THE IMPACT AND HEALING JOURNEY OF A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES

PMH Atwater had three in three months. So Aron, I look back at it I call it that heavenly sledgehammer effect yeah, boom boom, who went right after that crash cart. My first one was January 2, 1977 that was a miscarriage followed by extreme hemorrhaging two days later January 4, 1977. Oh dear, I had a major thrombosis in the right side vein which dislodged followed by the worst case of fibrosis the specialist never heard of the lung [unintelligible] that caused the second death. The third one was March 29, few months later, couple of months later still to this day they don't know what caused it. They think maybe it was a heart attack but they don't know for sure. So I’m speaking here of September and October I had three major relapses, one of which was total adrenal failure. I was working at the bank with a blood pressure reading of 60/60 which means I wasn't doing well and working at the bank for very long. You know, when we talk about near death experiences with most people talk about near death experiences they don't seem to realize that most of these cases calm from violence or trauma so you've got a body to rebuild afterword. So you're dealing way of what ever occurred Plus the body issues and for me that was a big deal. I had to relearn how to crawl, how to stand, how to walk, how to run, how to climb stairs, how to tell the difference between left and right, how to see properly, hear properly and rebuild all my belief systems. Daily exercises were constant, classes were constant, I was determined to be a healthy human being again. And to figure out who I was you know it's not the second time in my life.

As a child I had to figure out who I was, now once again I had to figure out who I was that took a lot of doing, that was complicated for me about my third near death experience. You know a lot of near death experiences are return with this no way that they have a job to do, they have a mission to perform. They have to come back to do that and I was one of those who had a specific mission that was given to me. In my third near death experience I truly fully believe and I was at that point of creation itself and I was able to witness creation as it occurred and by the way it's ongoing and I was able to witness that process and the process of consciousness as it emerges from the act of creation and I wrote about that a lot at my book future memory. While I was there I heard a voice speak and this wasn't an angel. This isn't an angel’s voice or guide or guardian or any of these kind of special spiritual voices people here. I mean we don't have words for that kind of voice, since like it was so big so huge so immense bigger than the big like the universe itself was speaking to me. I called it the voice like none of other and that voice said to me quote, test, revelation you are to do the research one book for each death. It did not name book one, it did name book two and three. Book two by the way is “Future Memory.” Book three is a special manual I am now working on. It showed me what was to be an each book but not how to do the work or how long it would take me. When I was conscious again and revived that then became like a haunting voice sort of beating across my mind after I was reason to be human again which took about a year then I fell back on what I knew how to do. I'm a cops kid, I was rised in a police station, I knew and understood police investigative techniques, so I used that as my protocol. It was Elisabeth Kübler-Ross whom I met by accident and oh here Airport in Chicago, Illinois. I saw her there and I've seen pictures of her and I know who she was and I walked up to her and introduced myself and told her what had happened to me so her plane to Europe was late so we set out a bench just two of us, you know like a couple of schoolgirls and visited for about an hour and she was the one who validated my experience. She said I was a near death survivor, she did not use the word experiencer, she told me about the phenomenon that's for stuff I never heard of it from anybody and never heard of this book, it was Elizabeth that validated me. But her validation for me was more questions that it gave answers and that was the beginning of my work after I left Chicago and after I had met Elizabeth.

And how is that feeling meeting Elizabeth and getting the reorganization of what you're experienced and kind of like a road map on the way saying I'm on the right way how did you feel at that moment?

Oh, I’ll tell you. When I first saw her you know I had to swallow twice to get up the enough` courage to walk up to her and introduce myself but I did and after I introduced myself and said that I had a story to tell her and then we set on a little bench. This is two of us, it always is if I'd known her forever, really it was… there was no you know I wasn't in all of her just like her fame completely evaporated and all it was two of us talking as long last friends. And it was deep, it was profound and it was wonderful and I met her many times since then was with her many times since then and for me it was always that same feeling like I had known her forever like we were long lost friends and whenever we were around each other our conversation was always very deep.

