Suicide and near-death experience

[rob roy]

Suicide attempts and resulting near-death experiences: but not all hellish experiences are a result of suicide attempts.

 

Received April 27, 1997

It was a suicide attempt in 1986. I was asphyxiating on co2. I drifted up an into a long tunnel. At first, I felt pain and sorrow. I felt, from the perspective of all those affected by me, any hurt I had caused them. It was horrible but I was forced to understand my negative influence on them. It was incredibly enlightening. I would call it purgatory and I'm glad I didn't have to stay long! Then I floated along some more. The tunnel walls seemed to be made up of moving images. I was floating as in a warm salt bath and I was very comfortable. I found I could think clearly with no distractions. There was no music in my head as there usually was. I calming voice told me that everything would be explained when I arrived. I trusted this voice.

Arriving at the end of the tunnel I was greeted by a man who looks pretty much like I do today. He brought me to the edge of whatever I was standing on and when I looked into the inky blackness, all sense of time vanished. There was no past, present or future. Only everything all at once. I felt a tremendous understanding of the nature of the universe and my place in it. He showed me what looked like a huge white obelisk floating in the blackness. As I looked at it more closely, I saw that the surface was moving. It was a giant puzzle and it looked like it was being solved. He showed me my place and how the puzzle was re-arranged with each action by anyone on earth. Some of the puzzle had already fallen into place and I knew that something wonderful was going to happen when it was complete. Of course, I don't remember what it is but I still look forward to it! I was then sent back to my body. I didn't want to go and I fought it. I was angry for about two weeks to have had such utter peace taken from me. I feel much better now :)

In his book, Life at Death, Dr. Ken Ring analyzed the near-death experiences of 24 people who attempted suicide. Among them, no one reported the tunnel phenomenon, or saw a brilliant but comforting light, or encountered a presence, or was temporarily reunited with loved ones who had died, or entered into a transcendent world of heavenly beauty. Instead, the suicide-related NDE tended to be truncated, aborted, and damped down. It began with a feeling of relief or peace and continued with a sense of bodily detachment to the same degree as non-suicide-related NDEs. But it tended to end, if it got this far at all, with a feeling of confused drifting in a dark or murky void – a sort of twilight zone. Dr. Ring's research strongly suggests that the suicide-related NDE does not reach completion; instead, it tends simply to fade out before the transcendent elements characteristic of non-suicide related NDEs make their appearance. The following is an excerpt from Ring's research into suicide:

  One young man tried to kill himself by taking an assortment of pills – Librium, Demerol, Valium, Dilantin. As a result of this ingestion, he remained unconscious for four days. He remembers finding himself in a gray area:

"The only thing that I can remember about this is just grayness. Like I was in gray water or something. I couldn't really see anything. I couldn't see myself there, either. It was just like my mind was there. And no body."

  While he was in this state, he felt good:

"Normally, I'm a very anxious, a very nervous person – a lot of fears and things like that. And during this, all the fear was gone. I had no fear whatsoever. Almost an adventurous feeling. Excitement."

Dr. Ring:  "Did you want to stay in that condition?"

"Yeah. It was a very good feeling."

  He also was aware of music:

"I also heard music – different music."

Dr. Ring:  "Tell me what it was like."

"It was usually like classical music; I like classical music. It wasn't exactly the music I've heard, but it was along that line."

Dr. Ring:  "Do you recall how the music made you feel?"

"It made me relaxed. The fears went away when I listened to it. Again, the feeling of hope, that there's something better somewhere else."

  He also reported that everything, including the music, sounded "hollow and metallic – echoey" and that these acoustical sensations were associated with the watery grayness. He felt the grayness going through him, filling him and this felt good to him. After a while, he became aware of a voice:

"I think [it was] a woman's voice, but (pause) I didn't recognize the voice."

Dr. Ring:  "Do you recall now what she said to you?"

"No. I just remember that it was a soothing voice. I kind of remember that with the grayness – her voice kind of calling, my moving toward it."

Dr. Ring:  "This was a friendly voice, a reassuring voice in some way?"

"Yeah."

Dr. Ring:  "And you felt drawn to it?"

"Yeah. Right. Like that was the place to be."

  He tried to get to where the voice was:

"It seemed like I kept trying to get to where the voice was, but something was holding me back. I know I wanted to be there; I knew once I was there everything would be fine. I was sure of this. No question about it. But there was still like something holding me back from getting there."

  During his experience he had seen images of people he knew. These people somehow seemed to represent the possibility of a good life; they seemed to care. He described this as "like playing back a recording of my life." The issue was joined:

"It felt like the woman's [voice] was stronger. I wanted to get there but there was just some part of me that wanted to (pause) go back with these images."

  And resolved:

"The thing I remember most is a falling feeling. Like I was coming down really fast and then hit. And then I woke up with a jolt."

  And afterward:

"When I woke up, the first thing I thought was Oh, God. Thank you. I made it, and I was extremely happy. (He had been severely depressed before his suicide attempt.) I was just sitting there thinking about it and I felt this – I don't know – warmth filling my body. I was very happy, very excited, but then (pause) it was more than contented – it was rapture, I guess. But I couldn't explain it to anybody at the time. It was just beyond words."

These passages sum up the essential features of his experience. In the course of his interview, he also indicated that although he never clearly saw his physical body on the bed, he did have a sense of bodily detachment and felt he had no weight at all – he was just pure mind. Neither did he have any sense of time. When he momentarily returned to body consciousness (before drifting back into the grayness), he found the sensory world greatly enhanced – the colors were clearer and more vibrant. The only thing scary about his experience was his fear (which was eventually vanquished) of returning to his body. His experience in the grayness was decidedly pleasant and, judging from its immediate aftereffect, very positive and powerful in its emotional impact.

