What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About the Fear of Death

Recent research into consciousness during cardiac arrest is raising some fascinating questions about what happens when we die. But one of the most important findings about near-death experiences may actually be about how we live.

White Light as described by some near-death experiencers.

A major study of cardiac arrest and consciousness has reignited one of the biggest questions we can ask:

What happens to consciousness when we are close to death?

But as fascinating as that question is, there is another finding in near-death experience research that interests me even more.

It has less to do with what happens when we die.

It has everything to do with how we live afterward.

What the AWARE-II Study Found About Consciousness

Dr. Sam Parnia's AWARE-II research examined 567 people who experienced cardiac arrest in hospitals, working with twenty-five medical centers, mostly in the United States and United Kingdom.

Of the 53 people who survived, 28 were able to complete interviews. Eleven of those survivors reported memories or perceptions suggestive of consciousness during cardiac arrest and resuscitation.

Researchers also recorded brain-wave patterns associated with higher mental function in some patients during prolonged CPR—even as much as an hour into the resuscitation process.

That does not scientifically prove consciousness exists independently of the brain. And I am not going to pretend that it does. That's Nobel Prize territory.

Parnia has, however, previously raised the possibility that consciousness may be separate from the brain. The important word there is possibility.

I can only tell you what happened to me.

My consciousness left my body.

That was what I took away from my own near-death experience.

Separate research from Jimo Borjigin's team at the University of Michigan adds another fascinating piece to the puzzle. In a small study of four dying patients, two showed surges of gamma-wave activity after ventilator support was removed. That activity occurred in a region of the brain associated with conscious processing.

The researchers themselves cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from such a small study.

However, what these studies do tell us is that the dying brain—and consciousness itself—may be far more complicated than we once assumed.

That is a real and an incredibly interesting gap in our understanding, and I am grateful that researchers are examining it more closely.

But there is something else here that interests me even more.

The Near-Death Experience Finding We Can't Ignore

Dr. Bruce Greyson, whose work I greatly admire and respect, has spent decades studying near-death experiences and their long-term effects.

In a 2006 review of near-death experience research, Greyson cited a survey of 51 near-death experiencers conducted by transpersonal counselor Cassandra Musgrave.

Before their experiences, 22 percent reported a definite belief in an afterlife.

Afterward, that number rose to 92 percent.

Certainly extremely interesting and although I could write an entire article with that statistic as it’s foundation, that still isn't the number that caught my attention.

“Eighty-nine percent reported a decreased fear of death.”

Think about that. Forget beliefs for a moment. Forget debates over what consciousness is. Forget whether you believe consciousness survives bodily death.

Look at what happened to the actual people because this bigger.

Their relationship with death changed. This is what happened to me, and it changed me in more ways than I can express in this short article.

And when your relationship with death changes, the way you live and perceive life changes with it.

Losing the Fear of Death Can Change the Way You Live

People who have near-death experiences are confronted with something most of us spend an enormous amount of energy trying not to think about:

Our own mortality.

We are going to die.

That isn't meant to be morbid. Quite the opposite.

I lost my fear of death after my own near-death experience.

In my second book, You Are Still Alive, Now Act Like It, I wrote what I call The Four Principles of Ascension.

The purpose of these principles is to help us move toward a higher level of consciousness. And just because I wrote them doesn't mean I have mastered them.

I haven't.

I am still a work in progress.

But the first principle is especially relevant here.

Principle One: You Will Die

That sounds harsh until you understand what I mean by it.

Accepting that your life will eventually end—and accepting that you do not know when—can create an extraordinary kind of freedom.

Here is an excerpt from You Are Still Alive, Now Act Like It:

“To become whole, you must accept that there will be an end to this lifetime. In fact, the acceptance of such can be one of the healthiest things you may do for yourself. It will bring you peace and calm. For death is not the end: it’s a new beginning. Accepting that it will come one day should be something of a relief, giving you the freedom to live more in the present moment. Treating each day like it may be your last can help you truly appreciate all that you have. Tell everyone how much you love them. Live and love each day.”

The acceptance of our mortality creates a change in mindset.

It changes how we choose to live.

I know that feeling firsthand.

My near-death experience taught me a new way to live.

I went into that experience as an atheist. I came back unable to keep pretending that what I had experienced didn't exist.

After I finally integrated the experience into my life, I no longer feared death the way I once had.

And strangely enough, losing my fear of death became one of the most useful lessons of my life.

Because once death stops controlling you through fear, life begins to look very different.

You begin asking better questions.

Why am I waiting to do that thing I always wanted to do?

Why haven't I told that person I love them today?

Why am I staying somewhere I don't want to be?

Why am I postponing something that matters to me?

Why am I spending so much time worrying about things that won't matter in the end?

We spend so much of our lives acting as though we have unlimited time.

We don't.

And that realization does not have to frighten us.

It can and should wake us up!

So let me ask you the question directly.

What would you stop postponing if you were not afraid of dying?

I’ll bet it’s something amazing!