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This life's dim
windows of the soul
"I knew it was me .... I was pretty thin then. I was quite tall and thin at that point. And I recognized at first that it was a body, but I didn't even know that it was mine initially. Then I perceived that I was up on the ceiling, and I thought, 'Well, that's kind of weird. What am I doing up here?' I thought, 'Well, this must be me. Am I dead?'... I just briefly saw this body, and ... I knew that it was mine because I wasn't in mine." In addition, she noted certain further identifying features indicating that the body she was observing was certainly her own: "I think I was wearing the plain gold band on my right ring finger and my father's wedding ring next to it. But my wedding ring I definitely saw.... That was the one I noticed the most because it's most unusual. It has orange blossoms on the corners of it." As 20 years of research into NDEs have shown, such reports of visual out-of-body perception are by no means rare among persons coming close to death, but are indeed so common that most people will already be familiar with them. Yet, there is something extremely remarkable and provocative about Vicki's recollection of these visual impressions, as a subsequent comment of hers implied. "This was," she said," the only time I could ever relate to seeing and to what light was, because I experienced it." In short, what is astonishing about Vicki's account is that she had never previously been able to see at all. She was born blind, her optic nerve having been completely destroyed at birth because of an excess of oxygen she received in the incubator. Yet, she appears to have seen during her NDE. Vicki was just one of the more than 30 persons we interviewed at length during a two-year study we have just completed of near-death and out-of-body experiences in the blind. As we shall recount, Vicki is hardly a unique case among our respondents, for as our findings show with unmistakable clarity, reports of seeing during such episodes are very common among the blind, even those, like Vicki, who have never had any previous visual experiences in their lives and could well attest, as Vicki did to us, that they have "never been able to understand even the concept of vision." But before describing some of these astonishing cases of what we call mindsight in the blind, we need to return to Vicki's, for her experience didn't end with her perception of her body. Indeed, her story is a particularly clear instance of how NDEs in the congenitally blind can unfold in precisely the same way as do those of sighted persons. Apart from the fact that Vicki was not able to discern color during her experience, her account of her NDE is absolutely indistinguishable from those we have been hearing about for 20 years from individuals with intact visual systems. How the blind cau "see" during these experiences is a mystery we will try to unravel here, but that they can is now quite apparent. Vicki, to continue with her narrative, then told us that following her out-of-body episode, which was very fast and fleeting, she found herself going up through the ceilings of the hospital until she was above the roof of the building itself. During that time she had a brief panoramic view of her surroundings. She felt very exhilarated during this ascension and enjoyed tremendously the freedom of movement she was experiencing. She also began to hear sublimely beautiful and exquisitely harmonious music akin to the sound of wind chimes. With scarcely a noticeable transition, she then discovered she had been sucked head first into a tube and felt that she was being pulled up into it. The enclosure itself was dark, Vicki said, yet she was aware that she was moving toward light. As she reached the opening of the tube, the music that she had heard earlier seemed to be transformed into hymns and she then "rolled out" to find herself lying on grass. She was surrounded by trees and flowers and a vast number of people. She was in a place of tremendous light, and the light, Vicki said, was something you could feel as well as see. Even the people she saw were bright. "Everybody there was made of light. And I was made of light." What the light conveyed was love. "There was love everywhere. It was like love came from the grass, love came from the birds, love came from the trees." Vickl then becomes aware of specific persons she knew in life who are welcoming her to this place. There are five of them. Debby and Diane were Vicki's blind schoolmates, who had died years before, at ages 11 and 6, respecfvely. In life, they had both been profoundly retarded as well as blind, but here they appeared bright and beautiful, healthy and vitally alive. And no longer children, but, as Vicki phrased it, "in their prime." In addition, Vicki reports seeing two of her childhood caretakers, a couple named Mr. and Mrs. Zilk, both of whom had also previously died. Finally, there was Vicki's grandmother — who had essentially raised Vicki and who had died just two years before this incident. In these encounters, no actual words were exchanged, Vicki says, but only feelings — feelings of love and welcome. In the midst of this rapture, Vicki is suddenly overcome with a sense of total knowledge: "I had a feeling like I knew everything... and like everything made sense. I just knew that this was where... this place was where I would find the answers to all the questions about life, and about the planets, and about God, and about everything... It's like the place was the knowing." And then she is indeed flooded with information of a religious nature as well as scientific and mathematical knowledge. She comes to understand languages she doesn't know. All this overwhelms and astonishes her: "I don't know beans about math and science. It's like things that I all of a sudden understood intuitively almost, things about calculus, and about the way planets were made. And I don't know anything about that .... I felt there was nothing I didn't know." As these revelations are unfolding, Vicki notices that now next to her is a figure whose radiance is far greater than the illumination of any of the persons she has so far encountered. Immediately, she