This episode of Orbicle Times will circle around some elements of SDE’s and shed light on a few key Western Pioneers within the field of the shared-death experience, that also happened to have had their own SDE’s. Today they continue to pave the way through published research and other endeavors that circle around the SDE phenomenon.
So what exactly is a Shared-Death-Experience, or S.D.E? There doesn’t seem to be the one go to, definitive or succinct definition for the S.D. Experience, not that I could find. I will provide a few examples of definitions from individuals that are prominent researchers in the field of S.D.E.
But first, the term shared-death-experience or a SDE is said to have been first coined by psychiatrist, philosopher and author Dr. Raymond Moody, and is noted in his 2009 book “Glimpses of Eternity.” Moody, prior to 2009 is also credited with the creation of the phrase Near-Death-Experience. If you are interested in how Moody became interested then please listen to my previous podcast entitled Elements In NDE.
Moody and his long time accomplished co-author, science writer and documentary film maker, Paul Perry, who himself had a SDE, have once again teamed up to write and publish a book entitled “Proof of Life after Life, 7 Reasons to Believe there Is an Afterlife”. Yet another book that circles around SDE’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsjdoelheP0
When Moody was asked in an interview, what a Shared-Death-Experience was, he replied “…it is identically the same phenomenon as a NDE in that all of the elements of the experience are the same except that a shared death experience happens not to someone who almost dies and is revived, but rather a healthy, uninjured by-stander at the death of someone else, who will tell us that as that person who is dying, passes away, the by-standers themselves have all of these elements of the Near-Death-Experience” Dr. Raymond Moody answers “What is a Shared Death Experience?” (youtube.com)
Here are a few of those NDE elements which may be part of a Shared-Death-Experience.
- Out-of-Body
- Bi-location
- Seeing known or unknown light sources
- Sensing, seeing or hearing deceased family members and loved ones of the dying person
- Room changes to an alternate geometry
- Empathically co-live the life review
- Telepathy
If you have never heard of anyone’s shared death experience I will example starting with an excerpt taken from Guideposts, entitled “An Experience of My Own” written by Dr. Raymond Moody.
“It was May 8, 1994, Mother’s Day, and Moody was using a public telephone in a shopping mall in Las Vegas, talking to his Mother. On May 9, 1994 the day after Mother’s day, Raymond found out that his mother had just been diagnosed with cancer and 2 weeks after that she was dead.
But before that sad occurrence, Raymond’s family held a vigil and at the moment of his mother’s death this is some of what had occurred……An Experience of My Own – Guideposts by Raymond Moody.
“We all held hands around the bed—my two sisters, their husbands, and Cheryl and I—and waited for the inevitable moment of death. And as we waited, it happened to us: a shared-death experience. As we held hands around the bed, the room seemed to change shape and four of the six of us felt as though we were being lifted off the ground. I had the feeling that the room had turned into the shape of an hourglass.
I felt a strong pull, like a riptide that was pulling me out to sea, only the pull was upward.
“Look,” said my sister, pointing to a spot at the end of the bed. “Dad’s here! He’s come back to get her!”
Everyone there reported later that the light in the room changed to a soft and fuzzy texture. It was like looking at light in a swimming pool at night. As all of this took place, there was great joy in the room. We all knew something truly incredible had happened to all of us as our mother died. It was as though the fabric of the universe had torn and for just a moment
we felt the energy of that place called heaven”.
Although the term SDE may be relatively new to North America, the phenomenon is not. In the late 1800’s the London Society-for psychical-research, studied SDE’s and entitled them as “death-bed visions” or “death-bed coincidences”. Interesting because I thought those terms referred to visions that were only viewed by those dying.
The experience of a shared death include elements that are consistent throughout the centuries. Here is an earlier account of a shared-death that was experienced by a Karl Skala, a German poet, that occurred during WW1. Accounts of the phenomenon has been documented in a 2012 book entitled “Parting Visions” co-authored by Science writer and documentary film maker Paul Perry. https://www.melvinmorsemd.com/
According to the article Beyond goodbye (cnn.com) by John Blake “Skala was a soldier huddled in a foxhole with his best friend when an artillery shell exploded, killing his comrade. He felt his friend slump into his arms and die…” it then describes Skala’s SDE, who for the most part escaped uninjured.
