Feb
21stThe Death Experience

by Dolores Cannon

Since I began my work in 1979, I have had hundreds and hundreds of people go through the death experience. They have died in every conceivable manner: accidents, shooting, stabbing, fire, hanging, decapitation, drowning, and even in one case by death in an atomic explosion, which I reported in my book A Soul Remembers Hiroshima. They have also died naturally from heart attacks, disease, old age and peacefully in their sleep. Although there has been a great deal of diversity, there have also been definite patterns that have emerged. The manner of death may be different but what happens afterward is always the same. Thus I have come to the conclusion that there is really no reason to fear death. We subconsciously know what happens and what lies over there. We should; we have had so much practice at it. We have all gone through it countless times before. So in my study of death, I have found the celebration of life. It is far from being a morbid subject, but a most fascinating other world.

With death also comes wisdom. Something happens with the shedding of the physical body and a whole new dimension of knowledge opens up. Apparently the human being is limited and hampered by being in the physical. The personality or spirit that continues on is not hindered in this way and can perceive so much more than we can even imagine. Thus when I talked to these people after they had “died,” I was able to obtain the answers to many puzzling and perplexing questions – questions that have haunted humankind since the beginning of time. What the spirit reported depended upon the personal spiritual growth of that spirit. Some had more knowledge than others and were able to express it clearer in terms that were easier for us mortals to grasp. I will attempt to describe what they experienced by letting them speak for themselves. This is a compilation of what many people reported.

The most common descriptions I have found of the moment when death occurs is that there is a feeling of coldness and then suddenly the spirit is standing by the side of the bed (or wherever) looking at their body. They usually can’t understand why the other people in the room are so upset because they feel so wonderful. The overall sensation is one of exhilaration rather than dread.

The following is a description of the moment of release by a woman in her 80’s who was dying of old age. It is an example that is typical and constantly repeated.

D: [Dolores] You lived a long time, didn’t you?

S: [Subject] Um, yes. I move slow, takes so long. (Moaning) There’s not much joy any more. I am so tired.

Since she was obviously experiencing discomfort, I moved her ahead in time until the death was over. When I finished counting the subject’s entire body jerked on the bed and she suddenly smiled. Her voice was full of life, nothing that even resembled the weary tones of only a moment before. “I feel free! I’m light!” She sounded so pleased.

D: Can you see the body?

S: (Disgusted) Ohh! That old thing? It’s down there! Ohh! I had no idea I looked so bad! I was so wrinkled and shriveled. I feel too good to be that shriveled. It was all wore out. (She was making sounds of delight.) Oh, oh, I’m so glad I’m here!

I could hardly keep from laughing, her expression and tone of voice was quite a contrast.

D: No wonder it was shriveled; that body lived many years. That’s probably why it died. You said you are “here”. Where are you?

S: I’m in the light, and oooh, it feels good! I feel intelligent . . . I feel peace . . . I feel calm. I don’t need anything.

D: What are you going to do now?

S: They tell me I’ve got to go and rest. Oh, I hate to rest when I’ve got so much to do.

D: Do you have to rest if you don’t want to?

S: No, but I don’t feel like I want to be cramped again. I want to grow and learn.

After this I was unable to get any more answers from her except that she was floating. I could tell by her expression and her breathing that she was in the resting place. When a subject goes there it is as if they have drifted into a deep sleep and they don’t want to be disturbed. It is useless to try to question them because their answers will be incoherent.

In another case a woman was reliving the birth of a baby at home. Her breathing and bodily movements showed that she was experiencing the physical symptoms of childbirth. This often occurs when the body remembers as well as the mind. In order not to cause the subject discomfort I moved her ahead in time to when the birth should have been over.

D: Did you have the baby?

S: No. I had a difficult time. It just wouldn’t come. I was wore out, so I just left my body.

D: Do you know what the baby was?

S: No. It doesn’t make any difference.

D: Can you see your body?

S: Yes. Everybody’s upset.

D: What are you going to do now?

S: I think I’m going to rest. I’ve got to come back eventually, but I’m going to stay here awhile. I’m in the light. It’s restful.

D: Can you tell me where this light is?

