People Who May Have Been Saved by Ghosts

Ghosts can be terrifying, but I don’t think they’re all dangerous. Of course, there are stories of demon possessions all around the world, but I think ghosts usually want to be left alone. Some people believe ghosts will even go as far as saving people’s lives. Here are some examples of such cases.
 

1. The Gray Man

The small town of Pawleys Island in South Carolina is home to beautiful beaches, historic homes and apparently a lot of ghosts, the most famous of which is known as the gray man. For 200 years there have been numerous sightings of the mysterious grey figure typically right before a major hurricane hits the area. And seeing the grey man could not only save your life but also save your home.

Sounds like an urban legend right? Well, not according to Jim and Clara Moore who had a run in with the Grey Man two days before Hurricane Hugo struck in 1989. They told the story on one of my favorite childhood shows, mysteries. According to Jim, "We were talking a walk late in the afternoon which we usually do. You see so many people walking on the beach at this time of the day. That particular afternoon we only saw the one, and he was coming directly toward us. When I got within speaking distance, I raised my hand to say ‘Hi’ or ‘Beautiful evening’ or whatever, and he disappeared.”

Although the hurricane wreaked havoc on Jim and Clara’s neighborhood, their home was somehow the only one to escape the storm unscathed.

No one really knows who the Grey Man was, some say he was just some pirate, there are others who claim he was a young man who died in quicksand while on the way to see the woman that he loved. Not long after his death he appeared before his lover and warned her to leave the island the woman and her family did, right before a deadly hurricane struck. So I’m thinking maybe he loved the woman so much he came back to warn her but in the process was cursed to wander through eternity warning others of impending doom. So kinda like the Flying Dutchman, except the opposite.

2. The Wife with a Warning

According to the Chicago Tribune, a farmer named Charles Henry Durand was heading home late one evening when his horse stopped in the middle of the road, yea this happened back when people still rode horses, anyway, his horse stopped and would not move any further and began to tremble. Suddenly the air grew oppressive, and a faint light appeared gradually taking the shape of a woman beside Durand's wagon.

At this point, Durand wanted to run away, but he said he was scared stiff. The white figure then spoke in a whisper and said: "There is danger at home, stay away until morning." It was then Durand said he recognized the voice of his late wife. As soon as the warning was uttered, the figure disappeared.

Durand just went straight on home where he noticed that a window he had locked was now open and there were muddy footprints inside the house. As he walked inside carefully, he noticed a string which he pulled with his umbrella. Right then a gun went off, and the bullet would have hit Durand straight in the chest if he did not notice the string which was hard to see in the dark, Durand told the paper he would have died if not for the warning of his late wife.

3. The Woman Who was Dead for 56 Minutes

50-year-old Sonia Burton counts herself as a living miracle, for a good reason too because she was dead for 56 minutes following a heart attack.

Sonia’s day was just like any other as she showed up for work at a bingo hall, but as her shift started, she felt a pain in her chest and then collapsed. Paramedics were on the scene quickly and worked for the next 56 minutes to try to save Sonia as she was being transported the hospital. It was during this time that Sonia said she received a message from her late husband John who died of a heart attack in 2004

She said: "The only thing I remember is my late husband coming to me and saying 'It's not your time Sonia. Go back to the children.' Then I woke up in hospital."

4. The Mother’s Ghost

In March of 2015, emergency responders responded to a report about an overturned car in an icy river. When they arrived, they saw a woman and a baby who was strapped in a seat in the back of her mother’s car, which was hanging upside down in cold water.

Here’s where it gets creepy, when the rescuers entered the water they say they heard a voice calling for help. The 25-year-old mother was already dead, but the officers swear they heard an adult's voice calling out to them for help.

Officer Jared Warner of the Spanish Fork Police Department was one of the first to reach the vehicle; he told the Desert News that “We’ve gotten together and to just talk about it and all four of us swear that we heard somebody inside the car saying, ‘Help,’”

Officer Bryan Dewitt who was also on the scene said “The only people in there were the deceased mother and the child.” Officer Tyler Beddoes another responder said they couldn't explain it, but have no doubt they heard it.

"It wasn't just something that was just in our heads. To me it was plain as day cause I remember hearing a voice," Beddoes told the Deseret News. "I think it was Dewitt who said, 'We're trying. We're trying our best to get in there.' How do you explain that? I don't know,"

Also, it was a miracle that little Lily survived, as she was hanging upside down for almost 14 hours in her car seat with no food or water with the icy river flowing right below her head and temperatures dropping to near freezing throughout the night.

5 Most Mysterious Books Ever Written

Books exist to tell stories, and that’s what most books do. They make us laugh, cry, and scream in frustration. But some books are just plain confusing. They’re not trying to tell stories, but instead are trying to send some kind of message about the unexplained, extraterrestrial, or even divine. Books are also a form of documenting history, so could the writers of these books really have witnessed such strange sights? Here are the 5 most mysterious books ever written.

Book of Soyga 

In the 16th century, a mysterious book about magic called the Book of Soyga was found by John Dee, an Elizabethan mathematician, and occultist. After the book was found, it was lost again for hundreds of years. Finally, a scholar found the book when he was browsing through the British Library, and inside the book were different magic spells, ways to summon demons, etc. 

The 197 page Book of Soyga had over 40,000 letters that were arranged in code-form, and no one knew how to read or understand it besides the parts of the book that were written in Latin. These randomly distributed letters were incomprehensible, so imagine how frustrated John Dee felt when he obtained the book. It was like he had all the answers, but didn’t know what any of it meant. A spirit-medium named Edward Kelly actually offered John Dee the chance to talk to Archangel Uriel about the book and its contents. Apparently, Uriel said that the pages of the book were shown to Adam by the “good angels of God” in the garden of Eden and that the only person who knew the books’ secret was Archangel Michael. 

In other words, since the Garden of Eden is where the creation of the world began, the Book of Soyga is pretty much a representation of the universe. Don’t be so quick to solve the mysteries of the book though, because the book is rumored to be cursed. If you decode the language of the book and obtain the book’s knowledge, you will die within two and a half years. Is knowing the secret to the universe worth dying for?

Illuminated Manuscript

Another mysterious book is known as the Smithfield Decretals or the Decretals of Gregory IX. Gregory IX was a pope in the 13th century who was in charge of writing the laws for the church and its members.  Decretals were common back in the day, but the strange thing about these decretals is the drawings that appear in some of them. The style of the Decretals was one that had letters, calligraphy, and illustrations. This was called Illuminated Manuscript and was a very long, annoying process. But that’s not the strange part because the illuminated manuscript was quite common. The weird thing is that the illustrations aren’t like the ones people normally see in religious texts. 

