RE: death vs birth/NDEs

Wendee HOLTCAMP (wendee@greendzn.com)
Wed, 29 Apr 1998 19:51:19 -0500

>"Vandergraaf, Chuck" <vandergraaft@aecl.ca>
>04/29/98 02:46 PM
>Maybe you can help me out here; it's been a long time since I've played a
>supporting role in a birthing process (at least I didn't faint!).
>If the NDE sensation of "floating down a dark tunnel towards the light" is
>our memory of the birthing process, would this then not mean that we are
>born with our eyes "towards the exit?" Is that how babies first enter the
>world? I would have thought that the back of the head exists first. In
>that case, the baby would look in the opposite direction, away from the
>light.

Actually I didn't say that the NDE process was a memory of our birth at all
- that is what Carl Sagan says. I said that the birth process is perhaps an
analogy to the passage from life to the afterlife, since the sensations
experienced after birth upon seeing the world for the first time are
described similarly to the NDE experience of bright lights/myriad colors.
The point was not that we are remembering our births at all, but rather I
expressed amazement at the similarity between what NDErs describe and the
description of what people who are given new sight see (hence probably teh
same as what babies - who can't tell us - see).

>The actual birth process probably feels more like toothpaste does when
>applied to a toothbrush than like "floating" down anything.

I got a kick out of this analogy!!

Wendee
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Wendee Holtcamp -- GREENDESIGN Communications
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