Do you believe in life after death? Do you think people have soul?
People who return to life and retell their unbelievable stories have experienced the afterlife. One of the most incredible account experiences of afterlife is the one of the 25-year-old Harvard trained brain neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander. His story is pretty unusual one, and we are about to retell it to you.
Dr. Alexander was not one of the people who believe in afterlife or a non-physical spirits, as he was surrounded by people who invested in the material aspect of life. He did not even believe in soul. Being a skeptic, Alexander believed that the stories about afterlife were just hallucinations and products of fantasy. Then, something happened to him. He was seven days in coma because of bacterial meningitis. While in coma, the scientist had experienced a journey that completely altered his perception of afterlife.
When he returned to his body, Dr. Alexander wrote a book that soon became number one NY Times bestseller, “Proof of Heaven”. In this book, Alexander wrote about what he had experienced and he stated that life on earth is actually just a test that helps our souls to evolve and develop and that this growth can be achieved through love and compassion. He has made numerous points, and we give you some of them.
– Alexander reckons that his existence as a human on Earth is just an artificial dream compared to the experience he had, due to the fact that that experience was so real
– The essence of the afterlife was love, which dominated to the extent that it diminished the presence of evil. Everyone who wants to understand the Universe should know love.
– The communication in the afterlife was telepathic, and there was no need for words. Words were unnecessary because all questions and answer were given telepathically.
The doctor has said that the best thing about the spiritual realm is that people are more precious and loved that one can possibly imagine. Another great thing about it is that people there are always safe and they are never alone, as the unconditional, ideal love of God impacts everyone.
Dr. Alexander explains that love is the essence of everything. He talks about the everyday kind of love that everyone knows – the love toward our spouse or children, the love toward our animals, not the abstract love. This love is selfless and not jealous at all. It is love in its purest and strongest form, the unconditional type of love.
The ultimate reality and the ultimate truth is this one, and it lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or will ever exist. People who do not know love and who do not embody it in all their actions cannot understand accurately who and what they are, states Dr. Alexander.
Now let’s have a word or two on the credibility. While the doctor was in coma, his neocortex was not in function and that is why there is no scientific evidence why he experienced that. He himself, refuted nine scientific explanations of what happened to him in his own book.
Exploring naturalistic explanations
The five possible explanations in Appendix B of his book are the following ones.
We should also mention that some of the explanations may not make sense to us, laymen, so we only give the most common explanations he has refuted.
- The explanation that this was just a primitive brain-stream program to alleviate the life-threatening pain and suffering was not accepted by him as it did not explain the rich nature of this memories
- According to some, what the doctor experienced was unclear recall of memories from the deeper parts of the system like the amygdale that has sufficient overlying brain to be protected from the bacterial inflammation going on the surface of the brain. However, this also does not cover the rich nature of his memories
- One possible explanation is that this could have been DMT dump. The DMT is a natural serotonin that produces visions. However, the doctor is very familiar to the serotonin associated drug experiences (LSD) from his teen years and knows that this was not a DMT experience based on his patient’s DMT experiences. His recollections are so vivid and ultra-real and thus need a functioning audio and visual neocortex as target regions in which to produce a rich experience like his. The prolonged coma he was in has ruined his neocortex which was to affect the audiovisual experiences that have to be result of serotonin from the raphe nuclei in his brain-stream. Still, knowing that his cortex was not functioning, the possibility that the DMT acted in the brain is excluded.
- A possible explanation can be the reboot phenomenon. This is a random dump of disjointed memories as a result of old memories in the influenced neocortex, which may happen on restarting the cortex into consciousness after a long-lasting failure like meningitis. However, this option cannot be taken in consideration, as his memories were vivid and detailed.
- One option is that what Dr. Alexander experienced is an unusual memory generation through an archaic visual pathway. However, this can only be achieved in birds, not in humans, because humans can experience it just in cases when they are cortically blind. This does not offer explanation to the ultra-real recollections he has and it does not explain the auditory-visual incorporation.
The near-death experience of Dr. Alexander can be considered to be the most credible one, since he has a scientific background.