Within the pages of text, you can see illustrations of gigantic snails attacking with their antennae, huge homicidal rabbits, dogs riding rabbits, rabbits riding humans in snail shells, bears attacking unicorns, strange creatures, and get this: there’s even a medieval Yoda. Yes, there is an illustration of a creature that looks JUST like Yoda. Could this be another case of time travel? Or did the creator of Star Wars happen to see the Smithfield Decretals? I mean, they look the same.  The only thing we know is that these illustrations make no sense whatsoever. Could there have been a time when giant animals dominated 

Rohonc Codex

Next, we have the Rohonc Codex, which was first discovered in Hungary in the 1800s and was thought to have originated from medieval times. Sadly, even to this day, no one can decipher or understand the script at all. The mysterious text has been in discussion for more than 200 years and has led many scholars to study the text even though their efforts have been put to waste. The text is still undecipherable to this day, and no one knows where it came from or who wrote it. 

The codex is one of the most mysterious books of all time, consisting of 448 pages of strange text and watermarked pages that look like an anchor within a circle. The watermarks date back to 1529-1540 AD, but the book is written much earlier than the watermark. The illustrations in the codex include things like military battles, landscapes, and even religions like Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. This could mean that whoever wrote the codex was a supporter of all three religions, or wanted the three religions to coexist in peace. Many theories have been created by people who studied the codex. 

One theory is that the text is a variation of Brahmi script, from India, and that it should be read left to right, top to bottom. This is known as the Brahmi-Hindi hypothesis. Another theory is that the text is Intended to be read right to the left, bottom to top and that it is written in the Vulgar Latin dialect of Dacia. This is called the Daco-Romanian hypothesis. Even though many theories have been many, none of them have been fully agreed upon, and the codex remains a mystery to humankind.

Nostradamus

Fortune telling is real and it exists in a certain book that seemed to have prophesied many events that happened hundreds of years later. The book is called ‘The Prophecies’ and the writer of the book was a French physician and astrologer named Michel de Notre Dame, also known as Nostradamus. 

Nostradamus just may be one of the greatest prophets in history because he was able to predict some of the biggest events that have occurred in the world. In his book ‘The Prophecies’ written 400 years ago, he had more than a thousand four-line verses that seemed to predict the future. How was he able to have such accurate visions? Apparently, he gained visions by staring into a bowl of water. Some of the prophecies made in the book are so accurate that they’re scary. 

Nostradamus was able to predict events like the rise of Adolf Hitler, the great fire of London, the atomic bomb drops in Japan, September 11, and the French Revolution. All of them have been completely accurate, which makes us wonder: what about the his predictions about 2016 or the near future? His book predicts that very soon there will be a World War III, the largest earthquake to ever hit the US, and the downfall of the global economy. People have been linking natural and manmade disasters to Nostradamus’s book for centuries, and so far most of his predictions have been accurate. 

Some people, however, believe that his prophets have just coincidentally matched up to events that have happened in our world and think his predictions are false. Whether he was really an amazing prophet is up for discussion, but what is undeniable is the fact that I myself would do anything to be able to see the future.

Voynich Manuscript

Finally, we have one of the most mysterious manuscripts of all time, the Voynich Manuscript. This manuscript was said to have dated back to the early 15th century (1404-1438) in northern Italy. It was first discovered in 1909 by a polish book dealer named Wilfrid Voynich, which is who the book is named after. Voynich bought the book in 1912 and was fascinated by the content. 

The book contains 240 pages of text and illustrations with some pages missing.  The book seems to be a herbal manuscript that resembles the ones released in the 1500s, but when you look closely, you will see that the plants drawn are completely unknown to mankind. The language of the text is also unknown, which makes the book an absolute phenomenon. 

Cryptographers have tried and failed to decipher the script, but they claim that the book is trying to tell readers a message. Some people claim that the book is actually a puzzle while others just claim that the book is an unbreakable mystery. For the curious minds out of there who want to try cracking the code, the entire manuscript can be found online. 

Could this be a person’s documentary of his travels on a different planet where he was introduced to a whole new species of plants? We’ll never know.

6 Clues That May Prove, We ALL Have Souls

Have you ever wondered if you were something or someone else in your past life? Or if you had a past life in the first place? 

A chief question for many philosophers and scientists alike is whether or not humans have souls. A soul is the spiritual, immortal part of a human being that pre-exists the body and stays alive after death. It is the reason why people are able, if possible, to reincarnate and start a new life in a different body. 

Although many people do believe that they have souls, others are skeptical and want real evidence of the existence of such spiritual entities. So without further ado, here are clues that may prove we all have souls.

#1 - Soul Captured on Photo & Video

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Sometimes we see photos that seem to capture images of ghosts or an always blurry bigfoot so it would make sense that cameras may be able to capture souls as well and regardless of whether they are real photos or not, they are always interesting and sometimes very hard to explain. 

For example, in Powell County, Kentucky there supposedly was a horrible motorbike crash, and a guy named Sal Vazquez took a picture of the incident while driving by in his truck. Vazquez posted his picture on Facebook to share the devastating news, but what he received in the comments wasn’t what he expected. People who saw the picture claimed that Vazquez had captured the dead man’s soul leaving his body. They shared the post, and eventually, it became viral. The picture shows a translucent, human-shaped figure leaving the body of the man who passed away.

Next, we take a look at a video posted in a Chinese hospital. Which showed the body of a deceased woman lying on a stretcher. The body was covered by a sheet, and the room was dark, and you can clearly see a ghostly figure begins to exit the body of the deceased woman. Now if this were real, I would just hope that this is something that can only be captured on camera because can you imagine seeing this in real life. I’m glad this was in a hospital because I would definitely have a heart attack.

#2 - Near Death Experiences

We all know the story, someone almost dies and is brought back to life, they then talk about a white light and probably heading towards it. But that's the thing, you've heard about it before because it happens a lot and the stories all seem to be pretty similar. 

For example, after the horrific Tang Mountain Earthquake in 1976, doctors brought many victims back from the brinks of death with most of these individuals recounting similar experiences of floating above their own bodies and instead of pain and fear they felt very much at peace. And although according to a 2011 study in which researchers say near death experiences are just biological reactions, a Harvard Neurosurgeon named Dr. Eben Alexander disagrees.

