Infrasound and the Paranormal

QUESTION

"Science now has a plausible explanation for ghost-sightings, hauntings, and the ghoulish work of the evil spirits - a phenomenon called infrasound. Infrasound is made up of sound waves so low that our human ears cannot detect them, according to science columnist Torah Kachur - as told on CBC Radio West. Torah Kachur noted: 'But our bodies still interpret it, and it makes that bone-chilling, hair-stand-on-end kind of feeling.'

"Kachur pointed out that infrasound has been found to cause physiological effects such as heart palpitations and respiratory change, and can distort the eyeballs to such a degree that 'apparitions' can be observed. She explained how infrasound was discovered, what scientists have learned about it since, and how being able to detect infrasound may be a biological adaptation to avoid natural disasters. Also, how it might explain paranormal phenomena.

"None of this explains NDEs. Most NDEs happen when people are unconscious; therefore, I don't think this explanation can defend the NDE theory. Since I've started reading your e-book, Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of The Story, friends of mine sometimes ask how the book is going. I tell them that there are some very convincing stories that would lead us to believe that there are different levels of consciousness.

"All I've witnessed were the two silhouettes at the end of the wood pile, and I believe that once we die, the energy we once had transforms into a different form. Each time I think of my own mortality, my mind always goes back to the silhouettes. It's an experience that I won't ever forget. Family members saw the same thing I did, and now that both have passed, they choose to deny these stories. It's ridiculous! I've never had any other paranormal experience other than this one.

"Each of the contributors in your book have no fear of death either, and it would be fascinating to learn what they've been told about the future of our world. I believe they've asked that their NDE experience remain confidential. From what the information the experiencers have provided, has any of it turned out to be true yet? It would be interesting to find out.

"One day, while on a city bus, I met a woman whose son was killed by a drunk driver. It turns out that this woman is a retired palliative care nurse. Since the death of her son, she has difficulty accepting the way he died. She told me that his 'killer' died at 47 years of age from a massive heart attack. She feels that real justice prevailed and isn't surprised that the justice system failed her and many others who have lost friends and family from irresponsible drivers.

"I asked the palliative care nurse if she believed in 'near-death experiences' and she said, we've all witnessed this phenomenon over and over again at work. Doctors have also seen it and just don't admit it, but they know it exists. No one will be able to convince Eben Alexander that NDEs don't exist. She feels that when her pets go wild for no reason in the house - her son has come by for a visit. Her theory is that animals are way more sensory than we are as humans. She also mentioned something about a 'window' where people usually experience the NDE before the actual physical death happens. The medical staff knows when the patient has experienced the NDE - because they've accepted their death and that people they know are waiting for them on the 'other side.'"........Lynda

ANSWER

Lynda, elephants and many other animals communicate through infrasound. Elephants, for instance, can communicate with each other when over ten miles away - low notes, lower than what humans can hear. Yet, humans do respond. They see and feel and sense, and sometimes hear, russellings, movements, swishes, temperature and pressure changes, time distortions, and altered states of consciousness. You're right, infrasound does not explain near-death experiences, but it does go a long way to helping us understand ghosts, disincarnates, and the alteration of space and time as dimensions shift.

I'm glad you're reading my book. The cases are indeed compelling, but so is the evidence that suggests how our physical bodies are set up for these types of experiences. We are made for this, for moving through dimensional existences to experience our true self and gain a greater understanding of life and our place in it.

Doctors and nurses experience far more than they dare to say, lest it compromise their professional status. When we had our big conference at the huge cancer center in Houston, Texas, a number of years back, we had an 'open mike' session for professionals. The stories these doctors told (often while crying) were almost more amazing than the near-death stories their patients told. The medical community absolutely knows all about the phenomenon, and have since the time of Plato. We have a new openness today. Hopefully, that openness will spread into the mainstream, and the day will come when it is common knowledge about soul, God, other dimensions, and the truth about our very being.

Many blessings, PMH

Seeing Tunnels in NDEs, Returning Loved Ones, and Does God Exist?

