Close Encounters: The Near Death Experience Phenomenon

Each year law enforcement officers throughout the county are involved in shootings, some of them fatal. Frequently the shootings are reported by the media, which exploits the feelings of the victim while ignoring the effect of the shooting on the police officer. It is “estimated that approximately 87 percent of all emergency service personnel will experience a critical incident at least once in their career, which include officer-involved shootings” (Kureczka, 2002, p. 18). Officer-involved shootings have a profound effect on not only the officer involved but also their spouses, families, and the departments they serve. Law enforcement officers that are involved in officer-involved shootings need support and assistance such as critical incident stress debriefing and sometimes long-term trauma recover therapy in order to cope and live successful lives beyond the critical incident of the shooting.

Waiting for the feeling, something to hit me. It became clear this would not happen until I fell asleep. After being awake for almost 4 hours, my eyes really couldn't stay open any longer. Something began to happen, I couldn't tell what. I was falling, falling again. I landed, right in the middle of reality, and nowhere. The voice came on stronger this time, much louder. It was almost like it began to yell. "Can you hear the rumble that's calling?" The voice said again. Despite the loud volume of the voice, it was assuring. It made me feel comfortable. Even though I was in some sort of weakened state, I always felt better here than I did in the real world. Something was telling me that I just needed to be freed. Whether it was the voice inside my head, or some other voice, I felt it. The voice was so showing so much empathy, it felt inhuman, but at the same time it felt so human. It felt real, I could never describe the way it made me feel, how it moved me. I wanted to yell out, with everything I had. Part of me knew it just wasn't right, I had to wait for it to come to me. I knew that everything I wanted would come soon. I know what you're thinking, how was I not freaked out? It's simple, I didn't have room for that kind of thinking. I was so relieved to feel this way, it was a feeling of release. It's like that feeling when you get into a hot tub. The deeper you get, and the longer you stay, the more your body is at

8. Some people may be in one stage for such a short time that it seems as if they skipped that stage. Some times the person returns to a previous stage. According to Kubler- Ross, the five stages of dying are:

“The gunpowder was still lingering in the air as San Bernardino Police Lt. Mike Madden and three other officers approached a conference center where a mass shooting had been reported. Bodies had fallen outside the meeting room in San Bernardino, California,” what these officers experienced on that Thursday evening

Mass shootings are usually something that causes people terror. You turn on the news and you witness tragedies happening you don’t want to witness. Therefore, hearing that people are dying everywhere around you is terrifying. While thinking of a mass shooting, typically you’d think hundreds of people dying. Sometimes it is just a few people that have been killed.

“There are 327 mass shootings in the US in 2015, killing 475 people and wounding 1,870, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker, which catalogues such incidents. A mass shooting is defined as a single shooting incident which kills or injures four or more people, including the assailant” (Guns in the US: The Statistics behind the violence 2). “Mass shootings like the school shootings at Virginia Tech in April 2007 and Northern Illinois University in February 2008-or the 1993 office shooting in San Francisco that led to the formation of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence- receive significant media attention. However, gun deaths and injuries in the U.S. usually occur quietly, without national press coverage, every day” (Gun Violence Statistics 3). In 2015, 64 mass school shootings were recorded (Guns in the US: The Statistics behind the violence 2). In mass shootings, 57% of victims knew their killer and 1 out of 4 were close family members (Behind the Bloodshed: The Untold Story of America’s Mass Killings pg #). The most recent mass shooting in the U.S. is the San Bernardino, California shooting that took place at a center for people with developmental disabilities on Wednesday December 2, 2015. On that Wednesday, that staff were partaking in a holiday party when a couple barged in and opened fire, killing fourteen people and wounding seventeen others. The

The shooting also effected the people who did not attend and also the people who survived. Even though there are people who did not get hurt, it still affected them in a huge way. "Some folks experience a lot of acute stress, which is those moments right after, maybe 3-4 weeks after and then there's people who might not experience any impact two, three, four months... maybe a year later," she explained. "Trouble sleeping, nightmares, it could be irritability, " (https://www.wthr.com/article/effects-of-las-vegas-shooting-not-limited-to-those-who-were-there).

First responders experience much of the same psychological trauma, as they are exposed to the threat of death, and witness the destruction firsthand. Many detach themselves during their work as a coping mechanism but are unable to completely reconnect themselves with reality. Additionally, the jobs of the emergency personnel require frequent exposure to disastrous situations, making it difficult for first responders to completely recover, due to repeated exposure to triggering stimuli (Bunney). As they are exposed to the same situations as the victims, first responders are also at risk of developing mental disorders like PTSD. This evidence shows that people directly exposed to terrorism experience mental disorders at a higher rate. Due to the magnitude of the potential psychological damage a bioterrorist attack could cause, it makes government preparation imperative for minimizing the damage done to direct victims.

