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The Mysterious Power of Near-Death Experiences

Over the course of my life, I’ve had a few close calls, incidents that, had they taken place a second or a minute later, might have changed my life—or ended it. I’ve never had the classic near-death experience, the one that includes an out-of-body moment, when one’s spirit floats away from one’s body, to hover in a state of heightened awareness from the ceiling or some higher plane. I don’t know what it’s like to have died and come back, only what it’s like to momentarily feel that I might have possibly come close to dying.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I bought my first car, with a six-figure mileage, from a friend of my father’s. I was a reluctant driver at best—a terrified one, really—and an overused lemon was not a good starter car for me. Once, when I was driving along a busy street in New Rochelle, New York, the car turned on its own and headed toward a garbage truck in the opposite lane. There were only a few inches between us when both the truck and my car miraculous stopped. If the truck had hit me at the speed we were both going, I might have died.

A few years ago, I was standing on the landing of the steps in front of a friend’s apartment in lower Manhattan. The front door was an entire story above the ground. It had snowed a few days before, then had warmed up, and then the temperature had plunged again. Black ice covered both the steps and the sidewalk below. I’d just pulled the door shut, and had my back to the steps, when I suddenly felt myself slipping. My arms flailed, and for a moment I felt as though I were flying. I somehow managed to catch the railing before I could freefall all the way down. Had I plunged backward and landed head first on the concrete, I might have been at least brain dead.

There was also the time, soon after my mother died, when I looked up from my phone while riding in the passenger seat of our family car and realized that my husband had accidentally driven onto the wrong side of a highway ramp. Had any cars been coming off the highway at high speed, nothing could have saved us. That particular brush with death made me think of all the close calls that I, and a few people I know, have had over the span of a lifetime. Some of those close calls happen so quickly that we barely notice them. Others are so intense that they might change the way we think about not just living but about constantly being close to dying.

Every once in a while, a friend with whom I have traded such stories will send me links to close-call videos on YouTube. In them, people cluelessly walk into the paths of speeding cars, buses, and trains that somehow don’t hit them. Dangers graze but don’t annihilate them. In that one moment, it looks as though these people are covered with some invisible death-protection shield. Or, as my mother might have said, “It just wasn’t their time.”

I have wanted to sit down and tally my close calls. (There have been a few others involving being caught in the middle of a police chase, a near-drowning, and a dodged bullet during a drive-by.) But I have been afraid to do it. What if I tempt fate, and tip the balance, by paying too much attention? What if my becoming fully aware of the frequency of such moments makes me terrified to leave my house? What if I start wondering if my house is even safe? After all, fifty-foot sinkholes have been known to spontaneously appear in Florida living rooms.

I once sat next to a woman in a commuter turboprop plane, who, as soon as the plane landed, started thanking God at the top of her voice. This same woman, at the start of the trip, had refused to change seats with another passenger who was travelling with a friend.

“My seat number is how they’ll identify my body if the plane crashes,” she said apologetically, though loud enough for everyone to hear. There had been some recent crashes involving the same type of plane in different parts of the world, I later found out, so her fear was justified. Surviving a routine plane ride had seemed like a close call to her, something to be extremely grateful for having lived through. She couldn’t fully trust that the plane would land and that we would all walk off and go on with our lives.

She had a point, I realized. After all, don’t most catastrophic events suddenly interrupt perfectly ordinary days? The “ordinary instant,” Joan Didion calls it, in “ The Year of Magical Thinking ,” her memoir describing her husband’s sudden death from a heart attack and the process of writing about it.

“Confronted with sudden disaster,” Didion writes, “we all focus on how unremarkable the circumstances were in which the unthinkable occurred, the clear blue sky from which the plane fell, the routine errand that ended on the shoulder with the car in flames.”

Unless a person is being executed, death rarely announces its exact place and time. Against the backdrop of the ordinary, it often feels abrupt, exceptional. And even if the circumstances right before death are extraordinary—if one is getting married, for example, or giving birth, or had just climbed Mt. Everest—how could these otherwise exceptional events not pale in comparison?

Among the first words Didion wrote after her husband died were, “Life changes in the instant.”

The ordinary instant.

“ Nou tout ap mache ak sèkèy nou anba bra nou ,” my mother had been casually saying for years. “We’re all carrying our coffins with us every day.” Or, “We are all constantly cheating death, ” which is how I usually translated that Creole phrase to my mother’s doctors and nurses whenever she asked me to, usually after they tried to reassure her, during some agonizing diagnostic test or another debilitating chemotherapy session for her stage IV ovarian cancer, that everything was going to be okay. “ Media vita in morte sumus ” might have also been another suitable translation: “In the midst of life, we are in death.”

