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Dr. Kenneth Ring,
in
his book,
Life at Death,
analyzed the near-death experiences of 24 people who attempted
suicide. Among them, no one reported the tunnel phenomenon,
or saw a brilliant but comforting light, or encountered a presence,
or was temporarily reunited with loved ones who had died, or
entered into a transcendent world of heavenly beauty. Instead,
the suicide-related NDE tended to be truncated, aborted, and
damped down. It began with a feeling of relief or peace and
continued with a sense of bodily detachment to the same degree
as non-suicide-related NDEs. But it tended to end, if it got
this far at all, with a feeling of confused drifting in a dark
or murky void a sort of twilight zone. Dr. Ring's research
strongly suggests that the suicide-related NDE does not reach
completion; instead, it tends simply to fade out before the
transcendent elements characteristic of non-suicide related
NDEs make their appearance.
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1. Dr. Kenneth Ring's NDE Suicide Research |
The following are excerpts from Dr. Ring's
research into suicide from his book
Life at Death:
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One young man tried to kill himself by taking an
assortment of pills - Librium, Demerol, Valium,
Dilantin. As a result of this ingestion, he
remained unconscious for four days. He remembers
finding himself in a gray area:
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Young man:
"The only thing that I can remember about this
is just grayness. Like I was in gray water or
something. I couldn't really see anything. I
couldn't see myself there, either. It was just
like my mind was there. And no body."
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While the young man was
in this state, he said he felt good:
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Young man:
"Normally, I'm a very anxious,
a very nervous person - a lot of fears and
things like that. And during this, all the fear
was gone. I had no fear whatsoever. Almost an
adventurous feeling. Excitement."
Dr. Kenneth Ring:
"Did you want to stay in that condition?"
Young man:
"Yeah," the young man replied, "It was a very
good feeling."
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He also was aware of music:
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Young man: "I also
heard music - different music."
Dr. Kenneth Ring:
"Tell me what
it was like."
Young man: "It was usually like classical
music; I like classical music. It wasn't exactly
the music I've heard, but it was along that line."
Dr. Kenneth Ring:
"Do you recall
how the music made you feel?"
Young man: "It
made me relaxed. The fears went away when I listened
to it. Again, the feeling of hope, that there's
something better somewhere else."
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He also reported that everything, including the music, sounded "hollow
and metallic - echoey" and that these acoustical sensations
were associated with the watery grayness. He felt the grayness
going through him, filling him and this felt good to him. After
a while, he became aware of a voice:
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Young man:
"I think
[it was] a woman's voice, but
(pause) I didn't
recognize the voice."
Dr. Kenneth Ring:
"Do you recall now what she said to
you?"
Young man:
"No. I just remember that it was
a soothing voice. I kind of remember
that with the grayness – her voice kind
of calling, my moving toward it."
Dr. Kenneth Ring:
"This was
a friendly voice, a reassuring voice in some way?"
Young man:
"Yeah."
Dr. Kenneth Ring:
"And you felt
drawn to it?"
Young man:
"Yeah. Right. Like that was the place to
be."
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The young man tried to get to where the voice was:
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Young man:
"It seemed like I kept trying to get to
where the voice was, but something was holding
me back. I know I wanted to be there; I knew
once I was there everything would be fine. I was
sure of this. No question about it. But there
was still like something holding me back from
getting there."
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During his experience he had seen images of people he knew.
These people somehow seemed to represent the possibility of
a good life; they seemed to care. He described this as "like
playing back a recording of my life." The issue was joined:
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Young man:
"It
felt like the woman's [voice] was stronger. I wanted
to get there but there was just some part of me
that wanted to
(pause)
go back with these images."
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And resolved:
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Young man:
"The thing I remember most is a falling
feeling. Like I was coming down really fast and
then hit. And then I woke up with a jolt."
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And afterward:
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Young man:
"When I woke up, the first
thing I thought was Oh, God. Thank you. I made it,
and I was extremely happy.
(He had been severely
depressed before his suicide attempt.) I was
just sitting there thinking about it and I felt
this - I don't know - warmth filling my
body. I was very happy, very excited, but then (pause)
it was more than contented - it was rapture,
I guess. But I couldn't explain it to anybody at
the time. It was just beyond words."
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This testimony sums up the essential features
of his experience. In the course of his interview, he also indicated
that although he never clearly saw his physical body on the
bed, he did have a sense of bodily detachment and felt he had
no weight at all he was just pure mind. Neither did he
have any sense of time. When he momentarily returned to body
consciousness (before drifting back into the grayness), he found
the sensory world greatly enhanced the colors were clearer
and more vibrant. The only thing scary about his experience
was his fear (which was eventually vanquished) of returning
to his body. His experience in the grayness was decidedly pleasant
and, judging from its immediate aftereffect, very positive and
powerful in its emotional impact.
This particular experience includes many
features that are common with non-suicide-attempt experiences:
drifting through a vast space, feeling good, hearing music and
a comforting voice, hearing sounds magnified, seeing a series
of flashbacks of one's life, and so forth.