S: Where all knowledge and everything is known. Everything is pure and simple. There is more pure truth here. You don’t have the things of the world to confuse you. You have the truth on Earth but you just don’t see it.

D: But you said you have to come back sometime. How do you know that?

S: I was weak. I should have been able to tolerate the pain. I must learn to better withstand it. I could have stayed if I hadn’t been so weak. I’m glad I can’t remember the pain. I know I need to go back and I must become complete, whole. Pain is one thing I must overcome. I must overcome all the pains of the world.

D: But experiencing pain is very human and it’s always difficult to do when you’re in the body. From the side you’re on now, it’s easier to look at it in a different way. Do you think that’s a lesson you want to learn?

S: I will, yes. It takes me awhile sometimes, but I can do anything. I think I should have been stronger. I would have done better, but I think I had a lot of fear from the illness I had when I was a child. I was afraid that this would be as bad. And … I gave up. Pain … when you deal with the higher conscious level of your mind and remove yourself to the pure light and the pure thought; the pain ceases to be. Pain is only a lesson. When we learn about pain on the human level, we get frantic and show outward concern for just the moment. By removing ourselves and concentrating and reaching deep and having patience, we can rise above it.

D: Does pain have a purpose?

S: Pain is a teaching tool. Sometimes it is used to humble certain people. Sometimes a haughty spirit can be brought down and taught to be more gracious through suffering. It may teach them that they must eventually learn to rise above the pain, and then they can deal with it. Sometimes just understanding pain and why we have it, lessens the pain.

D: But like you said, people become frantic and they think they can’t handle it.

S: They become too self-centered. They need to rise above their own interests and what they’re feeling at the moment to a more spiritual level and then they can deal with it. Now, some people, they bring the pain on because it’s a shelter. They may have the pain as an excuse or as an “out,” and that’s the purpose. It varies with the individual. What is pain? It cannot touch you if you don’t let it. If you admit that you will hurt, you’re giving power to pain. Do not give it power. It’s unnecessary to feel it. It’s all connected to man. Reach into your spirit, your higher mind, it has no hold on you

D: People can separate themselves from pain?

S: Of course, if they want to. They don’t always want to. They want the sympathy and self-punishment and all sorts of things. People are funny. Everyone knows how to do these things if they take the time. They must find a way for themselves because they wouldn’t believe it if you told them there was an easier way. They have to figure it out on their own. That’s part of the lessons that get you there.

D: People are so afraid of dying. Can you tell me what it is like when it happens?

S: Well, when I’m in the body it feels heavy. It pulls on me. It’s just uncomfortable. But when you die it’s a lifting of weight. It’s relaxing. People carry all those problems around. And it’s like they are carrying around a weight because they are heavy and laden with all these other things. When you die it’s like tossing them out the window and it feels good. It’s a transition.

D: I guess people are mostly afraid because they don’t know what to expect.

S: They fear the unknown. They must just have faith and just trust.

D: What happens when somebody dies?

S: You just rise up and leave it. You go up here. In the light.

D: What do you do when you’re there?

S: Perfect all things.

D: Where do you go if you have to go away from the light?

S: Back to Earth.

D: Is it unusual for us to speak to you through time like this?

S: But time has no meaning. On this frame there is no time, all time is one.

D: Then it doesn’t bother you that we speak to you from another time or plane?

S: Why should it?

D: Well, we thought it might and I didn’t want to disturb you.

S: I find that it disturbs you more than it does I.

Another example concerns a little girl who died at the age of nine. When I first began speaking to her she was going on a hayride to a school picnic in the late 1800’s. There was a creek near where the picnic would be held and the others would be going swimming. She couldn’t swim very well and was afraid of the water, but she didn’t want the other children to know it for fear they would make fun of her. Since some of the others had fishing poles, she had decided she would pretend to fish so no one would know she couldn’t swim. The little girl was really worrying about it and was not enjoying the hayride at all. I told her to move forward to an important day when she was older. When I finished counting, she announced happily, “I‘m not there anymore. I’m in the light.” This was a surprise, so I asked what had happened.

