Melvin Morse MD is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the
University of Washington. He has studied near death experiences in
children for 15 years. He is primarily interested in learning how to
use the visions that surround death to heal grief. The stories that
children have told him about what it is like to die have lessons for all
of us, especially those attempting to understand the meaning of death or
the death of a child.
In 1982, while a Fellow for the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Morse
was working in a clinic in Pocatello, Idaho. He was called to revive a
young girl who nearly died in a community swimming pool. She had had no
heart beat for 19 minutes, yet completely recovered. She was able to
recount many details of her own resuscitation, and then said that she
was taken down a brick lined tunnel to a heavenly place. When Dr.
Morse showed his obvious skepticism, she patted him shyly on the hand
and said: "Don' worry, Dr. Morse, heaven is fun!".
He wrote up her case for the American Medical Association's Pediatric
Journal as a "fascinoma", meaning a strange yet interesting case and
returned to cancer research. One night he saw Elizabeth Kubler Ross on
television describing to a grieving mother what her child went through
when she died. She said that the girl floated out of her body, suffered
no pain, and entered into heaven. He thought this was quite
unprofessional of a psychiatrist, and vowed to prove her wrong.
He and his colleagues at Seattle Children's Hospital designed and
implemented the first prospective study of near death experiences, with
age and sex matched controls. He studied 26 children who nearly died.
He compared them to 131 children who was also quite ill, were in the
intensive care unit, mechanically ventilated, treated with drugs such as
morphine, valium and anesthetic agents, and often had a lack of oxygen
to the brain, BUT, they were not near death.
He found that 23/26 children who nearly died had near death experiences
whereas none of the other children had them. If NDEs are caused by a
lack of oxygen to the brain, drugs, hallucinations secondary to coma, or
stress and the fear of dying, then the control would have been expected
to also have NDEs. They did not, indicating that NDEs happen to the
dying. This research is presented in Closer to the Light.
He then completed the Seattle Study, a long term follow-up of children
who had NDEs and documented their transformation as adults. He again
used control groups, including children who nearly died but didn't have
NDEs. He found that having an NDE is good for you, resulting in a love
for living. One girl summed up the transformation as learning that
"life is for living and the light is for later".
Adults who had NDEs gave more money to charity than control subjects,
volunteered in the community, were in helping professions, did not
suffer from drug abuse, use many over the counter medications, and ate
more fresh fruit and vegetables than control populations.
He also found that they often could not wear watches as they would
mysteriously break, and often had electrical conduction problems such as
shorting out lap top computers and erasing credit cards.
This research is summarized in Transformed by the Light.
Finally, Dr. Morse studied the entire range of death related visions.
He studied parents who had infants die of SIDS, and found that 25% of
parents had a vivid premonition of the event which they often documented
in a journal or diary, or telling their doctor. He also has studied
cases of shared dying visions and after death communications.
His most recent research is on the mind-body healing aspects of NDEs.
He is currently working on a project of studying immune system changes
triggered by NDEs. He also is working on localizing what areas of the
brain are linked to spiritual visions, and has a particular focus on the
right temporal lobe as a communication link with an interactive
universe. This is presented in Parting Visions.
He is currently working with parent bereavement groups to learn how to
best use spiritual visions to help to heal grief. Dr. Morse feels
strongly that by understanding that there is a scientific and biological
component to near death experiences, we can understand that the
experiences are "real", at least as real as any other human perception
and experience. We must stop trivializing and dismissing death related
visions as hallucinations of a dysfunctional brain, and start to
understand that they are a normal aspect of the human experience. We
all have spiritual intuitions and visions, now we must learn to listen
to them and trust what they have to say.