I see, and where did you go after that? Did you continue on your search to bring the books to publish and to the world where did you go?

Oh dear Aaron, I started talking about my experience in Boise Idaho and most of my audiences did not believe me so I read against that hard wall of disbelief and I went to one professor, he wanted me to come and talk to him at Boise State University so I did and he grilled me, I mean grilled me as if I was some kind of a criminal for over an hour just asked me every question imaginable just grilled, grilled me, grilled me. And I faced him, I answered every question, I was just there, I was real at the end of one hour he said to me “okay you're ready now to do your work.” And I liked him kind of fun and said what? He said this whole thing was a test to find out if you're ready now to do your research and I tell you you're ready and you know that was kind of a strange but wonderful moment. So I decided to go in and start my research it began in a in a very unusual way because I had then my very first episode of future memory where you're living the future before it occurs and in detail and I was at my office in the Bank, it was Monday morning. About nine o'clock in the morning and I was sitting at my desk with a roomful of other analysts and I was flipping through the pages of a medical report and I was holding a pencil with my left hand and just flipping through the pages and all of us said I was living in the future one year in advance. All the places I would go, all the people I would see, what we would talk about all of it and I was living it physically it was this serial I mean it was absolutely real and then the episode that it should I was back at my desk.

And I remember asking the other analysts in the room “did you see anything, did you hear anything.” Because I was so shook up and none of them had seen or heard of saying. There are two points in that future memory episode that I could check that moment and one of them is that I was intending to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s death and dying seminar in a Shanti Nilaya, Southern California outside of Escondido California. Well, I mean I had tried before to get into that before I met her this I guess six months waiting lists so I just gave up. I didn't try any more. I did not leave Elizabeth with my name, address, phone number, nothing so there was no way she could have interfered. I had just received that phone number the night before from friends of mine who found it out from another person. So I had the phone number of Shanti Nilaya. I called and I'll never forget the woman who answered. Her name was Boots Martinson and you know I was just stuttering. I just might so my house I just might put my job and if I do I just not might be able to you know be in Escondido and Boots was laughing and she interrupted my little speech and she said she just get here. You're already registered and there's no way that I could be registered but I was already registered. When I actually got there, first thing I did was to look up Boots Martinson and I said show me your registration list.

So she did, she showed it to me, my name and address were typed on that page. Aaron, I had just bought that home a few months before hardly anybody knew that address, that new address was what was typed in that ledger and I asked Boots about that and she said well you know that was just one of the strange thing. She said one morning I wasn't on the ledger and by that evening I was and she didn't know how I got on there on the page either and the other one was the concessions of the mind. I knew the man but I didn't know his wife and they were living in Reston Virginia and I just knew that I had to move to Washington D.C. that I wanted to stay in the air for a while and when I was in Chicago my uncle gave me their phone number so I had a phone number, call them on the phone, his wife answered. I mean I didn't know her Aron, and her first words were “Its Providence, its Providence. You're going to come and live with us, it's Providence, God wants you here.” I didn't say anything except my name, so that did it.

I had an appointment that morning or right after lunch somewhere there to go to my boss Karen Woods to discuss a major promotion in the bank. I was going to get a bank title and I walked in the door and I said to Karen “I'm going to quit, I'm going to chase rainbows for a while” and she said “Shut up and sit down” her face got really white, and she said I want she didn't know I never have vision I deal do this psychic stuff, but that morning at four in the morning she woke up her husband so she never witnessed she saw me coming to her and saying “I'm going to quit I have to chase rainbows” and I was so sure of. All I could do is helm the table and say that's not fair, you know about it before I did, you know about it till nine in the morning you knew about it at four in the morning. So that's what started me that's how I wound up on the East Coast and that's where I began my research.

How did your family adapt to your experiences and your death experiences, were they open to it or skeptic?

