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.As you can imagine, build it and they will come is not the creed of evidence-based medicine.We liketo start with a little more science than that.As a result, Istill cringe a little whenever I hear this Hollywoodaphorism.However, I continued to build the site inhopes that, yes, they would come.And finally, come they did.By December 1998 Idownloaded the first twenty-two case studies from thewebsite with great anticipation.I was jubilant.With allthe effort I had put into the site, I was now going tohave information about NDEs from the sourcepeople who had the experiences! As a scientist and a prove it to me kind of man, I personally neededprecisely this kind of information to begin toscientifically study NDEs.Those first twenty-two case studies didn tdisappoint.As I read them it started to becomeobvious to me that the NDEs were real.I could see thesame pattern of elements that Dr.Moody and otherresearchers had outlined in their work, including suchelements as consciousness occurring apart from thebody at the time of a life-threatening event.Reading these early case studies was excitingbeyond my wildest dreams.It became clear to me that by studying a large number of these NDEs in wordsthat came directly from those who had experiencedthem, I could hope to eventually provide some answersto humankind s most perplexing question: Whathappens when we die?Below are paraphrases6 of two of the first twenty-two NDE case studies I was honored to receive on theNDERF website:Experience #16: I Felt Like a Fly on the Wall In 1963 this young man lost control of his car andcollided with a brick wall.His injuries were severeenough to fracture his face and sinus cavities and tobreak his jaw.Badly hurt, he sat on wet grass near thedestroyed vehicle and then drifted intounconsciousness.As you read this, note the calmnesswith which he describes his experience as well as thepresence of a very powerful out-of-body experiencethat seemed to indicate to him that all would be well inhis life despite this near-fatal accident.Here s hisstory:I was in a severe automobile accident several yearsago.The steering wheel smashed my face.Theaccident happened in a rainstorm, and I ran off theroad and hit a tree.For a while after the crash I felt nothing, and thenthe pain started to burn in my face.I got out of the carand lay down, hoping it would make me feel better,but it didn t.Finally I just blacked out.When I awoke, Icouldn t see anything because my face was covered, but I could tell I was in a hospital from the sounds andthe fact that I was on some kind of bed.I don t know how long it was, but I had the distinctsensation that I was floating out of my body.I saw myparents, who were there at the bedside, and could feeltheir emotional pain.It was strange.I should havebeen in pain but wasn t.Instead I was standing next tomy parents trying to console them as they looked attheir darling son, whom they had just been told wasgoing to die.It was horrific, but there was nothing Icould do about it.I stood next to my mother and triedto get her attention, but I couldn t because she didn tknow I was there.I looked at my own body but wasn tinterested in what I was seeing.I actually felt like a flyon the wall.Something in my mind finally clicked as Irealized that they would eventually discover that I wasnot in pain, whether it was here on earth or not.At thatpoint my empathetic pain went away and I focused onmy experience.I remember thinking, So this is whatdeath is about, as I rose further out of my body.A light came into view and became larger andbrighter as I drew closer.I knew this was it, the end ofmy life, and I wasn t afraid.But as I drew near, a voiceshouted at me to stop.And I mean shouted. No, notyet! the voice said.When that happened I felt myself return veryhard into my body.I gasped very loudly, but I knew Iwas going to survive after that.When they say it s notyour time, it s not your time.When I first read this man s account of his near- fatal automobile accident, I was taken by the calmnesswith which he described the sense of peace andpainlessness that came over him in the hospital.I wasalso intrigued by his description of the light that formedthe boundary between life and death, as well as thestrong voice that stopped him from crossing into thelight.This man came back from his experience with theability to intuit people s feelings (his words) as wellas understand their emotional logic.Intuiting people sfeelings may be one type of psychic experience
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