Welcome, curious viewers, to Science and Spirituality on Supreme Master Television for the second in a three part series on near death experiences or NDEs.

The non-profit Near Death Experience Research Foundation was founded by Dr. Jeffrey Long, a radiation oncologist from Louisiana, USA and his wife in 1998 and serves as a platform for people from all walks of life to share their personal NDE stories with the public by submitting them online at the Foundation’s website. Over a thousand near death experiencers, from all age groups, races, and religious backgrounds have documented their stories at the website.

Dr. Long has discerned nine common themes from these recorded experiences. He says that these similarities constitute nine lines of evidence that, taken together, are conclusive proof for the existence of an afterlife. Dr. Long will now expand on one of these lines of evidence – heightened senses, meaning supernormal vision.

What’s amazing about many near-death experiences is that they can see things during their near-death experience even if the object is far, far from their physical body or from where they are during their near-death experience. And in fact, many near-death experiences describe what’s referred to as “360 degree vision.”

You see, those of us that live our normal earthly life, we have, if you will, a pie-shaped visual field because our eyes are back in the skull and because of their location in the eye socket, we can only see so far peripherally.

Yes. And you’ve described near-death experiences occurring in people who are actually blind from birth.

I think one of the most evidential near-death experiences that I’ve ever heard occurs in those that are totally blind from birth. For those people born totally blind from birth, vision is an abstraction. You cannot explain vision to somebody born totally blind in terms of the remaining four senses. I’ve tried; it’s impossible.

And yet, near-death experiences have been described in those totally blind from birth that contain vision, not just fragments of vision or partial vision but dramatic, crystal clear vision. It may include 360 degree vision, and it is absolutely vision that immediately the near-death experiencer recognizes as being a completely unique sense that they have never had in their life.

I know in your book you described an experience of a person who was blind, who for the first time in her near-death experience saw her wedding rings. She knew that they were hers because of the particular floral design that was on them.

In one dramatic near-death experience account from a lady who was born totally blind, for the first time in her life she saw her body down on the gurney in the emergency room, unconscious as a result of the auto accident she was in. She immediately was horrified and shocked because she’d never had vision before. It was so unfamiliar.

After she calmed down a little bit, she was aware of seeing a body down below on the gurney but she didn’t know who it was, and it was only after she became aware through her newfound sense of vision, by correlating what she was seeing with knowing that she had long hair and knowing what the ring felt like, she was able to correlate the feel of the floral design on the ring with her first time in her life ability to see it.

That’s astounding. Also, what about sound? Is sound enhanced as well? I noticed that a lot of people actually talk about a very beautiful silence.

There are a number of near-death experiences in which silence occurs and it’s not a frightening silence, it’s sort of a warm, loving, embracing, peaceful, if you will, type of a silence. And yet at other times, hearing can be far more, if you will, acute than we experience here in our earthly, everyday life.

In other words, it becomes possible, especially in more detailed near-death experiences and especially in unearthly realms where they may be able to hear, if you will, sound that’s occurring far, far away from them, far outside of any possible physical, sensory awareness.

We asked Dr. Long about another of the nine lines of evidence he has noted, that of the life review.

It's interesting that a life review happens in some percentage of near death experiences. And when a life review happens, they may see either portions of their prior life or all of their prior life. This is often described as like scenes in a movie or they’ll have scenes that they can visually see that are apart from them, seemingly even flashing in their brain. But what’s fascinating are the so-called panoramic life reviews where they see all of their prior life.

And in fact, as part of these panoramic life reviews, they may not only see every single action of their prior life, but they may become aware of what the other person felt like that they see themselves interacting with. During the few minutes they were unconscious or clinically dead, their consciousness is so accelerated that they are able to review their entire prior life.

I think it's very important for people to know that during a near-death experience, when they have a life review, there's no sense of external judgment. In other words, there’s often other beings with them, but they don't feel judged by the other beings. If there's any judgment or decisions or understandings, anything like that to be made about their prior life, it is simply from the near-death experiencer, and nobody else.

Following this brief message, Dr. Long will explain why the concepts of time and space are different to one undergoing a near death experience. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Science and Spirituality on Supreme Master Television. Dr. Jeffrey Long of the Near Death Experience Research Foundation is sharing the accounts of people who have undergone near-death experiences, with a focus on elements that he has found common to the over one thousand individual reports of this phenomenon he has studied.

