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JOURNAL OF NEAR-DEATH STUDIES
In this view, NDEs entail surprises because most people are totally
unfamiliar with functioning in an extra-bodily way on the primary
level of reality. Moody observed that out-of-body travel initially may
not be easy for experiencers until "one gets the hang of it" (1975, p.
46). When it comes to converting the directly experienced frequency
patterns of the deeper reality into ordinary, familiar objects and
events, the functioning of the mind in most cases is "wobbly and not
yet proficient" (Talbot, 1991, p. 236).
That the mind is "wobbly" in this unfamiliar realm could also ac-
count for other emotions besides surprise, such as ineffability and
depictions of one's experience as bizarre, albeit clear or real. NDErs
frequently express frustration in attempting to describe adequately
their experience, complaining of the paucity or absence of suitable
words, and asking, "Does that make sense?" and "See what I'm say-
ing?" (see also Berman, 1996, pp. 98-99; Cox-Chapman, 1995, p. 31;
James, 1903). Interestingly, NDErs sometimes report thinking the
difficult-to-describe events they experience are "strange" or "impos-
sible"; quoted earlier was Ritchie's recollection: "My mind kept telling
me that what I was doing [flying] was impossible, and yet . . . it
was happening" (Ritchie and Sherrill, 1978, p. 38).
Persons from various backgrounds use a variety of word-pictures
or images as they grope for adequate description. For example, the
"border or limit" element has been variously imaged as "a body of
water, a gray mist, a door, a fence across a field, or simply a line"
(Moody, 1975, p. 73). Similarly, although "tunnel" may be the most
popular image for Sabom's "dark region or void" element, other im-
ages used have included "a cave, a well, a trough, an enclosure, . .
. a funnel, a vacuum, a void, a sewer, a valley, and a cylinder" (Moody,
1975, p. 31). Movement through this dark "something" may indicate
a shift from the ordinary to the primary levels of reality; Arnette
(1992) speculated that the "something" may be a pathway known in
theoretical physics as a wormhole.
Despite the descriptive difficulty and impression of strangeness,
NDEs are typically experienced as extraordinarily clear, indeed,
"realer than here" (Sabom, 1982, p. 16), an additional finding con-
sistent with the inference that the NDE is at least to some extent
ontologically authentic. The depiction of the NDE as real, as distinct
from dreams or hallucinations, was noted earlier. One experiencer
stated: "I had hallucinations then but they weren't the same. . .
[I]n this experience [NDE] where I lifted out of my body, it was me!"
(Sabom, 1982, p. 169); while another wrote:
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