I didn't have a husband at the time of course because I was already divorced. I had a son and two daughters. My son was kind of puzzled by the whole thing and my differences but he didn't make any kind of big deal about it, he was just okay, that's the way you are. My youngest daughter was very very puzzled, she didn't know quite how to handle it at all. I had many problems with her and she finally went chose to go and live with her father who was in the state of Washington, so she left. My oldest daughter who was collage age, she liked it all at first. You'll probably get a kick out of this you know Westerners we come from Idaho, southern Idaho. And Idahoans are very blunt and they're very interested in the fates they don't beat around the bush they don't pertain and the cards you're always on the table you know good cowboy cards are always on the table and that's true. And so Natalie came to me one day when I was still at home and she put her hands on her hips, she walked up to me and she wanted her finger in front of my face and she said “Well, you’re friendlier now that we used to be, I like talking but share not mom and I want mom back” well. We spent years hunting for that woman never did find her I don't know but up on to her. So you know I don't know about seven ten twelve years later I invited both of the kids to write me a letter and tell me their experiences of me and how I changed. And my son wrote back this growing letter that I had become this incredibly wonderful person. My youngest daughter decided that I was okay and she was very proud of me. My oldest daughter as you might think wrote two pages of complaints. I mean complaining complaining complain about some new me. She didn't like the new me at all and then the very last paragraph of this two page letter she said add a quote “You've done a lot of changing mom, now it's my turn.” So that tells me that deep in her heart of hearts she still did love me and she did respect me and that good will come of this but you know I'm going to put in a dependent on all of this because decades later. So I'm speaking maybe about five years ago, I heard from all three kids and of course now grown man and women families their own children of their own. They all look back at their childhood after I died and they all regretted a lot of it. They regretted the fact that I left Idaho, they regretted the fact that I took on my mission when about fulfilling by mission. They regretted the part that their mom was now belong to the world instead them and they all had problems with that and it took sessions with each one of them talking it out and figure out okay, where is their objections coming from, where is their pain coming from and why and it took about a year and a half but we were able to work it out with all three of them and they've all decided I'm okay. They all say they loved me very much that I may be different and weird but that's okay. But I've these grand children in Idaho and they've grown up with the new me. So they don't know any different. And they all think I'm okay. There's a price to pay here and there is a price to pay I don't care how loving the individual comes back I don't care how psyche, I don't care how creating, I don't care how innovative. I don't care how knowing, I don't care any of that. There is a price to pay and that price is with your friends, your family and even with yourself and that pricing includes or raises itself from round this issue of who are you really and why are you here and what are you going to do you about your life and what is happening to you. How do you fit into society or how you do not fit into society and what you're going to do about that. And I tell everyone that the near death experience is not magic certainly the majority of people become a better person afterward of a better life afterward but there's still that price to pay because the loved ones the friends go through changes also. There's just a whole lot of changes that after that pays.

And did you have to pay that price as well?

Oh, sure. All three kids turned against me after a number of decades and we had to you know talk that out also a price I paid me specifically what's with jobs, how do you support yourself if you're a different person I'm sorry that there's no sheepskin there's no degree that comes with having had a near death experience. You can't go up to an employer and say this is my new job specs. This is a new me you know I mean you can't do that at the employer has a certain expectation of you and how you will perform. Well, if you're a new person you're obviously not going to perform this in a more any you did before and the average near death experience or leave their forward employment and find something different or new or create something new for themselves so there are vast differences in lifestyle employment, how they have no money that's kind of thing. One of the things I ran into, I found a job right away two different jobs in fact right away when I moved to East when I was in Washington D.C. And when I moved south to Roanoke Virginia, I found good jobs in both places but there came a time when one in Roanoke Virginia then we moved to Harrisonburg Virginia, I had no specific job so what I had always done back in Idaho is a go to what we call a Temp agency, we call it like manpower where they just employ you for limited periods of time you know I will defiling on somebody’s vacation nor little jobs said that pop up with employers they want, someone for maybe two months or something like that. So I went to this temp agency which I had always done back in Idaho and this is now one for Virginia and then I just worked in the garden as it put me to work you know it doesn't matter what the job is just put me to work. I've got some extra time and they said no we don't do that anymore now you have to take a test.

