody recorded and compared the experiences of 150 people who had died, or almost died, and then recovered. In his book he describes the results of decades of inquiry into the NDE phenomena and outlines nine elements that generally occur to an individual during an NDE.

A strange sound: A buzzing or ringing noise while having the sense of being dead.

Peace and painlessness: Dying people may be in intense pain, but as soon as they leave the body, the pain vanishes and they experience peace.

Peace and painlessness: A dying person often has the sensation of rising up and floating above his or her own body, watching as a medical team is at work There is the feeling of being in a spiritual body that has been described as a living energy field.

Out-of-body experience: Being drawn into darkness through a tunnel at an extremely high speed, until reaching a realm of radiant, golden-white light. Although those experiencing an NDE sometimes report feeling scared, they do not sense themselves on the way to hell or that they fell into it.

Rising rapidly into the heavens: Instead of a tunnel, some people report rising suddenly into the heavens and seeing the earth and the celestial sphere as these would be seen by astronauts in space.

People of light: Once through the tunnel, or having risen into the heavens, some experiencing an NDE have reported meeting people who glow with inner light. Often, friends and relatives who have previously died are there as well.

The Being of Light: After meeting the people of light, the dying often meet a powerful spiritual being whom some have identified as God, Jesus, or another religious figure.

The life review: The Being of Light presents the dying with a life review: they relive every act they have ever done to other people and come away feeling that love is the most important thing in life.

Reluctance to return: The Being of Light sometimes tells the dying that they must return to life. Other times they are given a choice of staying or returning. Most are reluctant to return. The people who choose to return do so only because of loved ones they do not wish to leave behind.

The work of Dr. Moody became the single most confirming source of my belief that being human is more than my skin and bones. I began to love death because it could take me out of this flesh into a finer, rarified, subtle reality. During my childhood and into my early adulthood, I felt like Alice in Wonderland who went down the rabbit hole, but I wanted to access the tunnel going up! I searched everywhere mountains, valleys, foreign countries, teachers, the right food, community, dreams, moonlight, desert, ocean. Somewhere between then and now, my belief about the subtle realities turned to knowing. Along the way, that knowing has come and gone, though the longing remains. It is a longing for death that is life, light that is love.