The French essayist Michel de Montaigne was apparently afraid of death until he had a near-death experience of his own. One day, he was thrown off his horse after colliding with another rider. He ended up unconscious for several hours and believed himself to be dying. Then, as he recovered from his accident, Montaigne realized that dying might not be so bad. He’d felt no pain, no fear. The limbo state of being alive while feeling dead is what he found to be most intolerable.

“I can, for my part, think of no state so insupportable and dreadful, as to have the soul vivid and afflicted, without means to declare itself,” Montaigne wrote, in his essay “De L’Exercitation,” translated as “Use Makes Perfect.”

This is, perhaps, why we have so many tales of near-death experiences, firsthand testimonials and fictional accounts whose authors are attempting to understand—and explain—what it’s like to exist in a body that’s hovering between life and death. There’s so much to imagine, so much to project into that inexplicable void of people’s medical and spiritual purgatories as they swing between living and dying.

“The poets have feigned some gods who favor the deliverance of such as suffer under a languishing death,” Montaigne writes. The gods of which he writes might appear as dead relatives or heavenly figures, angels, spirit guides who offer the choice of either staying or going. Some writers, like Dante, in “Inferno,” have us travel with them through several circles of Hell, if only to possibly emerge frightened but cleansed, kinder and wiser than we were before.

While medical professionals might attribute these same type of visions and apparitions to neurochemicals working overtime, many of us would like near-death or half-dead experiences to be real, because we’d love to have a second shot at life, or we’d love to see our loved ones miraculously return from the brink before it’s too late. Or, as Dylan Thomas wrote, to “not go gentle into that good night,” and to “rage against the dying of the light.”

Writing about near-deaths means trying to penetrate that space where death could be imminent but living still remains a possibility. Whereas death is the end of life as we know it, and as others around us are living it, having a near-death experience means someone’s been given an opportunity that most other people haven’t had. Survivors might rightfully feel anointed—or guilty. A few might even wish they’d died, even though their survival had seemingly required supernatural interference or assistance from faith, if not fate. Their lives should have greater meaning now than mere existence. Or should they? Maybe there’s some larger mission to complete, something better to do, someone to love, or mourn.

Although it’s not a typical near-death narrative, my favorite close-call book is Michael Ondaatje’s “ The English Patient ,” a novel that is, among other things, about a man who escapes death only to spend the rest of his life mourning the woman he loved. Burnt beyond recognition, the so-called English Patient, Almásy, who is actually Hungarian, ends up in the care of a young nurse, Hana, who looks after him in an old Italian villa, at the end of the Second World War. Bedridden, Almásy is constantly thinking of Katharine, the married woman he fell in love with while exploring and mapping parts of the North African desert.

Even though the war has ended, the characters are still living with the constant likelihood of sudden death, particularly from the hidden explosives or mines that the retreating Germans left behind. Kip, the Sikh mine sapper and Hana’s lover, is the one who must dismantle many of those explosives, whether they’re hidden under bridges, in statues, or possibly in pianos.

Kip is constantly living in the shadow of death. The life expectancy of someone new to his job is ten weeks. Hana, too, has seen a lot of death as a nurse during the war. After helping Kip with one of his trickiest mines, Hana breaks down and declares:

I thought I was going to die. I wanted to die. And I thought if I was going to die, I would die with you. Someone like you, young as I am, I saw so many dying with me in the last year. I didn’t feel scared. I certainly wasn’t brave just now. I thought to myself, We have this villa, this grass, we should have lain down together, you in my arms, before we died.

Reading this, I think, Who would I want to be with before I die? Who would I want in my arms? Or whose arms would I want to die in? Certainly my husband’s. I would be hesitant, though, to subject my young children to watching me die. Would they be able to carry that memory with them for the rest of their lives? Would they be able to carry me?

Hana’s declaration also brings up the inescapable link between sex and death. One way the French refer to orgasm is as “ la petite mort, ” or “the little death,” an antidote to Freud’s “death instinct,” or what he saw as our longing to self-destruct and return to our preëxisting state through war and other means. Sex, after having just barely escaped death, would have been another way for Hana and Kip to continue to circumvent “ la grande mort ,” or “the big death,” and to counter one of Freud’s other notions: that we’re not convinced of our own mortality and can’t imagine our own deaths. (Though having watched my mother die, I can now perfectly imagine my own death.) Hana and Kip also cannot escape their mortality: it confronts them every day in the devastated landscape around them, and in the dying faces of their comrades and friends.

“In a painting of his imagining the field surrounding this embrace would have been in flames,” Kip thinks, soon after Hana falls asleep in his arms.

