Dr Penny Sartori is always interested to hear from anyone who has had a NDE or similar experience. If you would like to share your experience, please email her at any of the following addresses:
About Penny
Penny Sartori was a nurse for 17 years in the Intensive Therapy Unit of a major hospital. Early in her career, a connection she made with a dying patient totally changed her life. After undertaking a five year research project into near-death experiences, Penny was awarded a PhD and has written, lectured and broadcast widely, and is now one of the UK's foremost experts on the subject of NDEs.
Follow me on Twitter: @drpennysartori
Recent posts
- Forthcoming Events This Weekend
- Quick Blog Update
- New NDE Support Group in the UK to be launched in London on Sunday June 1st 2014
- Huge Interest in NDEs Following Serialization of My Book The Wisdom Of Near-Death Experiences
- The Wisdom of Near-Death Experiences: How Understanding NDEs Can Help Us Live More Fully by Dr Penny Sartori will be released on 18th February 2014
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Hi Dr Penny
I linked to your site from Ken Ebert’s blog and this links to a blog which contains my own NDE or NDLE experience.
http://eccentricowl1.blogspot.com/
I would appreciate any further insights you may have.
Cheers!
Chris
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your comment. I’ve just checked out your blog and read about your experience. It was very interesting to read as it does have many components of the NDE.
Although you were not close to death at the time you do appear to have undergone a mystical experience. There are many similar experiences in the archives of the Alister Hardy Society / Religious Experience Research Centre at the University of Wales, Lampeter – http://www.alisterhardysociety.org
There is also another helpful website: American Center for the Integration of Spiritually Transformative Experiences – http://aciste.org
I think you have a good insight into your experience as you put:
‘I accept that my psyche may have dressed up certain elements (eg: the salamander robe and the book on the rostrum) to make them comprehensible…’
But you also know that it was far much more than that.
These experiences are really life changing and many are left searching for further understanding and meaning. Its unfortunate that these experiences have been given so little attention over the years but I think that interest in them is now increasing and they are begining to be taken seriously hence I’m sure continuing research will increase our understanding of these very important experiences.
Have you had any after effects? Many people report some unusual and sometimes unwelcome after effects after such an experience – have you noticed anything in particular?
Not only you are bright, Penny, but you are beautiful
And you do valuable research.
Oo thank you Dina – I’m not used to getting such lovely comments. For me the research has completely taken over my life, it is such a fascinating area of research to be involved with that I believe can benefit many people.
I am so grateful to have found this blog. Dr. Sartori words cannot express the joy and hope found in your hard work and research. I have such respect for your methodology and your dedication. You talk about benefiting many people. At a time of intense soul searching and deep tribulation in my personal life, when it didnt feel like there was a reason to go on, your research and the stories you posted are giving me new motivation to continue to live, smile, and love, and continue in my career as a elementary teacher. Just the opportunity to drop you this message has made my day. Best of luck in whatever projects and endeavors you are currently working on. You have my unwavering support.
Hi Marc-Andre, thank you so much for your lovely message. It’s been a real honour to be able to undertake my research, I have been really inspired by the patients I looked after when I was a nurse and by the hundreds of people who have written to me about their NDEs. I have learned so much from my work and it has really enriched my life. I hope I can pass on what I have learned so that it can benefit others.
Your comment has made my day!
Dear ms penny,
I have reading a lot of texts on nde… What intrigues me the most is why is there a lot of different religious icons appear in different experience? That is really mid boggling? I always believe there is a greater power at play and with that, such Source should appear the same to everybody. However, it is comforting to know that a lot of the nde are pleasant experiences.
HI Nina, you have asked a very good question and make a good point. It appears that when people are experiencing an NDE they are accessing a heightened state / alternate state of consciousness. Carl Jung had a theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious so it seems that this is what is accessed during an NDE. When in this state, although it is a universal experience, people interpret it according to their individual cultural filters. So for example, someone from the West may report meeting Jesus whereas someone from the East may report meeting a Hindu deity. We have all been brought up with various different religious imagery around us and many of us have had religious teachings while in school etc so it appears that people interpret their NDE according to the images that are familiar to them.
Hi Penny,
I had a question about your interview with patient 10. In one of the parts of the paper you describe the patient as correctly identifying a Docter shining light in his eye that he had never seen before… I was wondering how did you figure out that he was able to indentify the correct Docter.. because in the transcripts it seems like you tell him the consultant shined light in his eye… was he able to indentify this Docter correctly before the interview… thanks….
