What Others Say: More from the Back Cover

What happens when we die? This is one of humankind’s most important and endur­ing questions. A Natural Afterlife Discovered brings a fresh and exciting perspective to this ancient question. Consistent with what I found in my investigation of over 4000 near-death experiences, this book presents a novel understanding of what may lay beyond death’s door. The Natural Eternal Consciousness theory discussed in this book may revolutionize thinking about death and existence after death. With each turn of the page, you will find a treasure trove of insights and inspiration. This outstanding book is expertly written, very easy to read, and enthusiastically recom­mended.
     —JEFFREY LONG, MD, author of the New York Times bestselling Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences

In the spirit of recent crossings of a non-reductionist scientific naturalism and spir­ituality, Ehlmann offers this important cognitive theory of a psychologically eternal afterlife based on the nature of immediate consciousness, along with his personal account of its development.
     —HARRY T. HUNT, Professor Emeritus Psychology, Brock University, author of On the Nature of Consciousness, Yale University Press

There is much evidence that our dreams and near-death experiences (NDEs) are actually out-of-body experiences and journeys to other realms. Ehlmann’s book and theory concerning a naturalistic afterlife involving dreams and NDEs will satisfy both the skeptic and the believers in the afterlife. I highly recommend the book.
     —KEVIN R. WILLIAMS, webmaster of near-death.com and author of several books about NDEs, philosophy, and religion

Some Quotes From the Book

For centuries humans have considered just two main possibilities for what awaits us at death: 1) a ‘nothingness’ like that of our before-life (i.e., the period before life) or 2) some supernatural afterlife. These possibilities summarize the orthodoxy concerning death. They have been the only positions available in an age-old public debate and a personal private one. But finally, a new reality about death has been discovered. Perhaps, however, I should say ‘uncovered’ because I feel this reality was just lying there like a lump under a blanket just waiting for someone to lift the heavy blanket of orthodoxy to uncover it.—p. 14

The reality is that when you die, assuming no supernatural afterlife, things will not be, from your perspective, as they were before you were born. Instead, you will be timelessly, though imperceptibly so, and eternally, though deceptively so, paused in the last conscious moment of your final experience.—p. 14

Your natural afterlife is dying while believing you’re in heaven (or hell) and for all eternity never knowing otherwise.—p. 18

I began the evolving discovery of this reality when I simply woke up one morning from a dream and imagined that I had never woken up. You never know a dream is over until you wake up. But if you never wake up, how will you ever know the dream is over? Short answer: You won’t!—p. 5

With death, you will never perceive another moment to supplant the final present moment from your consciousness or others that can dim its remembrance. Thus, it will seem eternal to you, yet in reality, it is not. Given both the imperception and deception of material reality occurring in your mind, your NEC [natural eternal consciousness] will be an illusion, an end-of-life illusion of immortality.—p. 15

One way to view the NEC [natural eternal consciousness] is as a scrap of leftover consciousness that gets caught in one’s self-awareness and is not biodegradable. One’s last conscious moment is such because, unlike all the other gazillion moments in life, its presence in the mind—i.e., in one’s self-awareness—never gets supplanted by another and remembrance can never fade because forgetting takes time. Neither timelessness nor death removes it from self-awareness because both are never perceived. Therefore, human-like consciousness, once embodied within time, once born, is never obliterated (unless replaced by something supernatural). It is only psychologically paused and so made timeless and eternal when its physical embodiment is no more.—p. 202

Based on Scholarly Psychological Journal Articles: a Default Natural Afterlife

There’s nothing supernatural about the “Natural Afterlife Discovered.” It’s is based on three peer-reviewed scholarly articles. The psychology journals in which they are published and their titles are shown below. These articles can be found on ResearchGate.net.

If the kind of Heaven you may envision isn’t there for you upon death, a timeless default one supported by human experiences and psychology (i.e., nature) may be. Moreover, it can be a heaven of ultimate happiness. It’s made possible by humankind’s natural eternal consciousness (NEC). But who or what will determine the type of our eternal conscious experience “That Awaits Us at Death”? Will it be heavenly, hellish, or something else? Science provides no answer, so it’s a matter of belief, perhaps faith. My book is all about the NEC theory and its significance.