S: (Sadly) I couldn’t swim. The dark just closed in on me. I felt my chest burning. And then I just came out into the light, and it didn’t matter any more.

D: Do you think the creek was deeper than you thought?

S: I don’t think it was that deep. I got real scared. I think my knees just folded up and I couldn’t stand up. I was just scared.

D: Do you know where you are?

S: (Her voice was still childish.) I’m in forever.

D: Is anybody with you?

S: They’re working. They’re all busy … contemplating what they have to do. I’m trying to get the hang of everything.

D: Do you think you’ve ever been to this place before?

S: Yes, it’s very peaceful here. But I’ll go back. I must overcome fear. Fear is something you bring on and it is paralyzing. I don’t really think the water was deep. I think I doubled up because of my fear. The worst thing that can happen usually isn‘t near as bad as what we fear. (The voice was now more mature.) It’s a monster in man’s mind and fear only affects those on Earth. It’s the carnal mind. The spirit is left unaffected.

D: Do you think when people are afraid of things that they draw it to them?

S: Oh, yes! You bring those things upon yourself. Thought is energy; it is creative and it makes things happen. It‘s easy to see how another person’s fears can be silly and unimportant and you think, “Why would they be afraid of that?’’ Yet when it’s your fear, it’s so deep and so personal and so touching that it just engulfs you. So if I can look at other people’s fears and try to help them understand theirs, I think somewhere along those lines it would help me understand the ones I had.

D: That makes a lot of sense. You know one of the biggest fears people have is that they are so afraid of dying.

S: That’s not so bad. That’s the easiest thing I’ll ever do. It’s like the end of all confusion, until you start all over again, and then it’s more confusion.

D: Then why do people keep coming back?

S: You must complete the cycle. You must learn all and overcome all the things of the world so you can enter into perfection and everlasting life.

D: That’s a big order though, to try to learn everything.

S: Yes. Sometimes it’s very tiring.

D: Seems like it would take a long time.

S: Well, from where I am here it all seems so simple. I am in control. For instance, I can understand the fear, and the way I feel now; I feel like I couldn’t be touched by it. Yet there’s something about the human person. When you’re there, it engulfs you. I mean, it becomes part of you and it touches you and it’s not so easy to stand off and be objective.

D: No, it’s because you’re emotionally involved. It’s always easy for somebody else to look at it and say, “How simple.”

S: It’s like looking at somebody else’s fears. I must learn to endure and stay with a life and not leave until I can take as much as I possibly can from that life. I think if I had a life that I could stay with to go through many experiences, it would be much easier than going through so many short lives. I’m wasting a lot of time. So I will choose carefully to get one where I can experience many things and therefore limit my trips back. But I also think it will be harder. There are certain things you have to work out between people while interacting in a relationship. What you do comes around.

There has long been an expression in our culture, that when you are dying your life “flashes before your eyes.’’ This has occurred in some of the cases I have investigated. It happens more often after death when the deceased looks back over their life and analyzes it to see what they have learned from it. This is often done with the help of the masters on the other side, who are able to look at the life more objectively, with emotions removed.

One of my subjects was able to review her past life in an unconventional way. Although it’s difficult to say what is conventional and what follows a set pattern when you’re working in this field of regressive hypnotic research.

The woman had just relived a past lifetime through regression and had come to the point of death in that life. She died peacefully as an old woman, and watched as her body was taken to a hilltop near her home to be buried in a family cemetery. Then instead of going on to the other side, she decided to return to her home to try to complete some unfinished business. There she was startled to find herself appearing as a ghost, and having the ability to walk through walls. She saw herself as a fog or mist in the shape of a person, but she was amazed to discover that furniture and objects could be seen through her, as though she was transparent. It was very interesting to her to find herself in this strange condition, and she wandered through the house discovering what she was able to do. At one point she overheard the chambermaids remark that the old woman was haunting the house, because they could hear her walking around.

