美国国家公共电台 NPR--One man recounts his near death COVID story

One man recounts his near death COVID story

Transcript¹

Randy Shiefer contracted COVID in the spring and was put in a medically induced coma². He describes his experience and brush with death.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We can't know what happens when we die, but sometimes a small number of us who occupy that space between life and death, even for a few moments, catch a glimpse.

What happened to you? What did you see?

RANDY SCHEIFER: I remember my consciousness awakening³.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MARTIN: Today we're thinking about near-death experiences - NDEs. The voice you just heard is that of Randy Scheifer. In the spring of 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic lockdowns, he went into the hospital with COVID. He had developed severe pneumonia⁴ as a result and was deteriorating⁵ fast. His organs were all failing, and doctors put him in a medically induced coma. Here's how Randy describes what happened next.

SCHEIFER: I was moving through this tunnel, and the tunnel was encased in light - beautiful, warm, loving light.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SCHEIFER: And I remember, suddenly, I look over my shoulder, and this big, beautiful white staircase rose up into the sky as far as you could see. And I said, if I can get onto that staircase, maybe somebody will find me. And I remember making my way over, and I - literally⁶ crawling up this staircase. No clue how far I got. I have no clue. But I remember somebody yelling, there he is; there's Randy. And it was like they grabbed me by my shirt collar and just whisked me off those steps. And when they whisked me off those steps, I remember it going black, back to my little dark, sedated⁷ world.

MARTIN: Now, I'm not asking you to believe that what happened to Randy really happened, but it's crucial to understand that, for him, this was real, and this experience changed him. He's not afraid of death like he used to be, and he navigates⁸ his life differently.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SCHEIFER: I'm much more open, much more welcoming, much more understanding than I was before. I think much more loving as a husband and father as I was before.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MARTIN: Dr. Bruce Greyson is professor emeritus⁹ of psychiatry¹⁰ and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia. And throughout his career, he's interviewed thousands of people who've had near-death experiences, and that's made a huge impact on their lives. I asked Dr. Greyson for a clinical definition of a near-death experience.

BRUCE GREYSON: Well, the best definition we have is that it's a profound experience that many people have when they are near-death or sometimes pronounced dead that includes enhanced thought processes. Your thoughts are faster and clearer than usual. You have a sense of being in a timeless state.

You often have a review of your entire lives. It includes strong emotions, like a sense of overwhelming peace and well-being¹¹, a sense of oneness with everything, an experience of unconditional¹² love, a sense of being outside the physical body and often seeing things that can later be corroborated¹³ and, finally, many people report, seem to be in some other realm that's not the physical world, where they may encounter other entities¹⁴ that they interpret as deities¹⁵ or deceased loved ones, and come to a border or point of no return beyond which they can keep going and still come back to life.

MARTIN: I have so many questions based on that. But first, I guess we should establish how rare or common are near-death experiences.

GREYSON: They're actually much more common than I expected them to be when I first started studying this. Between 10 and 20% of people who have a documented cardiac arrest - that is, when their hearts stop - will report a near-death experience.

MARTIN: Are there certain kinds of people, are there certain kinds of brains predisposed to this kind of experience?

GREYSON: Yeah. We haven't been able to find anything yet. We look to the obvious things - gender¹⁶, age, ethnicity, religiosity, religious beliefs - and they don't seem to be correlated with the near-death experience, nor do physiological¹⁷ conditions around the close brush with death. We have the same types of accounts told to us by people all over the world. And going back to ancient Greece and Rome, we hear the same accounts that we hear today.

MARTIN: Are some of these just dreams or hallucinations? I mean, folks are near the end of life. They're on so many different medications.

GREYSON: Right, right.

MARTIN: And visions come quick.

GREYSON: It certainly is something worth looking at because no one has access to the information except the experience of himself or herself. So we can't validate¹⁸ most of it. But some parts of it we can. And in hallucinations or dreams, you don't see things accurately¹⁹ that are going on around you, but in near-death experiences, you often can. Also, there's a consistent pattern of aftereffects that follow near-death experiences that don't follow hallucinations or dreams.

MARTIN: Like what?

GREYSON: You have the decreased fear of death and the increased sense of spirituality, which, by the way, doesn't occur in people who come close to death but don't have a near-death experience. And it really changes the way people lead their lives, what they think is important in life. I've got story after story of people who couldn't go back to the same profession - people who were, say, career police officers who couldn't shoot after a near-death experience, people who were at competitive businesses who no longer felt it was meaningful to get ahead at someone else's expense.

MARTIN: I mean, I will tell you, I am spiritually inclined, so it's not a big stretch for me to be able to reconcile that these things happen. But you're the scientist (laughter). How do you confront the skepticism, the - like, the wave of skepticism...

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: ...I hear out there in the world...

GREYSON: Sure, sure, sure.

MARTIN: ...As people listen to us talk about - what evidence is there? What is the proof of any of this?

GREYSON: Yeah. Well, I understand the skepticism because I'm a skeptic²⁰ myself. I was raised in a scientific household. But after 50 years of studying thousands of cases, I can't deny that they happen and that they profoundly affect people's lives and present us with things that we don't have materialistic²¹ explanations for. If you look at what science can tell us, we have to say we just don't have the answer. I can't say that I've become much more spiritual as a result of this, but I have become much more comfortable with the idea that we don't have the answers and that the science we have now may not be capable of giving us the answers. We may need to stretch science and come up with new methodologies.

