"His near-death experience followed a severe fall from a ladder: fractured ribs, internal bleeding, loss of consciousness before the ambulance arrived. "They told me afterwards it was close," he says, rubbing his palms together as though checking for dust that isn't there. "Very close." I ask him what he considers the most significant insight from the experience. He looks at his calloused hands for only a heartbeat before answering: "The essence of all is encounter and connection," he says. "Love means recognizing that the other should be exactly who they are-and wishing them well, genuinely and honestly.""
"But when I ask whether she often returns to that moment, the transformation is immediate. Her composure dissolves; she looks at me imploringly, tears gathering. "I have been homesick for heaven every single day for forty years," she says, her voice trembling. "Every day I longed to return. It hurt every day. Life wasn't so easy after that.""
Near-death experiences show wide individual variation and resist standardized templates. Commercial and popular accounts can simplify or obscure subtle, diverse personal realities. Genuine understanding requires listening to experiencers without imposing preconceived narratives or assumptions. Public curiosity and expectations can pressure experiencers to produce clear answers they may not possess. One account describes a house painter whose fall produced fractured ribs and internal bleeding and who emerged with the conviction that the essence of all is encounter, connection, and wishing others well. Another account describes an elderly woman who, after sepsis and resuscitation, felt a persistent homesickness for heaven that made everyday life painful.
Read at Psychology Today
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