After a while being a ghost became boring, because she knew no one could see or hear her, and she was unable to communicate. She soon discovered that she would not be able to accomplish whatever she had gone back to the house to do, because of her unsolid state. The instant she came to this revelation she was out of the house, and standing on a hill overlooking a valley. Her deceased husband had come to meet her, and was standing next to her. In that dimension they were young again, looking exactly as they had on the day of their marriage. As they stood arm-in-arm looking out over the valley, it became a “valley of life”. She later described this as if a brightly colored pallet or quilt had been thrown over the valley, and it appeared as a collage of scenes and places from the life she had just left. Instead of her life passing before her eyes in linear fashion, one scene following the other, the whole thing was laid out before them.

She said, “We can see the cemetery, we can see the city, we can see the house, we can see the mountains. It’s like we can see everything we’ve ever known all combined together. It’s as if this was our life, and this is what we had together. And we can see that we shared it and we got through it together. We were glad we came through that life like we did. We had something intact when it was over with. It’s peaceful. It’s sort of like you stand there and survey. As if you had some great big fields, and you had different things growing in them. Or if you had lots of flowers in a garden, and you stand and survey it. You’d remember what you did to get the garden ready. You’d remember how things grew and developed. And this was the final result spread out before you. You look out over this valley of life, point to certain areas, and you say, ‘Well, we really did have a good time here, and this was the great thing that we did together here.’ You’re admiring all the different parts of the garden, and you can see it all at once. All the different scenes of your life are laid out, and you can touch them. It was literally as though we were going through a scrapbook looking at our lives, but it was more or less like a valley.”

This was very satisfying to her to look at the scenes, even though the hard parts of the life were difficult to review. There was also no judgment involved. There appeared to be a mental note-taking to remind them of what they wanted to change the next time around. This is undoubtedly not the only method of viewing the life that had just been departed, but it was a beautiful one.

In another case I was speaking to a man who had just died in an avalanche. I asked him what it was like to die.

S: Have you ever dived into a deep pool . . . to where it’s dark and murky at the bottom? As you come back up towards the surface of the water it gets lighter and lighter. Then when you break through the surface of the water there’s sunlight all around. Death was like that.

D: Do you think it was like that because of the way you died, with the rocks falling on you?

S: No, it was like that because I was going from the physical plane to the spiritual plane. As I left my body it was like coming up through the pool. Then when I reached the spiritual plane it was like breaking the surface of the water and coming out into sunlight. If you die in an accident, physically it is painful just before you lose consciousness of the physical plane because your body has been injured. But after you lose consciousness it is very easy and natural. It’s as natural as anything else in life: making love, walking, running, swimming. It is just another part of life. There’s no such thing as dying. You just go on to a different stage of your life. If people are worried about it, tell them to go to a place in the river that has a deep pool. Tell them to dive down to the bottom of the pool. And then, at the bottom push up vigorously with their feet and come plunging up to the surface. Tell them it is like that.

D: I think many people are worried that death will be painful.

S: Death is not painful unless that you have need of pain. For the most part there is no pain unless it is wished for. It can be extremely painful if you wish it to be or if you feel you have need of it in order to teach you a lesson. But you can separate yourself from that at all times. And this is available no matter how connected you are with what is going on. It is available to everyone, the separation of the body and soul during this time of pain.

D: But the actual death itself, the leaving of the body, is that painful?

S: No. The transition is one of ease rather than of duress. Pain comes from the body. The spirit feels no pain except remorse. That is really the only pain that a spirit can feel. A feeling that they could have done something . . . more. This is painful. But physical pain no longer has meaning because that was left with the body.

D: Is it possible to leave the body before actual death occurs and let the body suffer the pain?

S: Yes. The person has that choice, whether or not they want to stay there and go through it or if they want to leave and just watch. That is an option that is open to everyone.

D: I personally think it would be easier, especially if it was going to be a traumatic death.

S: This is strictly up to the individual.

In my work I have come across examples of this. In one regression a young woman was being burned at the stake for her beliefs while the whole town watched. She was terrified but was also very angry at the bigoted people who were responsible for this. As the flames leaped higher, she decided she would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her suffer. So she left the body and watched from a hovering position above the scene. There, much to her chagrin and aggravation, she saw her body screaming as it went through the agonies of burning to death. In this case it was very obvious that the body and the spirit were two separate things.

