Children That Have Near-Death Experiences

I researched near-death experience (NDE) accounts extensively over the last couple of years and probably read and listened to hundreds of them. However, I didn't specifically focus on accounts involving children.

Recently, I've been reading Where the Light Begins by Daniela Klose and Ralph Klose, a book that focuses solely on near-death experiences reported by children.

What's interesting is that adult NDEs tend to share a high level of consistency, even though the specific details vary from person to person. For example, many people report being greeted by a spirit guide, angel, or deceased family member. They may travel through a tunnel, hover outside their physical body, experience a life review in which they see their life from both their own perspective and the perspective of the people they interacted with, review other incarnations, or even receive a brief tour of the spirit realm. Although people who have NDEs come from all walks of life and have vastly different backgrounds, they often report remarkably similar insights about the purpose of life, God, and what awaits us on the other side.

Children's NDEs can be just as profound, but they seem to come from a different perspective because children haven't yet had the full life experience that adults have. One of the key things I noticed is that children tend to provide fewer details about their experiences, but what they do share can be incredibly profound, deep, and insightful. They also don't seem to experience the life review as often, although there was one account in the book that I’ll share.

This makes sense to me. A young child simply hasn't accumulated enough life experience for a life review to have the same meaning it might have for an adult. The life review seems, in many accounts, to show a person how their actions affected the people around them and how interconnected we all are. Experiencing this can create a profound shift in an adult's perspective when they return to their life.

Below are a few of the near-death experiences described in the book.

Emil was eight years old when he almost drowned in a lake. When he was found, he had no pulse and was unresponsive. A rescue team arrived and was able to resuscitate him. When Emil returned from the experience, something about him had changed. He said, "It's like I hear what isn't being said."

Animals also seemed to be drawn to him. The family dog would rest its head on his lap. Cats and birds would approach him, and even a wounded deer stood with him in the garden. Emil explained, "They know I was there. Where they come from, too."

Eli was ten years old when he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle. He suffered severe internal injuries, a concussion, and cardiac arrest and was resuscitated at the scene. When Eli returned, he said, "I was in a bright place. There was a girl and she knew me. And I knew right away she was my sister. I had the feeling that she was there to tell me everything was okay."

Eli was an only child and had never been told about his father's daughter from an earlier relationship. After Eli's experience, his family discovered that his half-sister had died in another city in a car accident. When Eli's parents showed him a picture of her, he said, "That's her! That's how she looked when she held my hand."

Mark was eleven when he went to the emergency room because of a severe allergic reaction. He had to be resuscitated and was clinically unconscious for eight minutes. When he returned, his voice was calm and alert, but he spoke in an archaic form of Old French. In the days that followed, he spoke normally again but would occasionally say brief sentences in Greek, Sanskrit, and Hebrew. Mark said, "I didn't know they were languages. I was just answering."

When asked what he experienced, he explained, "I wasn't in the body. I was open. And then there was something. It didn't speak. But it was voice. It was like thoughts that weren't mine but meant for me. I understood them, not because I knew the language, but because they were meant for me." He described experiencing a woven fabric of meaning without sentences or sound, yet with complete understanding.

There were also several accounts in the book in which children were given a choice about whether they wanted to remain in the spirit realm or return to their bodies.

For example, Amina, a seven-year-old girl, experienced a drowning accident. When she returned, she explained that she had found herself at the edge of a bridge that was golden, luminous, and woven like light. Beyond the bridge was a garden. She was asked, "Do you want to stay or return?" She was then shown a vision of her mother crying. She said, "I chose to return."

Anna was fifteen when she was hit by a car while riding her bicycle. She suffered a lung contusion, internal bleeding, and cardiac arrest. When she regained consciousness, she said she found herself floating above everything and saw her physical body below her. There was no pain and no fear.

Then the space narrowed and a tunnel opened, made of flowing brightness. She moved through the tunnel, and at the end, she described a state of knowing that required no questions because all the answers were already there.

As she approached the light, she experienced a life review in which every encounter, smile, and moment of pain was felt. She experienced how everything she had done had touched other people. When she returned from the experience, she said, "It felt like I had left the real place."

What's interesting is that Anna's NDE was more extensive, and she seemed to have more words to describe her experience, which makes sense given that she was older and had a more developed vocabulary.

I found this book fascinating because children offer a unique perspective on near-death experiences. They have little fear of death and share profound wisdom from their experiences.

As medical technology has advanced since the invention of the defibrillator in 1930, more people have been resuscitated after coming close to death. And as near-death experiences become increasingly discussed and studied within the scientific and medical communities, I think we will continue to hear more and more of these beautiful and thought-provoking accounts from both adults and children.