recognizes this being to be Jesus. He greets her tenderly, while she conveys her excitement to him about her new-found omniscience and her joy at being there with him. Telepathically, he communicates to her: "Isn't it wonderful? Everything is beautiful here, and it fits together. And you'll find that. But you can't stay here now. It's not your time to be here yet and you have to go back." Vicki reacts, understandably enough, with extreme disappointment and protests vehemently, "No, I want to stay with you." But the being reassures her that she will come back, but for now, she "has to go back and learn and teach more about loving and forgiving." Still resistant, however, Vicki then learns that she also needs to go back to have her children. With that, Vicki, who was then childless but who "desperately wanted" to have children (and who has since given birth to three) becomes alnaost eager to return and finally consents. However, before Vicki can leave, the being says to her, in these exact words, "But first, watch this." And what Vicki then sees is "everything from my birth" in a complete panoramic review of her life, and as she watches, the being gently comments to help her understand the significance of her actions and their repercussions. The last thing Vicki remembers, once the life review has been completed, are the words, "You have to leave now." Then she experiences "a sickening thud" like a roller-coaster going backwards, and finds herself back in her body. In our study, such reports, replete with visual imagery, were the rule, not the exception, among our blind respondents. Altogether, 80 percent of our entire sample claimed some visual perception during their near-death or out-of-body encounters. Although Vicki's was unusual with respect to the degree of detail, it was hardly unique in our sample. Here, by way of comparison, is a summary of another of our cases, this time involving a young man named Brad who had his NDE when he was an eight-year-old. Brad's NDE took place during the winter of 1968 when he was living at the Boston Center for Blind Children. At this time,Brad developed pneumonia and eventually had severe breathing difficulties. Afterward, he was told by nurses that his heart had stopped, apparently for at least four minutes, and that CPR had been necessary to bring him back. Brad remembers that when he couldn't breathe any longer, he felt himself lifting up from the bed and floating through the room toward the ceiling. He saw his apparently lifeless body on the bed. He also saw his blind roommate get up from his bed and leave the room to get help. (His roommate later confirmed this.) Brad then found himself rapidly going upward through the ceilings of the building until he was above the roof. At this point, he found that he could see clearly. Brad estimates that it was between 6:30 and 7 in the morning when this happened. He noticed that the sky was cloudy and dark. There had been a snowstorm the day before, and Brad could see snow everywhere except for the streets, which had been plowed, though they were still slushy. (He was able to give us a very detailed description of the way the snow looked.) Brad could also see the snow banks that the plows had created. He saw a street car go by. Finally, he recognized a playground used by the children of his school and a particular hill he used to climb nearby. When asked if he "knew or saw" these things, he said: "I clearly visualized them. I could suddenly notice them and see them... I remember ... being able to see quite clearly..." After this segment of this experience was over (and it went very fast, he said), he found himself in a tunnel and emerged from it to find himself in an immense field illuminated by a tremendous, all-encompassing light. Everything was perfect. Brad could clearly see in this domain, too, though he commented that he was puzzled by the sensation of sight. He found himself walking on a path surrounded by tall grass, and also reported seeing tall trees with immense leaves. No shadows were visible, however. While in this field, Brad became aware of beautiful music, like nothing he had ever heard on Earth. Walking toward the sound, he came to and climbed a hill, eventually encountering a glittering stone structure so brilliant that he thought it might be burning hot. But it wasn't, and he entered it. The music continued here as well and, to Brad, seemed to be praising God. In this structure, Brad encountered a man whom he didn't recognize but from whom emanated an overwhelming love. The man, without a word, gently nudged him backward, initiating a reversal of his experience that ended with Brad finding himself in bed gasping for air, attended by two nurses. Brad, like Vicki, has been blind from birth. What the cases of Vicki and Brad illustrate, and what we found in our study, is that blind persons normally report seeing both "things of this world" and otherworldly scenes when they transit into the transcendental realm of the NDE. Once they discover themselves in that domain, seeing is often described as "perfectly natural" or "the way it's supposed to be." However, sometimes the initial onset of visual perception of the physical world is disorienting and even disturbing to the blind. This was true for Vicki, for example, who said: "I had a hard time relating to it [i.e. seeing]. I had a real difficult time relating to it because I've never experienced it. And it was something very foreign to me... Let's see, how can I put it into words? It was like hearing words and not being able to understand them, but knowing that they were words. And before you'd never heard anything. But it was something new, something you'd not been able to previously attach any meaning to." Later, in commenting on the shock of these initial visnal impressions, V'icki even used the word "frightening" to characterize them. We note that this period of disorientation mirrors, in some ways, the experience of persons born with congenital cataracts who have their sight restored in later life. In such cases, the newly sighted have trouble distinguishing between even simple objects and shapes and it often takes some time and training before they adapt to the visual