Book Reviewed: In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by Sebastian Junger

Near-death visions This is a personal account of the author's near-death experience and exploration of afterlife. A ruptured pancreatic artery sent him into a life-threatening crisis. As he hovered between life and death, Junger experienced a spiritual encounter that challenged his beliefs about existence. He explores scientific theories and philosophical musings. This work is reflective of his thoughts. During his final moments of life, he sees his deceased father who reassure him, and invites him to go with him, and tells him not to be scared and he will take care of him. The author is confused about his father’s visit at deathbed. In fact, he expresses his anger at his father for his invitation to join him and claims he didn’t want to do anything with him. Advances in physiology and medicine found people to "come back from the dead;' as it were and reported extraordinary visions and experiences from their trip to the other side. It is a subjective experience of dying that included seeing Jesus, an old white man with grey hair wearing a robe, seeing the dead members of the family like parents and grandparents, being ushered through a tunnel of light, existing outside of their bodies, etc. Much of these experiences may be due to low oxygen supply to brain that results in distortions of experience, hallucinations, visions, disembodied voices, premonitions that have no provable basis in reality. The author discusses several studies about how the brain deprived of oxygen is known to cause cognitive distortions, tunnel vision, and loss of consciousness. He even makes speculative claims of physical reality. The title of this book is derived from a gospel song by Blind Willie Johnson. The title line, closing each stanza of the song refers to a deathbed wish and was inspired by a passage in the Bible from Psalms 41:3 "The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing, thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness". Numerous artists have recorded variations of this song including Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin. The author does not make references to Jesus, or Bible but gets spiritual and philosophical. Some of his deathbed visions could be explained by physiology and neurobiology.