Dr. Alexander didn’t believe that souls existed. But one day, Dr. he fell into a coma for a week due to bacterial meningitis. During that time, he claimed to have a surreal journey into the afterlife in which he experienced something so real that it made the human world seem artificial in comparison. He also said that the afterlife was filled with love and that communication in that dimension was telepathic. 

People didn’t need to speak to each other to understand what they were trying to say. When he regained consciousness seven days later, he was healed of his meningitis and was so intrigued by his otherworldly experience that he wrote an entire book on it called “Proof of Heaven.”

    
#3 - Bioelectric Photographs

Next, we have an experiment done by Russian scientist Konstantin Korotkov, who photographed a person using a special bioelectrographic camera at the time of his death. Korotkov teaches physics at St. Petersburg State Technical University and is famous for his research on human energy fields. The bioelectrographic camera creates a high-intensity electric field and produces a flow around the object. Once, Korotkov photographed a person at the moment of his death, and the pictures showed him the soul leaving the body. He explained that the life force (in blue) first left the core, then the head, and lastly the heart and groin.

#4 - Brain Activities

Canadian Neurosurgeon Dr. Wilder Penfield is responsible for a lot of what we currently understand about our brains and is widely considered the father of neurosurgery. For years Penfield though that the brain could explain all human behavior, but after decades of research, he changed his mind. For example in one experiment Penfield conducted. He wanted to observe the brain activity of one of his subjects, so he set up a system that would monitor all the subject’s brain activities. 

He first told the subject to raise his hand, and when he raised his arm, a certain part of his brain was activated. When he took his arm down, that same part of the brain was deactivated. At the same time, Penfield asked the subject did you raise your arm, which the subject replied, "Yes I did."

Then, Dr.Penfield used a machine to activate that part of the brain again but this time artificially. The arm rose up. Then, he deactivated that part of the brain, and the arm fell down. When asked again if he raised his arm the subject said No it went up by itself. This simple experiment is really amazing because in the second case, it was Penfield who triggered the brain to cause the arm to go up, but in the first case who or what triggered the brain? 

Because of this Penfield concluded that: “The brain is a computer, but it is programmed by something outside of itself.”

He also said in his last book The Mystery of the Mind, “I came to take seriously, even to believe, that the
consciousness of man, the mind, is NOT something to be reduced to brain mechanism. 

#5 - Ghosts

I ain't afraid of no ghosts... well actually that’s a lie, I am deathly afraid of ghosts. Personally, I think ghost hunting is one of the worst things that you can do. I mean what are you doing? You don't have a proton pack, what are you gonna do when a ghost attack? Throw your iPhone at it.  Oh, there’s the ghost, oh it's getting close, and now it's chocking me, and now I'm dead... But seriously, we all know there are countless pictures and videos and testimonials out there that are evidence that ghosts may in fact exist and ghosts are suppose to be lost souls so this is also evidence that we do indeed have souls. 

#6 - Reincarnation

Throughout history there have been countless cases of people remembering their past lives, some cultures even treat reincarnation as fact. 

Professor Ian Stevenson formerly of the University of Virginia and his successor Dr. Jim Tucker spent decades researching claims of reincarnation by children and is said to have investigated over 3000 cases. In many of these cases like the people, mainly children were able to remember incredibly specific details of their previous lives. 

For example one of the cases was a boy known as Sam, Sam was four years old when his grandmother died. His father brought an old photo album home from her house when he cleaned it out. To Sam’s parents’ knowledge, Sam had never seen a photo of his grandfather.

When they were looking through the album, Sam pointed to a photo of a car, and said: “That’s my car.” It was his grandfather’s first car. Sam’s mother was skeptical, so she showed him a photo of his grandfather as a young boy with other boys of the same age. Sam pointed to his grandfather and said, “There I am.”

Testing it further, Sam’s mother asked if he remembered anything else from his past life. Sam said someone “turned my sister into a fish.”
When asked who, Sam replied “Bad men.”
It turns out The grandfather’s sister had been murdered, and her corpse was dumped in a body of water.

Personally, I believe that we all have souls and that’s why I'm kinda scared of this whole cloning or making machines more and more lifelike. I personally do believe that the soul is what makes us who we are and I really don't think that when we die, its just over, I mean that’s kind of depressing. 

But there is so much evidence out there that we do all have souls, I think this is especially true in the case of past lives or reincarnation. There are so many documented cases of reincarnation, and even if you don't believe it, you can't really explain it. I mean how can you explain a little kid remembering accurate details of another person who died before they were born. 

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/14/us/spirit-leaving-body-photo-trnd/index.html

http://study.com/academy/lesson/dr-wilder-penfield-biography-research.html

http://www.korotkov.eu/

http://www.iisis.net/index.php%3Fpage%3Dian-stevenson-semkiw-childhood-memories-reincarnation-past-life-lives

Super Powers Your Body is Hiding From You

We all want superpowers, I actually think it would be awesome if somehow we are all evolving into mutants and eventually our own unique superpowers would come out. I actually think if that happens, there would be a whole lot less crime in the world because you don’t know what powers other people possess. Imagine if a mugger tries to mug a little old grandma, but then the grandma shoots lasers out of her eyes and goes all Cyclops on the mugger.

But what if we all do have powers and we just don’t know it. Here are some superpowers you probably didn’t you had.

1. Super Strength

Super strength or hysterical strength, is a display of crazy abnormal strength when people are in life and death situations.  Although many of these cases were documented, super strength is not recognized by medical science mainly due to the fact that it’s kinda hard to gather evidence on this stuff because they happen without warning and researchers can’t just point the gun at someone and tell them to go lift a car.

Like I said there are many documented cases of super strength. For example In 2006 in Tucson, Ariz., Tim Boyle watched as a Chevrolet Camaro hit 18-year-old Kyle Holtrust. The car pinned Holtrust, still alive, underneath. Boyle ran to the scene of the accident and lifted the Camaro off the teenager, while the driver of the car pulled him to safety.

And if you’re thinking maybe Time Boyle was just that strong, well In 1982, in Lawrenceville, Ga., Angela Cavallo lifted a 1964 Chevrolet Impala from her son, Tony, after it fell off the jacks that had held it up while he worked underneath the car. Mrs. Cavallo lifted the car high enough and long enough for two neighbors to replace the jacks and pull Tony from beneath the car. and a 1964 Chevrolet Impala is at least 3,500 pounds.

