After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond

Description

The world's leading expert on near-death experiences reveals his extraordinary exploration of these events and what they tell us about consciousness after death. The world's leading expert on near-death experiences reveals his journey toward rethinking the nature of death, life, and the continuity of consciousness. What happens when we die? 10% of people whose hearts stop report near-death experiences (NDEs). Stories of lights, tunnels and loved ones have been relayed - and dismissed - since ancient times. But when Dr Bruce Greyson's patients started describing events that he could not just dismiss, he began to investigate. As a physician without a religious belief system, he approached NDEs from a scientific perspective. In After, he shares the transformative lessons he has learned over four decades of research. Our culture has tended to view dying as the end of our consciousness, the end of our existence - a dreaded prospect that for many people evokes fear and anxiety. But Dr Greyson shows how scientific revelations about the dying process can support an alternative theory. Dying could be the threshold between one form of consciousness and another, not an ending but a transition. This new perspective on the nature of death can transform the fear of dying that pervades our culture into a healthy view of it as one more milestone in the course of our lives. After challenges us to reconsider these experiences and what they can teach us about the relationship between our brain and our mind, expanding our understanding of consciousness, and of what it means to be human.

Bruce Greyson, MD is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He was a co-founder and President of the International Association for Near-Death Studies and Editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies. His research for the past four decades has focused on near-death experiences and particularly their after-effects and implications. His academic work has been translated into twenty languages and used in hundreds of studies worldwide. Dr Greyson has published more than a hundred scholarly articles about near-death experiences and gives regular addresses at international conferences on the matter. AFTER is his first book to bring his ground-breaking research for general readers.

BOOK OF THE MONTH: forces you to consider the unknown and try to come to terms with the unexplained. * Independent * From a less authoritative source, these stories could seem mawkish or flaky. Told here with calm precision, and with a conversational flair, they are both absorbing and convincing. With so much evidence available for further investigation, the most vexing question now is not whether life continues in some form after we die, but why mainstream science is so resistant to the idea. -- Christopher Stevens * Daily Mail * After is that rare thing, a scientific book that is also a page-turner. Greyson's meticulous research leaves little doubt that the human mind somehow survives beyond the point of death. * Nick Evans, bestselling author of The Horsewhisper * This very captivating book by Dr. Bruce Greyson chronicles his personal, spiritual and professional quest to understand the meaning of near-death experiences. His long-awaited and amazing book is a major contribution to the study of what happens when we die, and will quickly prove to be a classic in near-death studies. * Raymond Moody, MD, PhD, Author of Life After Life * Bruce Greyson is the most influential medical doctor-investigator over the last 40 years of this world-changing analysis. His work has done much to organize the scientific investigation of these experiences, to take them from fascinating anecdotes to systematic and objective study that will truly enable the world to benefit from these deep lessons. His work has the potential to completely change our fractured and confused world, offering insights that may lead to an explanation of the nature of consciousness. It will also help to nudge the entire scientific community towards realizations that can alter human history - bringing far more peace, harmony, and comfort to uncountable millions of souls both now and in future generations. * Eben Alexander, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Proof of Heaven * What happens when we die? Dr Bruce Greyson takes on this age-old mystery as one of the world's leading and most qualified investigators. After is loaded with fresh, exciting, and enormously valuable new understandings. The most relevant and important research is masterfully presented in a remarkably easy to read format. For everyone interested in life after death, science and spirituality, and life's meaning, this book is a treasure trove of insights and inspiration. * Jeffrey Long, M.D. Author of the New York Times bestseller Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences * In this very important book, Dr. Bruce Greyson helps elucidate the near-death experience with a scientific sensibility that makes what was exquisitely personal more accessible to a general audience. He bridges the gap between science and spirituality with elegance, and offers those who have not had such a transformative experience a glimpse of the changes possible in their own lives from reading his book. I believe all who read this book will be led to positive and permanent insights that will have profound and lasting effects in their own lives. * Anita Moorjani, New York Times bestselling author of Dying to Be Me: My Journey From Cancer to Near Death, to True Healing * As a practicing surgeon and near-death experiencer, I appreciate Dr Bruce Greyson's dual position as a scientist and psychiatrist, and have an even deeper appreciation for Dr Bruce Greyson's more than forty years of dispassionate and methodical research into the experience of dying and his commitment to rigorous investigation of this threshold between life and death. This book addresses the nature and meaning of life through Dr Greyson's interweaving of personal stories and scientific evidence and in doing so, provides hope to the dying and comfort to those left behind. * Mary Neal, M.D. Former Director of Spinal Surgery, University of Southern California, New York Times bestselling author of To Heaven and Back: A Doctor's Extraordinary Account of Her Death * Bruce Greyson is the towering figure in the research on death, the brain, and consciousness. Now, after four decades of meticulous study, he urges us to consider the deepest mystery of life: Whether we live and die as solely material beings, or experience death as a transition to an unseen reality. With compelling case studies and careful investigation, this book represents the best of scientific exploration. It is guided by a scientist with impeccable credentials and who has the humility and courage to follow the evidence to some surprising - and hopeful - conclusions. This book will define near-death research. It will change the way we live our lives. * Barbara Bradley Hagerty, M.L.S., Religion Correspondent, National Public Radio, author of Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality *