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THE NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE: A STAIRCASE TO HEAVEN? 325Although no two people have exactly the same experience,just as no two people could have identical experiences of thebardos, a common pattern of different phases in the neardeathexperience, a "core experience," appears:1. They experience an altered state of feeling, of peace andwell-being, without pain, bodily sensations, or fear.2. They may be aware of a buzzing or rushing sound, andfind themselves separated from their body. This is the socalled"out-of-the-body experience": They can view the body,often from a point somewhere above it; their sense of sightand hearing is heightened; their consciousness is clear andvividly alert, and they can even move through walls.3. They are aware of another reality, of entering a darkness,floating in a dimensionless space, and then moving rapidlythrough a tunnel.4. They see a light, at first a point in the distance, and aremagnetically drawn toward it and then enveloped in light andlove. This light is described as a blinding light of great beauty,but the eyes are unhurt by it. Some people report meeting "abeing of light," a luminous, seemingly omniscient presencethat a few call God or Christ, who is compassionate and loving.Sometimes in this presence they may witness a fifereview,seeing everything they have done in their life, goodand bad. They communicate telepathically with the presence,and find themselves in a timeless and usually blissful dimensionin which all ordinary concepts like time and space aremeaningless. Even if the experience lasts only one or two minutesin normal time, it can be of a vast elaboration and richness.5. Some see an inner world of preternatural beauty, paradisallandscapes and buildings, with heavenly music, and theyhave a feeling of oneness. A very few, it seems, report terrifyingvisions of hellish realms.6. They may reach a boundary beyond which they cannotgo; some meet dead relatives and friends and talk to them.They decide (often reluctantly) or are told to return to thebody and this life, sometimes with a sense of mission and service,sometimes to protect and care for their family, sometimessimply to fulfill the purpose of their life, which has not beenaccomplished.The most important aspect of the near-death experience,as reported again and again in the literature about it, is the