“He [Skala] felt himself being drawn up with his friend, above their bodies and then above the battlefield. Skala could look down and saw himself holding his friend. Then he looked up and saw a bright light and felt himself going toward it with his friend. Then he stopped and returned to his body. He was uninjured except for a hearing loss that resulted from the artillery blast” Beyond goodbye (cnn.com)
A second prominent researcher in the S.D.E. field is William Peters, a licensed psychotherapist at the Family Therapy Institute in Santa Barbara, specializing in end-of-life counseling as a means toward psycho-spiritual evolution and author of “At Heaven’s Door: What Shared Journeys to the Afterlife Teach About Dying Well and Living Better“. He is also the founder and Executive Director of The Shared Crossing Project where he and his research team collect and study extraordinary end-of-life experiences. (shared crossings).
In an interview conducted by M. Kinsella, Peters states that a Shared-Death Experience happens “…when somebody is dying and a caregiver, loved one, or a bystander feels like they shared in that person’s transition. In some cases, this person will observe the initial stages of the afterlife – where they see the dying person there or sense that it is where they are going. It is sharing the journey of the experience with the dying person. It is the movement from this human experience through the portal of death to another realm of existence and the observer feels like they shared in that journey”.
Like Moody, Peters also had experiences with Shared Death. But before that Peters had his own Near-Death-Experience, which he has termed as “a rather classic NDE” It happened when he was 17, after breaking his back from a skiing accident. He held onto his ND experience for a number of years which would eventually become part of the framework for his book “At Heaven’s Door: What Shared Journeys to the Afterlife Teach About Dying Well and Living Better“”.
In 2000, William Peters volunteered at The Zen Hospice Project, where, as he states he had “formative and informative” SDE’s. His first SDE occurred while reading to a dying client whose name was Ron. William recalls popping out of his own body and looking at Ron who was also out of his body and was smiling at William.
Mr. Peter’s did not have a name for such experiences until he attended a lecture given by Dr. Raymond Moody. The topic – NDE’s and SDE’s. That was the meeting that would inspire Peters to start his organization The Shared Crossing Project and it’s re-search initiative, to study the Shared-Death Experience.
https://sharedcrossing.mykajabi.com/williampeters
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Speaking of research, there was an inductive content analysis done.
If you are interested in the Distinct Modes and Domains that they identified from the study on SDE then please visit my YouTube channel with the handle @orbicltimespodcast.
Analysis of that research revealed 4 Distinct Modes of participation for the S.D. experiencer.
Analysis of the same study revealed 3 major domains of SDE effects which are:
For my final pick for a pioneer of SDE, I chose Dr. Scott Taylor. Dr. Taylor holds a PhD in educational leadership where he studied near-death-experiences, is also the founder of the Expanded Awareness Institute, has a Minister of Spiritual Counseling degree and as of March 4, 2019 president and executive director of The Monroe Institute or TMI, which according to their website it is the world’s leading residential education center for exploring expanded states of consciousness. Dr. Scott Taylor is also a facilitator of near-death and shared-death meditations and retreats plus creator of an audio CD call “Into the Light with Hemi-Sync”.
Here is part of an explanation, which I paraphrased, which addresses what a SDE is, given by Dr. Scott during an interview with Alex from Next Level Soul cast.
Shared-Death is similar to a Near Death Experience except the SD experiencer has no physical trauma and the soon to be experiencer is more than likely sitting bed-side or they are asleep or sitting at home and then someone that they know makes a final transition. Then an invitation of sorts goes out to the living from the dying person and it is then that a shared death experience occurs. He continues…
“It is an actual death experience that someone else gets to participate in and with. So the living person not only witness the transition but gets to participate in it, at times that can involve many of the NDE elements, including the life review of the other”.
I am going to side-step away from the Dr. for a moment to talk about TMI, which was founded by Robert Monroe, the same Monroe who penned his 1971 book about his O.B.E’s entitled ” Journey Out of the Body”. The same Monroe who would become synonymous with The Gate Way Experience.
Monroe formed, what was initially called, RAM Enterprises back in 1953, a corporation that produced network radio programs, quiz shows and the like.
Then in ’56 that firm evolved into a Research and Development division. Monroe ventured forward, while staying with the audio production platforms, searching for methods to be utilized for the then known concept of sleep–learning, first brought forward back in 1927 by a Al-o-is Benjamin Saliger with his invention of the Psycho-Phone.
