Opening Heaven's Door : What the Dying May Be Trying to Tell Us About Where They're Going

A touching, exhilarating, challenging exploration of the inexplicable gleamings of another world many of us experience, in life, in grief, and near death.      Sparked by extraordinary experiences that occured when her father and her sister both died in 2008, Patricia Pearson set off on an investigation into what she calls "a curious sort of modern underground--a world beneath the secular world, inhabited by ordinary human beings having extraordinary experiences that they aren't, on the whole, willing to disclose." Roughly half the bereaved population and an unreported number of the dying witness or experience a sensed presence, the mystery of near-death awareness, and, if they are not in horrible pain or medicated into unconsciousness, feelings of transcendence and grace as they depart on the journey from which none of us return.      Pearson brings us effortlessly into her quest for answers, inspiring us to own up to experiences we may never have shared with anyone. If we let ourselves, all of us wonder deeply about these things, and also about the medical, social and psychological implications of passing through heaven's door.