Mid-afternoon. You had a very late lunch at
Penn Station and now Carol is walking slowly south of the center road of Rose
Hill Cemetery. By chance, the other day you received an email from The
International Association for Near Death Studies, Inc. via a fellow Greater
Cincinnati citizen I’ll name Ed. You do not know one another and he was surprised
you received the email from the Vital Signs Newsletter, Fall, 2014. What
intrigued you in the article: “My Near-Death Experience: A Telephone Call from
God,” by Tony Cicoria, MD, and Jordan Cicoria were the details about how the
experience first felt after the phone he was holding was struck by lightning.
Here is this segment of the article. - Amorella
** **
My
Out-of-Body and Near Death Experience: The force of the lightning
blast threw my body backwards like a rag doll. Despite the stunning physical
trauma, I realized something strange and inexplicable was happening. As my body
was blown backwards, I felt ‘me’ move forward, instead. Yet I seemed also to
stand motionless and bewildered, staring at the phone dangling in front of me.
Nothing made sense.
At
that moment, I heard my mother-in-law scream from the top of the stairs above
me. She raced down towards me. I felt like a deer in the headlights. As she
approached I could see she was looking beyond me to my right, and she headed in
that direction. She was oblivious to me standing there. I turned to see where
she was going. Suddenly I realized what was going on. A motionless body was
lying on the ground some ten feet behind me. To appearances the person was
dead. From inspection, the person resembled me. To my astonishment, another
look confirmed it was me!
I
watched as a woman who had been waiting to use the phone dropped to her knees
and began CPR. I spoke to the people around my body but they could not see or
hear me; I could see and hear everything they did and said. It suddenly
occurred to me that I was thinking normal thoughts, in the same mental
vernacular I had always possessed. At that moment I suddenly had one simple,
ineloquent and rude thought – ‘Holy shit, I’m dead.’
This
cosmic realization of consciousness meant that my self-awareness was no longer
in the lifeless body on the ground. I, whatever I was now, was capable of
thought and reason. Interestingly, there was no strong emotion accompanying my
apparent death. I was shocked, certainly, but otherwise I felt no reaction to
what should have been the most emotional of life’s events.
I
saw no point in staying with my body, so my thoughts then moved to walk away. I
turned and started to climb the stairs to where I knew my family still was. As
I started to climb I looked down at the stairs like I would normally do. I saw
that as I reached the third stair, my legs began to dissolve. I remember being
disconcerted, by the time I reached the top of the stairs, that I had lost all
form entirely and instead was just a ball of energy and thought. My mind was
racing frantically, trying to record and make sense of what was happening.
At
the top of the first flight, the stairs went up and left into the second
flight. Instead of bothering with the stairs, I passed through the wall to the
room where everyone was. I went diagonally through the room, over my wife, who
was painting children’s faces. She had one child in front of her, one behind
that person, and one to the left. I had a clear realization that my family would
be fine. Dispassionately, I departed the building.
Once
outside, I was immersed in a bluish white light that had a shimmering
appearance, as if I were swimming underwater in a crystal clear stream. The
sunlight was penetrating through it. The visual was accompanied by a feeling of
absolute love and peace.
What
does the term ‘absolute love and peace’ mean? For example, scientists use the
term absolute zero to describe a temperature at which no molecular motion
exists – a singular and pure state. That was what I felt; I had fallen into a
pure positive flow of energy. I could see the flow of this energy. I could see
it flow through the fabric of everything. I reasoned that this energy was
quantifiable. It was something measurable and palpable. As I flowed in the
current of the stream, which seemed to have both velocity and direction, I saw
some of the high points and low points in my life pass by, but nothing in
depth. I became ecstatic on the possibility of where I was going. I was aware
of every moment of this experience, conscious of every millisecond, even though
I could feel that time did not exist. I remember thinking, ‘This is the
greatest thing that can ever happen to anyone.’
Suddenly,
I was back in my body. It was so painful! My mouth burned and my left foot felt
like someone had stuck a red-hot poker through my ankle. I was still unconscious,
but I could feel the woman who was doing CPR stop and kneel beside me. It
seemed like minutes before I could open my eyes. I wanted to say to her, ‘Thank
you for helping me.’ Nonsensically, all that came out was ‘It’s okay, I’m a
doctor.’
