Dr. Eben Alexander, an academic neurosurgeon, who spent nearly 15 years teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities, always believed in the scientific make up of the human brain and immediately dismissed patient tales of journeys to heavenly realm.
But, there was a paradigm shift in his understanding of human brains and life after a near-death experience when he claimed he had a life-changing visit to his afterlife, specifically heaven.
The human part of his brain, the neocortex, ceased to be active in the fall of 2008 after he contracted a very rare bacterial meningitis.
"E. coli bacteria had penetrated my cerebrospinal fluid and were eating my brain. For seven days I lay in a deep coma, my body unresponsive, my higher-order brain functions totally offline," Alexander wrote in the cover story of this week's edition of Newsweek. "There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind - my conscious, inner self - was alive and well. While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I'd never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility."
Dr. Alexander said he saw himself in a place of clouds that were big, puffy and pink-white. He saw winged beings like birds or angels, which he described as "more advanced and higher forms."
"For most of my journey, someone else was with me - A woman. She was young, and I remember what she looked like in complete detail. She had high cheekbones and deep-blue eyes," he said. "Golden brown tresses framed her lovely face. When first I saw her, we were riding along together on an intricately patterned surface, which after a moment I recognized as the wing of a butterfly."
His article, "Heaven Is Real: A Doctor's Experience With the Afterlife" he explains, "You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever. You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong."
He says heaven was surrounded by millions of butterflies. Dr. Alexander undersands it will be a tough task to make people understand what he has gone through.
He's penned a book titled "Proof of Heaven - A Neurosurgeon's Journey Into Afterlife" describing his experience, which is due to be published on Oct. 23.
"I intend to spend the rest of my life investigating the true nature of consciousness and making the fact that we are more, much more, than our physical brains as clear as I can, both to my fellow scientists and to people at large," he said.