So it's a typing test, shorthand test, transcription test speed test in typing and a psychological test. Well, I passed all of the other tests just wonderful typing 80 words a minute you know I was doing okay, but the psychological test data should mean there's no way you can slug a psychological test so don't worry about it. All the other tests are time the psychological test was not timing and so I just greens through all of it and got my final score and I flunked it. I flunked on the basis of the psychological tests I flunked this psychological test that is to say it showed that I was in constant need of help that I needed to have a supervisor over my shoulder showing me what did he do at every moment that I could not be trusted to do any job all by myself according to my own reasoning ability. And I looked at this woman and said no look, my biography is in seven to ten different groups [Unintelligible] I had done all these jobs I’ve worked for the people by the [Unintelligible] what do you mean? I can't be trusted to do my own work because you can't trust my own reasoning ability even the stupidest thing I ever heard. And she said well we have one other person like you flunk the psychological test and she said the key is stress and that test is so written they can measure your stress levels from the test. She said if you don't store stress in your body you cannot be tested, you'll blow the test and one other woman blew the test like I had and she taught stress management at a college and she was a meditator. I was a meditator and I didn't have problems with stress after my near death experience so the two of us blew the tests.

So I warn everybody out in your never never land you know if you're taking a psychological test for an employer they are so worded that they are then able to measure the amount of stress you store your body so that's what those tests are all about. They're not psychological tests, their tests about stress. I mean that was the big thing for me and I was only able to the find part time jobs after that after I you know whenever I could and life became a very different way for me because suddenly I knew all kinds of things but I didn't have the college degree to prove that I knew what I knew and that was a real challenge.

And when did you start researching near death experiences?

Right after I moved to Washington D.C. which was 1978, just a year later after my experiences and after meeting Elizabeth. I started my research about just a few months after meeting Elizabeth because I met Elizabeth in 1978 the year after my experiences and I decided to chase rainbows that I was to begin my work in the East, specifically Virginia and the Washington D.C. area so I did that I sold my all, packed up everything I owned or sold it or gave it away and trip to cross the United States all by myself. And round up in Washington D.C. and found a job there that I had another future memory episode Greg's living another year in advance and I round up in around of Virginia. And there I met and married my right perfect partner and his name is Terry Atwater you know and that was 35 years ago. And I cannot honestly say that marriage gets better every year, it just gets better and better and better. The first three years are really difficult because we're very different and we didn't know each other we met at a Zen meditation meeting Zen meditation that's what brought us together and my husband like to laugh and he says and we've been living in Zen ever since. Which it is just real [??].

And always your findings from doing all this research…

Oh, my dear friend, I filled up 11 books with them. I discovered all kinds of things among the things I discovered is the classical model of the Near Death Experience is not classical It doesn't hold up in broad based research. For instance, the tunnel this idea of the tunnel most people children and adults do not experience a tunnel at all and in fact in some countries with some cultures they don't know what you're talking about when you’re talking about the tunnel that the tunnel is really a media myth. Yes, some people have it, yes some people experience it children and adults but the majority do not. The tunnel became associated as much as it is today with near death experiences because the media chose to take that and use it to sensationalize  Raymond Moody's first book “Life After Life.” You hardly ever heard about the tunnel before the media did that and then afterward you started to hear more and more people talking about tunnel still not that many but more and no I don't think they it relaying rather what I found was that these kind of experiences things that happened and I was so above and beyond language. You don't have words I mean there's just no way you can express or describe what happened to you so they just sort of grab that word that was now out in the public venue this is sort of grab that word and said Yes I had a tunnel when in fact that maybe they just went through darkness and there wasn't a tunnel at all.

Does the body change after near death experience?

