Blessing in Disguise: Another Side of the Near-Death Experience

Barbara Rommer's book is quite extraordinary. Aside from the usual cases of heavenly abodes, angels, and cities of light, she dares to reveal more about those who have unpleasant or hellish near-death episodes. And she talks indepth about the people who experience this and their fears about what they went through. Near-death experiences are not religious experiences, nor do they reflect religious doctrines, per se. They are moments of "otherworldly" awareness that happen most often on the edge of death and to both children and adults. When we speak of near-death experiences, we're really talking about a complex dynamic that is not easily understood or explained. But true it is in the sense that this phenomenon happens to about 1/3 of those adults who face death, nearly die, or who are clinically dead but later revive or are resuscitated. With children, the figure is closer to 70%. Average length of time without vital signs is from 5 to 20 minutes. Not only are near-death experiences important because of the venue in which they occur, but because of the pattern of psychological and physiological aftereffects that tends to increase with time. Also, in many of these episodes, information is revealed or witnessed that could not have been known by the experiencer beforehand. The medical reality of near-death states can no longer be denied. That's why physicians, like Dr. Rommer, are finally speaking out. That Dr. Rommer focuses on the unpleasant aspects is critically important to our understanding of these states. I only wish that her publisher would have allowed her to carry more of her actual research findings and methodology in this book. Rather, they wanted to keep the text simple for the average reader. I think this is a mistake. "Average" readers are more intelligent than publishers think and are quite capable of evaluating and understanding good research. I have been speaking out about unpleasant near-death experiences since my beginnings in the field of near-death studies, and mostly to deaf ears. Now, finally, hellish and/or unpleasant experiences are receiving the attention and study they deserve, and without judgment or rancor. I congratulate Barbara Rommer for her courage in speaking out. And I hope she does more. If we only hear what we want to hear about this important phenomenon, we are robbing ourselves of a vast treasure-trove of material that very well could describe not only an "afterlife" - but the rich complexities of human consciousness and of our ability to change and grow, to transform.

In her book, Dr. Barbara Rommer shares with readers Another Side of the Near - Death Experience, i.e. the "less-than-Positive" experiences. This thought provoking book speaks through the words of the experiences themselves to those often frightening or unsettling experiences that have taken them on their journeys to the brink of death. Often for them, we find in the pages of this book their experiences, through unpleasant, become the entrance to positive and meaningful changes in their lives.The ten chapters in this book take the reader from a revisit with peaceful near-death experiences to some conclusions, which is titled "A Plea to the Medical Community". In between, we find well-documented chapters, which deal with, and overview of Less Than Positive Experiences. While Dr. Rommer, like many of us, cannot absolutely say that there is an afterlife, she is able to present anecdotal evidence of the probability of the continuity of life beyond bodily death.In the book, Dr. Rommer has interviewed over 300 patients and shares their experiences in their own words. As explained in the book, she has experienced first hand how often her patients, who fear the dying process, are really fearful of what happens after dying and therefore sometime fail to live life to the fullest. Therefore she, in this book, fulfills her goal "to allay people's fears by reporting the experiences of those who had died and been resuscitated".In this book you will not only find the convictions of experiences shared in openness and with honesty, but you will also find the convictions of the author openly shared regarding her life's journey of her own soul's spiritual transformation. I found the book extremely informative of her research and extremely thought provoking on the question most people ask about life and death. It makes you stop and think about each and every day we live and how we must strive to make the very most of every moment. Worth reading and re-reading.

