Closer to the Light: Learning from the Near-Death Experiences of Children: Amazing Revelations of What It Feels Like to Die

Dr. Melvin Morse became scientifically interested in near-death experiences after he treated a little girl who very nearly died from drowning but recovered after three days and related a tale of how she'd met "Jesus and the Heavenly Father." Morse gradually became aware of the large incidence of NDEs and also of what he called "pre-death visions," which he concluded belonged in the same category as NDEs. He distinguished the basic characteristic traits of these two categories of experiences as distinct from all other types of visions and hallucinations. His curiosity led him to scientific investigations which proved two significant facts: 1) That persons must be actually near death in order to experience NDEs, and 2) that the location in the human body where NDEs take place is at the sylvian fissure near the right temporal lobe. He explains that even though the capacity for NDEs is inborn, genetically programmed in all human beings, this is not a reason for doubting the existence of the soul and/or the possible spiritual significance of NDEs but rather is supportive evidence.Also, importantly, Morse argues that NDEs are not the result of psychological states; acid-based balance disturbance; high CO2 levels; drugs; memories of birth; transient depersonalization; autoscopic hallucinations; endorphins; or lack of oxygen in the blood, all of which have sometimes been raised as reductionist explanations of NDEs. One thing called the Medune mixture, which was a high concentration of carbon dioxide injected into the blood for treatment of mental illness, discontinued after the 1950s, did produce the effects of an NDE. Morse believes that the carbon dioxide had a triggering effect but does not explain how or why.Tracking down adults who had NDEs as children, Morse "discovered that these 'experiences of light' brighten a persons life forever." Among other things, people who've had NDEs never fear death again and they see the after-life as a very desirable destination, much preferable to earthly existence; they believe, however, that they have a purpose to accomplish in life prior to heaven, and that learning to love one another is everybody's general assignment; they usually feel stimulated to continue learning and increasing their knowledge throughout their lives. Their newly acquired "purpose in life" is not seen as a grandiose accomplishment, but is more often as simple as marrying, having children, starting a business, caring for people in their families. The NDE is always what Morse terms a "conversion experience" in which healthy transformations take place, leading to joy and the affirmation of life. For Morse, the enduring transformative effect is the most convincing evidence for him that NDEs are truly about the soul and the after-life.Morse reports that an encounter with The Light is and always has been a component of almost all NDE experiences. Anciently, Egyptians assumed that The Light represented their god Osiris. Contemporary people often, but not always, believe that The Light they perceive is certainly Jesus, or just "God." Some persons, although they are changed in a positive way by their NDEs, do not see them as "religious" experiences at all.A difference between the NDEs of adults and children is that children do not have life reviews during NDEs.Two NDE stories quoted in Morse's book are in line with proscriptions against suicide that tend to occur in NDE literature on the whole. In one, a little girl of seven is living in intolerable conditions as the child of extraordinarily abusive parents and she decides to commit suicide by towing her sled to the top of a hill and aiming it at a cement bench below. She is successful in hitting the bench, and finds herself floating upward, looking down at her badly mangled body. She can see that the children in her rough neighborhood notice but ignore her bloody carcass and just go on playing. She finds herself in a deep silver-blue surrounding; then she is enfolded in an umbrella-like darkness; then she is in a very intense, bright light. She says, "I felt warm and loved in a way that I had never felt before. Then I heard a voice from the Light: 'You have made a mistake. Your life is not yours to take. You must go back.' I argued with the voice, 'No one cares about me.' The answer I got back was shocking. 'You're right. No one on this planet cares about you, including your parents. It is your job to care for yourself.'" The child then found herself returned to her body. She was so hurt physically with a part of wooden fence railing imbedded in her mouth, her neck broken, and with missing teeth and missing pieces of her tongue, that she was very uncomfortable. When she determined to go up the hill and try to kill herself again, she found herself engulfed once more by the umbrella-like darkness and taken out of her body. She was given a vision in which the pictorial message acknowledged her present unhappiness and trouble but promised her a future time when she would experience pleasure and joy. Because of the vision, she became willing to go back to her body and live. She had a long, difficult recovery process, spending many months in a coma, but she grew up to marry and have three children, spending her life establishing a loving family and advocating against child abuse. She said that the experience had taught her that "When you hurt yourself, everything is hurt."The other suicide case was a boy of eleven who decided to end his life through an overdose of medications, also because of unhappiness due to abuse. Retrospectively as an adult, he reported his experience as follows: "Everything went dark when I died, just as I thought it would. Then suddenly my world was filled with light. It seemed to fill in all the dark spots in my life, namely, those feelings of emptiness that I had from being an abused child. A spirit in the light asked me why I tried to kill myself. So I told him about how bad my life and world were. He was kind but not very sympathetic. He said, 'Well, you'll just have to stick around and see what you can do with your life.'" The boy did stick around and grew up to do good things. He said, "My near-death experience taught me that I had to create my own possibilities. I never would have found that out on my own."In the midst of explaining his methods and purposes of approach to answering his questions about NDEs, Morse includes many brief quoted accounts of NDEs that are as amazing, informative, and inspiring as the two above. Since the book concentrates on childrens' NDEs, it can be a source of comfort to parents whose children have died or parents who have terminally ill children.Morse explores the idea of the actual existence of the soul and how it may be something distinct from the human brain although it interacts with the brain as its energy source. He writes intriguingly of the ideas of eminent neurologist Wilder Penfield, who speculated in a fully scientific but open-minded way that at death the so-called "soul" moves out of the human body and connects with another "energy source" beyond human life. Morse goes into a discussion about the basic tenets of contemporary scientific attitudes about "truth," always requiring quantifiable proof, and laments the fact that only very recently scientific approaches to the verities of life have obliterated the former age-old universal belief in the existence of the soul. Morse makes the point that it is not so important to discover how NDEs happen in order to prove or disprove the existence of the soul as it is important to recognize that they DO happen and are a widespread phenomenon and they've been happening for thousands of years.Although Morse, himself, has come to believe in the existence of the "soul," he does not claim that this existence or life after death can be entirely proven scientifically. His main motive in his extensive research of NDEs is, ultimately, to bring to bear within the medical community, which he feels tends to avoid and repress the death events of patients, a more merciful approach to dying patients in which caregivers freely acknowledge and interact with patients reporting NDEs or pre-death visions. He cites Dr. Raymond Moody and some of Moody's colleagues, who are perhaps the "fathers" of the contemporary vogue for study of NDEs, as his mentors. His work, along with that of others who've explored and publicized the NDE phenomenon has helped to pioneer acceptance of these attitudes which are now more common than they were when his book came out in 1990.

