"Accidental" Death and the Advance-Behavior Syndrome --by P.M.H. Atwater

Some near-death survivors have an inkling that something is about to happen, but for most, there is no hint at all. Even for those who did sense something, the Near-Death Experience still comes as an unexpected surprise. In fact, I have noticed that the NDE is distinguished by its very lack of clues or foreknowledge that it is about to occur.

George A. R. of Hamilton Square, New Jersey, wrote a long account of his experience, illustrating how he came to believe that he could not possibly have died because of the strange way events arranged themselves. In brief:

• The day before, he had an opportunity to buy a burial plot-and refused.
• Because of unexpected car trouble, his wife made a quick trip home and found George perplexed by a seemingly simple pain.
• The pain was not unusual, but for "some reason," George insisted he be taken straight to the hospital-a reaction quite out of character for him.
• He had his heart attack in the Cardiac Care Unit with a doctor at his side.
• While "out," he heard his wife telepathically calling him through the voice of another, and he followed her voice back.
• Afterwards, he clearly saw his brother physically standing at the foot of his bed, when his brother was not in the room at all-which for George verified the reality and importance of the whole episode. George readily admits how needed the experience was; that for him, it demonstrated how much better and more wonderful life could be.

Another survivor who was not conscious of an NDE, yet behaved as if he'd had one is George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars. As a youngster, Lucas was considered a punk-a non-achiever, romantic, unathletic, unassertive, and not studious. According to his father, he was good at only two things: cruising and hanging out. Wanting to race cars seemed to be his only ambition. Then, three days before he was to graduate from high school, without warning or advance-behavior cues, Lucas was involved in a spectacular car crash. For three days he hung between life and death and was hospitalized for two weeks more.

Today, Lucas father points to this time as a dramatic turnaround for George. Even though he experienced neither a scenario nor an OOBE, he went on to display the typical aftereffects of a NDE. He became very philosophical, believing he had been saved for some special mission in life he had yet to fulfill. He seemed imbued with a mysterious "force" and became intensely goal-oriented, went to college, and later enrolled at the University of Southern California's Film School, using what he had learned from his experience to give the world another way to view God, spirituality, virtue, and inner strength. I am sure most would agree that accident was more needed than fated-it was an introduction to what Lucas later developed and enlarged upon in his films.

Brushing death, as a NDE or not, is "unannounced." This is not usually the case with the coming of full death. I have often been at the heels of death--earlier as a policeman's daughter, later when my former husband became a crop-duster pilot, and finally when I served as a healing channel for those who were ill or about to die. Being at the scene of several deaths and privy to the conditions of many others, I noticed a pattern.

For a while, my former husband and I worked as a team, interviewing and speaking at length with friends and surviving family members of those who had died suddenly, especially by accident and particularly in cases involving multiple deaths. We started out with farm accidents, then branched out to cover automobile pile-ups and airplane crashes. Our interviews confirmed what I had already noticed: Accidental or sudden death is "known" about in advance by the one about to die! There may well be an exception to this, but I have yet to find it, and have come to suspect that accidental death is really not all that accidental.

People who sense their coming demise, I discovered, usually express this knowing in a pattern of subconscious behavior clues such as the following:

• About three months to three weeks before the death event, individuals begin to change their normal behavior.
• Subtle at first, this behavior-change begins as a need to re-assess affairs and life goals and, simultaneously, to become more philosophical.
• This is followed by a need to see everyone who means anything special to them. If visits are not possible, they begin writing letters or calling on the phone.
• As time draws near, they become more serious about straightening out their affairs or training or instructing a friend or loved one to take over in their stead. This instruction can be most specific, sometimes involving such details as what is owed and what not; what insurance policies exist and how to handle them; how possessions should be dispersed; what goals, programs, or projects remain yet undone and how to finish them. Financial matters and the management of personal and private affairs seem quite important.
• There is a need, almost a compulsion, to reveal secret feelings and deeper thoughts, to say what has not been said, especially to loved ones. There is also usually a need for one last "fling" or to visit desired places and do what is most enjoyed.
• The drive to settle affairs and wind up life's details can become so obsessive that others find it spooky or weird. Many times, the individuals want to talk over the possibility of "What if I die?", as if they had a dream or premonition. On occasion, they may appear morbid or unusually serious.
• Usually about 24 to 36 hours before the death event, the individuals relax and are at peace. Because of their unusual alertness, confidence, and sense of joy, they often appear high on something and exude a peculiar strength and positive demeanor, as if they were now ready for something important to happen.

This pattern has held true in people from the age of four on up, regardless of intelligence level. I have also discovered it in some people who were later murdered. As a whole, it is similar to the behavior pattern exhibited by people who, like cancer patients, have been told they are going to die.

One example of an "accidental" death following the Advance-Behavior Syndrome is the case of Donna Surratt of Staunton, Virginia. Donna was in her late teens, still living with her parents and siblings and enrolled in nearby Blue Ridge Community College. For several months, she had exhibited the typical pattern and had also been secretly constructing a poster that seemed to be very important to her On December 19,1979, she propped up the finished creation in plain sight on her bed before she left for the day. Half an hour later, she was killed in an auto-truck collision near Churchville, Virginia.

After the initial shock was over, her parents went to her room and opened the door. Before them was Donna's poster, a montage of colored paper made to look like a stained-glass window, and in large black letters it read:

Dear Lord

Your Will

Nothing More

Nothing Less

Nothing Else

Though Donna may seem like an angle unawares, her case is really not that unusual. Some people demonstrate more obvious behavior changes than others, even openly talking about their coming death a year or so in advance. Some even know exactly when and how they will die. Most people, though, do not discuss any such anticipation for fear that they will trouble others or be labeled eccentric.

Regardless of the degree of knowing, and whether or not that fact is communicated to others or even admitted, I have come to realize that people still know when their time has come. You can tell they know by being alert to any behavior clues. Are the manner and timing of full death is fated, chosen, or perhaps arranged before birth? No one can really say, but when the time comes to leave, the "message" gets through and the one about to die knows!

Two years before my own NDE, I spoke of dying ,and must have known subconsciously what could happen if I didn't t make some changes in my life. But I did not display the characteristics of one about to die fully, and neither has any other survivor I know of. Yet the vast majority of survivors readily admit to believing that they were not meant to die, and that the purpose of the near-miss was to shake them up and inspire them to make significant life changes. I instinctively labeled my own experience "The Heavenly Sledgehammer Effect," for it woke me up to how stubbornly I was clinging to self-defeating habits and attitudes.

Sadly, not everyone "catches on:' Some survivors fail to see any possible reason behind what happened to them, and they reject any attempts to suggest that any good might come from it. These people, however, are a small minority.

In conclusion, my research has shown me that near-death is actually a second chance at life, an unexpected opportunity to turn life around and learn anew, and is one of life's more accelerated growth events. Full death, on the other hand, is an exit point--a "graduation," if you will--enabling us to pivot from one vibrational frequency to another. On one level or another, it is familiar, and its coming is known.