QUESTION

"I am reading your book Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of the Story and am enjoying it very much. Though I do have a problem with something you wrote. You said tunnels people say they have seen "don't match the pop." I take offense to this. I had an NDE and there WAS a tunnel. It is not something I could describe well, but it was there. I would love to know what you have to say about this."

Nameless, posted to Facebook.

ANSWER

In the first scientific survey conducted by Gallup Poll in 1982, they found only 9% of the people claiming to have had a near-death experience, reported a tunnel. Such reportings remained few in number until after the media sensationalized Raymond Moody's first book, Life After Life. Suddenly, people spoke about tunnels, lots of them. I was attending a near-death experiencer group meeting after that and personally witnessed experiencers changing the term of what they went through, to "tunnel." No, I do not think anyone lied. What I think has happened over the years since, and because of continued media attention, is that we now have a word (tunnel) to use when were not sure what it was we saw or traveled through during our episode. Words, after all, are a huge challenge for all of us. What do you call things when the language we speak doesn't cover or describe what we encountered? Tunnels? Yes, interesting word, and now affixed to the near-death phenomenon whether it truly fits or not.

During my 33 years of researching the phenomenon, less that a..." of the people I had sessions with reported a tunnel. Children seldom do. In other countries, experiencers almost never relate to such a term at all. The idea of tunnels applies more to cases in America, some in Canada, and Western Europe, a few in Australia, and that's about it. You can trace the popularity of tunnels mostly to those countries where Moody's book became a best seller. Not entirely, but to a large extent.

None of this means that tunnels are not experienced. Obviously, you had one. Many people do - but not as many as popular notions might imply. I do not consider tunnels a signature feature because of this; rather, one component of many experiencers might have. The main components, repeated around the world regardless of age, religion, sex, or culture are: richly detailed out-of-body experiences (often verified with third-party testimonials), an incredibly bright and knowing light (that knows your name and can converse with you), and a greeter of some kind (usually a loved one who has died or a pet, possibly an angel, religious figure, or light being, sometimes a living individual there to comfort you - once that is done he or she disappears, replaced by figures more typical of near-death states). There are others, but these three are the most reported globally.

I recommend that you read The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences for a more well-rounded presentation of the different aspects of the near-death phenomenon worldwide and the research that has thus far been done. In that book, by the way, is a drawing of a tunnel made by an experiencer who went through one.

Blessings, PMH

QUESTION

"I came across your name from Dr. Eben Alexander's website. I'm really curious. In the mid-eighties, my grandmother had died. My sister and I visited my parents one weekend and my mother was telling us about these visits from my grandmother. Both of us just let it go. At 2:00 am, the phone rang twice, and there were these two white silhouettes at the woodpile at the end of the yard. I had never seen that before and neither did had my sister. My sister claimed it was all our imagination. My mother died in March of 2012. Family members have felt and seen her and dad's presence in their homes. The only thing I had was the following.

"In July of 2013, I was sitting in my living room and there was a silhouette shaped as a human being that went right across my window. My neighbor's mother died in April of 2013, and death was a topic of discussion that came up a lot. So, I'm wondering if that influenced my consciousness. In your mind, does GOD really exist or is this all a figment of our imagination? I'd like to think it isn't. But, with all the terrible things that happen in this world, I often wonder if nature and GOD are the same and we have no control over anything? Nature has an agenda for everybody. I would like your perspective. Thank you." 

Lynda

ANSWER

Lynda, you really need to do some reading. Start with these two books of mine: Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of The Story and We Live Forever: The Real Truth About Death. They will help you.

In the meantime, know a little about me. I am one of the original researchers in the field of near-death studies, having begun my work in 1978 and have written 10 books on my findings. I was one of the researchers called in on Eben's case. The reason for all my work for so many years? I had three near-death experiences in three months in 1977, and a voice which spoke to me during my third episode gave me my mission. . . this work. My sense is that voice was of God.