By Monroe’s account, back in 1958 during his own experiment with sleep-learning, he experienced a physical sensation of pa-ral-ysis and vibrations which was accompanied by a bright light. These sensations would occur multiple times over a six week period until it crescendo into his first out of body experience.
In 1975 Monroe first registered for a patented on a method that he would become well known for, called hemispheric synchronization a.k.a. Hymie-Sync which uses binaural beats created through sound waves from audio exercises, designed to stimulate brain wave functions until the left and right hemispheres become synchronize. This method is said to assist with mental well-being, expanded states of consciousness and a gateway into the non physical.
INTERESTED IN WHAT MONROE HAD TO SAY ABOUT THE METHOD? LISTEN @orbicletimespodcast on YouTube.
I tried the Gateway Experience and found it difficult to listen to Robert’s voice, perhaps due to a 1950 era of radio speech. I believe they have switched it up using his daughters voice in newer versions of that method.
Now I will make a B-line back to Dr. Scott Taylor.…
Dr. Taylor, like other SD researchers has had his own Shared-Death Experience in July 1981. This experience paved the way for his studies and research in NDE’s and SDE’s. In ’81, his girlfriend of 6 months, a women named Mary Fran, was in a car accident with her son, 7 year old Nolan. She died instantly and her son, Nolan transitioned in less than a week.
Scott Taylor recalls that his girlfriend’s family had gathered around Nolen’s hospital bed. When the boy’s vital signs ceased, Scott saw Mary, his girlfriend, mother of Nolan, who had died 5 or 6 days prior, cross through the veil and scooped her son out of his body, and the 2 spirits embraced, a reunion between mother and child which Scott witnessed and recalled as a most joyful moment.
The 2 spirits then turned to Scott and included him in their hug and then all 3 of them went to the light, together. He felt intense and immense love. He stayed in that space for awhile, then the 2 spirits turned and continued on and he returned to his body. He now knows that he bi-located during that event, an element that can be part of the Shared-Death Experience.
Ten years later, as Scott was researching NDE’s he interviewed a relative of Mary’s who not only had a previous NDE herself but had also been in Nolan’s hospital room when he transitioned.
It was only after Scott had interviewed her that he found out that she too had experienced Nolan’s crossing in much the same way that Scott did. WOW! I guess you could call that a shared shared-death-experience! Interesting, I wonder if either of them saw the other during their O.B.E.
Such SDE telling’s are profound and go along way to support the stories of NDE’s because those that have experienced a shared-death were not injured and as author Paul Perry states “By virtue of 2 people or more experiencing a shared death experience that makes it an objective experience that has independent witness”.
The experiencer is not dying but share in the spiritual transition. As a result one may gain an understanding of what will happen during transition, there is then say, the possibility for a decrease of anxiety, an increase of hope surrounding death and a heightened appreciation for one’s day-to-day life.
I will end this episode they way I began it with what I think is one of the most succinct definitions of a SDE and one that I happened by just as I was finishing this episode. “A living person who is well, experiences the death experience of a person who is dying” – Author Paul Perry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsjdoelheP0
Thank you for joining me in these…OrbicleTimes.
REFERENCE/SOURCE
Shared Death Experiences: A Little-Known Type of End-of-Life Phenomena Reported by Caregivers and Loved Ones https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33813876/
https://www.monroeinstitute.org/
https://sharedcrossing.mykajabi.com/williampeters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Monroe
William Peters and Michael Kinsella – Shared-Death Experiences (youtube.com)
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/scott-taylor-lead-monroe-institute-virginia-anne-m-h-hunter
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/scott-taylor-lead-monroe-institute-virginia-anne-m-h-hunter
https://www.monroeinstitute.org/
Present! – Scott Taylor: A Shared Near-Death Experience (youtube.com)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Monroe
https://neardeathmeditations.com/
Elements of Shared-death experience | GriefandMourning.comGriefandMourning.com
Consciousness does not require a self | James Cooke » IAI TV
Guideposts, entitled “An Experience of My Own”
Present! – Scott Taylor: A Shared Near-Death Experience (youtube.com)
Shared Crossing Research Initiative (SCRI). Shared Death Experiences: A Little-Known Type of End-of-Life Phenomena Reported by Caregivers and Loved Ones. Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2021 Dec;38(12):1479-1487. doi: 10.1177/10499091211000045. Epub 2021 Apr 5. PMID: 33813876.
The Chilling Phenomenon Of A Shared-Death Experience (grunge.com)
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