Hi Jason, Patient 10 had already identified which doctor had touched his eye by pointing to him when he first reported the experience to the ward round, prior to the interview with myself. When I told the patient, in the interview, it was the consultant who had shone the torch in his eyes it was for the purpose of clarifying that he was a consultant as opposed to the more junior doctors that he was more familiar with. For a fuller answer see my reply to Vortex who asked the same question last week.
Thanks Penny and I love the work that you are doing,
I just has more questions… so the patient had never seen the consultant thats what I get from you paper.. and all of his verdical details happened while he was deeply unconciousness??
Thanks…
Hi Jason,
Yes, Patient 10 had seen the consultant before but because he was not in the clinical area as frequently as the other doctors Patient 10 wasn’t clear about what kind of doctor he was. In ITU there are multiple teams of doctors in addition to the anaesthetists depending on the condition of the patient – some patients may be under the care of a surgical team, others may be under the care of the medical team or an orthopaedic or renal team. The doctors that patients most frequently see in ITU are the junior anaesthetic doctors, except for when the ward round is going on – the consultant is always present on the ward round. Therefore Patient 10 was used to seeing the more junior doctors but wasn’t so familiar with the consultant which is why I pointed out he was a consultant.
Yes, the veridical details reported occurred when the patient was deeply unconscious.
Hi Penny,
I had a question about patient 10. In your full interview did he mention something about seeing diffrenent types of phones and where these visions correct????
Hi Jason,
In the second full interview I did with Patient 10 (which was conducted approximately 6 months to a year after the initial interview – I’d have to check my original notes for the exact time interval) yes, he did mention seeing different phones. What he reported was correct but not particularly veridical. It wasn’t veridical as his bed was in front of the nurses station and the red back up phone was in his line of vision. Although the other phones were on the desk behind the shelf he may not have been able to see the base of the phone from his position but he would certainly have been able to see the nurses holding the handset (and therefore describe the correct colour) from where he was on the bed. There was no way to check that this was seen during the time he was unconscious or if this was a memory from when he was fully conscious.
Ok so he got the color of the phones right?
Hi Jason, he was very vague about the phones and he only mentioned them in the second interview which didn’t really coinvince me that he had seen them at the time of his OBE but the memory was in his mind from when he had seen them while conscious. The nurses station was in full view from his position on the bed so for the wole duration of his stay in that bed he would have seen different nurses and doctors etc on the phone constantly throughout the day.
He described the incorrect colour – he described ‘two normal and one reddish’ in colour. There was one red back up phone which was in view from his bed. When I asked him to be more specific about the colour of the other phones he described them as not white but a dirty grey. There were three phones (plus the red back up phone). Two were white and one was dark grey.
This second follow up interview was conducted well over a year after the NDE.
Greetings from New Zealand
Heard an interview with you yesterday morning and went out and ordered your book: Interested in your sense of conciousness being independent of the human brain (if I heard you right) so am looking forward to what you have to write in “Wisdom ……NDE” And the filters we use to block. Thank you.
Mark Chapman
Clevedon Presbyterian Church
New Zealand
Hi Mark, thank you for your comment and thanks for ordering my book, I hope you enjoy it.
Oh gosh – a reply LOL. So gracious of you. Still fascinated by what seems to happen when the filters cease to function (the walls come down?) and unexplainable things happen. As a conservative Christian minister, I am aware of what are called miraculous, sometimes instantaneous physical healing. My medical colleagues tell me they happen to people with a religious faith and without. Others though prayed for, experience no change.
I wonder if it is possible that at times we allow (the filters come down?), Love (God), to break in with an amazing transforming power. Just wondering – I know it’s off the topic of your book – but I wonder. Thanks for reading – and I am enjoying reading and re reading your book. Peace and Grace to you and thanks
Mark Chapman
Hi Mark, sorry for my delayed reply to your last comment. I’ve been so busy that I’ve had very little time to attend to the blog recently.
Yes, these experiences can happen to people of all faiths, people who have no faith and also to atheists. There is an interesting book by Howard Storm who was an atheist who had an NDE which then motivated to become a minister.
Many people describe the essence of their NDE as pure, unconditional love which is often life transforming. I love two of the quotes from two of the case histories in my book:
Christine Stewart says:
My belief is that if everyone had an NDE there would never be another war, no one would ever starve or be the victim of violence and greed would become a thing of the past.
Jules Lyons:
I often think that if every single person on earth had an NDE tonight, and ventured to the world beyond, then tomorrow morning, we would all wake up to the dawn of a very different world here on earth.