I’ve recently been reading Titus Rivas, Anny Dirven, and Rudolf H. Smith, The Self Does Not Die: Verified Paranormal Phenomena from Near-Death Experiences, translated by Wanda J. Boeke (Durham NC: International Association for Near-Death Studies, 2016). It’s an expanded English translation of a Dutch original.
Today, I share with you Case 2.18 (“Helen”), which is recounted on pages 49-51 of The Self Does Not Die. It is taken from Near Death in the ICU (Appleton, Wisconsin: Sloan Press, 2015), which was written by a critical-care physician named Laurin Belg.
“Helen” – the name is a pseudonym, adopted to protect the experiencer’s anonymity – was involved in a very serious multi-vehicle accident. However, she immediately got out of her car in something of a panic in order to assess the damage and to determine whether anybody else needed help.
Afterwards, she was able to report how many vehicles had been involved—there were four—and to describe a gray floral-delivery van that was ornamented with company decals on its side. They consisted of blue writing superimposed on a spray of red roses.
She walked over to a dark green four-door sedan that was smashed against the hood of her own car at a very sharp angle, where it had hit her from the side after running a stop sign. A bearded, dark-haired man was slumped over the steering wheel, moaning. She saw how the bearded man’s car had impacted hers and, thus, had led to a pile-up because the floral-delivery van behind her and a white suburban behind it had been unable to stop in time. Her car was wedged in between the van and the green car, smashed, accordion-like, between them.
The door of the van was too damaged to open, so that, although the driver seemed to be essentially unhurt, he couldn’t get out of his vehicle.
The driver of the white suburban was also in good shape. Helen very clearly heard her calling emergency services for help anthen, having finished her call, Helen saw her rushing rather frantically around, checking on people. Helen saw her reach into the green car, weaving her arm under its injured driver to turn off its engine, which was beginning to billow smoke. Then she leaned in to try to soothe and comfort him, rubbing his back and assuring him that help was on its way.
Helen saw that the passenger in the green car was crying, obviously upset. So, while the driver of the white suburban focused on the green car’s driver, Helen went around to the passenger side of the vehicle. She tried to offer comfort and support to the crying woman through the shattered window, but the woman didn’t answer or respond. In fact, the woman didn’t even appear to notice her presence, which, Helen thought, was probably understandable because of how very upset she was.
It was then that [Helen] heard the wailing sirens of approaching police cars and ambulances. She took that as a cue to get back to her own vehicle so that they could all be properly cared for. Walking back to her own car, a sudden realization stopped her in her tracks—she was looking at a woman, apparently unresponsive, in the driver’s seat of her car and realized that she was that woman.
She was simultaneously standing outside of her own car, looking at what appeared to be her body trapped in the driver’s seat of a very damaged vehicle. It took her a while to orient to the fact that she was looking at her own body while somehow being separate from it. In doing so, she eventually came to the sobering reality that if she was outside of her body, looking at herself trapped in the heap of mangled metal, then she must be dead. Nothing else made sense.
The official police report indicated Helen was quite entangled in the debris of her car and it took nearly thirty minutes to extricate her. It was unclear, at the time, exactly what was injured or broken, but, soon enough, the odd angles of her ankles revealed the truth of her injuries and that was what was called into the hospital ahead of her arrival. Not only was she trapped in the rubble of her car, both of her ankles were clearly broken, and she was observed, by experienced rescue workers, to be unconscious at the scene. There is no physical way that she would have been able to get out of her vehicle, let alone walk around and report with such great accuracy what she later described. . . .
She told us details she couldn’t possibly have been aware of unless she was awake and walking around, observing from the specific angles she described – especially when she saw her own body in the driver’s seat of her car.
Posted from Portland, Oregon
As I have said many times before (DCP must have missed it during his travels), simple economics disproves all of this out-of-body nonsense.
If it were possible to do remote viewing, you would have people peering into lottery ticket factories, government facilities, any other place where a significant, meaningful, testable financial or informational advantage could be garnered with these pseudo scientific abilities.
Instead you end up with a collection of anecdotes about the mundane. “She couldn’t possibly have known the color of that van.” Ooooh. Ahhhhh. Yawn.
Strangely enough, when it comes down to things that matter and can be tested - no 6th sense or ESP or any other woo-woo abilities want to come out to show themselves.
I, for one, believe in economics. The only ones making money off this are those selling the books about it. And reposting excerpts on their blog…