I had my first psychedelic experience on that cold February day, 25I was the name. At the point I realized, I'm not a human having a spiritual experience, I'm a Spirit having a human experience. About a month went by when my problems started to again surface. Not knowing what to do I hit the Devil's Weed again, seemed like all the problems from the year before repeated. Getting caught again to running away how I stupid do I feel, but it got better I found someone on else Youtube who was the real deal. Who inspired me to become a vegan, and to let go of Pot. There message was all about Spirituality and God which I didn't believe in back then. Let's skip ahead a year to the 11th grade all is good,no bad friends, starting to love myself,but the addiction still was there in Gluttonous eating, lustful thinking, and I was power hungry searching for knowledge outside of myself. So I bit into the fruit of the apple like Adam and Eve, took two hits of 25D. To put into perspective this was my first Near death experience. The knowledge of the Universe was soaring thru my head. My brain to body reaction time was off by 3 seconds, and I'm going delusional in my bed, and my body feels like it wants to die. I can feel everything on the planet from children dying to animals suffering. So I prayed

My life was flashing before my eyes, I was realizing what was happening death was coming. Cold and stillness filled the room while the feeling of death started to overtake my body it was a different feeling but it had to come. My limbs felt heavy and I thought real slow everything was slowing down. Just then something odd happened like nothing I ever thought some sound came into the room an annoying buzzing creature.

Max Klein’s near death experience had a positive outcome in his life. As stated in the Rominger article, most individuals who go through a near death experience or spiritual development of some kind, do so with a smooth transition as they venture along their path. I see Max’s spiritual emergence as a positive one as he begins to see and witness the things around him with more clarity. He views his experience as very real and as he tries to connect his inner self and inner thoughts, he leaves one conscious level that he has cultivated for so many years to join a different state of consciousness. While doing this Max experiences conflicts. It is in this new state, in which he transforms to temporarily, that Max witnesses the world around him

I would awake in a darkness that was consuming me. Not knowing where I was, how old I may be, or even who the hell I was. It was like an out of body experience, yet I was not outside viewing down, instead I was viewing through eyes I did not know. No thoughts entered my mind, no day dreams, no memories, it was lonely, cold, and distant. During those times I would see someone or something, and it was as if a small thread that glowed in the darkness, beckoned me, begging for me to grasp a hold of it. Except, no matter how many times I would reach out to that thread and try to grab it, it would disappear as soon as it appeared, leaving me in the darkness once more.

A near death experience, or NDE, is a profound psychological event that may occur to a person who is close to death or who is not in a near death situation but in a situation of physical or emotional calamity. A near death experience is defined as “an unusual experience taking place on the brink of death”, defined by Google, but that is a misconception created because of the situations they occur in. Being in a life-threatening situation does not, by itself, cause a near-death experience. NDEs can occur across multiple occasions. For instance if you’re not getting enough oxygen you might faint and have a near death experience. An NDE can also be defined as an out of body experience, because of the similarities in the sensations of seeing yourself leave your own body. In a NDE the person, or as they call themselves

Another way we are warned is often shown in movies. The character is sleeping and dreaming of a loved one (who is often dead) telling them to wake up. The star often wakes up to their enemy and the fighting begins! This has not occurred with clients in my practice or to me in this particular situation, but many have dreamed of their decease loved ones. I will go into that in Chapter ________.

A couple quotes from people who said they felt nothing; “Overdosed on heroine, EMT’s said my heart stopped. Didn’t see anything, just like sleeping with no dreams.” and “Pure,perfect, uninterrupted sleep,no dreams.”. A quote from someone who felt like they could see what was happening while dead; , “I do remember a little bit of the ambulance ride, but not from my own body. It was seriously the strangest thing I have ever experienced. It could have been a dream, but I saw my own unconscious body completely flatlined in the ambulance. I remember the EMT who was in the ambulance with me (whom I did not see before I passed out)”. And here is a quote from someone who had an interaction; "I was standing somewhere. There was a fog all around me, and I saw my best friend (who at the time I'd been fighting with and he'd stopped talking to me) come out of the mist. He told me that I couldn't go yet, that I have to keep trying, and if I promised not to give up, he'd see me back on Earth. I wordlessly agreed, and I was instantly pushed (into?) my body.".