Occipital lobe removal?

Near-death experiences with vision in the blind and supernormal vision There have been a few case reports of near-death experiences in the blind. The largest study of this was by Dr. Kenneth Ring.15 This Investigation included 31 blind or substantially visually impaired individuals who had NDEs or out-of-body experiences. Of the 31 individuals in the study, 10 were not facing life-threatening events at the time of their experiences, and thus their experiences were not NDEs. There were 14 individuals who were blind from birth in this study, and nine of them described vision during their experiences. This investigation presented case reports of those born totally blind that described in NDEs that were highly visual with content consistent with typical NDEs.

The NDERF website has received additional case reports of near-death experiences among those legally blind. For illustration, the following NDE happened to Marta, a five-year-old blind girl who walked into a lake:

“I slowly breathed in the water and became unconscious. A beautiful lady dressed in bright white light pulled me out. The lady looked into my eyes asked me what I wanted. I was unable to think of anything until it occurred to me to travel around the lake. As I did so, I saw detail that I would not have seen in “real” life. I could go anywhere, even to the tops of trees, simply by my intending to go there. I was legally blind. For the first time I was able to see leaves on trees, bird’s feathers, bird’s eyes, details on telephone poles and what was in people’s back yards. I was seeing far better than 20/20 vision. 16

An NDERF survey question asked 1,122 near-death experiencers, “Did your vision differ in any way from your normal, everyday vision (in any aspect, such as clarity, field of vision, colors, brightness, depth perception degree of solidness/transparency of objects, etc.)?” In response, 722 (64.3%) answered “Yes”, 182 (16.2%) said “Uncertain”, and 218 (19.4%) responded “No”. A review of narrative responses to this question revealed that vision during NDEs was often apparently supernormal. Here are some illustrative examples from NDEs:

“Colors were beyond any I had ever seen.”

“Everything seemed so much more colorful and brighter than normal.”

“My vision was greatly increased. I was able to see things as close or as far as I needed. There was no strain involved it was almost like auto zooming a camera.”

“I had 360 degree vision, I could see above, below, on my right, on my left, behind, I could see everywhere at the same time!”

Vision in near-death experiencers that are blind, including totally blind from birth, has been described in many case reports. This, along with the finding that vision in NDEs is usually different from normal everyday vision and often described as supernormal, further suggests that NDEs cannot be explained by our current understanding of brain function. This is also further evidence that NDEs are not a product of what NDErs would have expected to occur during a life-threatening event.