As I watched Penny Wittbrodt recount her near-death experience, I was particularly struck by one experience. When she died she was met by a God-figure. He showed her a nurse with whom she had worked. While they worked together, Penny had not enjoyed her interactions with the woman and had resented the extra work she felt she had to do because of the woman’s disposition. The God figure in her NDE allowed Penny to see the nurse’s background, and, suddenly, Penny understood why the woman was the way she was. She understood the tremendous journey the woman had come through and could even see how admirable it was that the woman had chosen a profession where she could help others.

Then God explained to her that she needed to be careful with her thoughts. The resentment she’d carried towards the woman would hold back the woman in her own development. I sat up a little straighter when I heard this. I’m not a loud resenter. However, I can get a little angsty and resentful in my thoughts toward a few people who have made my life or the lives of others uncomfortable or difficult. According to this revelation, my angsty thoughts about those people were one of the very reasons they remained in the state I was resenting them for.

Exactly how far could my thoughts travel? Prior to my NDE study, I blissfully skipped through the meadows of mindful reflection, believing I was alone, that nobody was watching the dance in my head. But not so. I’ve listened to so many NDE accounts where the out-of-body person is privy to all sorts of thoughts of other people… and….gulp… a few accounts where they get to see entire life histories of people like the angsty nurse. So are my thoughts actually private at all? How far do these thoughts travel? Many of us already expect that God will and does know the ins and outs of all of our meditations. But if Joe down the street dies, does he get to see them too? Will he know about my secret dreams of hosing down his barking dog in the night?

I felt falsely safe after asking ChatGPT for his opinion. He said thoughts are actually electromagnetic waves. He asserted that, “The influence of brain waves on external fields is minimal beyond the immediate vicinity of the person. They typically don’t affect the broader environment beyond a few centimeters to a few meters from the body. The fields created by the brain are too weak to interfere significantly with or alter the behavior of stronger external electromagnetic fields.”

Really? Because Penny brought up another astonishingly good point. How often do you sense someone looking at you from across the room, and you turn exactly to where they are and make immediate eye contact? Your suspicions are quickly confirmed as they look away guiltily. Wasn’t that a thought traveling more than three feet (approximately a meter) across a room? If all of these NDEs are true then floating spirits in hospital rooms know what their doctor’s exact thought are from several feet away. You could even argue that they are discerning the thoughts of others from a position in an entirely different spiritual dimension. Exactly how far away is that? Definitely farther than a fatty brain mass and a skull — and farther than you can hold out a yard stick.

I had long suspected that if Dr. Masaru Emoto’s speaking to rice in water every day for a month could change how the rice presented, whether fermenting nicely, turning black, or rotting depending on the message he gave it (or even if he ignored it) that my thoughts about somebody when I passed them on the street actually would have an effect on their 70% water body/mind. I began to be more careful with my thoughts about others when I read his book, The Hidden Messages in Water. If I judged their appearance harshly, I would immediately repent and picture them as a whole, healthy, and beautiful child, running joyfully through a lush, summer field of tall grass.

When we arrive on this planet as children, we don’t actually shield our thoughts from others until we are between 4 and 6 years of age. At that time, science suggests that children grow wise to the idea that others have thoughts, feeling, and opinions that differ from their own. They stop saying everything they’re thinking out loud and we notice their play is often silent. They’ve become aware that they can intentionally keep information, feelings, and opinions to themselves.

Exactly how connected are we? In the NDEs I’ve studied, the out-of-body person often relates that we are filled with love and understanding for one another. Is it because we’re transparent, not only to the point of our thoughts being transparent, but our whole life stories?

So, how far do our thoughts travel and does it really matter what we think of in our most private moments? It has to make you wonder. And, I’ll be honest, it makes me a little uncomfortable [insert me looking warily around the empty room I’m sitting in as I type this].