I realize I’m trampling on “sacred” ground here.

As you may or may not know, I’m doing research for a completely different novel (than the planned Noah novel, which sadly, I’ve put on the back burner for now).  Recently, I had to read David Kessler’s Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms: Who and What You See Before You Die, to get some much-needed information for my plot.

Obviously, stories like this abound.  Perhaps you’ve had a loved one who’s had a death vision and related it to you.  Perhaps you work in a hospital where your patients have confided in you.  Perhaps you, yourself, have been pulled back from the brink of death and gone through such an experience.

I don’t know what I believe.  The only thing that didn’t sit well with me was the author’s statement that no one, in his interviewing experience, has seen someone or something outside of their religious belief system.  Meaning, an orthodox Jew wouldn’t see Jesus coming for him.  A Christian wouldn’t see Allah coming for him.  Only people who grew up with angels and light and halos might see angels and light and halos.  Typically, Christian children see Jesus coming for them, since this is what they hear in Sunday School—that Jesus loves the little children.

They can’t all be right, can they?

Isn’t this worrisome?  Are people only seeing what they want to see, or what their brains are recalling for them, and calling it reality?  [Don’t get me wrong; it’s not a catastrophe if people cling to it as truth; their experience just is. I’m asking about the mechanics of it here.]

And if their brains are simply accessing old (emotional) information, doesn’t that negate the validity of their visions?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

[Post image: Clouds opening by robby_m on stock.xchng]