Shortly
after I regained consciousness, camp security arrived and requested that an
ambulance be called, which, to their frustration, I promptly refused. Although
I realized I probably made little sense, the truth about lightning strikes is
that you are either dead or alive, and there is not much in-between. In
retrospect it is obvious I wasn’t thinking clearly, but at the time, I was
still reeling from what I had just experienced. My family drove me the two and
a half hours home to Oneonta, New York, wobbly and confused. Once there, I saw
my local cardiologist and neurologist, who did all the appropriate tests and
examinations. They told me I was lucky to be alive.
I
was able to resume work two weeks after the initial lightning strike, when my
brain seemed to function normally again. In the weeks and months after this
lightning strike, however, I changed in many ways. They story of my developing
musical and composition abilities as a result of this event has been touched on
in several books and documentaries.
Can
science explain the NDE/OBE? I had experienced what Raymond Moody, MD, defined
as an out-of-body experience (OBE). I will refer to this phenomenon as an ND-OBE
(near-death, out-of-body) experience. For the purpose of this article, I am
going to focus primarily on the experimental aspect of ND-OBEs and attempt to
apply scientific reasoning to what may defy explanation with our current
knowledge.
As
a physician and scientist, I think it is extremely important to examine what I
experienced that fateful day. As an individual, however, I also think it is
extremely important to appreciate the indescribable miracle that I experienced.
I was presumed dead on the ground, yet I was later able to see and verify
things that had been happening around me and that happened in another room,
where it was physically impossible for me to have been. Both are imperative
variables in arriving at a viable conclusion to this enigmatic event.
My
friend and colleague, the eminent neurologist and renowned author Oliver Sacks,
MD, assures me that I was hallucinating – but was I? Dr. Sacks has described
hallucinations associated with ‘ecstatic’ seizures in temporal lobe epilepsy
that certainly sound like some descriptions by people who have had actual NDEs.
However, numerous reports have been presented and verified where experiences of
NDE/OBEs have been able to describe in incredible visual and auditory detail in
their NDE/OBEs. A case in point is that of Pam Reynolds, described in Dr.
Michael Sabom’s book, ‘Light and Death,’ and further studied by Holden and
Woelee. Reyolds was a patient who had a NDE/OBE during a neurosurgical
procedure called ‘standstill’ pioneered by Robert Spetzler, MD at the Barrows
Neurosurgical Institute. The procedure was used during a brain aneurysm
resection where the patient had an induced cardiac arrest, and the brain was
monitored and was documented to be isoelectric and non-reactive. Just before
the ‘standstill’ procedure was begun, Pam was deeply anesthetized, with her
eyes taped shut and sheet over her head. Her brain activity was monitored in
more than one way to confirm that her anesthesia was complete, and yet she
described ‘popping’ out of her body – having an ND/OBE, whereupon she was able
to describe sounds, ‘see’ where people were standing, and describe the shape of
surgical instruments used on her that she could not have seen physically. Dr.
Gerald Woerlee claims she may have had moments of light anesthesia, which certainly
can happen in surgery, but the would allow only auditory, not visual
recognition. She was able to mimic the sound of a brutish instrument called a
Midas Rex that was used to cut through her skull. More importantly she was able
to accurately describe what it looked like in lay terms.
An
extensive number of cardiac arrest cases have been recorded with similar
experience to the Reynolds’ case. Pim van Lommel, MD, a cardiologist in the
Netherlands, did a prospective analysis of 509 successful resuscitations in 344
Dutch patients who suffered a cardiac arrest. Of those, 18 % had an NDE/OBE. Morse
found 85 % in children. An obvious question is, why not all? Ring found that
blind people who had experienced ND/OBEs also reported veridical perceptions
that were impossible from the vantage point of the physical body, and which
sometimes totally contradicted their expectations at the time, yet were later
verified to be accurate. . . .
What Do I
Conclude? In my case, being both a physician and scientist, I have
approached what I experienced with some trepidation. What is clear to me is
that my consciousness survived death, and I was able to verify details of my
near-death and out-of-body experience that I would have no conceivable way of
knowing except through conscious travel of my spiritual self outside of my
body. As Robin Kelly, MD, states, ‘Our brain may not be the seat of
consciousness, but merely a vessel through which consciousness is realized.’ I
can only hope that through further experimentation and study that meaningful
data will be found to corroborate what many of us near-death experiencers
already know – that the gift of life is greater than the sum of its parts, and
that whatever consciousness is, it survives death.
From
-- “My Near-Death Experience: A Telephone Call from God,” by Tony Cicoria, MD,
and Jordan Cicoria, Vital Signs
Newsletter, Fall, 2014
** **
1801
hours. This took some typing time but I am glad it is included in my notes.
