Near death experiences gaining recognition in medical journals

Gary Habermas offers a talk on near death experiences (experiences that the patient recalls frm a time when he or she is clinically dead), available online. "Near Death Experiences and the Afterlife"was given at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, 2008, and sponsored by the Veritas Forum:

In this talk, Gary Habermas will address the definition of death, and then set parameters for potential afterlife evidence. In looking at testimonies of near death experiences in each of the categories that we will have established, we will discuss the nature of this data and what we can learn about a potential afterlife.

I listened to some of it and it is quite good. One thing Habermas notes is that near death experiences (NDEs) - which we discuss in some detail in The Spiritual Brain - have been discussed in about ten medical journals. The trend today is to seek to understand what is happening and what difference it makes, rather than explain the experience away. One factor has undoubtedly been the increased number of people who have returned to active life from states of clinical death.

Habermas mentions that near-death experiences often don't realize at first that the body they are looking at is theirs, because they don't see the face. (In a medical situation, the face is likely obscured by drapes or medical staff.)

That must be quite the wakeup call. No wonder so many NDEers change their lives' priorities.