Thomas Fleischmann – TRANSCRIPT
Ladies and gentleman, I see dead people. What may be a punch line from the film, the movie, “The Sixth Sense” for you, is dire reality for me.
As an emergency physician, I took care of thousands of people when they approached the line between life and death. Many I could rescue from dying, many I could bring back, but I stood next to more than 2,000 humans when they finally crossed the line between life and death, and died. What I would like to do with you today is I walk with you the path from perfect well being in life till death. And then we try to look a little bit beyond death. Don’t be scared, I’ll be with you all the time.
I promise you I will bring you safely back to life. There are many illnesses and many injuries, but, actually, there are just four ways to die, just four ways to leave this planet. What you see are some little lines, these little lines on the right-hand side are the activity level. This is a perfectly normal activity level. This person is alive and kicking.
And then an injury or illness sets in, and this person suddenly dies from one minute to the other. This may happen with a heart attack, and this may happen with a car crash.
The second way of dying is: Someone is perfectly healthy again, and then a real bad illness sets in, and the health condition of this person rapidly and constantly deteriorates. This is the case with fast progressing tumors, for example, with leukemia, with lung cancer, or with pancreatic cancer.
The third way of dying is: A person is once again perfectly healthy, and then another illness sets in, and the health deteriorates. Then our therapy starts, and we get this person a little bit better, but not to the baseline this person had before.
The fourth way of dying is different. The activity level is very low. This may mean that this person is immobile, is bedridden, is in a nursing home, may be incontinent, and probably suffers from dementia. This person slowly, slowly, slowly progresses towards death.
Now, let’s have a look. When you proceed a little bit closer to death, what are the signs and symptoms of those people who will die within two days? There is scientific evidence for that. And you see those signs which appear two days before death are very unspecific. At present, we cannot predict correctly which person will die within the next two days, or not, so will recover. We probably can in the future.
We can do this, not by one single symptom, but by a set of symptoms, or even by a lab test. And I leave it up to you whether this is desirable or not. What are the signs and symptoms of those people who, allegedly, die suddenly two hours before their death? 75% of all those who allegedly die suddenly show signs and symptoms before their death. Only 25% of those who die suddenly do not show signs and symptoms before their death. So that means that, at the present once again, we cannot predict who will die within the next two hours or not.
Those are the ways to die. Let’s make a short survey, let’s make an opinion poll here. I would like to see your hands. Who of you would like to die No1, way. No 1? I’m not surprised, I quite often see that. Who of you would like to die way No4? Not so many. Now, problem is, by far most people die this way, by far. The most rapidly progressing kind of way to die is No 4. Not even 10% of us will die No1. Not even 10% of us will die No1.
So, how we would like to die, and how we will die, is very different. We all have different genders, we have different ages, we have different personalities, and we have different lives. There is only one thing we all have in common: we will die. For everyone of us, the moment will come when our heart stops beating, when our lungs stop breathing, when our brain activity ceases. We are now dead.
Can we look what’s happening to us beyond death? Can we have a glance what happens to us, what we will experience, shortly after we have died? Actually we can. We can look beyond death, because, of all those people we bring back successfully, we resuscitate successfully, 20% in the Western countries, and more than 30% in the Eastern countries, report something to us which we call near-death experiences. Those near-death experiences are reported all over the world, and those reports show striking similarities, and reveal a pattern. This means death sets in, and those people who have a near-death experience, the first phase is: There is a sudden change. And from one instant to the other, all pain is gone, all anxiety is gone, all fear is gone, all noises are gone.
There’s just peace, calmness and tranquility. Some report joy. Quite a number report something startling: there’s an insight. The insight, I am dead now. This is what we call death.
This insight is there without any anxiety. The second phase of the near-death experiences is again a sudden change, and those people report that they’re floating above themselves. They’re floating above themselves, see themselves lying down on the stretcher, see us emergency physicians and emergency nurses trying everything to bring them back. They see from above what we are doing, and they can listen to what we say. The personality of the person who is gone is still the same, but they have left their body.
We call this out-of-body experience. And what is annoying to us is that those people actually can describe what we did, and can report what we said when they come back. We have no explanation for this, and I cannot offer any explanation to you because there is no brain activity at all. We all feel to build a memory, there has to be at least a little bit of brain activity, but there is no brain activity. We do not have a scientific explanation for this, but we know this phenomenon is there.
