DEMYSTIFYING THE NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE
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What happens at death or after death has remained a mystery and almost every human contemplate death with fear, faith, speculation and sobriety. Depending on religious affiliation and conviction, many people try to define and explain near death experience and afterlife. Also, religious leaders in proselytizing deploy the near-death/afterlife narrative to persuade people to believe in a faith because many tremble at the mention of death. Though no one will probably ever be able to explain accurately and exhaustively the death and afterlife phenomena, it is a matter of fact that near death or afterlife experience is highly subjective and hazy and this description is applicable to all accounts of near-death or afterlife experiences.
As an emphasis, no one has an objective account of near-death experience, all accounts are subjective and they rely on such individuals' real life experiences, religious affiliations and societal beliefs.
We would have heard at one time or the other people claiming they died and saw heaven as beautiful with angels shining and flying in serene glory. They also narrate the horrors of hell and how people are burning in eternal fire. How true are these claims?
If certainly one goes to heaven or hell after death, how do we explain people who died, came back to life after medical resuscitation and didn't get any experience? When they were asked what happened or whether they saw anything, they said they saw nothing, everything was just blank. I heard of someone who came out of a party drunk and in that state mounted his bike, drove at high speed, eventually, he ran into an on-coming vehicle and was knocked down. He was unconscious for a time, when he woke up, he narrated how he was running alone in a wide forest, then he saw a big hotel, he entered and was welcomed by the attendant, he saw many people drinking beer and they brought him a large bottle of beer too, the bottle was as tall as a man. He said he was thrilled to see a bottle of beer that big and was eager to drink, then suddenly he came back to life.
Now, the point is, the man had a replay of his earthly reality in his near-death experience. He loves drinking, he loves clubbing, attending ceremonies, going to hotels, so he had his reality re-presented to him in his near-death experience. If he was a Christian, he would probably have seen heaven or hell because he would have heard sermons about heaven/hell over and over and his subconscious mind would have given him similar picture during the time he passed out.
Invariably, we can say that what happens in dreams is analogous to near-death experience, your subconscious replaying your life experience to you.
Some do pick a portion of the Bible to explain afterlife. The popular account is Lazarus and the rich man; Bible scholars have divergent views about the story, some believe it's fictional and it's part of figurative tools Jesus used, like parables. Some believe it was inserted to support heaven-hell doctrine while some believe it's a true story. Nevertheless, one of the strong features of truth is that it must remain true in any situation, it must be consistent and replicable otherwise, it will be invalid.
The story of Lazarus and the rich man is a story, whether it's real or fictional, we may not be able to answer that. But there was a real Lazarus Jesus raised from death, this man came back to life after four days, as miraculous as his case was, it was not recorded that he saw heaven or hell. For the world interested in afterlife, his experience, if he had any, should have been the main issue to mention in the Bible. Jesus also raised a widow's son from death, Jairus' daughter also was raised, but none of them gave the report of heaven or hell. Peter also raised Dorcas, Paul also raised a young man named Eutychus who fell from a window, they also didn't give any narration when they rose from death.
To conclude the matter, afterlife will continue to be a mystery, but the explanations of anyone can't be taken as the eternal truth because they are based on subjective experiences which are well defined within the field of psychology, hence going through such experiences can't be regarded as mysterious but more or less seen as hallucination of the unconscious mind.
