One of the problems with evidence in the area of death and dying is that it is very personal and subjective. It is fairly common for people who are with someone close to death to witness them sit bolt upright and extend their arms, they may then say something. My sister witnessed this happen with my father who sat up and said "mummy" shortly before he died.Speaking to my wife's uncle at the weekend, who is 90, he said that the same thing happened when his wife died, only instead of speaking, she had a look of astonishment on her face. This anecdotal evidence is not proof of anything. However, there are genuine scientific experiments into near death experiments such as those of Prof. Peter Fenwick of London University. The scientific skeptics are legion but this area is of crucial interest to the psychologist. May we one day be able to say with Wordsworth,
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us,our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home;
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
Writing a research paper can be a discouraging method, but the added heaviness of having to write that paper in APA format can be even more frightening. While writing an APA paper can seem like a big hassle, the format is required in many different types of courses outside of psychology essay including education, health sciences and sociology.
ReplyDelete