Posted on 15 July 2024, 8:34

A number of people have reported a “life review” during a near-death experience (NDE) – seeing every second of their lives flash before them in what might be called a timeless moment.  A man named Tom Sawyer had an NDE in 1978, one in which he recalled living every thought and attitude connected with decisive moments in his life and seeing them through the eyes of those affected by his actions. Popular NDE author PMH Atwater reported that she saw every thought she had ever had, every word she had ever spoken, and every deed she had ever done.

Physicist and author Dr. James Beichler speculates that a person who has a highly developed spiritual consciousness – one that has kept pace with the development of his mind – may not need a life review as the person has reviewed his or her life while in the flesh. Although I don’t know how developed my spiritual consciousness is, I attempted such a life review one night recently when I had a difficult time sleeping, hoping that it is a time-saver after I transition to the larger world. My focus was on the negative experiences rather than the positive. Those I left for another sleepless night.

Fortunately, I couldn’t recall any murders, thefts, or whatever else that might be classified as a felonious act. The word “bully” wasn’t really in my vocabulary when I was a kid during the 1940s, but one of the first things I recalled was acting like a bully with another kid my age. It was over a ridiculously trivial matter. If my after-death life review is like Tom Sawyer’s, I will feel myself being punched in the nose by my own fist. But hopefully the remorse I now feel for my one “bully” act is enough to avoid seeing it in a life review.

I recall rationing during World War II, in particular Super Suds, a laundry soap. My mother said that the amount allowed by the government was not enough for our laundry, and so I somehow cheated the system and managed to get two boxes of Super Suds at the store. I don’t recall how I did it, but I can still picture my mother’s joyous expression when I brought two boxes home. I need to feel more remorse for that one. What if some other person didn’t get his or her one box because I got two?

Being a practicing Catholic during my youth, I abstained from eating meat every Friday. However, there was one Friday when I attended a baseball game and couldn’t resist having a hot dog. As I munched into it, I wondered how many days I’d have to spend in the fires of purgatory because of my lack of discipline. Now that meat is permitted on Friday, I’m hopeful that all prior sins in this regard are pardoned.

In the fifth grade at Catholic school, each class contributed to a stage program. Ours was a tribute to singer Al Jolson and involved singing “Way down upon the Swannee River.” We all had to darken our faces with burnt cork, just like Jolson. There was nothing racist about it that I could see then or now, but today it would be considered by some to be a terribly racist thing. As I see it, applying current standards to past activities stages of spiritual evolution is part of the insanity we are now experiencing, and I’m confident that it will not come up in my life review.

“Culturism” was more common than racism where I grew up and various relatives and friends had derogatory names for people from three or four European countries. I do remember choosing not to use any of those names and fully respecting natives of those countries. Perhaps I can get points for that in my review.

Fewer Temptations

Without television, we had fewer temptations in those days.  We weren’t exposed to carnal scenes or foul language at home, or even in the movies that we attended once a week.  I wonder if those responsible for popularizing such influences today will see the effects of it all in their life reviews. Then again, perhaps it has just provided challenges and learning experiences.   

Jumping ahead to my adult years, I recall climbing a coconut tree on private property and pulling off a coconut for personal consumption. I don’t think I considered it as thievery at the time, but, in retrospect, it might be called that. I still have that theft memorialized in a photograph and hope the statute of limitations has run on it. 

I further remember visiting my parents and using their car to go to the grocery store. Not being able to find an open parking stall in the parking lot, I decided to take advantage of my father’s handicap placard and pulled into a stall reserved for the truly handicapped.  I justified my act by reasoning that I had Achilles tendonitis at the time, a result of too much competitive running. Also, there was another handicap stall available.  That violation remained with me for a day or two, but I don’t know if that was enough remorse. It may be that during a real-life review I will see a handicapped person unable to find a parking stall, then driving out of the parking lot and having a serious accident, all because I had used the parking stall he would have had were it not for my selfishness. 

I remembered the time that I copied something protected by copyright law and passed it on to several friends. Shame on me.  Also,  I recall renting a movie at a Blockbuster store and then lending it to a friend to see the movie, thereby cheating the store out of a possible rental to my friend.  When I heard that our Blockbuster franchise was closing, I wondered if I had contributed to it.

Extermination

Perhaps the most difficult dilemma for me and many others is where to draw the line on exterminating low-life creatures, i.e., house pests.  I’ve swatted hundreds of flies over my lifetime and ended the lives of thousands of ants and termites.  Add in some cockroaches, mice, rats and geckos, the latter especially rampant on the walls here in Hawaii.  If, as Tom Sawyer experienced it, I have to feel the effects of eliminating those creatures, I’m really in trouble. I’ll be eaten alive during my review.  I consider it every time I hear my wife scream and then arm myself with a flyswatter, all the while weighing the unsanitary effects of allowing the creatures to run about or fly free about the house against eliminating them.  A friend told me that his wife, apparently a mystic of some kind, talks to the creatures and becomes friends with them, but I am not gifted in that respect.

I often look back on my competitive running days with much fondness, but Gina, my wife, does not share in my memories.  She reminds me that after we both came home from our jobs in those earlier years, she was laboring away with household chores, especially cooking, while I was out running around the streets for my daily workout. I should have been home helping with the cooking, cleaning, child care, whatever. Because I couldn’t run on a full stomach, it was necessary for me to do the workout before the evening meal, not after, so it more or less boiled down to giving up the activity completely or continuing in my selfish ways.  There was really little room for compromise, but since Gina apparently recognized how important that activity was to my mental and physical health,  she never pushed it and I remained ignorant of my selfishness until later years. I was a victim of my ancestors’ mindset that women did all the cooking. I don’t think my father even cooked toast.  If, in my self-judgment, I am faced with justifying my pursuit of sport for an hour a day, I hope my higher self agrees with the way I did it.  Otherwise, I could find myself on a treadmill to hell.

There are things I have not mentioned or have forgotten, so I may face a life review in spite of attempting to do it before death.  But what’s the point of saving time if there is no time in that realm?

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.
His latest book, No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife is published by White Crow books.

Next blog post:  July 29