An incredibly-detailed firsthand account of the afterlife has emerged on the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) blog. In her story, a woman known only as Anne W has this week published what she believes happened to her post-cardiac arrest period.
In a lengthy account, the woman begins by explaining she felt ill at a poker tournament with her boyfriend.
She said: “I mentioned to my boyfriend, something was up, I didn’t feel right, I was sweating, experiencing high anxiety feeling, shaking. It wasn’t nerves, I said ‘I just don’t feel right’.”
Anne then reveals she proceeded to fall asleep and experience a very vivid dream.
She said: “It was Jesus surrendered on the cross. The Romans crossed his ankles and were pounding a Roman stake through both of his ankles on the cross.
“The excruciating pain I felt for him, I felt all his pain and suffering.
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“I woke up sobbing, sad, grief stricken that another human could possibly do this to another.
“I was very shocked and confused at the vividness of this dream.”
And it was only shortly afterwards she had an apparent heart attack.
Anne said: “It began with chest pains, I was holding my chest for a while as we sat and talked; it felt like my heart had clamped down tight.
“I began hyperventilating and my heart felt like it was popping out of my chest. All the sudden I became weak and cold, said I need to lay down on the floor.”
“I was shown through energy that I was one with all that is, all that ever was and all that will ever be.
“All that existed was within me. I was shown this and experienced this within every fibre of my being.
“Everything was connected. I was everything, everywhere; omnipresent, omniscience!
“I knew in this place of oneness that I was connected to everyone and everything. there absolutely was no separation.”
Then, after a prolonged and highly detailed account of her religious experience, Anne believes she eventually arrived at a “barrier she was not permitted to cross”.
She said: “I got a huge revelation and then I heard a loud pop or click and then I was literally snapped back into my body patting myself down, screaming, ‘I’m alive, I’m alive’.
“My girlfriend was walking into my apartment at the same time; but before she walked in physically, I saw her coming.”
However, while Anne appears certain her experience is empirical evidence of the afterlife researchers reveal such vivid visions are simply associated with a surge in brain activity occurring as one approaches death.
University of Michigan scientists arrived at this conclusion after monitoring brain activity clinically-induced cardiac arrest in rats.
They found a huge surge in brain activity in the final few seconds of the rodents’ lives.
Professor Jimo Borjigin said at the time: “This study, performed in animals, is the first dealing with what happens to the neurophysiological state of the dying brain.
“We reasoned that if near-death experience stems from brain activity, neural correlates of consciousness should be identifiable in humans or animals even after the cessation of cerebral blood flow.”