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1. About This Article
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: P.M.H. Atwater, L.H.D., Ph.D. (Hon.) (pmhatwater.hypermart.net) is a near-death experiencer (NDEr) and one of the original researchers in the field of near-death studies. Sign up for her free online newsletter. Visit Atwater’s Q & A Blog and her NDE News Blog. She is the author of many wonderful books which can be found on her Amazon author’s page.
2. Introduction
Most NDEs happen to just one person. But in rare cases, two or more people report seeing the same spiritual place or event under almost the same conditions. These unusual cases raise interesting questions about whether some parts of an NDE are real experiences shared by different people instead of being only personal visions.
The following NDE testimony is one of the strangest ever reported. Over a period of just two days at the same hospital, four unrelated heart patients independently described the same frightening place after they were clinically dead. Each one said they saw barren hills covered with countless naked, zombie-like people who stood silently and stared at them. The patients did not know each other and they came from different religious and social backgrounds. Other than being treated at the same hospital, they had no known connection. Near-death researcher P.M.H. Atwater believed the strong similarities between their experiences deserve careful study.
Unlike the peaceful and loving experiences that many people report during an NDE, these NDEs are disturbing. It raises difficult questions about fear, guilt, and how a person’s beliefs or expectations may affect what they experience while dying. It also raises an even bigger question. If four strangers independently saw the same scene, what does that say about consciousness after death? Whether this was a shared spiritual reality, or something else entirely, these NDEs remains one of the most mysterious cases ever reported.
3. Four Hospital Patients’ Similar NDEs
Within a span of only two days, the same hellish NDE vision was independently witnessed by four strangers in the same hospital at the same time. How can four separate experiences be the same – and – simultaneous? P.M.H. Atwater describes these unusual NDEs in her book “Coming Back to Life: The After-Effects of the Near-Death Experience” on pages 14-16. Four hospital patients describe a hellish NDE of hillsides of naked zombie-like people staring at them. P.M.H. Atwater wrote the following analysis.
It was the late sixties – long before my own episode and before I knew what an NDE was. The place was St. Alphonsus Hospital in Boise, Idaho. I was visiting a lady there who had just moved to Boise from southern California. She had suffered a heart attack, and because I had previously befriended her, she called me. She was chalk-white with fear when I arrived. While clinically dead, she had experienced an incident which went like this:
She floated out of her body and into a dark tunnel, headed through the tunnel toward a bright light ahead; once the light was reached, she came to view a landscape of barren, rolling hills filled to overflowing with nude, zombie-like people standing elbow to elbow doing nothing but staring straight at her. She was so horrified at what she saw she started screaming. This snapped her back into her body where she continued screaming until sedated.
As she relayed her story, she went on to declare death a nightmare, then cursed every church throughout all history for misleading people with rubbish about any kind of heaven. She was inconsolable.
While I listened patiently, two other people entered the room, an elderly man and woman using walking canes. Individually, both had suffered heart failure, too, and later revived after being declared dead. Both revealed substantially the same story as the lady I knew. They were equally frightened. The three had found out about each other from nurses who had been comparing notes on patients they felt were having strange hallucinations.
This was such a coincidence that I instinctively began asking pointed questions. For whatever reason, each answered my questions without hesitation. It is as if they were hoping I could explain away what they had experienced and somehow make everything okay. They seemed to “need” me there, to listen and to care.
4. This is what my questions revealed
(1) None of these people had the same religion, background, or lifestyle.
(2) None had mutual friends or common interests, nor did they have the same doctor in attendance.
(3) They had never seen each other before.
(4) All had lived long lives of varying degrees of hardship and success.
(5) Two were still married to their original spouses and had several grown children apiece.
(6) The lady from California had been divorced several times and had no children.
5. The only common denominator I could find, beside their heart ailments and the hospital floor they shared, was the following
(1) All three had suppressed guilt of various kinds deep within themselves.
(2) This guilt seemed quite painful to them and the strange “vision” they experienced while “dead” only served to deepen that pain.
(3) They admitted meeting what they feared most in dying, which confirmed and strengthened their already strong belief that their “sins” would be punished.
Before I left, a nurse took me aside and said there was yet one more, a man so shaken he refused to speak with anyone but kept muttering words the “hills and hills of nude people all staring.” I was not allowed to see him.
Why four people within a span of two days at the same hospital had the same basic experience brought on by the same type of ailment is a mystery to me. I could offer no consolation to any of them. I could only listen and ask questions. The whole thing was so unnerving I was shaking when I left.
What became of these four people, I do not know. The lady from California became so irrational and rude afterwards, I stopped visiting her. Had I known then what I know now, I would have handled the situation differently. These people were absolutely convinced there is a hell.
6. Kevin Williams’ Analysis of These NDEs
It seems to me that the masses of naked zombie-like people were all once patients of this hospital – all of whom experienced the same death experience while in the hospital. People who die in hospitals often die from horrible illnesses or traumatic accidents in terrible conditions. This would explain the horrific appearances of the former patients. It must also be noted that the gathering of naked people observing the NDEs of the four patients is a temporary “earthbound” situation and not an eternal hell – a “homecoming” in this realm – and that they only gather to greet the new arrivals.
7. Conclusion
These NDE testimonies described by P.M.H. Atwater are among the most unusual reports in the history of near-death studies. Four unrelated patients, who had different religious beliefs, different backgrounds, and no connection to each other, described almost the same disturbing place after being clinically dead. All of this happened in the same hospital over just two days. No one can say for certain whether this was an amazing coincidence, a shared psychological experience, or evidence of a real spiritual place. But the similarities are so strong that the case deserves careful study instead of being quickly dismissed.
Unlike many frightening NDEs that later become experiences filled with love and light, these experiences ended suddenly because the patients were brought back to life before anything else happened. This leaves open the possibility that they had seen only one part of the dying process, not its final destination. Many other NDEs show that frightening experiences can change completely when people stop fighting the experience, ask for help, pray, or move toward the Light. For this reason, these reports should not be taken as proof of an eternal hell.
Atwater also pointed out that all four patients struggled with deep feelings of guilt and believed they deserved to be punished. Those beliefs may have influenced what they experienced, which is something that has been reported in other distressing NDEs. Kevin Williams has suggested another possible explanation. He believes the figures they saw may have been earthbound spirits connected to the hospital instead of souls being punished forever. Neither explanation can be proven, but both try to explain why four strangers described such similar scenes.
Whatever the true explanation may be, these cases remind us that NDEs are much more varied and complex than many people realize. They encourage researchers to keep exploring how consciousness, beliefs, emotions, and the possibility of a real spiritual world may be connected.