And finally, Marie "Bootsy" Payton was cutting her lawn in High Island, Texas when her riding mower got away from her. Payton's young granddaughter, Evie, tried to stop the mower but was knocked underneath the still-running machine. Payton reached the mower and easily tossed it off her granddaughter, limiting Evie's injuries to four severed toes. Curious, Payton later tried to lift the mower again and found she couldn't move it.

scientists believe The extra strength comes from the adrenaline that is pumped into the body when the region of the brain called the hypothalamus is stimulated. But of course are not sure that is the cause of this phenomenon.

2. Echolocation

When a bat flies through the air, it rapidly emits a series of high-pitched clicks, as many as 200 per second. The clicks are far higher in pitch than the human ear can hear but The bats hear them easily. By analyzing the way the sounds bounce off objects in their surroundings and following cues in the volume, direction, and speed at which these sounds return, bats can effectively see in the pitch-black dark.

But did you know that humans—both sighted and vision-impaired—are capable of something similar and sometimes they event taught themselves this ability naturally?

For example, Daniel Kish was Blind from infancy due to retinal cancer. He learned as a young boy to judge his height while climbing trees by making rapid clicking noises and listening for their echoes off the ground. No one taught him the technique He just started using it. He’s gotten so good at it, one of his favorite things to do is mountain biking.

Contrary to popular beliefs, you don’t have to be visually impaired to be able to use Echolocation. even an hour or so of practice can provide immediate results. But of course if you want to become an expert, it would take years of practice but the good news is, Yes you can actually learn to become Daredevil.

3. Body Temperature Control

Imagine the ability to control your own body temperature, and I'm not just talking about maybe going out on a chilly autumn day and not needing a jacket I’m talking about having the ability to raise your body temperature so much you can actually dry sheets soaked in freezing water in a fridged room.

In a monastery in northern India, Tibetan monks entered into a state of deep meditation in a cold 40  degrees Fahrenheit room while 3x6 foot sheets soaked in cold water was wrapped around them. Soon steam began rising from the sheets. and the sheets dried in about an hour.

Herbert Benson an associate professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School firmly believes that studying advanced forms of meditation "can uncover capacities that will help us to better treat stress-related illnesses."

During visits to remote monasteries in the 1980s, Benson and his team studied monks living in the Himalayan Mountains who could, by through meditation, raise the temperatures of their fingers and toes by as much as 17 degrees. and lower their metabolism by 64 percent.

To put that decrease in perspective, metabolism, or oxygen consumption, drops only 10-15 percent in sleep.

They also documented monks spending the night outside, 15,000 feet high in the Himalayas in February when temperatures reached zero degrees F. Wearing only woolen or cotton shawls, the monks fell asleep immediately and then walked back to the monastery in the morning like they just spent the night at Ritz Carlton. If I could do this, I would just go walk around Antarctica, no reason, just walk around in a Superman T-shirt and if anyone asks, not that I expect to run into a buncha people, I’ll just tell them I got locked out of the fortress of solitude.

4. Immunity to Pain

This power is very useful! Especially when you give yourself a papercut, fall off your bike, getting tortured for information by the mob. I mean wouldn’t it be great to just be able to not feel pain whenever you want. Well, that may be possible because as they say pain is just a state of mind. First of all the already contain morphine-like substances called endorphins which is released into the body during exercise, excitement and when you hurt yourself, and it has the power to dull or completely eliminate pain by coating the receiving end of the synapses in the brain that would otherwise receive pain signals from the rest of your body.

There are also many cases where people are able to control the amount of pain they feel on command. Professional hypnotherapist and psychotherapist Alex Lenkei hypnotized himself before his hand surgery so he could skip the anesthetic says he was fully awake and pain-free during the 83-minute procedure. Lenkei says anesthetic has gotten him nauseous before, and he just feels avoiding it is healthier than using it, in part because it takes awhile to get it out of your system.

he told Early Show co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez that Doctors "were using a chisel, hammer to basically break a sort of walnut-sized bone in the hand to take it out. They also used small medical saw to attach tendon to the thumb."

He said he didn't feel anything at all, just very deep relaxation. I remember my psychology teacher in college used to do this too, every time he would go to the dentist he would ask him how long the procedure was and just put himself under for that amount of time. So like I mentioned before, if he was ever being tortured by the mob….hey guys, how long you intend to torture me for? Oh, 48 hours...ok thanks for the heads up. but he prob wouldn’t feel very good after he comes out of that state. This is also useful if you ever take your kids to a Justin Beiber concert.
 

5. Time Manipulation

So yea this is what Neo did in Matrix or time stalling, for those of you who have ever seen the show Time Trex. Oh and Max Payne calls this "bullet time." Basically in moments of extreme duress, such as that which police experience during a shooting, human perception alters radically.

Over a period of five years, a researcher named Alexis Artwohl gave hundreds of police officers a written survey to fill out about their shooting experiences. What’s really interesting is that virtually all of the officers reported experiencing at least one major perceptual distortion. For some, time moved in slow motion. For others, it sped up.  one cop wrote that  'During a violent shoot-out I looked over... and was puzzled to see beer cans slowly floating through the air past my face. What was even more puzzling was that they had the word Federal printed on the bottom. They turned out to be the shell casings ejected by the officer who was firing next to me.'

Experts say it's because your brain has two modes of experiencing the world, rational and experiential. The first one is calm and rational. But if someone all of a sudden shows up in front of you with a gun you'll suddenly be in the experiential mode.

Your brain goes into a kind of overdrive, bypassing normal processes in favor of hair-trigger decision-making. Most normal thinking processes are scrapped, and suddenly you're operating on instinct. And because you're processing information faster, the world seems to be moving slower.

I think that ability would be the coolest to have. Then I would literally become the greatest baseball player in history! It'd be like playing softball in the major leagues. Also if had this power you would never be afraid of getting mugged. Every fight would be like you had Spidey Sense.

Let me know.

Natasha Demkina: The Girl with X-RAY EYES

X-ray vision is perhaps the one superman power I really had the least interest in. I mean to be able to fly would be awesome, invincibility and super speed would be superb, and X-ray vision... yea I guess that would be super awesome if I gambled or wanted to be a doctor or desired to beat the 3 card game but since I have no interest in any of those things, I think it would just be wasted on me. Look I'm not saying I’d turn it down if I could have that ability, just saying it wouldn't be my preferred mutant power. 