I love this book and have gifted it to others. I love how children's experiences are not typically influenced by culture or religion, so they are more pure and even more trustworthy.This is a great book. It helps to show there is more to reality than our earthly experiences. It is a comforting book for anyone who is afraid of death, dying, or worries about heaven, hell, afterlife, etc. Facing our fear of dying is one of the most important things we can do, for it is only then can we really live fully and with peace and joy.I actually had an NDE around age 4 (suffocated); and although I was raised in a fundamentalist home and had been taught about Jesus and heaven, I did not see Jesus or angels or anyone. I felt no pain, I just effortlessly floated up into the stars, unaware if I even had a body, and I felt ageless. I then became aware of square tubes of light forming a tunnel which stretched way far off towards a bright light source so enormous I could not see the end of it to my right. As I was speeding thru this tunnel I felt no breeze at all, but I instantly knew I was heading back to where I had come from and I was part of this light source, this was instantaneous awareness. As I was getting closer to the light but still so far away, I saw the light was actually a place and entities all combined, all the same thing, energy. I was so shocked to be going back, and I telepathically indicated to the light, “But I am not finished here yet!” Instantly, the tunnel and light were gone and I floated dreamily in the stars for a while. What makes this so astonishing is I chose to return to a highly abusive home where I was unloved and unwanted. Returning was the only thought, no pausing to consider how I would be free of the abuse, etc. if I did not go back. Things are viewed quite differently on the other side. Like a lot of NDErs I have been a good bit psychic most of my life.I forgot my NDE till I was an adult, and then I wondered why I had not had a typical NDE with a typical tunnel which so many adults were reporting. I saw this book when it was first published. As I read it I was astonished to realize 2-3 other children also reported a tunnel of square tubes of light! It was very affirming and shows the variety of experiences NDEs can take.Highly recommend this book!

A well written book about the controversial happenings during NDE's. He obviously has a an extended understanding of this subject and presented the information in a professional way.

Contains a number of interesting accounts of NDEs experienced by children. Many of these include OBEs in which the child accurately describes events that occured whilst they were unconcious or effectively dead.His research suggests that NDEs only occur where the patient actually 'dies' for some period with no comparable experiences for seriously ill children or children whose treatment includes mind altering medication.Morse manages to counter the common alternative/ reductionist explanations for NDE's (for example 'the endorphin model', hallucination, anesthetic or drug effects).

I am glad that there is someone who looked at the subject of life after death and near death experience.It helped me to understand and grieve, following very sudden death of my 18 years old son.

This book has become almost a bible for me. It is so beautifully written, without exaggeration or attempt to push the ideas. As a practicing clinician, Dr, Morse became interested in the after death experiences of children he was treating. These revealed much more than he expected, and he gives accounts of what his children discovered while they were apparently dead. As Dr. Morse says, he found it particularly intriguing and convincing because not only were the children innocents, without prior education in the subject, but also many of the accounts of observation of events in the hospital and elsewhere were confirmed.Read the book. It touches places other books fail to reach.

This is a fascinating read. Melvin Morse comes across as a serious researcher with an open and enquiring mind. He has not side-stepped the experiences he has encountered but instead has set out to try to understand them. An seemingly unbiased and thought-provoking study. My only quibble would be that, due to the small number of subjects, the book does start to become rather repetitive as you move through the chapters. But certainly an important book and I would highly recommend it to any reader.

I have not read it but my Wife did and says it is a great book. arrived in good condition, no problems