Now, back to you. The telephone is one of the ways the dead can reach us. This happens fairly often. Sometimes no one is there when you answer the phone; sometimes the loved one speaks. It takes a great deal of energy for someone on the Other Side to contact people on this side. That energy is not always easy to muster. What you have described in your various experiences is a rather typical type of event and response. Those apparitions were real, what you saw was real, evidence to back this up is legion - scientific evidence. Skeptics claim no such evidence exists. They are wrong. There is more than enough research done in this area of the paranormal to more than establish the validity and reality of spirit communications and life of some kind after death.

In God real? I have no doubt that this is so, but maybe not as described in the Bible or the Qur'an. God is neither man nor woman, but an intelligence, an "isness," above and beyond what most of us can comprehend. So is the reason we are alive, our job while here, and what life seems to be about. I have a book coming out in 2014 that may "fill in the blanks" for you. It is entitled Dying to Know You: Proof of God in the Near-Death Experience. Subscribe to my free monthly newsletter on www.pmhatwater.com to be appraised of the latest in this and other related fields.

Blessings, PMH

Walk-Ins and A Special Sharing

SPECIAL SHARING

This is from Lance. “My Mother told me that on the day of my Dad’s passing she was in the bathroom washing her face when, suddenly, she heard footsteps of someone coming in the door. She thought it was I who had walked in, though I was across town at that moment. Mom was more than surprised to see Dad standing there, smiling at her. She says she couldn’t believe how he could have just walked in as he was quite ill in the nursing home. She told him that she was going to dry her face to greet him, and says he stared at her for a moment with his usual smile, and then his face suddenly started to turn serious. After that, he walked off and she could not find him. She called his name several times but he was gone. She was a bit shaken when I came back, and she told me about this incident, of that I’ll never forget. Later that evening the doctor called our home to tell us that Dad had passed away.”

QUESTION

“Have you written much about walk-ins? How do they remember the lives of the persons they are now? I don’t know if I dare to ask this: are you a walk-in? Is that why you don’t use your given name, but initials?”....Erna

ANSWER

Yes, I have written quite a bit about walk-ins. Please refer to my book, Beyond the Light. The current claim is that most walk-ins enter during a near-death experience. This claim does not stand up to scrutiny. In fact the whole theory is subject to challenge.

There is in esoteric literature dating back hundreds of years mention of real “walk-ins,” those beings who physically walk in to our dimension, stay as long as needed or desired, and then walk back through a portal of some kind or simply disappear when they leave. I have seen these and so has my son and a good friend. This is the more commonplace walk-in. What Ruth Montgomery called a “walk-in,” esoteric literature calls an “exchange” - where one soul exchanges places in a given body with another soul. Why she changed the terms I do not know. Most of the people claiming to be walk-ins under Montgomery’s definition went through the same years of integration that near-death experiencers go through (7 to 10 years), and do not in any way display anything that might validate taking a short-cut back into life for a mission. They might have just been born and have grown up in the regular way. Coming in, in mass, through the aegis of near-death experiences is not a short cut - no matter what anyone claims.

Of the many people I have met who said they were walk-ins, only three seemed to me as if they were the genuine article. The rest, no. Bear in mind that the typical near-death experiencer ( and we’re talking about millions of people worldwide) come back a different person - not because they are a walk-in, but because of the aftereffects of the near-death state - which is physiological as well as psychological. These people are “more” than they were before, expanded and accelerated beyond former capabilities. You can show that in research, how our faculties, brain, and body systems expand and alter because of near-death states. You cannot do this with the so-called “walk-ins.” I refer you here to two more of my books, The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences and Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of The Story.

I am not a walk-in. I bear all of the characteristics and traits of a typical near-death experiencer and have gone through the same phases of integration. There is nothing about me that is exceptional in that regard, except that, during my third near-death experience, I was told to do the research I have spent 33 years doing. So far, I am the only experiencer to do this for the reason I have, and to initiate my work before ever having heard of Raymond Moody or his now famous book, Life After Life. My name is as it is because of a very powerful vision I had just before I was to be married. I went to Court and “made it so.” My legal and only name is PMH or P. M. H. Atwater (written either way). The full story of how I got my name appears in an article in the Article Section of my website at www.pmhatwater.com .

