Martha Beck's Fall Bookshelf

On Martha's Bookshelf

You may have noticed the kerfuffle of attention around a new book called Proof of Heaven, by Dr. Eben Alexander. The author was an academic neurosurgeon who taught at Harvard Medical School for fifteen years and published scores of articles in medical journals. He had heard some of his patients describe “near-death experiences” and was quite sure their occurrences were explained by random firing of the distressed neurons in their brains.

A few years ago Dr. Alexander developed a freakishly rare bacterial meningitis. By the time he was diagnosed, he was in a deep coma and the disease had literally eaten the entire cortex of his brain. The coma lasted seven days, during which Alexander was closely monitored and known to have no cortical function. This meant that he was unable to use any sections of the brain that have to do with cognition of any kind. As he puts it, his brain was not just damaged; it was off.

I’m sure you saw this coming: the entire time Dr. Alexander’s brain was essentially Jell-O he was having one hell of a near-death experience. He describes entering a dimension of existence that made his “real” life as a physical being seem like a flimsy transparent dream. He learned more than his brain can presently articulate, but the most important of these lessons were these three statements: “You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.” “You have nothing to fear.” “There is nothing you can do wrong.”

For fans of near-death experiences, this is not new information. 

However, Dr. Alexander’s experience is what he calls “the perfect storm” of near-death experiences. He is a trained neuroscientist, more capable than most of us at understanding what can happen in the brain. He was under the closest medical supervision. Unlike most people who undergo near-death experiences, his entire brain was simply not functioning during his adventure. 

He humbly expresses a belief that he was given this experience, on top of his lifelong training, so that he could be in a position to not only tell his story but to be believed. I highly recommend this quick and fascinating read. You definitely want to go on this ride with the good doctor. By the way his recovery of full cognitive function after such severe brain damage is virtually impossible. 

Go figure.