There are hundreds of books on the subject of Near Death Experience (or NDE). Most of them are filled with positive experiences such as meeting loved ones, angels, and beautiful landscapes. I bought this book because it covered the darker aspects of NDE, which Rommer calls LTP (or Less Than Positive) experiences. One statement made in the book stands out very clearly. If you expect hellfire and brimstone, that's what you're going to get.There were a wide variety of individual accounts, some of them typical of the NDE. But she also covers those who have misinterpreted their experiences as bad. Such as those who had relived all the horrible aspects of their lives before being resucitated. Those she labeled Type II LTPs. The type IIIs, I found disturbing. Many of these people suffered from depression and/or drug abuse of varying degrees, or they were brought up to believe that their soul would go to Hell for all the sins they committed during their lifetime. Some of these people had attempted suicide, either overtly or covertly. Every account was distinctly different from the next, but every one of these people were given the same message. They could face up to their misgivings or misperceptions and change their own destinies. Many of them have.Blessing in Disguise is the most informative book I've read on Near Death Experiences. It isn't clinical or watered-down, like some of the books by Moody and Ring. Another good book is "Beyond the Darkness, My Near-Death Journey to the Edge of Hell and Back," by Angie Fenimore.

There's no denying it. Blessing in Disguise is a true blessing. Many books have been written about the near-death experience (NDE), but this is the first book to thoroughly address the darker side of the experience. Whether it has been the result of conscious or unconscious suppression, the fear of being ridiculed, or the individual's expectations, many fewer negative NDEs have been reported. Dr. Rommer has coined the name, less-than-positive (LPD), for these experiences. LPDs frequently occurred in people who had either attempted suicide, had had hateful, harmful, or unpleasant feelings, or had been brought up with the religious expectations that if they did not live up to expectations they would be doomed to an eternity in Hell. The "blessing in disguise" is that the vast majority of these individuals - just like their counterparts who have had the usual-type NDE - come back changed for the better. They are usually, kinder, more loving and caring, spiritual, have a reduced fear of death, and come away believing in a surviving soul, a positive afterlife, and a caring, non-judgmental Supreme Being. Most of them - if they have not had them before - develop psi abilities. Those who had parapsychological abilities before, almost always report increased psi abilities after the LTP. Dr. Rommer doesn't limit her book to cases of LTPs. She also gives outstanding coverage of the usual NDE and the probable reasons why either an NDE or LTP occurs. This is a book written in a down-to-earth style with many clearly reported case studies. As I tried to do in my book, Searching for Eternity, Dr. Rommer uses a scientific approach to explain the LTP and the NDE. And she succeeds admirably. Finally, Dr. Rommer pleads with her medical colleagues to try to understand the NDE and LTP and not ridicule or ignore their patients who have experienced them or tell them that it was merely a hallucination. No one knows for sure whether a NDE or LTP is a real voyage of the soul or some poorly understood brain mechanism. The jury might be out, but with the evidence from authors such as Barbara Rommer, it is beginning to appear that we are not doomed to "ashes to ashes and dust to dust," but can awaken to a brilliant and blissful afterlife. Nevertheless, we must learn our lessons well. It is not enough to accept one particular religion's viewpoint about salvation. We must live a good, moral, caring, kind and considerate life if we expect a joyous afterlife. Blessing in Disguise is highly recommended. Rush out and get it.

There have been a number of good books on the near-death experience over the past 25 years, but this one must certainly rank among the very best. It is different from most in that the focus is on what Dr. Rommer calls "less-than-positive" (LTP) NDEs. Most of the NDE books detail the blissful or "heavenly" type experience. Accounts of the LTP experience have not been as readily available, apparently because people who have had them have been reluctant to tell others about their "hellish" experiences. However, Dr. Rommer has managed to interview a number of such LTP experiencers. She finds that such experiences, while often frightening, are usually transforming and therefore "blessings in disguise." A large percentage of LTP experiencers "awaken" to their past transgressions and to the need to straighten out their lives by embarking on a spiritual path.There are numerous interesting accounts by experiencers. While the focus is on the LTP, there are enough positive experiences to offer the reader some bliss to go along with the unpleasant and more than balance the negative. There are some very interesting philosophies related by some experiencers. Dr. Rommer approaches the subject with scientific objectivity, but fortunately, for the reader, she lacks the willful blindness and intellectual arrogance of the avowed skeptic.