Thank you for your questions, Erna. Many blessings, PMH

Attending Their Own Funeral and NDE Family Inheritance

QUESTION

“I recalled that one of the changes you described in yourself after your NDE’s was that you could no longer attend funerals because you could see the deceased actually attending his/her own funeral, and you couldn’t keep from giggling at this site.

“My questions is: did you know if these people had or had not had NDEs during their lifetime? Also, I wonder if attending one’s own funeral might be too depressing, seeing one’s spouse and other close friends and family going through the grieving process and worrying about if and how their loved ones would navigate the rest of their lives.

“My own father died at the age of 48 from heart disease and my mother lived to the age of 76. She became quite depressed after his death and was never able to recover.”. .....Jack

ANSWER

Thousands of near-death experiencers (maybe millions) are able to see the departed as I can. This includes child experiencers, too. As per those people like me who have seen “the departed” attending their own funerals, they see all kinds of people doing this after they die. I highly doubt that near-death experiencers just see experiencers.

About those we see who have left their bodies but come back to visit at their funerals, some of these people are happy to be able to do this, some are concerned about their loved ones, some are angry at what they see and hear, some make fun and act stupid. People are people, with or without a body. You encounter a wide range of emotions and responses with the departed.

As to the near-death experiencers themselves who see this, most have learned not to attend funerals out of respect to families and friends. It is difficult to hold back a response. You want to say something, maybe point out to the families what is really happening, yet you dare not. That might upset those in attendance. Now, if the funeral service is held in a metaphysical church, like Unity or Religious Science, that’s different. Comments from people like me are often asked for and welcomed in such places. Thank you, PMH

QUESTION

“I have been reading your book, The Idiot’s Guide to Near-Death Experiences, and I read about how to recognize child experiencers on page 67. I found this fascinating because I met six out of the eleven characteristics. I grew up very much a ‘God’ boy. I meditated regularly; always made sure there was an altar in my room; have a strong need to nest; fascinated by all things spiritual/otherworldly; tough time connecting to the ‘real’ world. I have not had an NDE, but my mother did before I was born.

“My question is: is there any research concerning the effects of NDE on other family members? Can a family member plug into the fruits of the NDE without knowing it? I started to exhibit these traits very early on, long before my mother ever told me about her experience. She did not share it openly. She told me about it when I was an adult.

“I would appreciate any feedback you can give me.”.....Bryan

ANSWER

Yes, there is research. . . showing that what a parent learns from experiences can be passed on genetically to the next generation (a challenge to Darwin’s theory about evolution). This is new research, and I discuss it at length in my new book, Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of The Story. It is causing quite a stir, as you can well imagine.

And, yes, children can pick up and learn from the behavior of their parents. Even if your mother said nothing to you when you were young, just being exposed to any differences she may have possessed would have been enough for you to emulate her, even without being aware you were doing it. This, really, is the main way children learn anyway - through modeling their parents.

There may be another link for you, though. You may be one of the “new children,” those born with different traits and characteristics than previous generations. The human race is changing; we are evolving as a species. Whole populations are changing, and not because of politics, religious beliefs, or what is currently popular within that culture. I first began to speak about the profile link between children who had a near-death experience and children who were born that way, in my book The New Children and Near-Death Experiences (Bear & Co.), which I followed up with Beyond the Indigo Children (also Bear & Co.). I am currently working on the last book in this trilogy that really digs deep into what is meant about the “new children,” then it examines evolution and time cycles. It should be on store shelves in the fall of 2012.

Regardless of how you picked up your particular traits, I am certain you went through many challenges while you were young in learning how to handle yourself and respect your differences. The two books about the new children I’ve already mentioned have large Resource Sections with many tips and ideas about how to integrate yourself into society in positive, productive ways. I hope you are able to read them.

Blessings, PMH