SCIENTIFIC evidence for the existence of life after death would come as no surprise to best-selling author Colin Wilson. He has long been "totally convinced" and he says it's about time the idea was taken seriously.

A major three-year study co-ordinated by Southampton University is to examine near-death experiences in cardiac arrest patients. Doctors at 25 US and UK hospitals, including Swindon and Salisbury, will study 1,500 survivors to see if people without heartbeat or brain activity have "out of body" experiences.

"What is so epoch-making is that science itself should have the courage to ask a question that is usually regarded as the domain of religious belief," Colin told me.

"If the answer is affirmative, we could even envisage a day when life after death is taught in science classes at school.

"My own comment would be that it's about time, too. The question has been around for at least a century and a half and taking it seriously is long overdue."

Colin, 77, who lives at Gorran Haven in Cornwall with his wife Joy, has spent half a lifetime bringing a powerful intellect to bear on exhaustive investigations of the paranormal, as well as on a wide range of other subjects.

His analogy is that, on Earth, we are like explorers in uncharted territory who have "lost radio contact with base" – in death, we return to base. "And if you ask me," he said, "what is the purpose of human existence, I would say that human beings are here in this world because they want to be, voluntarily, almost in the way that explorers go to the North Pole, to check it out and to learn something, but that we have pretty poor radio contact with base. It's a very crackly radio, but some things do come through.

"I have this extremely powerful feeling of an underlying meaning in human existence, and life after death fits in with this because I believe that after death we go back to wherever we came from, which is back to base, so to speak, where there's a feeling of total, absolute freedom. Although you must feel marvellously free, I'm sure one of the things you want once you get back to base is to say 'OK, come on, let's go out again!' – the feeling that there's a lot more work to be done, and you really appreciate being in touch with the world."

John Lennon told his family that after he died he would endeavour to make contact with them by sending a red rose. I asked Colin, who has four children and five grandchildren, if he would contemplate telling his own family that he would attempt contact after his death?

"Possibly, yes," he replied. "There's no good reason why not. I suppose it's a possibility."

COLIN has explored hundreds of cases of near-death experiences, deathbed visions and hauntings. His landmark book Afterlife came out in 1985 – he admits he began writing it in a sceptical frame of mind.

"But there were so many cases that quite obviously were totally genuine and, moreover, there were so many cases where there was no doubt there could not be another explanation.

"I'm not a spiritualist, I never go to spiritualist meetings, I don't read great fat books about the subject – philosophy is the main thing that interests me – but if you ask me now if I believe in life after death I will say, yes, life after death exists."