Rob, a few years back, I began an intensive study of the testimonies of NDE survivors, as well as of the writings of serious investigators of the phenomenon, such as Dr. Pim van Lommel, the Dutch cardiologist who has made special studies of the matter for many years:
The individual testimonies of survivors vary greatly IN THE DETAILS, and are often coloured by their prior religious beliefs: Christians meet with god or angelic presences, for example. But there are always the same main common themes running through the stories. And one of the most striking is the way - again and again - people will say: âItâs completely transformed my attitude to death. I just donât worry about it any more, because clearly itâs no big deal, and certainly not âthe end of all thingsââ (I also have a neighbour whose grown son told her of having exactly the same transformation of attitude after taking DMT smoke for the first timeâŚ)
The huge modern proliferation of these NDE phenomena is due entirely, I reckon, to the vast increase of skilled, specialist techniques and treatments for life-saving emergency medical revival work for people who, in previous times, would simply have died.
This has meant that thereâs been this big increase in people who have testimonies to give of the truly extraordinary experiences they had whilst - nominally - âunconsciousâ and biologically dead (all life-signs flat-lining).
As times and attitudes have evolved, thereâs been a steady coming-out of people whoâve been through the classic NDE, but who, initially, kept silent about it, for fear of being written off as mad weirdos.
It seems to me that what the survivors describe is either closely similar to, or exactly the same as, classic out-of-body-experiences; or, as veteran shamans would say, of shamanic journeying.
What pisses me off somewhat is that my own innate rather mediocre level of psi-talent for the - perfectly normal - ability of OOBE-at-will, aka journeying, happens to be only average. The upshot has been that, whilst doing my daily shamanic practice sessions, Iâve never yet managed the sort of extraordinary full reality-tone of awareness of better-endowed OOBE travellers: often described as being even more vivid than ordinary full conscious awareness: âas if the whole world had just been freshly painted and was still glowing with ultra-vividnessâ.
Mircea Eliade, in his famous classic scholarly study: âShamanismâ called shamans âtechnicians of the sacredâ and what they do as âarchaic techniques of ecstasyâ. âEcstasyâ of course originally meaning âstanding outside of oneselfâ:
Two very striking modern examples of practitioners of the OOBE-at-will skill, and - crucially - of its teachability are Tom Campbell and his post-grad buddy Dennis Mennerich, who were both taught how to do OOBEs-at-will by Bob Monroe, the founder of the Monroe Institute For The Study Of Consciousness. Bob, in his middle years, found himself having spontaneous OOBEs, even though, as a standard-issue modern USAmerican, he had no previous inkling of such things, and thought at first that he was going mad.
As you can see, Rob, I can run off at the mouth about all this, at the drop of a hat. But maybe the above is enough to chew on for now. Meanwhile, Iâm back on the ball again after my Thursday surgery. Still deeply struck by the extraordinary things that strong-souled, highly competent people like my surgeon can do, with the help of modern technology. As you perhaps know, Rob, Iâm not a great devotee of startrekkytechietechie, which I believe isnât really the future of humankind, we being destined rather for the Long Descent into something similar to previous pre-hitech eras. But whilst we still have it, this level of technical capability produces some fascinating experiencesâŚ! 
Iâm actually quite looking forward to further adventures in this field of slightly tricky key-hole surgery! And if they can fix my heart valve, and make it possible for me once again to do the fourteen-mile round trip into town by bike, as the surgeon said, I shall be truly impressed. Think of that! Not that itâs unprecedented. I know of ninety-somethings who are still cycling⌠
