Proof of Heaven

recognized those people instantly.
Many NDE subjects have reported engaging in life reviews, in which
they saw their interactions with various people and their good or bad
actions during the course of their lives.
I experienced none of these events, and taken all together they
demonstrate the single most unusual aspect of my NDE. I was completely
free of my bodily identity for all of it, so that any classic NDE occurrence
that might have involved my remembering who I was on earth was
rigorously missing.
To say that at that point in the proceedings I still had no idea who I
was or where I’d come from sounds somewhat perplexing, I know. After
all, how could I be learning all these stunningly complex and beautiful
things, how could I see the girl next to me, and the blossoming trees and
waterfalls and villagers, and still not know that it was I, Eben Alexander,
who was the one experiencing them? How could I understand all that I
did, yet not realize that on earth I was a doctor, husband, and father? A
person who was not seeing trees and rivers and clouds for the first time
when I entered the Gateway, but one who had seen more than his share of
them as a child growing up in the very concrete and earthly locale of
Winston-Salem, North Carolina?
My best shot at an answer is to suggest that I was in a position similar
to that of someone with partial but beneficial amnesia. That is, a person
who has forgotten some key aspect about him or herself, but who benefits
through having forgotten it, even if for only a short while.
How did I gain from not remembering my earthly self? It allowed me
to go deep into realms beyond the worldly without having to worry about
what I was leaving behind. Throughout my entire time in those worlds, I
was a soul with nothing to lose. No places to miss, no people to mourn. I
had come from nowhere and had no history, so I fully accepted my
circumstances—even the initial murk and mess of the Realm of the
Earthworm’s-Eye View—with equanimity.
And because I so completely forgot my mortal identity, I was granted
full access to the true cosmic being I really am (and we all are). Once
again, in some ways my experience was analogous to a dream, in which