And although X-ray vision seems like something straight out of a movie, there is a girl who supposedly has this ability in real life.

Born in 1987 in the Russian city of Saransk, Natasha Demnika discovered her unique ability when she was just about 10 years old. During that time, between 2003 and 2004, Natasha “scanned” her friends and relatives and presented them her observations.

“I have two sights. I can switch any minute without reason, should I want to see the state of health of a person,” Natasha reveals during one interview. “This switching makes no difficulty to me; I just need to think about it. I can see the full structure of the human body – how internal organs are positioned and how they function… afflicted organs produce a kind of radiation.”

Moreover, Natasha says that her x-ray sight only works in the daytime and, like some kind of plot twist, she cannot use her special ability to scan her own internal organs.

According to the media and to the people she scanned, her diagnoses appear to be sometimes more accurate than those made by medical professionals and doctors with the most advanced of equipment. Some people who have come to her even claim that Natasha was able to find illnesses and problems that they did not know they have in the first place.

Because of the local media covering this phenomenon for almost a year, Natasha has gotten the attention of various other media agencies around the world, most notably the Discovery Channel who sponsored a study that was conducted on Natasha to get to the bottom of how her ability to “scan” people really works.

The Study

Natasha and her mother claim that she can detect abnormalities in the body with 100 percent accuracy. All she needs is a few minutes to scan a person from head to toe.

In March 2004, the Discovery Channel, together with the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and the Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (CSMMH) prepared a simple test to unlock the mystery of Natasha’s x-ray vision.

To make the test as simple as possible and non-invasive, Natasha only needed to scan seven volunteers; six of them with abnormalities or medical conditions while one was completely well and normal. During the test, Natasha was provided with a set of cards with instructions in both English and Russian where she should indicate the abnormalities she has spotted on which participant.

In order for the researchers to arrive at a conclusive result, Natasha had to identify at least four of the seven conditions. The following conditions each participant has been a removed appendix, metal staples in the chest left after a surgery, a removed lower section of the esophagus, a removed upper-left section of the lung, a metal plate covering a removed section of the skull, and an artificial hip joint.

While Natasha was able to identify some of the conditions correctly, her biggest blow was not being to identify the patient with a metal plate in his head and instead said the patient with the appendix removed had a piece of his skull missing.

The study yielded to unsatisfactory results because of several other variables. For one, Natasha claimed that she could detect each anomaly in just a few minutes, but the entire test took her four hours to make her diagnoses. Also, several protocol violations were discovered as Natasha arrived earlier than expected and she was able to interact with two of the volunteers at the facility. Natasha’s mother was also present in the testing room and Natasha’s friend, who was acting as interpreter, was found to have constantly been sending and receiving text messages during the course of the test.

However, Britain’s The Sun was also able to conduct their own study with one of their journalists volunteering. The journalist, Briony Warden, suffered fractures and injuries to her leg after a car accident that required reconstructive procedures and the use of metal plates.

Unlike the study conducted by Discovery, the results from The Sun came out conclusive that Natasha indeed had special abilities. Said Warden after the study, “She described my pelvis as asymmetrical and pointed to the right side with several fractures… then she said she saw traces of several metal pins and screws that dinted in the bone. Without seeing the scars, she could not know that a fortnight ago my leg was fastened with several pins and screws.”

Where is Natasha Now?

At the onset of discovering her daughter’s abilities, Tatyana Demkina, Natasha’s mother, tried to conceal it from the public but when word began to travel fast and far, their tiny apartment in Russia flooded with curious onlookers and “patients.”

Her father, Nikolai Demkin, narrates, “we’ve been hiding our daughter’s gift for a long time. But her uniqueness became public property, and after that our family was haunted by reporters. Local newspapers also wrote about her, and some articles brought us much sorrow.”

Allegedly, people or patients who wish to have their bodies scanned for any sickness or problems should be ready to shell out $13 to see Natasha. It may not be much, but in this part of Russia, it’s a lot of money to shell out by families whose income is extremely low.

Despite this, Natasha dreams of working in the medical field where she and her family believes that her abilities will be of much benefit and in 2004, she finished school and, in 2008 worked at the Moscow Center for Special Human Diagnostics.

Whether or not her x-ray eyes are real is still a matter of debate, at least in the scientific community – and whatever ability she has, it looks as if it will remain a mystery to us all, at least in this lifetime.

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Sources:
http://www.pravdareport.com/science/mysteries/29-05-2008/105380-natasha_demkina-0/
http://sapienplus.com/natasha-demkina-superhuman-number-26/
https://www.livescience.com/109-natasha-demkina-girl-normal-eyes.html

Strange Consequences of Heart Transplants Baffles Scientists

 

By Stephanie Lam and Wang Yuanfu

CELLULAR MEMORY: Researchers hypothesize that organ recipients' personality change is due to memory being stored in cells.

Legend has it that about 2,500 years ago, during China’s Warring State Period, two men went to see a great doctor by the name of Bian Que. Bian cured their sickness very quickly but discovered that they had another problem that had been growing more serious over time. Bian said that they would both get well if they exchanged their hearts, and they agreed to let Bian perform the surgery.

Bian had the two men drink some anesthetics and they lost consciousness for three days, during which Bian opened their chests, exchanged their hearts, and applied medicine. When they regained consciousness, they had already recovered and were as well as before.

But something was wrong: When they returned home, they were both baffled because their wives couldn’t recognize them. It turned out that they had both gone to the other person’s home and thought that the other person’s wife was their wife.

It seems inconceivable that such a surgery could have been performed 2,500 years ago, but this story is unbelievably similar to the situation observed in some modern heart transplant cases.

The U.K.’s Daily Mail reported that, after a heart transplant, Sonny Graham of Georgia fell in love with his donor’s wife and married her. Twelve years after their marriage, he committed suicide the same way his donor did.

In another Daily Mail report, a man named William Sheridan received a heart from an artist who died in a car accident, and suddenly he was able to produce beautiful drawings of wildlife and landscapes.

Claire Sylvia, the recipient of a heart and a lung in 1988, wrote in her book A Change of Heart: A Memoir that after the transplant she started to like beer, fried chicken, and green pepper—all of which she didn’t like before but her donor, an 18-year-old boy, liked.

She had a dream in which she kissed a boy she thought to be named Tim L., and inhaled him into her during the kissing. She later found that Tim L. was the name of her donor. She wondered if it was because one of the doctors mentioned the name during her surgery, but was told that the doctors did not know the name of the donor.