Ed sent you other similar materials from
Vital Signs Newsletter and you have found more online yourself. As you were
typing you realized that the sense and style of the article is quite similar to
how you would have written such an article. You were not struck by lightning
however, but you have had a few out-of-body experiences that you are incline to
accept as hallucinations (seizures within the temporal lobe) suggested Dr.
Sacks within the article.
1808
hours. What I also find interesting is that the perspective of the Dead in my
fiction is not much different than that presented by Tony Cicoria, MD, who
presumed he had been dead in the article.
Post. - Amorella
You
had a make-shift supper and watched “NCIS” and “NCIS.LA” then called it a night
as far as TV is concerned. – Amorella
2204
hours. I was looking over references to Dr. Payne and here is one of my
earliest online from 11 March 2009.
** **
From - Blog Posting -- 11 March 2009
. . . I am consciously working on this editing; and even though I
am reluctant to cut out some passages along the way (particularly those related
to close friends) I am doing it for the focus of the book, which is primarily
(as I see it) a dialogue between myself and Amorella, who is mostly another
part of myself.
I
still think this separation has to do with the original hypnosis session where
I had an epiphany. Where I realized the brain is more powerful than I thought,
and I realized I had two centers, one that was hypnotizable and the other that
recognized at the same time that I was under hypnosis. Thus, logically, I see
that I am in one part and Amorella is in the other. I am the consciousness that
realizes I was under hypnosis, the approximate one inch in diameter ball of
consciousness directly above where my spinal column attaches to the brain and
about an inch or two below the top of my skull, and perhaps an inch or two in
from the center back of my skull. This is an assumption based on my own
observations and feedback from Dr. Payne, the hypnotist.
I
have unconsciously found a way to use this information to aid my ability to
write ‘automatically’ in much the way I ‘automatically’ read and evaluated
students’ papers for much of my career.. . .
Selected from blog post 11 March 2009
** **
2208
hours. To write with automaticity is like it is when Amorella does the writing,
at least that is how I see it. After reading the article from Vital Stats I
wonder if this, the consciousness seemingly within the one-inch ball in my
brain is the part that is ‘me’. Is it the part that appears to survive in a
NDE?
You sense this is so, that this
consciousness allows you to gain a ‘sense’ of how it is being dead because when
you first experienced this in Dr. Payne’s office this consciousness appeared to
be more real-in-the-moment than your real life consciousness which was busy
readying to be hypnotized (if it were possible). At the time you did not think
it was possible to be hypnotized. Shortly you discovered this was not the case.
– Amorella
2217
hours. Dr. Payne continued talking and said my right arm was holding a cement
block (like used in house construction). I immediately felt the weight. I could
not believe how much a cement block weighs just holding it with one hand. This
was a complete surprise. Somewhere inside I knew better, or thought I did, but
that thought got lost when my arm began quivering from holding up such a
weight. I was sure I was going to drop that cement block. When Dr. Payne
brought me out of the trance I was in shock to realize the brain is so
powerful. I never dreamed it could be so powerful that I was convinced that
cement block had been real. I could feel the cement block. It was quite difficult
to hold onto even with my hand clutching hard to the piece of rough, solid
piece of cement. Yet, at the same time I was in a timeless and calm place not
really a part of the goings on in Dr. Payne’s office. I have not looked at this
experience in terms of an out-of-body experience because it was an inside-my-head
and separate from the brain/body at the same time. (2226)
From time to time in this blog you have
wondered how it is that I-the-Amorella work. I have access to your
memory-experiences as well as set in place memories, many of which are built on
stilts of partial doubt because you realize you do not have a good memory to
begin with. Reason and imagination fill in the blanks. You would rather reason
rule as far as filling in the blanks is concerned. Imagination only heightens
doubt; reason lowers the sense of doubt. Did the hypnosis trigger a doorway to
a ‘naked’ consciousness? You think it possible. For simplicities sake I call
this ping-pong sized ball envisioned that day your naked consciousness, your heartansoulanmind.
From that the story springs, a story from what may have been before and be
after physical existence. I am speaking of an understanding here, not a Truth.
In here, in this context, an understanding can be the shadow of a Platonic-like
Truth in context with our fictional works about Merlyn’s dreams. – Amorella
2246
hours. I can accept this because it is full of my own sense of reasoning. It is
not a matter of faith or doubt; it is a matter of acceptance of reasoning as far as this blog
and the story exists. – rho
Good. Post. - Amorella
