Some people who have had close brushes with death report leaving their physical bodies, sometimes floating around and observing scenes in their vicinity — or even places further away. On occasion, what they describe afterward can be verified; researchers of near-death experiences (NDEs), who have attempted to verify or dismiss this, have tried to determine if the person could have seen these things without taking leave of their corporeal selves.
When verified, such testimonies constitute some of the strongest evidence that such mystical experiences are not mere hallucinations. Cases where the experiencers’ accounts are verifiable are known as “veridical perceptions.” Some include not only scenes experienced in the world of physical objects, but also in conversations or encounters with beings of other planes, who tell the experiencer things that turn out to be true.
1. Patient Observes Doctor’s Unusual Habit
Al Sullivan told his story at a meeting of the Connecticut chapter of IANDS in 1990, two years after his reported NDE. During an emergency coronary bypass surgery at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, he had a clear sensation of leaving his body. He reported that he “rose to an amphitheater-like place” and seeing what appeared to be an otherworldly scene. This included his brother-in-law and mother, who had died. He was able to look back to this material world and see his body with his chest opened up and heart exposed.
“I was able to see my surgeon, who just moments ago had explained to me what he was going to do during my operation. He appeared to be somewhat perplexed,” he said. “I thought he was flapping his arms as if trying to fly.”
It was this part of the account that startled Sullivan’s cardiologist, Dr. Anthony LaSala, who had dismissed the rest of the story as a drug-induced hallucination. Dr. Hiroyoshi Takata indeed had a habit of “flapping” his elbows, as Sullivan described, so as to direct medical staff and avoid touching anything after he had scrubbed in.
2. Gaining Knowledge of a Brother’s Death Prior to Receiving the News
Another veridical perception comes from a collection of essays published in 1882. Francis Power Cobbe recalled the following case in his book “The Peak in Darien” on page 297:“A dying lady, exhibiting the aspect of joyful surprise ... spoke of seeing, one after another, three of her brothers who had long been dead, and then apparently recognized last of all a fourth brother, who was believed by the bystanders to be still living in India. The coupling of his name with that of his dead brothers excited such awe and horror in the mind of one of the persons present, that she rushed from the room. In due course of time letters were received announcing the death of the brother in India, which had occurred some time before his dying sister seemed to recognize him.”
3. Plane Crash Victim Sees What He Could Not Have From Where His Body Lay
This account holds that a medical officer, Dr. X, stationed in France during WWI, was flying to the aid of a wounded pilot. Not long after takeoff, the plane crashed. The crash site could not have been seen from the hangars, while the hangars likewise could not be seen from the crash, because they were separated by the crest of two slopes.The doctor’s own words were recounted by the late Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick John Marrian Stratton, former professor of astrophysics at the University of Cambridge Stratton, in a 1957 article titled “An Out-of-the-Body Experience Combined With ESP,” published in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. He wrote:
“While I was up above my body, it did not seem in the least queer that I could see ... a number of activities at the hangars ... The Crossley tender [an ambulance] started out of the hangar in which it was garaged. When about a car or a car-and-a-half length outside the hangar, the engine stalled, and I saw the chauffeur jump out and pull the starting handle. Then he raced back to his driving seat and started off towards the crash over the crest.
“While this small episode was occurring my medical orderly had rushed out of my nearby medical hut, and jumped into the back of the Crossley tender. The ambulance, or tender, then stopped again, but this time it was the medical orderly who jumped out, rushed into the medical hut, and came out with something extra, and jumped into the ambulance, which then resumed its twice-interrupted journey.”
Dr. X told this to his commanding officer at the hospital after recovering enough to realize the significance of what he'd seen. The officer recorded it and verified that the ambulance journey did in fact begin this way.
By the time Stratton investigated this case, the commanding officer and others who could have re-verified the information had either died or could not be traced, wrote Bruce Greyson, Ian Stevenson, and Emily Williams Cook in an article published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 1998, titled “Do Any Near-Death Experiences Provide Evidence for the Survival of Human Personality After Death?”
