Hello Bernie,

The mind stays integral with the body until the body stops functioning. The mind is always in the spiritual realm, but is integrated with the body in the material realm as long as the body is alive, so whatever happens to the body affects how the mind can operate in the physical realm. However, the mind is never harmed as the body is harmed, and the mind is always whole and alive--it never suffers damage and never dies.

During the period of trauma, the body is falling away and becoming useless for the mind to use, but it happens in gradual stages as the body dies. When the body is still alive, but not responding, the mind is freed to rise out of the body and even look at what's going on with the body, but it hasn't completely abandoned it. During that time, the mind always was and still is completely whole and independent of the body, but uses the body as the vehicle for having experiences in the physical realm, so as the body is beginning to lose its material life, the mind sort of stands aside ready to either restore the use of the body when the body is resuscitated or to leave the body entirely when the body dies.

As a result, in a near-death experience, the mind can leave the body and go off into the greater reality where the person's deceased relatives and guides are there to communicate, or stay around the body and watch what's going on. It will separate in harmony with the amount of life in the body. The person may then return to complete integration with the body or may stay in the next realm when the body dies.

By the way, there are no limbos. They were inventions of the church.

Love and peace, Craig