In the next phase, there’s again a sudden change. In the third phase, those people who have a near-death experience describe that they are in a dark, confined space. There is complete blackness 98% to 99% of all those people who have a near-death experience describe this being in a dark, confined space as comfortable, as pleasant, as warm, and soothing. But 1-2% of all those who have this near-death experience in this stage describe it as frightening.
1-2% say there are terrible noises, terrible smells, and terrible creatures. And what those 1-2% tell us resembles strongly the pictures by the medieval artist Hieronymus Bosch. One might suggest that Hieronymus Bosch had a near-death experience, or a vision of a near-death experience. But once again this is only 1-2%; 98-99% describe it as pleasant. And what is maybe comforting, is that a certain proportion of those 1-2% who describe it as unpleasancy say it later turns into a pleasant event.
These unpleasant, near-death experiences in this third phase of the experience are not linked to any personality or to any religion. I used to say, if we could show that, let’s say, Catholic people have no unpleasant near-death experiences, and protestants do, then we would have billions for our research in near-death events, but this is not the case – we cannot predict any of this.
Now comes the fourth stage. The fourth stage means: Out of this complete blackness, a light begins to shine. This light is far away. This light is very warm, very bright, very attractive. Towards this light, out of the blackness, a tunnel is starting to form. Those people are strongly attracted towards this light, and start to fly towards this light. This light gets lighter and brighter and closer. Then comes the last phase of the near-death experience.
Only 10% of those who have a near-death experience reach this last phase In this last phase, once again there’s a sudden change, and there’s a beautiful surrounding, beautiful colours, some say beautiful music, and a feeling of unconditional love. In this last phase, it may happen that those people who have a near-death experience have a flash forward through their whole life, starting from their birth, over all major events in their life till their death. Not everyone has this, but some describe it. Some describe that they meet, in this last phase, relatives who have died before, and are greeted by them.
Not all of them, but some of them, report a being made out of light. And this being made out of light oozes out unconditional love to them, and they feel very, very warm and happy to be in this place. But half of those who are in this last stage of the near-death experience say that, at this point, they decided to come back, mainly because they feel that there is a task in their life which is not fulfilled yet, and has to be fulfilled. The other half tells that either the relative, or the being out of light, tells them to go back because there is something which has to be done still in life. Once again, I do not have any scientific explanation for that, we just know that it is there.
All these phases, all these experiences, are well described, and occur all over the world. While this is happening, we emergency physicians and emergency nurses do everything we can to bring these people back, we do everything we can to bring these people back. Resuscitation by live people is easy: call for help, and push hard, push fast, in the center of the chest. That’s all. Do that until the ambulance is there.
For us emergency physicians, resuscitation is a very complex and complicated task. You have to know a lot to resuscitate people properly. At the present, we can bring back 7% of those we try to bring back, hopefully, more in the future. Now comes something very interesting. Those people whom we bring back and had a near-death experience reveal certain personality changes after that.
And those we bring back, and have not had a near-death experience, do not show these personality changes. The difference is very significant. The personality changes are, people who have a near-death experience are, after these near-death experiences, more empathic, they are more social oriented, they lose their interest, may lose their interest, in materialistic values. They are more spiritual, not more religious, but more spiritual. And what is very, very interesting, they completely lose their fear of dying.
98-100%, according to the different studies, of all those who had a near-death experience completely lost their fear of dying. How do I dare to talk to you about this topic? I’m not an expert in dying, I’m still alive. I’m not an expert in near – Now, I may be called an expert in bringing people back: this is my job for many years now. I have never had a near-death experience of my own, but when I started to study near-death experiences, what happened to me is that I found everything familiar. Everything.
Each phase, each twist, each turn sounded very familiar to me. So, if I had known this all before, there might be an explanation for this Science knows a phenomenon which is called “empathic near-death event.” Empathic near-death event occurs if someone is there at the moment of death of a very close, beloved family member, or a relative If someone is there at the moment of death, or someone who is very close to him dies, one might suggest that this person shares his near-death experience with a person who sits next to him.
Now, I told you at the beginning, I was with more than 2,000 humans when they crossed the line from life to death, and died. And maybe, over the years, at any point in time, those started to share their near-death experiences with me. Over the years, I developed exactly the same personality changes as those who had a near-death event, though I never had one myself. This includes that I completely lost every fear of dying, I know, it’s nothing to be afraid of, not at all. And this, my dear friends, is a message I would like to share with you today.
And maybe sometime, when we meet on the other side, then tell me whether I told you wrong today or right. Thank you.
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