What is it about?
This publication includes examples of transpersonal experiences that occur during catastrophic events. Up until now, emphasis has been on studying and educating hospital and hospice staff and their patients. There is a need to study and educate first responders to disasters and the victims to which they provide assistance.
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Why is it important?
Research in the 1970s in psychic and transpersonal experiences shifted from the study of the psychically gifted, but sometimes fraudulent, to healthcare patients. From then on the research involved more stringent methods with unbiased patients as subjects, as surprised as anyone that these experiences had occurred to them. The research remains in healthcare facilities like acute care hospitals and hospice. The research techniques we have learned to use to study these phenomena should be applied to individuals who are victims of disasters and catastrophic events as discussed in this article. Unlike doctors and nurses in healthcare facilities the first responders who attend to victims of disasters know little about these transpersonal events. If a victim reports going out of his or her body and going through a tunnel or seeing deceased friends or relatives, they are likely to be told they have PTSD or some other mental health issue. That is what we saw happen early on in the study of Near-death experiences. Disaster victims also are not always in their own communities when these events occur. Some local hospice programs open their bereavement sessions to others who have lost a loved one, even if they were not on the hospice programs. Disasters victims and their relatives have little support or information about bereavement help. They most likely would not be told about The International Association of Near-death Experiences (IANDS) where they could get assistance in understanding their near-death experience. I am hoping we can see a strong movement toward assisting victims and first responders of disasters to understanding near-death and other transpersonal experiences WHEN they occur to them. There is no IF they will occur. The research that has been done points to the likelihood of these events occurring. This article Near-death and other transpersonal experiences during catastrophic events, has several examples.
Perspectives
For more than 25 years I have listened to individuals discuss near-death, out-of-body experiences, death bed communication, after death communication and other occurrences surrounding death. Individuals who have these experiences are puzzled, excited and mostly helped by these events. The most recent interest in these events occurred in health care facilities. Research done by doctors, nurses and other health professionals lent credibility to these experiences. It is time to also include victims of disasters who have these experiences in research studies. It is crucial to educate first responders about these experiences. It is also crucial these experiences be recognized as primarily positive events for the injured and dying and not signs of mental illness.
Dr madelaine Lawrence M. Lawrence
RnCeus Interactive, LLC
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Near-Death and Other Transpersonal Experiences Occurring During Catastrophic Events, American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®, March 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1049909116631298.
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