environment. Similarly, visual perception in the blind during NDEs may require a period of adjustment before it becomes self-organizing and coherent. But once it does, it is as if the individual has been seeing his or her whole life. Brad commented on the naturalness of his own perception in the other-worldly domain: "It was like it was always there... It was so natural, it was almost as if I should have always been able to see like that... I could never understand why I never could do that back in my own body, yet it was so unbelievably natural... I thought to myself, I should be able to carry this right back with me. It's just something I've always had .... I was very comfortable with it." How well do our respondents find they can see during these episodes? We have already noted that the visual perceptions of Vicki and Brad were extremely clear and detailed, especially when they found themselves in the otherworldly portions of their near-death journeys. While not all of our blind NDErs had clear, articulated visual impressions, nevertheless enough of them did, so that we can conclude that the prototypic NDE cases we have presented in this article are fairly typical in this regard. We have many other examples. One interviewee whose sight perished completely as a result of a stroke at age 22 and was near-sighted before that, saw her body, her doctor, and the operating room during her NDE. She said: "I know I could see and I was supposed to be blind... And I know I could see everything... It was very clear when I was out. I could see details and everything." Another man who lost his vision in a car accident at the age of 19 had a comforting vision of his deceased grandmother across a valley during his NDE. In commenting on his clarity, he said: "Of course I had no sight because I had total destruction of my eyes in the accident, but [my vision] was very clear and distinct... I had perfect vision in that experience." Still another man, this one blind from birth, found himself in an enormous library during the transcendental phase of his NDE and saw "thousands and millions and billions of books, as far as you could see." Asked if he saw them visually, he replied, "Oh, yes!" Did he see them clearly? "No problem." Was he surprised at being able to see thus? "Not in the least. I said, 'Hey, you can't see,' and I said, 'Well, of course I can see. Look at those books. That's ample proof that I can see."' But as common and sincere as these claims of seeing seem to be, how can we be sure they do not represent some kind of fantasy or complex hallucination on the part of the blind or simply an expression of wish fulfillment? In our study, whenever possible, we attempted to gather corroborative evidence from independent sources in order to be able to document that our respondents' perceptions did have some basis in fact. Here, for example, is a summary of one such case, and probably our most persuasive instance that what the blind report seeing it cannot be written off as purely subjective experience. A 41-year-old woman underwent a biopsy in 1991 in connection with a possible cancerous chest tumor. During the procedure, the surgeon inadvertently cut her superior vena cava, then compounded his error by sewing it closed, causing a variety of medical catastrophes including blindness — a condition that was discovered only shortly after surgery when she was examined in the recovery room. At that time, she was rushed in a gurney down the corridor in order to have au angiogram. However, the attendants, in their haste, slammed her gurney into a closed elevator door at which point the woman had an out-of-body experience. She told us she floated above the gurney and could see her body below. However, she also said she could see down the hall where two men — the father of her son and her current lover — were both standing, looking shocked. In trying to corroborate her claims, we interviewed the two men. The first man could not recall the precise details of that particular incident, but the second witnessw — her lover — did and independently confirmed all the essential facts of this event. (It should be noted, by the way, that this witness has been separated from our participant for several years, and they had not even communicated for at least a year before we interviewed him.) Furthermore, even if she had not been blind at the time, the respirator on her face during this accident would have partially occluded her visual field and certainly would have prevented the kind of lateral vision necessary for her to view these men down the hall. But the fact is, according to indications in her medical records and other evidence we have garnered, she appears already to have been completely blind when this event occurred. So if the blind do indeed "see" during these NDEs, how is it possible for them, at least under these extreme conditions, apparently to transcend the sensory restrictions that have hitherto imprisoned them in a sightless world? Does seeing really depend on the eyes, after all? Or, alternatively, is there another form of awareness that comes into play when, whether one is blind or not, an individual is thrust into a state of consciousness in which one's sensory system is no longer functional? In exploring such questions, we were forced to consider a gamut of alternative interpretations for our findings. These ranged from conventional psychology (e.g., dream-based explanations of NDEs or sensory-cueing hypotheses) through little known studies of blindsight and skin-based theories of vision, to perspectives based on esoteric and metaphysical systems, which postulate the existence of subtle bodies and spiritual senses. In the end, however, we found that none of these potential interpretations could provide an adequate explanation for the results of our study. What ultimately proved more availing for us involved a refraining of our findings in the form of a question: Is what we discovered in our blind respondents truly a form of seeing? That is, is it in any sense something that might be conceived of as an analogue to physical sight? We were led to ponder this question because a brace of telling considerations continued to draw us back to it ineluctably. For one thing, a