Local group hopes to raise awareness, generate discussion about the topic Close encounters with death
by Casandra Andrews, Staff Reporter
Mobile Register, April 29, 2003, Section D, p. 1

Last summer, Sharon Webb nearly died.

A massive blood clot in both lungs kept the Georgia resident in the intensive care unit for two weeks, she said. While hospitalized, she said she encountered something that some might describe as a near-death experience.

She's still not sure what it was.

"I suddenly was naked and about an inch tall. I was standing in front of a huge blue door...a brilliant yellow-white light was coming from the space beyond the door. At that point, I knew that if I stepped into the light I would die.

"I stood there for a time and then tiptoed past the door."

While the phenomenon of near-death experiences is nothing new and has always been controversial, a local group hopes to raise awareness on the topic and allow more people here to share their encounters in an open forum.

The group, which is affiliated with the International Association for Near-Death Studies, began meeting last December. They gather the second Wednesday of each month at the Mobile Public Library on Grelot Road. Among the members are doctors, nurses and other professionals.

A near-death experience may include the feeling of being out of the physical body, moving through a darkness or tunnel, encountering presences of deceased loved ones and/or other entities, and an indescribable light or menacing darkness, according to IANDS literature.

Some experiences that are not life-threatening also illicit similar "near-death" encounters for some. Many people who have near-death experiences say they have glimpsed the meaning of life or have been given information beyond ordinary human capacities.

Webb said she thinks some of the memories she has could be fantasies.

Despite her reservations, she shared the experiences and several others from her life on the International Association for Near-Death Studies Web site: www.iands.org.

"The aftermath of this experience has caused some depression," she said. "Where was the knowing and enlightenment?...I still don't know. But I do know this: I have absolutely no fear of death."

Webb, who said she has been a nurse, artist and writer, wrote extensively about her encounters on an IANDS message board designated for narrative accounts of near-death experiences.

While she didn't use her name there - she hates receiving junk e-mails - Webb detailed four separate time-periods in her life and included artwork that depicts what her 2002 experience looked like.

So far, science has not been able to explain what happens during the encounters, though a long-term Dutch study lends more credence to the idea.

In December 2001, an international medical journal, "The Lancet" published a 13-year study of near-death experiences observed in 10 Dutch hospitals. Of the 334 patients tracked by a team of physicians, 18 percent said they had some memory from the period of unconsciousness after brain function ceased.

Some dismissed the results, saying, among other things, that no one could know for sure when and if the experiences happened. Others chalk the episodes up to overactive imaginations or lack of oxygen.

Perhaps one reason for the skepticism is that not everyone who has a brush with death remembers anything about the ordeal, researchers said. Only about one-third may later report that something happened, according to IANDS literature.

When they do, certain themes may be present, including a border or boundary between one or more supernatural dimensions, entities or beings.

A 1982 Gallop poll estimated that at least 8 million adults in the United States said they had a near-death experience. The International Association for Near-Death Studies thinks that figure is closer to 13 million now.

The Mobile group affiliated with IANDS was started by Lynn Robinson, a professor emeritus at the University of South Alabama who has written a book on developing your intuition.

She also has recently led a non-credit course at USA on "the healing gift of near-death experience and after-death communication."

"There was a good response" to the class, Robinson said. "It seemed to me that a number of people there were hungry for more."

She was already a member of IANDS and decided starting a chapter here might be a good way to continue the dialogue started in her class.

"I thought it was a credible organization doing good research work," Robinson said. "It's a support group, not a therapy group. All ideas and approaches are relevant.

"I really liked that approach because I don't think we have a definitive answer. I think those of us who have our experiences and believe in their validity, I don't know if we can describe them in any one way."

The first meeting, late last year, brought out the most people, Robinson said. Since then, attendance has fluctuated. Last month four people showed up.

"Many people who have had these experiences know that something very unusual has taken place," Robinson said. "They don't know what it is. Often it is in contradiction to what they have been taught. They are scared to talk about it. Some repress it, sometimes from a very early age until very late in life."

It isn't necessary to have been near death or to have had a profound experience to attend the meetings, Robinson said.

No one who attended the April meeting recalled such an encounter.

At previous meetings, Robinson said, women related near-death encounters, sometimes with tears streaming down their face. Only two men have attended.

"Some of the people here have had after-death communication experiences," Robinson said.

"Some of them are really open to human potential," she said, "and how it expresses itself and how what we know about dying and near-death and after-death information may help us understand more about our minds and how they work and how huge they may be."

Irving A. Koffler, a retired physician who worked in internal medicine for more than 50 years, was among those at last month's local IANDS meeting.

Koffler said he's been interested in near-death experiences for several decades and heard about the group through a friend.

One thing Koffler said he finds so fascinating about those who say they have had near-death experiences is the peacefulness they typically exhibit afterward.

"One of the most profound results is they just forget about the fear of death," he said. "They look forward to it."

This summer, Robinson plans to teach another non-credit course in USA's College of Continuing Education on how to make intuition work for you.

"Truthfully, intuition, for me, has become a word that is acceptable for knowing without knowing how you are knowing," she said. "It's a way for people to use their minds more extensively and productively."

Robinson said her class will deal with problem-solving skills and how to use both sides of the brain.

"I like to tell people you wouldn't try to run a race with one leg tied behind you," she said. "Why do you want to just rely on half your brain? The idea of working with your intuition is whole brain technology versus limited brain activity."

In 1994, Robinson published "Coming Out of Your Psychic Closet: How to Unlock Your Naturally Intuitive Self."

She offers management consulting services through her business "Luminiferous." She's working on several projects now, including a book with a nationally-recognized psychic and a children's book on "how we know God loves us."

She has spoken on the topic of intuition in Australia, France and at seminars and workshops across the United States. While she hasn't personally had a near-death experience, she said she's never been able to escape her own keen intuition.

In her book, Robinson recounts some of the times when she seemed "to know" things before they happened. As a young wife and mother, Robinson said she dreamed for several nights about a water accident involving a toddler in a possible drowning.

A few weekends later, she and her husband took their two young children to a friend's home to swim. She was sitting on the diving board and looked up to find her two-year-old son floating face down in the shallow end. A doctor who was there manually pumped the water from his stomach, lungs and throat.

The incident, she said, made her family more willing to try and interpret her dreams and other experiences.

Robinson said she hopes the local IANDS group will continue to be a forum where people can ask questions, get answers and talk to others who've had similar encounters : "Then they are allowed to accept or reject whatever they want to believe."

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Record Number: MERLIN_1212592