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Is there an afterlife?
While we're unlikely ever to know for sure, says author Theresa Cheung, there are a startling number of accounts from those who have had near death experiences that point towards the possibility of an afterlife. What do you think?
Do you believe in life after death?
It’s unlikely that we will ever have solid scientific proof that there is life after death, but we do have something that comes extremely close and that is accounts of people who have actually died and returned to tell their stories.
These voyagers to frontiers unknown report astonishing glimpses of a world beyond, a world that shimmers with light, magic and love. Hailey sent me her story:
"In 2005 I nearly died on the operating table. I haemorrhaged and my doctor later told me that everyone thought they had lost me. I recall floating above my body and seeing the surgeon and staff panic as they tried to save my life. I didn't feel any panic myself. It was as if I was watching an interesting novelty. I wasn't involved.
Suddenly, I felt myself being blown feet first into a grey mist. I don't know why but I remember seeing my legs and bare feet bathed in yellow light floating into the mist. When I was in the mist I lived my life again. Can't explain it very well but I remembered everything and again there was that feeling of interested detachment. I wasn't involved. I just watched. Then I found myself in this beautiful place. It was the most gorgeous and glittering place I have ever seen – like a garden but so much more than a garden. I felt nothing but completeness and happiness. My mind was still. I heard music but music that I have not heard on earth before and the scenery about me was like nothing I have seen on earth either – it was so vivid and beautiful. It shimmered like crystal and diamonds. Then everything vanished and the next thing I recall is waking up feeling very sore and tired in the recovery room.
I don't know why but I remember seeing my legs and bare feet bathed in yellow light floating into the mist. When I was in the mist I lived my life again.
Everyone who knows me will tell you that afterwards I changed. I know I have changed. It sounds corny but I feel like I was somehow born again, starting my life again. I am more compassionate and considerate of myself and others. I live in the present. I'm not afraid to be loving and spontaneous. I see more clearly now."
Near death experiences (NDEs) occur when a person is clinically dead or dangerously close to death. There are many questions about NDEs but one thing is certain and that is they exist. There are thousands of reports from people who believe they have glimpsed life after death, and a recent scientific study led by Dr Sam Parnia from the University of Southampton, has tentatively proved that consciousness can survive bodily death by at least three minutes.
Initially, when I began to collect afterlife encounter stories, I thought the experience was extremely rare, but I could not have been more wrong. Over the years the stories have flooded in and one reason for that may be modern resuscitation techniques because thirty or forty years ago these people would have died and taken their golden stories with them.
Not surprisingly, there have been many doubts about the validity of NDEs and chief among these is the argument that the experience is simply a hallucination but this cannot explain why all over the world and throughout history thousands of men, women and children have reported similar sensations during NDEs despite radical differences in cultures and belief systems. How is that possible? Surely, if the experience was hallucination wouldn't each person imagine something different? Why are there such strong similarities? Why after their NDE do people consistently report that they have lost their fear of death?
Theresa's book The Ten Secrets of Heaven: Mysteries of the Afterlifeis published in paperback by Simon & Schuster, and is available from Amazon. You can also find Theresa on Facebook here.
By Theresa Cheung
Twitter: @simonschuster
Surely atheists can believe in spiritual things anyway, can't they? 
janieuk - I certainly hope for an easier life for you if there is an afterlife. You have obviously had it tough but you sound like a lovely person and I do agree with you that it's nice to have a bit of mystery in life. All good wishes to you and your daughter. 
My Mum was a 'closet' Christian. She wrote down her wishes for her funeral, hymns and readings etc, and at the bottom wrote "I believe in the Afterlife". I have never felt her presence in the 19 years since her death but a friend who is very spiritual used to say "I heard from Dorothy today and she wants you to know that she is fine". Strange that, as the friend had never met my Mum..
. My Dad called it a load of mumbojumbo. Since DH died 4 years ago, I have never felt his presence around me or in the home we made together. He died and that was that although sometimes I wonder if he knows what I am doing and is looking down on me - I hope not 
although I must admit it would be comforting to feel he was still around me. None of us will ever know, the whole thing is a mystery ; I sometimes think it would be good to have a faith - such conviction. As for the tunnel with a light at the end: I had that aged about 9 when undergoing dental surgery. I whizzed down the tunnel and popped out at the end into the light, going from an unconscious to a conscious state, however 2 years later I suffered a head injury and was in and out of consciousness for some days (my Poor Mum thought I was dead). I had no recollection of any tunnels or light. I was just completely out if it and that is how I expect to die. Here one minute and then gone......no choir of angels and no blinding light. Perhaps I will be proven wrong?
My husband was an agnostic and I'm a believer. I used to say to him that the belief that the universe was created out of nothing (correct me if I'm wrong) as opposed to the belief that it was created by a loving God are both equally difficult for us to grasp.
Our brains may possibly be too small to really understand what is going on, so I'm going for the God and the afterlife theory, got nothing to lose. 
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