I think it would be very reassuring and comforting to people who have lost loved ones in a violent, horrible way, to know that they probably did not even experience the most traumatic part of the death. It makes a great deal of sense to realize that the spirit would not want to remain in the body and experience all that pain. Therefore the spirit removes itself and the body is merely reacting spontaneously. Much in the same way that we react when we cut or burn ourselves accidentally. We yell and pull our hand away. This is not a conscious reaction but an involuntary one. Thus it would appear that during a horrible death the body is merely reacting while the real personality has vacated and is watching from the sidelines.

Another Description Of Death

S: Imagine yourself naked, cold and bleeding, walking through the dark woods full of briers and wild animals and strange noises. You know that behind every bush is a beast ready to pounce and tear you apart. And then suddenly you walk into a clearing where there is grass growing and birds singing, clouds in the sky and a pleasant laughing brook that meanders on its way to its destination. Imagine the difference in these scenarios and you can see my analogy portraying what you would call life and death.

D: But there are many people on Earth who are afraid of it.

S: Many people who are in the forest are afraid, that is correct. Once they are out of the forest there is no fear. The fear is in the forest.

D: Then there is nothing to be afraid of in the transition?

S: There are some transitions which are more desirable than others. I will not mince words on this. However, a door is merely a door. No matter how many times you open it, it simply will not change from being a door.

Another Description

S: People should not be afraid of dying. Death is no more to be feared than breathing. Dying is as natural and as painless as . . . blinking your eyes. And that’s almost the way it is. At one moment you’re in one plane of existence and you blink your eyes, so to speak, and you’re in another plane of existence. That’s about the physical sensation you have, and it’s as painless as that. Any pain you feel in the process is from physical damage, but spiritually there is no pain. Your memories are intact and you feel the same, as if your life is continuing. Sometimes it takes you a little bit to notice that you’re no longer connected to your physical body, but usually that is noticed right away because your perceptions are broadened to where you can perceive the spiritual plane without the veil in the way. This is the clouded mirror, as some have likened it to. What happens is that at first there is a period of orientation. You are still very conscious of the physical plane but you are exploring and absorbing the sensations of being aware of the spiritual plane, until you get used to the fact that you’re really on the spiritual plane and you are comfortable with it.

D: Can you tell me, does your spirit include your soul when it leaves your body?

S: Your spirit is your soul. The soul concept encompasses that energy which you would call your spirit, your identity, your reality. That is indeed your true self. You may call it your spirit or your soul depending on which perception you would choose to integrate into your reality.

D: What about people who seem to die in groups? There are many cases such as train accidents, massacres, earthquakes, where several people die at one time. Did they all choose to go at the same time or did they have anything to say about it?

S: You are aware of the concept of karma on an individual basis. There is indeed also what is called “group” karma. There have been, through many eons of time, instances where souls have tended to group together to perform certain tasks, or to establish changes, or to experience life in a group, much as you tend to experience on an individual basis. These “group deaths” are nothing more than individual souls who would come together at some certain points in their transition; that is, in their learning experience of dying. And in so doing find themselves at a juncture at which it would be most appropriate for them to depart simultaneously.

D: Did they agree to do this before their entry into the life?

S: That is accurate. For it is in this group transition that they find support. There is a sharing of the experience in that they are not alone in this transition. In many cases there have been multiple births and lives shared, so it is not uncommon to find multiple or shared deaths.

Many subjects describe the experience after leaving the physical body as journeying toward a bright dazzling light at the end of a tunnel. These descriptions have been duplicated in reports of NDES (Near Death Experiences). One of my subjects said that this white light was an intense energy field that served as the barrier between our physical world and the spiritual realm. In NDES the person will approach the light, but are pulled back into their body before entering it. They have actually been in a near death situation, but they did not complete the transition. They did not go far enough. When my subjects have relived the death experience, they pass through the white light, the barrier. At that point the energy is so intense that it severs the “silver cord,” the umbilical that attaches the spirit to the physical body. When this occurs the spirit cannot cross back through the barrier and enter their body again. The two have been forever separated. Without this connection to its life force (the soul or spirit) the body quickly begins to deteriorate.

Excerpt from Between Death & Life

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