By Yuhong Dong, M.D., Ph.D.
Vicki Umipeg was prematurely born at 22 weeks, weighing 3 pounds. Her optic nerve was damaged due to high oxygen in the incubator, resulting in complete blindness. She had no visual experiences, no awareness of light whatsoever.
At the age of 22, she was thrown out of a car in Seattle, resulting in severe injuries—skull fractures, concussion, and injuries to her neck, back, and leg. While being rescued in the hospital, she found herself floating to the ceiling.
She had panoramic vision and saw a woman’s body lying on a metal operating table, with a male and a female medical staff working to save her. When she noticed the distinct wedding ring on the woman’s hand, she realized it was her ring, and the woman lying there was her.
As she had been blind all her life, she had never seen that ring or her body. Only in that near-death experience (NDE) did she see her ring.
Vicki was the research subject of Dr. Jeffrey Long, a practicing radiation oncologist in Kentucky. Long has dedicated more than 25 years to studying near-death experiences. He has researched and reviewed more than 4,000 cases of unique NDEs and published them on his website, the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation.
Long summarized the most common experiences of NDE based on his research, which is similar to what Dr. Raymond Moody, known as the father of NDE, has found:
- Out-of-body experience
- Absence of pain
- Passage through a tunnel towards a bright light
- Encountering deceased loved ones in a heavenly realm
- Undergoing a profound life review
- Feeling overwhelming love and peace
Vicki’s case falls under the typical type of “out-of-body experience.” Her experience, especially the panoramic vision, is shared by all with NDEs.
360-Degree Vision
In a recent conversation with The Epoch Times, Long recalled his conversation with the blind woman.
“She had a 360-degree vision, where she could simultaneously be aware of and process vision during her near-death experience, in front of her, behind her, right, left, up, down.”
“In fact, I told Vicki that the rest of us in our earthly lives have these pie-shaped visual fields because of the location of our eyes, in our eye sockets. She literally laughed at me because her entire life experience with vision [during her NDE] was at 360 or spherical vision.”
Furthermore, initially unfamiliar with math and science, Vicki intuitively grasped calculus and understood how planets are formed after her NDE. She gained answers to questions about science, math, life, planets, and God, experiencing a flood of knowledge and understanding languages she didn’t know before.
From Delusional to Real
People who reported near-death experiences were often dismissed by the scientific community as delusional or religiously influenced until a significant shift in perspective over the past few decades.
In 1978, five independent medical doctors and scientists—John Audette, who has a master of science degree; Dr. Bruce Greyson; Dr. Raymond Moody; Ken Ring, who has a doctorate in social psychology; and Dr. Michael Sabom—co-established the International Association for Near-Death Studies, paving the way for exploring these extraordinary experiences through scientific lenses.
“I first heard about near-death experience decades ago when I was in my residency training,” Long said, “and in one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, the Journal of the American Medical Association.”
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