MARTIN: Do you feel comfortable with that?

GREYSON: I do now, yes, probably because I've been living with this uncertainty²² for so many years. It becomes like an old friend. And probably because near-death experiencer after near-death experiencer has told me that the universe is a friendly place. There's nothing to be frightened of. And there's something that's greater than us that is in control of things. I can't say that I believe that, but I certainly have absorbed the feeling of that, that this is a safe place to be.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MARTIN: Dr. Bruce Greyson is professor emeritus of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia. He's written a book about his study of near-death experiences called "After." You can hear much more of our story about NDEs this Sunday on our podcast Up First.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 coma   

n.昏迷，昏迷状态

参考例句：

• The patient rallied from the coma.病人从昏迷中苏醒过来。
• She went into a coma after swallowing a whole bottle of sleeping pills.她吃了一整瓶安眠药后就昏迷过去了。

3 awakening   

n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的

参考例句：

• the awakening of interest in the environment 对环境产生的兴趣
• People are gradually awakening to their rights. 人们正逐渐意识到自己的权利。

4 pneumonia   

n.肺炎

参考例句：

• Cage was struck with pneumonia in her youth.凯奇年轻时得过肺炎。
• Pneumonia carried him off last week.肺炎上星期夺去了他的生命。

5 deteriorating   

恶化，变坏( deteriorate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The weather conditions are deteriorating. 天气变得越来越糟。
• I was well aware of the bad morale and the deteriorating factories. 我很清楚，大家情绪低落，各个工厂越搞越坏。

6 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

7 sedated   

v.使昏昏入睡，使镇静( sedate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She's sedated,but she's probably scared out of her mind. 她很安静，但是她可能已经吓疯了。 来自电影对白
• Are you telling me the porn actually sedated you? 你是要告诉我，那毛片的确让你镇静下来吗？ 来自电影对白

8 navigates   

v.给（船舶、飞机等）引航，导航( navigate的第三人称单数 )；（从海上、空中等）横越；横渡；飞跃

参考例句：

• Dolpins also navigates by some kind of echo system. 原来海豚也是借助某种回声系统寻向的。 来自辞典例句
• Navigates in menus, lists, choice screens and into edited texts. 可以操纵菜单、列表、屏幕选项和进入编辑文本。 来自互联网

9 emeritus   

adj.名誉退休的

参考例句：

• "Perhaps I can introduce Mr.Lake Kirby,an emeritus professor from Washington University?"请允许我介绍华盛顿大学名誉教授莱克柯尔比先生。
• He will continue as chairman emeritus.他将会继续担任荣誉主席。

10 psychiatry   

n.精神病学，精神病疗法

参考例句：

• The study appeared in the Amercian science Journal of Psychiatry.这个研究发表在美国精神病学的杂志上。
• A physician is someone who specializes in psychiatry.精神病专家是专门从事精神病治疗的人。

11 well-being   

n.安康，安乐，幸福

参考例句：

• He always has the well-being of the masses at heart.他总是把群众的疾苦挂在心上。
• My concern for their well-being was misunderstood as interference.我关心他们的幸福，却被误解为多管闲事。

12 unconditional   

adj.无条件的，无限制的，绝对的

参考例句：

• The victorious army demanded unconditional surrender.胜方要求敌人无条件投降。
• My love for all my children is unconditional.我对自己所有孩子的爱都是无条件的。

13 corroborated   

v.证实，支持（某种说法、信仰、理论等）( corroborate的过去式 )

参考例句：

• The evidence was corroborated by two independent witnesses. 此证据由两名独立证人提供。
• Experiments have corroborated her predictions. 实验证实了她的预言。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 entities   

实体对像； 实体，独立存在体，实际存在物( entity的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Our newspaper and our printing business form separate corporate entities. 我们的报纸和印刷业形成相对独立的企业实体。
• The North American continent is made up of three great structural entities. 北美大陆是由三个构造单元组成的。

15 deities   

n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明

参考例句：

• Zeus and Aphrodite were ancient Greek deities. 宙斯和阿佛洛狄是古希腊的神。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Taoist Wang hesitated occasionally about these transactions for fearof offending the deities. 道士也有过犹豫，怕这样会得罪了神。 来自汉英文学 - 现代散文

16 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

17 physiological   

adj.生理学的，生理学上的

参考例句：

• He bought a physiological book.他买了一本生理学方面的书。
• Every individual has a physiological requirement for each nutrient.每个人对每种营养成分都有一种生理上的需要。

18 validate   

vt.（法律）使有效，使生效

参考例句：

• You need an official signature to validate the order.你要有正式的签字，这张汇票才能生效。
• In order to validate the agreement,both parties sign it.为使协议有效，双方在上面签了字。

19 accurately   

adv.准确地，精确地

参考例句：

• It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
• Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。

20 skeptic   

n.怀疑者，怀疑论者，无神论者

参考例句：

• She is a skeptic about the dangers of global warming.她是全球变暖危险的怀疑论者。
• How am I going to convince this skeptic that she should attention to my research?我将如何使怀疑论者确信她应该关注我的研究呢？

21 materialistic   

a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的

参考例句：

• She made him both soft and materialistic. 她把他变成女性化而又实际化。
• Materialistic dialectics is an important part of constituting Marxism. 唯物辩证法是马克思主义的重要组成部分。

22 uncertainty   

n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物

参考例句：

• Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
• After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后，压力开始产生影响了。