In Dr.
Kenneth Ring's study, he found that no one
who had attempted suicide reported that it was predominately
unpleasant. The only possible exception is that a few people
did describe some unsettling hallucinatory images, but these
appear to have been qualitatively different from the feeling-tone
of non-suicidal experiences. Certainly, no one felt that he
was either in or was on his way to hell. This is not to say
that suicide attempts never lead to unpleasant experiences,
only that there is no strong evidence for this proposition among
the 24 suicide NDEs in Dr. Ring's study.
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2. Dr. Peter Fenwick's NDE Suicide Research |

According to Dr. Peter Fenwick, in
those organized religions in which hell figures, suicide is
a sin and might well be considered an entrance qualification.
And yet none of the people who wrote to us about a NDE during
a suicide attempt reported a hellish or even an unpleasant experience.
On the contrary, what they experienced seemed to provide a reason
for continuing life. It seems that the mental state in the NDE
bears no resemblance at all to the person's mental state before
the experience. Someone who attempts suicide might be expected
to be in some emotional turmoil at the time of their experience.
In real life, people who are depressed tend to select only depressive
images and memories. And yet if we look at the experiences described
below we can see that the depressive feelings vanish when they
enter the experience; there is an awareness of peace, of something
beautiful; there seems to be a healing of the broken spirit.
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Here Sheila Berry describes what happened to her
fifteen years ago:
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"I had taken an overdose
of aspirin and alcohol and had been pumped out at
the hospital. It was late at night and I was put
into a ward. I don't know whether you would call
this a NDE but at the same time my spirit was so
low I felt that I could die if I really wanted to.
It could perhaps be classed as a case of broken
spirit if there is such a thing.
"I was lying in the dark
and felt myself drifting. I felt as though I was
in a warm cocoon. I became aware that I was moving
down a dark country lane with high hedges. At the
bottom of the lane there was a cottage with a light
in the window. I wanted to reach the cottage but
a voice in my head said that I had to go back. I
can still remember someone taking my hand and I
had a feeling of great peace and a oneness with
what I can only describe as the universe. I can
remember returning to the weight of my body.
For some time after this happened I kept hearing
the most wonderful music. I feel since that time
that my life has a spiritual dimension, although
I do not practice any established religion."
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Anne Thomson attempted suicide in the winter of
1972 when she was very depressed:
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"I could cope no longer
with three small children and one dreadful husband
(whom I later divorced). I took a massive overdose
of sleeping tablets and was not found for four hours.
I was rushed to the nearest hospital by ambulance
from the RAF base in Wales, where we lived at the
time. I very nearly died and was unconscious for
four days. On the fourth day I was slipping away.
I had a cardiac arrest and the doctors and a sister
were working on me.
"I left my body. I went
up and up very slowly, not looking back at myself
in the bed. The peace was beyond what I can
explain; it was so beautiful, I felt so light in
weight and I saw I was going towards a white light
- not the white like this notepaper I write on,
but a spiritual white. I almost reached this light,
when suddenly I was pulling downwards very fast
and did not stop till I was back in my body. I was
heavy, everything seemed so dark and then I came
to and slowly came to realize I could not be taken
as three children needed their mother.
"I always did believe in
God but only because it was bred into me. But since
that experience I have a lot of faith towards God
and towards life beyond our lives on Earth. I firmly
believe he made me well and helped me through all
my time of rearing three children alone in the years
that followed."
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Only one of the descriptions of NDEs which
occurred during suicide attempts had elements that might possibly
be construed as hellish. It is one of the very few in which
the feeling is one of descent, into a pit, rather than upwards,
and in which the light seen is red rather than white or golden.
Although there is a presence, this is not perceived as friendly,
but not as hostile either. In fact, the whole experience has
a neutral quality - not hellish, but not positive either, except
for the compassion the returning self feels for her body in
the hospital bed.
Here is another example of a NDE resulting from a
suicide attempt:
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"In 1963, I
nearly died from a suicide attempt. I went down
into a deep pit, slowly, like Alice in Wonderland,
as if I were in a lift.
"At the bottom
it was light and quite busy and bustling. The other
people were strangers and although they didn't speak
and neither did I, somehow I asked the way and I
was told to follow the red light.
"I moved off
in that direction. Gradually I found myself in a
warm, dark tunnel, alone apart from a sort of presence
- not hostile, not friendly, just there.
"Then the
red light grew dim and began to flicker and I knew
I would have to go back. It was absolutely dark
and I was quite alone.
"My body was
surrounded by a panicky crowd round the hospital
bed. It seemed silly of the people to be making
such a fuss. The body had been crying in its sleep
and I felt a great pity for it momentarily as I
returned.
"I told no one about
this as they thought I was a loony anyway, but
the experience has stayed with me all these
years and I have tried to make sense of it. If
it is just an innate limbic response, well ...
interesting."
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