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Near-Death Experiences of Children
By P.M.H. Atwater, Lh.D.
FATE :: June 2000

Children of any age can have a near-death experience. That includes newborns and infants. What they describe, once they are able to verbalize, can be quite shocking to parents who are unfamiliar with the startling reality of near-death states.

With a research base of 277 child experiencers, I can say that the vast majority (76 percent) of children’s scenarios are rather simple, featuring only three or fewer elements - things like loving nothingness, friendly darkness, a special voice, an out-of-body experience, or a visitation of some kind. The closer the child is to puberty, the more apt he or she is to have a longer, more involved episode. Still, kids’ cases run the gamut from hellish to heavenly, regardless of age. The youngest to have a terrifying experience was only nine days old. This baby girl was traumatized by ghoul-like beings who threatened her when she “died” during surgery. The event haunted her throughout her growing years until the age of twenty-eight, when she had a second near-death experience that explained the first one.

We all thrill to “out-of-the-mouth-of-babes” stories that inspire and uplift us, yet in our joy we fail to view what happened to the child from the child’s eyes, nor are we alert for aftereffects.

Don’t let children’s usually brief scenarios fool you - the key is intensity. In over two decades of research, I have found that it is the intensity of the experience, not necessarily the content, that has the greatest impact. The simplest episodes, if intense enough, engender the full range of psychological and physiological aftereffects ...

Read the rest of this article in the June 2000 issue of FATE

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