Yes, you have physiological changes as well as psychological changes on the physical side. We have evidence of brain structure changing, brain function changing. There are changes in the nervous system, the digestive system and skin sensitivity most of them take on a lot of sensitivities for instance electrical sensitivity in my research says about seventy one percent had electrical sensitivity afterward. The sensitivity to sound, to light, to taste, touch, texture, humidity, this become very very sensitive people, not everybody of course but the majority. So yes, there are changes in the body, I give a big alert to anybody who's in your death experiencer because most of them lose their tolerance for pharmaceuticals afterward. If they get sick or need a doctor they need to tell their doctor about this. They need to ask for chill if they’re adults, ask for children's doses of whatever or maybe another kind of dose of something else that work. Most experiencers turned homeopathy or other types of natural healing afterward but it is especially crucial with children because the average child is medicated according to age and weight. Well, what if that child had a near death experience? They're not going to be able to handle the regular dosage you would give to that age and weight of a child. So everything I can do is wave a red flag and say “Yahoo, wait a minute here woo.” Be very careful with medicine.

When a child is born from birth and has a near death experience, these are all also affected through its growing.

Well, yes indeed and please tell your audience that I am now reprising my original work. My original work is in the book the new children in near death experiences I'm going back now and I'm doing that work again, only this time I'm focusing only on those ages from the womb to the age of five. So tell your audience to get on my Website it's www.pmhatwater.com right there on home page, right there, there is a call for volunteers for this new study and I would love to have Irish people I would love to have people from all over the world. If you think you might have had a native experience in those very tender ages please use that call for volunteers as the inspiration to help you remember just saying to connect to describe to go back to those times and the years since then how is your life been, what is your life like now, I want to know all kinds of things about you. So I’m going back to do that work again because what I have found is that children, their experiences different, different in the sense of how they handle it than to any adult but down those early ages from the womb until about the age of five those children are unique and so I want to know more, I want to have more data before I make statements about that.

You talk about electrical currents and all you being sensitive to it. Will it effects the way the runs in the area or the house or environments?

Well I haven't found that it effects the way electricity operates in my home but I have found it makes a difference with my computer and the router and all this kind of thing so that I've had to handle it very differently in my home and when I was us Wi-Fi, I up on the third floor very much far away from the and I'm shielded from the it's Wi-Fi so. But when I’m traveling specially when I'm giving talks I have to be very careful where I am so I have learned first to say a prayer get acquainted with the electrical equipment there, the grids there so that I don't bring down the electricity because I've done it before, I've done it before and checked it. At a college in Harrisonburg Virginia, I was speaking to the psychological class you know the psychology. I was getting kind of excited which is a no no you don't want to get excited, I was getting excited and I'd run down you know electricity in the whole building right down the entire grid. Nothing else in the campus just the building where we were and I’m brought down the electricity. So I have to be careful where I go. Make sure I say my prayers first so that I respect other people and other power grids and I don't interfere night mail now you know and I don't know maybe that's why I didn't hear you call ahead but I said my prayers first so that we would have been session and everything would go well and then [unintelligible] one bus stop.

I see. How this medical and doctors associates near death experience?

Some of them accepted, many of them do not. I urge any medical person nurse, doctor orderly whatever to get the big book of near death experiences, it's readily available at Amazon.com. The Big Book is like Encyclopedia worldwide of the near death phenomenon, in there are chapters for doctors and nurses and medical people. So I urge them to read that to learn more about the experience how to recognize when someone is having one or about to have one.

When soldiers and military come back from fighting, can they talk about near death experience or they have experienced this or they don't know or if you come across that.

That’s actually a big thing Aron, because they don't dare talk about it or they were end up in the psych ward or they lose their insurance, it's a really huge problem. We get lots of cases from the military. The president of the International Association of Near Death Studies that's I-A-N- D-S, just go by the initials. Her name is Dr. Diane Corcoran and she's a former Army nurse. She is very active with veterans. She's very active with the military, trying to teach them about the near death experience and the after effects of the near death experience and how they might handle anyone in their group to might have had a near death experience. So this is something that we are working toward and working a lot towards you know it's a real sensitive issue, so it's a really big deal because they really can't talk about their experience. If they do, they're practically punished for it. So to get the military to open up and realize that this kind of thing does happen, it happens to their people and there are things they can do about it, that's a big deal.

