“Coming Closer to the Featherlight”: Peter Fenwick and the Stories of Near Death Experiences

I didn’t fully understand the limitations of my body until last June, when I fell down a fire escape and floated out in a near-death experience, much like Peter Fenwick, a psychiatrist who studies end-of-life phenomena, has documented throughout his career. (Dr. Fenwick died on November 22 at the age of 89)

I was on the windowsill and standing on the fire escape with two friends when I fell, falling about 10 feet and hitting my head. I lost consciousness for several minutes.

According to my friends, the rescuers arrived quickly, removed the mosquito net from the window on the second floor and carried me down the stairs on a stretcher. As they loaded me into the ambulance, I rose above myself and watched the fanfare: anxious neighbors took to the street; the pale pink of sunset; my own body, diminutive and far away on the stretcher, as my roommate held my hand and my friend held my ankle. Their touch brought me back to consciousness. I immediately felt pain and asked for water.

This wasn’t the first time I had experienced something that felt like an out-of-body experience. When I was a teenager, I became fascinated with astral projection – intentionally traveling out of the body – and began practicing it at night. One evening I ran towards the ceiling and watched myself sleep. The line ran from the sternum to the navel. It resembled an umbilical cord: silver and long as a rope.

I had similar feelings after falling, although without the rope. Doctors diagnosed a stern concussion and I spent the next three weeks recovering in my fresh home. At first I tried to make sense of the sudden proximity of death. Then I thought about fragility – and the thousands of minutes that people avoid death every day without knowing it – and my experience translated into a newfound appreciation of our bodies’ capacity for self-preservation and a reduced fear of death.

I was reminded of my near-death experience when I learned that The Fresh York Times, where I work, would publish Dr. Fenwick’s obituary.

His 1995 book “The Truth in the Featherlight,” which he wrote with his wife Elizabeth, included anecdotes from more than 300 people who recounted near-death experiences, which he classified using labels such as “out-of-body,” “approaching to the featherlight”, “meeting with loved ones” and “life review”. Below are some of the stories he has collected.

Meeting with loved ones

In 1987, Dawn Gillott was in a hospital in England undergoing emergency surgery in the intensive care unit when she suddenly felt herself floating above her body and passing through a tunnel, where she found herself in an open field.

On the right side there was a bench where my Grandfather sat (he had been dead for seven years). I sat down next to him. He asked me how I was feeling and how my family was doing. I said I was elated and content and my whole family was fine.

He said he was worried about my son; my son needed his mother. I told Grandpa that I didn’t want to go back, I wanted to stay with him. But Grandpa insisted that I come back for the sake of my children. I then asked if he would come for me when my time came. He started to answer, “Yes, I’ll be back in four…” and then my whole body jumped. I look around and see that I am back at ITU

Approaching the Featherlight

Avon Pailthorpe was driving on a gloomy, rainy day in 1986 when her car hydroplaned and she skidded. Then she felt herself shooting headfirst into the tunnel.

As the tunnel began to lighten, presences appeared. They weren’t human and I couldn’t see anything, but I was aware of their minds. They wondered if I should come back. That’s what made me so protected; I knew it was absolutely no responsibility make any decision. This is an almost unknown situation for me and it was wonderfully liberating. I also knew that I had no influence on what decision they would make, but whatever it was, it would be the right one.

Life review

Allan Pring was given anesthesia during a minor operation in 1979 and quickly lost consciousness.

I experienced a life review that stretched from early childhood and included many events that I had completely forgotten. My life passed before me in a momentary flash, but it was whole, even my thoughts were contained in it. Some of the content made me feel ashamed, but I forgot some that I was quite elated with. Bottom line, I knew I could have had a much better life, but it could have been a lot worse.

Amisha Padnani contributed to research.