close reading of our transcripts frequently revealed a multifaceted synesthetic aspect to the experiencer's perception that seems to transcend simple sight. Some of our interviewees, for example, were hesitant to assert that what they were able to describe was incontestably visual, either because they were blind from birth and didn't know what vision was like, or because they knew they couldn't possibly be seeing with their physical eyes. The following comments were typical of this vein: "It wasn't visual. It's really hard to describe because it wasn't visual. It was almost like a tactile thing, except that there was no way I could have touched from up there. But it really wasn't visual because I just don't have vision any more... It [was] sort of a tactile memory or something. It's not really like vision is. Vision is more clear." And another: "I think what it was that was happening here was a bunch of synesthesia, where all these perceptions were being blended into some image in my mind, you know, the visual, the tactile, all the input that I had. I can't literally say I really saw anything, but yet I was aware of what was going on, and perceiving all that in my mind... But I don't remember detail. That's why I say I'm loath to describe it as a visual." And still another: "What I'm saying is I was more aware. I don't know if it's through sight that I was aware... I'm not sure. All I know is ... somehow I was aware of information or things that were going on that I wouldn't normally be able to pick up through seeing... That's why I'm being very careful how I'm wording it, 'cause I'm not sure where it came from. I would say to you I have a feeling it didn't come from seeing, and yet I'm not sure." Even Brad, whose initial testimony seemed so clear on this point, eventually qualified and clarified his earlier remarks abou his memory of seeing snow on the streets outside his school. In subsequent interview, he said: "I was quite aware of all the things that were physically mentioned in there [i.e., his earlier description]. However, whether was seen visually through the eyes, I could not say... I mean, you have to remember, being born blind, I had no idea whether those images were visual... It was something like a tactual sense, like I could literally feel with the fingers of my mind. But I did not remember actually touching the snow... The only thing I can really state about those images was that they came to me in an awareness and that I was aware of those images in a way I did not really understand. I could not really say that they were visual per se because I had never known anything like that before. But I could say that all my senses seemed to be very active and very much aware. I was aware." A second clue came from our gradual realization that the blind often use vision verbs far more casually and loosely than sighted persons do. Vicki, for example, says that she loves to "watch" television and uses phrases such as, "look at this," which clearly cannot be taken literally. Although this observation does not, of course, necessarily invalidate our reports, it does send up another amber flag of caution when it comes to the interpretation of the narratives of our blind respondents. As this kind testimony builds, it seems more and more difficult to claim that the blind simply see what they report. Rather, it is beginning to appear that it is more a matter of their knowing — through a still poorly understood mode of generalized awareness — based on a variety of sensory impressions, especially tactile ones, what is happening around them. The question that immediately confronts us now, however, is as unavoidable as it is crucial: Why is it, then, that these reports, when casually perused, nevertheless often seem to imply that the blind do see in a way that is akin to physical sight? By this point, the answer, we believe, should be fairly obvious. However these experiences may have been coded originally, by the time we encounter them, they have long come to be expressed in a particular linguistic form. And that form is a language of vision, since our ordinary language is rooted in the experiences of sighted persons and is therefore biased in favor of visual imagery. Because the blind are members of the same linguistic community as sighted persons, we can certainly expect that they will tend — indeed will be virtually compelled — to phrase their experiences in a language of vision, almost regardless of its appropriateness to the qualities of their own personal experience. Now, this is not to say that as part of this multifaceted synesthetic awareness there will not be some sort of pictorial imagery as well; it is only to assert that it must not be understood as anything like physical vision per se. Even if we cannot assert that the blind see in these experiences in any straightforward way, we still have to reckon with the fact — and it does seem to be a fact — that they nevertheless do have access to a kind of expanded supersensory awareness that may in itself not be explicable by normal means. Perhaps, as we have suggested, although these reports may not in the end represent an analogue to retinal vision as such, they represent something that must be reckoned with. In
our view, we are inclined to believe that the blind — as well as others
who experience an NDE or OBE — enter into a distinctive state of
transcendental awareness that we would like to call mindsight.
When sensory systems fail, mindsight becomes potentially available to
us and affords direct access to a realm of transcendental knowledge to
which our normal waking state is barred. Under these conditions, "with
the doors of perception cleansed," things present themselves in true
Blakean fashion, "as they are, infinite." Thus it is that the blind can
perceive what they could not literally see, and can know what was
hitherto hidden to them. Clearly, this is not simple "vision" at all,
as we commonly understand it, but almost a kind of omniscience that
completely transcends what mere seeing could ever afford. In mindsight
it is not, of course, that the eyes see anything — how could they?
Instead it is the "I" that sees and suddenly beholds the world. Reprinted with the kind
permission of |