In a paper published in the Journal of Near-Death Studies, Dr. Paul Pearsall of the University of Hawaii and Dr. Gary Schwartz and Dr. Linda Russek of the University of Arizona discussed 10 cases of heart or heart-lung transplants in which the recipients were reported to have “changes in food, music, art, sexual, recreational, and career preferences, as well as specific instances of perceptions of names and sensory experiences related to the donors.”

In one of the cases that they described, the donor was an African American, so the recipient thought the donor would like rap music and therefore didn’t think the transplant was the cause of his new preference for classical music. However, it was found that the donor was a violin player and loved classical music.

This case suggests that changes in organ recipients’ preferences occur without the recipients anticipating them. Thus these cases are unlike the placebo effect, in which patients’ health conditions change in the direction of their expectations.

In addition, the researchers pointed out that like the above recipients, there might be other recipients who dismiss the idea that they adopted their donors’ preferences because of their expectations of the donors, so the number of organ transplant recipients who experienced a personality change similar to that of their donors might be underrepresented.

Pearsall, Schwartz, and Russek concluded that it is unlikely these cases happened out of coincidence, and hypothesized that it is because of cellular memory, meaning that memories and preferences can be stored in cells.

However, it is currently unknown whether this form of memory exists.

Man Doesn't Sleep for 41 Years: Vietnamese Farmer Ngoc Thai

By Leonardo Vintini, Epoch Times

“The sleeping shrimp is taken with the current” is an old Puerto Rican saying. Yet, all organisms require a moment of repose. All except for Vietnamese farmer Ngoc Thai.

Sleep is an indispensable necessity for human beings. And while their rest may not always resemble the unconscious state we experience, sleep is not an optional condition for the vast majority of the animal kingdom either. Even the belief that fish don’t sleep is a half-truth since many of them catch their Z’s by leaving half their brain awake while the other portion succumbs to unconsciousness. The same goes for the ostrich, which uses a similar method to both gather rest and guard against predators.

Lack of sleep is a central topic of innumerable books of medicine, with troubles well recognized among those who suffer from it. Even so, there are some cases where only a few hours can be sufficient, such the Piraha tribe of the Amazon, for whom only a short siesta serves as the most restorative slumber.  It appears that no one can go too long without sleep. 

But whenever there is a rule, someone is bound to break it.

How long can a person go without sleep? Years ago, a man named Tony Wright was able to break the previous Guinness record of 264 hours (11 days) without sleep, set by 17-year-old Randy Gardner in 1964. Unfortunately for Wright, his 266-hour sacrifice (and any subsequent attempts to break the record) will not be acknowledged by Guinness for health reasons.  However, magician and endurance artist David Blaine has recently claimed that he aimed to best Wright’s would-be title. 

While these individuals hoped to make history with their sleepless stunts, many suggest that others suffering from severe insomnia may have broken these records many times over, but have had no inclination to brag about their accomplishment.  One such case is Ngoc Thai, a Vietnamese farmer born in 1942.

One day in 1973, this life-long farmer came down with a fever. Since then he has been unable to sleep a wink. In 2007, Thai declared that he was feeling “grumpy” due to his nearly 35 years of sleeplessness; an eternal wakefulness that might be classified as a medical miracle.

Sleepless Symptoms

What usually happens when the human body goes too long without sleep? Anybody who’s pulled an “all-nighter” might be familiar with symptoms such as irritability, reduced cognitive function, a dwindling inability to concentrate, heavy fatigue, and more. For those who go several days without sleep, symptoms become severe.

Respiratory sleep physician Dr. Vikas Wadhwa at Sleep Services Australia says that a rare disease that interferes with sleep can lead to deterioration of mental and motor functions and worse.

“Extended periods of wakefulness are associated with poor health outcomes, and animals subjected to sleep deprivation have resulted in death… There is a disorder called Fatal Familial Insomnia. As part of the progression of the disorder, the person is not able to sleep and death usually occurs within a few months to a few years,” he said through an email interview.

But can this vital necessity for sleep somehow be overcome? Not merely interested in breaking records, a key part of Tony Wright’s sleepless stretch was to further his own ongoing research in examining sleep. He suggests that different amounts of sleep are needed for both sides of the brain.  He consumed a special diet and made other careful preparations for a marathon of sleepless nights that would leave most of us heading for the sheets long before 11 days were up.  Blaine is making similar dietary preparations for his upcoming sleepless record breaker.

 

Medical Miracle?

Now in his sixties, Ngoc Thai assures that a lack of sleep does not affect him physically, boasting of being able to carry two 110 lbs sacks of rice over 2 miles to his house every day. Still, Thai isn’t merely abstaining from sleep to show off, break a record, or to advance a research project.  In fact, he has tried everything in order to get some shut-eye. Be it medications or even traditional folk remedies for insomnia, Thai remains wide awake; alcohol doesn’t even seem to succeed in tumbling Ngoc. According to physicians who’ve examined him, Thai seems in perfect health, save for slightly diminished liver function.

In 2006 Ngoc told Thanh Nien News, “I don’t know if insomnia has impacted on my health or not, but I’m still healthy and I can do the farm work normally like others.”

Over thirty years without going sleep and Thai is still going strong.  What could be behind this sleepless miracle? According to Dr. Wadhwa, one explanation could be in perception. He says that for some insomniacs, the ability to clearly observe the difference between sleep and wakefulness may be lacking.

“The subject may feel they are merely resting when in actuality they are sleeping. They may also be having “Micro naps”—very short naps lasting minutes,” he said.

While Ngoc has received some media attention, scientists have yet to study his case in any detail. Meanwhile, Thai uses his additional evening hours—time not afforded to the rest of us—to do extra farm work.  Guarding the farm against theft, digging large ponds to raise fish, and waking fellow commune members for work, Ngoc has endured nearly 12,000 sleepless nights.

Additional Reporting by Matthew Robertson.

Intuition > Intelligence: Our Sixth Sense that Guides Our Decisions

By Leonardo Vintini, Epoch Times

Do we possess a sixth sense?

“Happy; angry; happy … definitely happy.” As a machine monitored his brain, 52-year-old “Patient X” did not seem to be guessing faces at random despite having suffered two cerebral hemorrhages that had seriously damaged his brain’s visual processing center.

