A MAN who clinically died for several minutes believes he saw Jesus Christ in the afterlife and the Messiah told him to change his ways before he could enter Heaven.
The person, who gave his name as Douglas on an online near-death website, was just 17 years old at the time and was suffering from severe insomnia.
Douglas, who lived in Texas, was given a heavy duty sleeping pill by his live-in nurse – but unknown to her, Douglas had already been drinking alcohol.
The alcohol and pill was an extremely potent mix and suddenly Douglas collapsed to the floor, where his heart stopped beating for a few minutes until paramedics arrived.
When he collapsed, Douglas believed he crossed to the ‘other side’, where he encountered Jesus.
Douglas wrote for the Near Death Experience Research Foundation: “I saw my entire life flash before me. The good and bad.
“Then I saw a tunnel with brightness, brighter than the Sun pulling me towards it, the bright light was at the end of the tunnel and I could see my body on the floor.
“It was like I floated above it.
“The one thing I immediately picked up on was an inner peace like no other. Then I reached the end of the tunnel. What I saw was amazing, it was Jesus. I asked him why.
“He replied if want to enter here you have to change. I said but I don’t want to go, it’s so peaceful here. Jesus said you have to go back it’s not your time yet. I again said I don’t want to go.
“Jesus said, tell them about me. I said I’ll give them hell. Jesus grimaced as if he didn’t care for that comment. My last words to him was, you know what I mean.
“This was said as I was going back to Earth.”
Douglas said he became a devout Christian after his near-death experience.
Some researchers, however, have said these visions are normal phenomenon and not necessarily a sign of an afterlife.
Dr Sam Parnia, director of critical care and resuscitation research at NYU Langone School of Medicine in New York City, told a recent Oz Talk: “People describe a sensation of a bright, warm, welcoming light that draws people towards it.
“They describe a sensation of experiencing their deceased relatives, almost as if they have come to welcome them. They often say that they didn’t want to come back in many cases, it is so comfortable and it is like a magnet that draws them that they don’t want to come back.
“A lot of people describe a sensation of separating from themselves and watching doctors and nurses working on them.”
Dr Parnia said there are scientific explanations for the reaction, and says seeing people is not evidence of the afterlife, but more likely the brain just scanning itself as a survival technique.
He said thanks to modern technology and science “death does not have to be limited to philosophy and religion, but it can be explored through science”.
He added: “They can hear things and record all conversations that are going on around them.”