Top neurosurgeon ‘spent six days in heaven’ during a coma

A top neurosurgeon claims to have ‘Proof of heaven’ after making a full recovery from a seven day coma that saw his neocortex inactivated. Dr Eben Alexander, who teaches neuroscience at Harvard University among others, fell seriously ill after contracting a rare form of bacterial meningitis in 2008. Within hours of developing a severe headache, Dr Alexander’s entire cortex—the section of the brain that controls thought and emotion —had shut down. Though his chances of survival were low, he awoke from the coma seven days later and began describing an ‘other worldly experience’. "I was in a place of clouds. Big, puffy, pink-white ones that showed up sharply against the deep blue-black sky," he wrote in an article for Newsweek. He also goes on to describe "Flocks of transparent, shimmering beings arced across the sky, leaving long, streamer-like lines behind them." "I’m still a doctor, and still a man of science every bit as much as I was before I had my experience,” he said. “But on a deep level I’m very different from the person I was before, because I’ve caught a glimpse of this emerging picture of reality."