Almost uniformly, near-death experiencers will say time did not exist in these unearthly realms. Space seems to be very, very different from what we know on Earth. In near-death experiences, they may move tremendous distances in what an earthly time would be seconds. It's as if time and space are completely different in these unearthly realms.

It's interesting in many near-death experiences they will say that everything seems to be happening at once. So it's as if not only is there no time but your time seems to be so compressed or so nonexistent that a multitude of events, for example they can see their entire life, which may have been decades in the making, in literally minutes.

A good example of alteration of time and space during a near-death experience: “It seemed as though I experienced so much in such a small length of time where my soul had traveled yet knew nothing of time as we know of time passing here on Earth.”

You mentioned that everything is happening at the same time, the past, the present, the future, is all happening at the same time.

What I consider one of the really fascinating things that I have discovered with near-death experiencers and actually many other people observed, observed this too, is that there seems to be some things that we’re seeing in near-death experiences such as the complete absence of time. There seems to be other physical dimensions going on.

There seems to be concepts that we're just starting to learn about in physics, such as quantum physics, such as the ability of physical matter to bi-locate or physical matter that's geographically apart from each other, where there's one interaction on one part of the matter that which is, if you will, entangled with, it will have the same or similar interaction even if it's geographically apart.

All the past and present enlightened Masters have spoken about heavenly kingdoms and beautiful worlds beyond our physical dimension. Have any of those who have undergone an NDE seen these places? Dr. Long now shares from his book, Evidence of the Afterlife, one person’s account of traveling to another world.

“The landscape was beautiful, blue skies, rolling hills, flowers. All was full of light as if lit from within itself and emanating light, not reflecting it.”

“There was such beauty beyond expression. There was also a bright city or something like a city in the distance. The colors and structures of everything were beautiful, awesome.”

“All around me, I could see and feel a beautiful peace and tranquility with love and peace. As far as the eye could see to my left, was a beautiful landscape of tulips, of every color imaginable, to my right was a wall of a beautiful blue that matched the sky.”

There is such consistency in these descriptions of these unearthly realms. I mean the landscapes that are beautiful beyond anything they could even imagine here on Earth. There may be the colors, the light, harmony, peace and beauty that is just unimaginable and seemingly even indescribable with earthly words when they returned. There’s no doubt about it from the point of view of people that have had a near-death experience and traveled to these wondrous realms, there is a heaven because they've experienced it.

I am convinced in my research of near-death experience that we are finite people interacting with the infinite when we have a near-death experience. So it's no surprise that there will be some variability in how these wondrous heavenly places are described.

Think of it, you're interacting with some small portions of that which is infinite, even beyond our imagination on Earth. And so there’s no doubt that that small slice of incredible beauty and wonder is what they experience and share with us after they return from their near-death experience.

One of the most remarkable revelations of Dr. Long’s research is the near-death experiences of children, including those considered too young to possess an understanding of the concepts of death, religion, or an afterlife, who report similar visions and feelings during their NDEs as those much older than them.

During an interview with a television news program, Dr. Long stated: “My research involved experiences of young children age 5 and under, and I found the content of their near-death experiences is absolutely identical to older children and adults.” To close today’s program, we would like to convey our sincere appreciation to you, Dr. Jeffrey Long, for discussing your fascinating research on near death experiences, an endeavor that is uniting the worlds of science and spirituality.

For more details on Dr. Jeffrey Long, please visit Dr. Long’s book Evidence of the Afterlife is available at Next Monday on Science and Spirituality, the last and final part of our series will feature further insights from Dr. Jeffrey Long on the lines of evidence that have led him to the conclusion that an afterlife exists.

Splendid viewers, thank you for your company today on our program. Next is Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. May the Providence always guide and care for all beings in our world.

When Mr. Uttam Sanjel reached out to teach the disadvantaged children, 100 eager children showed up to his first class. Just nine years later, his nationwide network of schools is widely praised for providing affordable, quality education for thousands of Nepal’s most in need.

School is not only a place to coming reading and writing, the school is a place where the kids can build up his moral values. My mission and my vision is to teach my kids always think positively. If we think positively, everything is possible.

Founder of Samata Sikchya Niketan Mr. Uttam Sanjel is honored with the Shining World Compassion Award and a US$10,000 gift from Supreme Master Ching Hai. Join us Saturday, July 31, on Supreme Master Television.