Though blind, Patient X was presented with photographs of faces expressing fear, happiness, and other emotions, and correctly perceiving them at a percentage much higher than would be expected by pure chance. Could this be a means of “sight” that lies outside of ocular vision? Or is it simply a mode of receptivity yet to be recognized?

Dr. Alan Pegna from the University of New South Wales in Australia and his investigation team in Geneva, Switzerland, were amazed at the results seen in the study. During the scan, Patient X’s brain showed marked activity in the right amygdala. The reading was identical to that made by a subject with an undamaged brain engaged in the same activity.

For many neuroscientists, the recent experience with Patient X suggests an exciting possibility—adding one more sense to the five thus far known. For others, it is no more than science’s prelude to investigating the already well-known, and time-honored, capacity of intuition.

Although intuition has had little scientific recognition over the last century, the acknowledgment of this ability has gained momentum in the field of neurophysiology in recent years. This supposed capacity to know about things that have not yet happened, far-away events, or imminent changes in the immediate environment has been well known by basically all native peoples across the world for millennia—despite its long-held rejection by skeptical scientific circles.

Hypersensitivity or the Sixth Sense?

“The sea has brought up hundreds of human bodies, but there is not a single dead elephant. Nor is there to be found even one cat or hare … it is very strange that no animal deaths have been registered.” These observations made after the Asian tsunami in 2004 by a Sri Lankan government official raises some interesting questions.

Notably, do animals have the capacity to sense imminent danger? How did they escape the tsunami? Only minutes before the sea surged forth, tearing up more than two miles of solid earth, the animal life fled desperately toward the high areas of the island.

At the same time, the native tribes in the region, having 60,000 years of contact with the natural environment, emulated the animals’ behavior and also fled to higher ground. The result was that practically all of the native inhabitants survived the water’s harsh onslaught.

But how exactly did the indigenous peoples and animals perceive the imminent threat? Is it reasonable to suggest that intuition is responsible? And if so, how does this enigmatic biological mechanism work?

The answer, of course, is not as easy to articulate as the question. According to some investigators, the native people of the island have, over the years, developed important lessons from living so close to the natural world.

For example, they felt the resonance of the footsteps of the wild elephants as they rushed toward the interior of the island, and also took note of the strange behavior of the dolphins, iguanas, and the wild revolt of island birds. In this way, they effectively managed to perceive what modern radar systems, which were not functioning on the date of the tsunami, could not.

According to an article in the popular publication Science, investigators from Washington University, St. Louis, say that the indigenous peoples’ key to anticipation lies in an area of the brain known as the anterior cingulate. This section of cerebral geography becomes active in situations of environmental change imperceptible to the conscious mind but is nevertheless necessary for the survival of the individual.

Yet to understand how animals intuited the coming tsunami in the first place may be an even more difficult task. Some animal researchers suggest that clues such as changes in air pressure, subtle vibrations felt emanating from the ground, or the faint sounds of approaching waves—cues otherwise imperceptible to human senses—may help clue some organisms about a coming danger.

However, many scientists believe, in this case as well as with Patient X, that there must exist a different method through which life-forms may perceive their environment—different than via sounds, vibrations, smells, images, or taste. It is documented that birds and other animals abandon an area just before a volcanic eruption.

In the same way, Chinese biologists have made studies determining that several minutes before an earthquake, the cats, dogs, and other domestic species of an area become quite agitated and in some cases even howl, bark, or meow uncontrollably. The investigators describe that during these episodes, snakes abandon their holes, birds flutter in their cages, and rats run around frantically.

A Dormant Capacity

The initial experiment was simple, consisting of 40 volunteers and one pair of photographers per test. The director of the experiment, Ronald Rensink, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Psychology at the University of British Columbia, set out to describe how car accidents were caused in cases where the drivers responsible for the collisions did not see the cars they crashed into. The study was published in the journal Psychological Science.

Initially, the volunteers were shown a photo of a road, which refreshed periodically with an identical image. At a random moment during an image refresh, a change to the image was made—items were removed, altered, or added, for example—and these alterations, even when significant, were often found difficult to perceive.

The test required that the subjects press a buzzer at the moment they noticed a change in the sequence of images. A big surprise came during the experiment when a few of the volunteers asked Rensink if they had to press the buzzer only when they actually saw the change, or if they could press it at the moment they intuited that a change was going to come.

This changed the investigation drastically. Rensink noticed that not only did the majority of the volunteers realize at the exact moment that the change was made but in addition one-third of the subjects buzzed immediately before the changed picture was shown.

This study appears to demonstrate that intuition could well be an extrasensory way of detecting infinitesimal changes in the environment. It suggests that we may have a capacity to perceive stimuli impossible to detect with even advanced technological devices.

So can we take steps to improve our intuitive capabilities? What would such improvements require? And why do animals appear to have a better intuitive sense than we do?

Ancient people, intimately tied to the cycles of nature, took great pride in their intuitive visions. Some suggest that as a contemporary man increasingly relies more on technology for his understanding of the world, his intuition atrophies as a result. In our modern culture, intuitive notions are often discouraged in favor of something that can be more easily verified.

As science struggles to acknowledge this astonishing human ability, does our advancing technological environment also suppress our innate intuitive gifts?

The Mysterious Coral Castle: Built with Anti-Gravity Technology

By Epoch Times

The enigmatic Coral Castle is made of huge rock slabs totaling over 1100 tons, yet one man cut, quarried and set the stones himself. 

How were monuments such as Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids of Giza, Sacsayhuaman fortress and other ancient monuments built? Many scientists believe that in some cases workers numbering in the tens of thousands were needed simply to move the massive stones to the construction site.

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However, a small Latvian man insisted that these ancient structures were assembled with much more ease than we might imagine, using a building secret that has been lost to the ages. He even claimed to be able to put these techniques into practice at the mysterious Coral Castle.

At 25, Edward Leedskalnin was engaged to marry a woman 10 years his junior—Agnes Scuffs, who he affectionately nicknamed his “sweet sixteen.” Lamentably, the night before his wedding, Edward’s bride changed her mind, never to return to his side. Surprisingly, Leedskalnin went on to construct a truly magical castle in memory of his lost love.

Following his heartbreak and a bout of tuberculosis, Leedskalnin departed from his native Latvia, toward the United States. He set up in Florida City, and there he was able to realize one of the more impressive (and enigmatic) construction efforts ever undertaken by a single man: “Coral Castle” or as Leedskalnin called it, “Rock Gate Park.”

