Dead... And Not So Dead > Near-death experiences

NDE ball

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Loki:
WHEN tennis player Mark Philippoussis described "watching" himself winning the Davis Cup for Australia during his final-set victory over Spain's Juan-Carlos Ferrero, another former sportsman knew exactly what he was talking about.

"I thought 'wow, he's just described an out-of-body experience'," said Mike Agostini, once one of the world's fastest men on the athletics track and a Commonwealth Games gold medallist in the 1950s.

Agostini is now more interested in the spiritual than the physical and has just published a book about a range of paranormal or psychic experiences including out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences communications between the living and the dead and reincarnation.

Philippoussis told a TV interviewer after last Sunday's tennis win: "I felt as if I was standing on the sidelines watching play rather than actually being on the court myself."

That's a classic out-of-body experience, according to Agostini, 69, who says the phenomenon is common to many athletes.

"Something happens. Roger Bannister, who was the first to run a four-minute mile, wrote about a sense of freedom and floating when running. It's physical but also metaphysical and spiritual," he said.

While some might attribute the effect solely to a chemical reaction – the release of endorphins or prostaglandins – Agostini believes it has more to do with the way sportspeople psyche themselves up.

He recalls a story that Australia's Golden Girl sprinter Betty Cuthbert told him about an experience on the way into the stadium for the 400m final at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

"It was like a time warp," she told him. "Somehow I knew that I had won, not that I could win, this event."

She did win, becoming the only athlete, male or female, to claim Olympic gold in 100, 200 and 400m.

Much of the book concentrates on near-death experiences, stories related by people who have almost died – or been declared clinically dead – and then revived.

Agostini named the book Death: The Ultimate Orgasm because so many of those who have had NDEs describe the death process as the ultimate ecstatic experience. "They talk about a feeling of total love, compassion and understanding in the company of an all-loving being."

Tony Staley, a Liberal federal minister in the late 1970s, was pronounced dead three times after a car crash in 1990.

"It was the most delightful series of sensations possible," he told Agostini. "Words can't describe what it's like. There was no pain. There were only these feelings of the most wonderful compassion, warmth and love as well as total understanding and comfort."

Billionaire businessman Kerry Packer's experience when his heart stopped beating for eight minutes was very different. "There isn't a f---ing thing out there. Nothing but total blackness and oblivion," he said after being revived.

Agostini, who became a journalist, TV commentator, businessman, property developer and author after his sporting career, says he approached the book merely as a story-teller. He said it was important to bring the topic of death into the public arena. "It enables people to feel comfortable telling their own experiences.

Anonymous:
What you describe is commonly known as the watcher state. It is known to occur during periods of deep concentration and meditation or under the influence of certain psychoactive substances. Some believe that this part of conciousness, which sees the self from outside, is the source of humility and moral reservation. Most are not conscious of this state, but it is constantly active in the subconscious process of most individuals.

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