With all the research you've done and all the books you've written have you reached the middle ground for near death or is there still more clinical research and more information to be gathered.

They’re certainly more and more and more. I really feel that just begun our work with the Near Death Experience imply and very strong is that death does not imply that life goes on. In some fashion, in some place somewhere life goes on. the near death experience also implies and very strongly that there is a God or some type of supreme intelligence, we are connected to that force or source, we are children of God if you want to put it that way. And that we have a higher calling a higher being that everyone has a soul and that we are capable of far more than we think we are in this sell those are certainly big ones they apply cross culturally just didn't matter what your religion is that same truth seems to arise from Muslim cultures, Buddhist, Wiccan doesn’t matter that same truth arises from both children and adults, people of any age should have a near death experience any language and culture doesn't matter. So who is seeing these big one says yes there's a call and yes you have a soul yes there is life after death yes there is more to the human being than the human being realizes. We are more capable than we think you know downs are huge issues and at near death experience does seem to go a long way and establishing that these are real.

 Through your own experiences and knowledge and what you've gained from your three near death experiences to now do you think it taught you something or made you set up and realize something.

I'm like a new person so did it teach me anything it taught me everything certainly I knew a lot before but it took all that expanded it was in beyond anything. I could ever dream yeah I am very much a new and different person from who I used to be. I look different and I feel different my life certainly is different it's much happier so much more joyful. I pray and meditate every day. God is near to me as my next friend and that God is my next friend. So for me, personally it has completely transformed my life.

And has your body been injured or you were recovering from…

I've had surgery several times. I've got problems several times and I am amazed the doctor. It was really funny and few years ago I was rushing in the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania airport to catch my plane and I fall just before the gate smack face first and I had both hands wrapped round the handles also back. So when I fell, know it first it broke my left wrist but didn’t show in very unusual way because my hands wrapped around the handle of the bad. So it’s a spiral break it is a very unusual break and when I was finally sent home and the doctor looked down to ten days to find they get surgery so during the surgery, it was very long surgery and then after the surgeries are over it is even longer to get me out of the anesthesia. I just didn't come out and I was joking about it afterward and I told the doctors I received a ticket to go back again and I was just thinking about it. But I went out and you know die on fourth time you know I'm thinking about it. I became the [unintelligible] they had to put in all kinds of battle and everything hold me together. So three weeks later waiting for my first X. ray and I was waiting for the results and the doctor came in this first time in my whole life this is ever had been, the doctor came to me grabbed me and gave me a big hug you know doctors don't do that. This doctor did and he said I can't believe it, I can't believe it, I can't believe it and I said what? He said the X. rays show that your bones were never broken to begin with. Not only have you healed already it shows there was never a break at all. Total complete healing in three weeks and I finally had to Mill take it out years ago I got tired of that stuff. And actually took me alone you know filled in perfectly no problem bone healing and any kind of healing on me is very very rapid.

Marvelous. We’re slowly coming up to time, if you want to share something that you think valuable to audience. What would it be?

I like first of all recommend that anybody and everybody get on my website again www.pmhatwater.com I produce a free monthly newsletter so they can subscribe to that newsletter. There's lots of stuff on my website about spiritual transformations, near death of children and adults and all this kind of thing so they're going to have a lot of fun exploring my website but also I would hope that everybody takes a really good look at what most near death experiences have to say after they have had their experience anywhere in the world. They mostly say the same four words Always There Is Life. Now if you really look at that here in that means there is no such thing as before life, there's no such thing as your present life. There's no such thing as after life, none of that exists. What exists is you have always existed. You exists now and you always willing to exist because eternity is your home. And that says it all.

Wow, that was beautiful not know how I like to say thank you very much P M H Atwater…

Thank you, Aron.

For coming on to the show and sharing what you can share.

Thank you. Bye, bye.