Erected entirely of stone—that Leedskalnin quarried, cut and set himself—the grand edifice is constructed of gigantic slabs, some of which weigh up to 30 tons. Through twenty-eight years of solitary work, and with only the aid of simple tools of Edward’s own design—a tackle and chain hoist made from old telephone poles—Coral Castle became a reality.

Yet, instead of sharing his mysterious building methods with the world, Leedskalnin made every effort to protect the secret behind his stone moving feats. Many have speculated on his process, but no one has been able to recreate the seemingly effortless movement of such large stones. 

According to one legend, children spied on Leedskalnin one night and witnessed large stone slabs floating in the air like “hydrogen balloons.”

In 1936, Leedskalnin wanted to move his entire structure to nearby Homestead and hired a truck to carry the stones—the only time he enlisted help in his endeavors. Always intent on protecting his secret, Leedskalnin insisted that the driver leave his truck at the site overnight, so that he could load the huge slabs himself.  The driver doubted his claim; but as promised, the next day Leedskalnin had the stones stacked on the large trailer, ready to transport.

 

Man of Mystery

The construction of Coral Castle is riddled with mystery. How could one person move over 1100 tons of large stone slabs needed to build this massive structure? While Leedskalnin never explicitly disclosed his building secrets, he did leave writings suggesting a series of experiments using magnets, hinting that his methods came through the study of the earth’s magnetic fields. Did Leedskalnin, as some have claimed, discover how to overcome gravity?

Leedskalnin was evasive when directly questioned about making Coral Castle, but he claimed to possess techniques once known by ancient builders—techniques like those used to construct the great Egyptian pyramids. He even teasingly referenced that the method was quite easy, once you knew the secret.

One of the more miraculous features of Coral Castle is the nine-ton stone block used as a gate at the entrance of the castle. Leedskalnin set this large stone with such precision that it could be easily opened with the gentlest push. In 1986, over thirty years after Leedskalnin’s passing, the gate had to be repaired and the job required a six-man crew with a twenty-ton crane to move the large stone slab. Yet despite the extra muscle, this group of men was still not able to set the gate with the same precision as before.

The interior of the Coral Castle itself is a display of exquisite artistry and engineering marvels. It is officially considered a historic monument and has been transformed into an open museum for all who are curious and wish to try their hand at unveiling the mystery of how the eccentric Latvian lived and worked. Sets of tables and chairs decorate the coral garden, while staircases and sundials are set with minute precision—a testament to Leedskalnin’s mysterious abilities.

It is said that Leedskalnin was never seen working on his Coral Castle, though neighbors reported a light in his workshop tower accompanying strange singing late into the night. What sort of technology did Leedskalnin use and why would he want to keep such a miraculous discovery a secret?  Did he, in fact, possess the same building secrets employed in the ancient world?  We are merely left to speculate, as Leedskalnin offers only the clues of the structure itself, taking the methods for building it to his grave.

Do Near Death Experiences Prove Souls Exist?

By Leonardo Vintini, Epoch Times

Can science show proof of a soul?

In the wee hours of the morning on July 28, 1976, the deadliest earthquake of the 20th century and the third greatest in recorded history shook Tangshan, China. Approximately one-fifth of the city perished in the calamity, and thousands were rescued from the arms of death.

A sociological survey was conducted among people who were brought back from a state of near-death to find out what they experienced at the most critical moments of their lives.

Surprisingly, many responded that on the threshold of death, they did not feel any pain or regret, but experienced a kind of excitement, as if they had been liberated from their physical bodies. Some said that they had seen a tunnel of light and some reported seeing other beings. 
It is likely that many people are familiar with these kinds of stories, known by experts as Near Death Experiences (NDEs).

The existence of NDEs raises a problem for contemporary understanding of the mind, as modern science holds that the mind is a product of neurochemical reactions, rather than an entity independent of the brain and at times able to separate from the physical body. The NDE phenomenon suggests that a human being not only has a body but also has a soul. Naturally, scientists have diverse opinions with regard to the existence of the soul as an individual entity.

One study that probed into this matter was performed by medical doctor Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1907. MacDougall worked with six patients who were all in a critical condition. He weighed them at the moment just before death, and then immediately following their departure.

The results, published in contemporary medical journals, found that the patients lost an average of 21 grams (about 0.74 oz.) at the precise moment of death. Dr MacDougall reached the conclusion that this difference was the weight of the human soul, a curious fact made famous in the 2003 movie “21 Grams.”  

Nowadays this study is given little consideration, dismissed as nothing more than an anecdote in scientific circles, since detractors say that measurement errors caused by several factors could have occurred. Yet, so far no one has repeated the experiment either to confirm or refute it.

The “reductionist” is by nature skeptical of the existence of the possibility of an independent consciousness. Scientist Francis Crick—who shared the Nobel Prize with James Watson in 1962 for discovering the double-helix structure of DNA—is probably the most well-known contemporary representative for this viewpoint.

In one study carried out over several years, Professor Crick affirmed that: “our minds—the behavior of our brains—can be explained by the interactions of nerve cells (and other cells) and the molecules associated with them.”

However, some scientists argue that Professor Crick clings to an extreme viewpoint. “It is like saying that the cathedral is a pile of stones and glass. It is true, but too simplistic and it misses the point,” says Michael Reiss, professor at the University of London who is both a priest and a scientist.

The most complete study on NDEs to date was made by Pim van Lommel and a team of Dutch doctors on 344 patients from 10 hospitals. The patients had been resuscitated after cardiac arrest. The study, reported in Lancet in 2001, found that 62 of the patients (18 percent) had some recollection of a near-death experience, while 41 of these described experiencing a “deep” or “very deep” experience.

Half of those who reported having an NDE said they were aware of being dead, while 56 percent said they experienced positive emotions. Fifteen people (24 percent) reported having an out-of-body experience, while 31 percent experienced moving thorough a tunnel. Eighteen said they saw a “celestial landscape.” A third said they met with dead relatives, and eight said they saw their life reviewed.

“The concept thus far assumed, but never scientifically proven, that consciousness and memories are localized in the brain,” writes Professor Van Lommel in “About the Continuity of Our Consciousness”

“How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG?” asks Van Lommel. “Furthermore, blind people have described (perceptions that agree with reality) during out-of-body experiences at the time of this experience.” Van Lommel says near-death experiences push the limits of medical understanding concerning the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relationship.

While the subject will likely remain a contentious issue in scientific circles, further studies may be warranted to probe the eternal question:  Is there life after death?