My first encounter with a spiritual experience which the outcome for me definitely entailed a cultural care intervention that was unfamiliar since it pertained to a patient who was diagnosed as being in a coma. Doctors could not have ascertained the cause of the comatosed state as the condition was precisely described. This patient remained in this condition for more than a week. He demonstrated no response to touch, but kept breathing and the respiration was quite normal, so were his other vitals such as b blood pressure, temperature, pulse and apex rate. Interestingly, when no nurse is paying any attention to him he would blink and smile as if there was someone at his bed side.
Members from his church visited often and were not alarmed at his condition because this was not the first time they explained that this bishop went off into the ether. They contended that he was a professional austral traveler. Then last time he was out there one of the senior elders claimed that he spent as long as six weeks. However, they could not predict how long he would spend this time. All they could do is hope for a safe return to the body since during the journey her could forget where to find the body and get lost. As such, elders were keeping track of where he is on the journey and that they expected a return to the body within the week.
Exactly one week later after this mysterious revelation XY began a serious howling as if a dog had entered the clinical area. Nurses off started towards him trying to see whether he was going to leave the bed or say anything. His elders were summoned who performed some unfamiliar rituals and he arose out his sleep, stood up walked around a few minutes doctor evaluated him and he was discharged the next day with a diagnosis of extended sleep of unknown origin (Daltrozzo et.al, 2007). The coma/sleep remains vivid in my experiences and I latent that coma could be a religious practice.
References
Daltrozzo, J., Wioland, N., Mutschler, V., Kotchoubey, B. (2007). Predicting Coma and other Low Responsive Patients Outcome using Event-Related Brain Potentials: A Meta-analysis. Clinical Neurophysiology, 118, 606-614.
