The person who only gives Douglas as his name was undergoing routine gallbladder surgery when complications arose. Douglas, who was awake through the procedure, said he began having breathing difficulties. As he started to slip out of consciousness, Douglas said that he began “asking Jesus to be with me through this”.
Less than a minute later, Douglas was in a totally different place, although he cannot explain where he was.
However, he does remember is a feeling of falling while being surrounded by bright lights.
Suddenly, Douglas said he heard a voice reading out the Scriptures while the text was zooming past him as if he were in a movie.
Douglas writes for the NDERF: “Before me, I could see moving text. It looked like the credits one sees at the end of a movie.
“The text was scripture; scrolling upwards and away from me, and moving at a slow, smooth, and continuous pace.
“To the left of this scrolling scripture, distinctly separated from the scripture on the right, was an area that was empty, and black.
“The area appeared distinct, not only appeared filled with darkness, but also completely void. It was absent of anything at all.
“As the scripture scrolled upwards I could hear, and feel, a voice reading the words aloud. I also had the feeling, but never heard it read, that all the events of my life had been read and were known.”
Suddenly, Douglas was back in his body after being revived, with the surgery having been completed and in a stable condition.
Some researchers state these visions are normal phenomenon and not necessarily a sign of an afterlife.
Dr Sam Parnia, director of critical care and resuscitation research at NYU Langone School of Medicine in New York City, told a recent Oz Talk: “People describe a sensation of a bright, warm, welcoming light that draws people towards it.
“They describe a sensation of experiencing their deceased relatives, almost as if they have come to welcome them. They often say that they didn’t want to come back in many cases, it is so comfortable and it is like a magnet that draws them that they don’t want to come back.
“A lot of people describe a sensation of separating from themselves and watching doctors and nurses working on them.”
Dr Parnia says 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.”