Manawatu Standard
18/12/2009

The person lying on the bed was covered in a grey sheet folded down to his shoulders. His mouth and eyes were closed, his hair was combed, and it looked like his hands were clasped together at his waist.

From his vantage point, floating near the ceiling, Trevor James realised he was looking at his own body.

Three figures dressed in surgical or mortuary gowns and caps, swathed in misty grey, appeared in the room.

Mr James recognised them as his long-dead parents and his brother. They stared at the figure on the bed, their mouths opened, but there was no sound. They beckoned.

Mr James was entranced by the sliver of brilliant white light he could see in the gap at the bottom of the door. He did not move toward it, and after a while, the figures melted away.

Mr James woke up alive next morning.

He was wearing the clothes he lay down in the previous evening. The sense of great peace and harmony had gone. He was disoriented and afraid.

There was no landline where he was living on the outskirts of Feilding, so he managed to stumble out and call for help.

An ambulance came. His vital signs were very low, his pallor deathly white. The eventual medical explanation was that he had had a stroke.

Two years on, the 69-year-old has tried to explain away the experience, but can't.

Mr James's meticulous recounting of his near-death experience fascinates Massey University senior lecturer in sociology Mary Murray, whose special interest is death and dying.

She wants to interview more New Zealanders who have similar stories to tell, and is waiting for ethics committee approval to make a start on the research.

"There are lots of different explanations for the phenomenon, but nobody knows for sure."

Overseas research projects were trying to build understanding about states of unconsciousness that could induce the sort of experience Mr James described.

She had explored literature that canvassed ideas about the role endorphins might play in prompting out-of-body experiences, what happened to the brain under anaesthesia, and what role culture and religious belief played in people's experience of near death.

She said until people started talking about the phenomenon more openly, living with the memory could be a lonely business for people like Mr James. Some reported it had a profound effect on their lives.

Mr James said he wasn't a religious or superstitious person.
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The details of his experience were etched on his memory, and for quite some time were hard to live with.

He said it changed him. He was less inclined to join in when others were drinking, preferring solitude to social situations where there might be any aggravation.

"I felt I had to start looking after myself better."

He has kept his story fairly private until now, but emboldened by Dr Murray's interest and the background reading he's done, he's keen now to reach out to other people who have had a similar experience and would appreciate reassurance they are not alone, and are not mad.

"It is now obvious, that in order to come to terms with my experience I should converse with others who have made similar claims and compare their experiences with my own.

"Almost certainly, my own experience is not an isolated event."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/3176415/Near-death-continues-to-intrigue