By Susan L. Schoenbeck
I have been conscious of my spirit form for as long as I can remember. As an infant, I had polio. When my body experienced excruciating pain, my spirit moved out of it to a place where I was conscious that I had both a body form and a spirit form. I believe my body form let go of its spirit willingly and for good cause. The reason was my spirit form did not experience pain. Was some part of my brain conscious of the business of releasing my spirit? Maybe so.
Before my out-of-body experiences (OBEs), I would hear an aura. An aura is a sensory warning that something is coming. I heard a ringing sound much like a pleasant, resonating vibration. Then I did not know, as now I do, that people with other disorders, such as migraines and seizures, also report sensory auras such as ringing in their ears, nausea, and vision disturbances. Each person has their own individual sensory warning. There is logic to this warning system. If something earth-shattering is going to happen, the body warns itself to get ready because trouble is coming.
My aura of sweet vibration comforts me. As a child when I heard the aura, I knew I would be leaving my body and pain. The movement of my consciousness—its changing places from the body to the spirit—came instantaneously after my experience of the aura. I am not able to consciously choose to go out of my body. I have tried. I could be experiencing intractable pain of long-standing, such as for days, and still be unable to consciously choose to exit. Even though at these times I knew leaving my body would bring welcomed pain relief, this is not how the system works in my case.
The sympathetic nervous system responds to threatening situations with either a fight or a flight reaction. Extreme pain would be such a situation. The business of consciousness is manned by the sympathetic nervous system. No decision needs to be made by the mind. The sympathetic nervous system has the spark and the fuel that makes consciousness move from body form to spirit form.
Realizing Body and Spirit
I realize I have been fortunate to understand I am both a body and a spirit. So let me tell you how this has affected my nursing practice and serendipitously, my counseling of those who grieve. My nursing practice started in a cardiovascular surgical ICU (intensive care unit). We took care of patients who had heart surgery. Many times their hearts, irritated by all the poking and prodding surgery entails, stopped. We did cardiopulmonary resuscitation and brought the patients “back to life.” One particular time, a patient told me she had been out of her body watching me do the CPR.
She said at this time she was pain-free and floating above the scene. She reported that she could hear everything said as others joined in the resuscitation effort. Same as me, this patient did not try to go out of her body. It just happened, perhaps as a flight or fight reaction engineered by the sympathetic nervous system.
Other nurses poked fun at me for believing the patient. Some said that the patient was probably having a dream made up by her mind to make her feel okay during this life-threatening event. Several thought that at the time of CPR, the patient was not getting enough blood to her brain causing a phantom belief that she separated from her body.
But modern medical practice—bringing the clinical dead back to life—brought me in contact with many patients voicing similar experiences. Could so many be wrong? I began to collect stories from patients, nurses, doctors, and paramedics.
Much research has been done that shows that during a time of extreme physical danger, we have the ability to go out of our life form into our spirit form.
Additionally, those who had both out-of-body and also near-death experiences (NDEs) added knowledge to what we know about what happens when we die. (There is a scientific organization that collects data about NDEs, the International Association of Near-Death Studies at iands.org.)
Patients who have NDEs tell of travel through a tunnel at the end of which was a bright light that enveloped them in love. Some called this light a “light-being” that accepted them with unconditional love. Travelers also spoke of meeting family and friends, watching a playback of key events in their lives and being in a place where no language was needed. The near-death experiencers said that every thought was, without words, immediately understood.
Now, I use the facts I personally experienced together with what was reality for patients who had near-death events to console those who grieve. When families come to the emergency room and find out someone they loved has died, they have questions. The most frequent question they ask is, “Did my (loved one) have pain at the end?” I can answer that one with certainty.
Reports from motor vehicle accident victims, from people fleeing dangerous situations, and from those on the battlefield all concur that when a person goes from life form to spirit form all pain ceases.
This truth comforts. When people leave their bodies, they are often met by loved ones on the other side. This truth consoles families who can guess which family member probably met the loved one they just lost.
In this manner of relating to those who face the death of loved ones, the voices of those who have gone out of their bodies soothes the living. The unconscious business of body and spirit forms makes conscious what happens when we experience grave circumstances. We learn we can move from body form to spirit form and back.
Susan L. Schoenbeck is on the nursing faculty of Carrington College in Portland, OR. Susan holds a Master’s Degree in Nursing from the University of Wisconsin. Learn more in her books Good Grief: Daily Meditations and Near-Death Experiences: Visits to the Other Side, which are available on amazon.com in soft cover and e-book formats. For more information, visit www.susanschoenbeck.com.