This particular experience includes many features that are common with non-suicide-attempt experiences: drifting through a vast space, feeling good, hearing music and a comforting voice, hearing sounds magnified, seeing a series of flashbacks of one's life, and so forth.

In Dr. Ring's study, he found that no one who had attempted suicide reported that it was predominately unpleasant. The only possible exception is that a few people did describe some unsettling hallucinatory images, but these appear to have been qualitatively different from the feeling-tone of non-suicidal experiences. Certainly, no one felt that he was either in or was on his way to hell. This is not to say that suicide attempts never lead to unpleasant experiences, only that there is no strong evidence for this proposition among the 24 suicide NDEs in Dr. Ring's study.

 

Not all unpleasant experiences are a result of attempted suicide attempts.

 

Book Review by  Karin Schumacher Dyke

Atwater, P.M.H. (1994).  Beyond the Light What Isn’t Being Said About Near-Death Experience.   Secaucus, N.J.:  A Birch Lane Press Book.

Sample

Ms. Atwater has interviewed at least seven hundred near death survivors a multiple of times to find out about their experiences.  Of these people interviewed, “105 of these seven hundred people reported having had a hell-like or unpleasant near-death experience (p. 7).”  The rest have reported pleasant near-death experiences.

Methodology

Ms. Atwater used her initial research of interviewing 200 near-death experiencers, along with interviews of additional subjects to come up with the findings in this book.  She had done the previous research by administering questionnaires in at least two mailings, she interviewed them in their homes, and then, for this study she cross-checked this archival information with the new information she presents in this book.

For this book, Ms. Atwater preformed clinical interviews with the additional participants to come up with her data.

Abstract

In this book, Ms. Atwater reveals that she herself is a survivor of three near-death experiences where she almost died but then was resuscitated.  She tells of her experiences and that this is how she came to study near-death experiencers.  She presents the typical scenario of a near-death experience, which is of a pleasant nature.  She presents the hellish near-death experience.  In addition, the book contains chapters on:

 “transcendent experience, near-death-like experience, anomalies (of near-death experience), the aftereffects and implications of near-death including psychological and physiological aftereffects, the light of enlightenment, brain/mind (effects), revelations, and making the adjustment (after a near-death experience) (p. vii).”

In addition, she also presents information on how a person who has experienced a near-death experience can better facilitate their recovery.  She presents information on how to get in contact with others who have had the same experiences, what types of foods and medicines to look into for health care issues of near-death experiencers, and who to contact to talk about the puzzling issues that face survivors of near-death experiences.

Important Concepts and Definitions

Pleasant (heaven-like) near death experience – “Heaven-like scenarios of loving family reunions with those who have died previously, reassuring religious figures or light being, validation that life counts, affirmative and inspiring dialogue.  Usually experience by those who most need to know how loved they are and how important life is and how every effort has a purpose in the overall scheme of things (p. 46)”.

Unpleasant (hell-like) near-death experience- “Encounter with a threatening void or stark limbo or hellish purgatory, or scenes of a startling and unexpected indifference, even “haunting” from one’s own past.  Usually experienced by those who seem to have deeply suppressed or repressed guilts, fears, and angers, and/or those who expect some kind of punishment or discomfort after death (p. 27).”

Near-death experience – the typical near death experience involved someone dying clinically and then being resuscitated.  There is an experience from this incident that is describable by the person who has it.  On the other hand, cases where the person wasn’t actually in danger of physical death and still has a describable incident involving either pleasant or unpleasant near-death descriptions are also contained in the material.

Operationalizations

The questionnaires administered to the participants were coded and major trends in the data reported.  Also reported were observations and verbal data presented by the participants to an interviewer.  The data was largely quantitative in nature, but also self-reports by the author were utilized.

Major Findings

Data was reported that suggested changes in the near-death experiencer that had profound effects on the family. Overall trends point to the near-death experiencer changing in several ways.  These can best be described as the near-death experiencer changing in respect to how they expressed love, how they dealt with life, how their personalities changed, and how gender effected these changes.

When the near-death experiencer expressed love after his experience, he did it in a way that was not personal in the family. It is reported that family members become confused by the near-death experiencers, “inability to personalize love and a sense of belonging (p. 119).”  The person seems to be “in tune” with everyone in the universe.  Their sole purpose is to spread the message of universal love.  This brings the family to conclude that the person is being disloyal and that they don’t matter.  This is reported by Ms. Atwater to bring about divorce in many cases. 

Another disturbing thing to families is that the person who has the near-death experience seems to be more naïve than before.  They are often swindled by others who pray on their naiveté.  This causes family members to become angry, embarrassed for the person, or even disgusted with their behavior.  This causes family turmoil.

There is a distinctive personality shift that occurs.  Those people who before their near-death experience were described as “laid back” now become driven and those that are driven become more “laid back”.  This behavior change tends to either be accepted by the family and everyone becomes a part of the change, or this ends the family and the marriage ends in divorce for the family. 

Genders experience these changes differently.  Females become more out-spoken, men more caring.  Men who had the “hellish” experience were less likely to make changes in their live to change the outcome in death than women who experienced the same thing were. 

Overall, the aftereffects of near-death experiences stabilize after a period of time, but it may be too late to save the relationship with family and friends.  On the other hand, if the family can find the flexibility to deal with the changes that the near-death experiencer presents, eventually, it appears that these changes stabilize and that life can become more normalized.  Many families are not willing, however, to ride with the changes for the amount of time necessary to make stabilization occur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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