Yet both Kip and Hana survive. And the English Patient continues to live, even though some of his friends, as well as his beloved, have died. But always shadowing the survivors of this internal and exterior war is one of Almásy’s favorite words from his native Hungary, “ félhomály ” (“twilight”), the type of twilight that the French call “ l’heure bleu ” (“the blue hour”), or what Joan Didion refers to in “ Blue Nights ,” her memoir of her daughter’s death, from acute pancreatitis, twenty months after her husband died, as “the blue of the glass on a clear day at Chartres,” and that Michael Ondaatje calls the “dusk of graves.”

This type of sorrow-filled dusk offers itself as an atmospheric bridge between life and death. It is the dying of the light against which we are constantly raging, the light over which death might indeed have some dominion, as it is part sunset, part nightfall, the gloaming, eventide, or prologue to the end. It is, as Didion writes, “the fading,” so it would not be unusual for it to linger over the holiest of places, those even holier than Chartres or any other designated holy place.

Places can be holy, Almásy reminds us, not because we are told they are, but because we want and need them to be. Places can be holy because we are sharing them with someone we love, just as some places become cursed because they’ve taken people we love away from us.

“It is important to die in holy places,” Almásy thinks, toward the end of the novel. Though sometimes as we walk this earth, with the memories of our loved ones shadowing us, we might also become our own holy places: roaming churches, cathedrals, and memory mausoleums.

This piece is drawn from " The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story ," by Edwidge Danticat, which is out July 11th, from Graywolf Press.

• NDE Stories

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• The Purpose Of Life

Every day, all over the world, an increasing number of people, from all walks of life, are reporting near-death experiences (and related phenomena). This website has been created to gather, study, and share the most compelling of these experiences. Along with seeking a deeper understanding of the experiences themselves, this website also exists to help those who are interested embody the core truths of NDEs in our day-to-day lives.

How can we live more consciously? Be more aware of and guided by Spirit? Be more cognizant of the impact our thoughts and actions have on ourselves and others? Realize all life is connected, interrelated, interdependent? Discover our unique role in life, and begin to fulfill it? Live every moment of our earthly lives infused with the same love, light, wisdom, and healing power that transforms those who encounter it on the other side?

The stories featured on this website may hold the answers to these questions.

If NDE researchers like Kenneth Ring are correct, these stories are also a force of transformational power unto themselves. As Ring notes in his classic book, Lessons from the Light :

“Merely learning about the near-death experience has effects similar to those reported by NDErs.”

For a complete list of all the stories stored on this website, go here .

A Note of Caution:

A large number of near-death experiencers report that they felt one of the reasons they had their experience was because they had lost their way in life. Because of this, they required a major wake up call, which is what their near-death experience provided them with. A wake up call does not turn formerly dysfunctional people into healthy people. It gives them a story to share, a map to follow, and concrete ways to begin to tackle all the areas of the their lives and personalities that require deepening and healing.

So this is a double warning.

First, to near-death experiencers: Spiritual experiences, by themselves, do not transform any of us into perfect beings overnight. We still must do the hard work of purifying egos and integrating spiritual visions and understandings with the practical realities of life. If we try to ride the power of spiritual experiences without doing the hard work of personal transformation, we will end up crashing and burning, and potentially taking a lot of others with us.

Second, to those who are looking to near-death experiencers as emissaries of The Divine: Yes, near-death experiencers have been sent back, in part, to share their stories and, by doing so, help illuminate all of us. Beyond that, near-death experiencers may or may not be able to offer solid, seasoned advice. Along with integrating whatever spiritual experiences they had into daily life, it often takes decades of daily work on shadow and developmental issues to create vessels that allow The Divine to emerge in us in healthy, balanced, full blown ways. The same is true for us. Like near-death experiencers, we must also work on ourselves, which includes not giving our power and personal responsibility away to others who appear to be more evolved than we are.

As near-death researcher Kenneth Ring notes in Lessons from the Light :

“As always, discrimination and discernment must be exercised, because even in ‘the near-death world’… there are persons, including some NDErs, who are not always what they seem, or who suffer from obvious self-inflation or other grandiose tendencies that any prudent person would do well to eschew immediately… Please remember something that should be obvious: NDErs, though they may have seen The Light, are still human and have human failings. Not they, but only The Light should be exalted. So do not let your enthusiasm for these teachings and for what The Light represents blind you to possible excesses in Its name.”

To learn more about about shadow issues and why it is important to know about them and work on them, go here .

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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Explanation of near-death experiences: a systematic analysis of case reports and qualitative research.

• 1 Student Research Committee, Nursing and Midwifery School, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran
• 2 Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, Dezful University of Medical Sciences, Dezful, Iran
• 3 Cancer Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
• 4 School of Nursing, Student Research Committee, Dezful University of Medical Sciences, Dezful, Iran

Background and objective: Some individuals report a near-death experience (NDE) after a life-threatening crisis, which refers to a range of subjective experiences related to impending death. This experience is a phenomenon with transcendental elements, which leads to deep permanent changes in both the individual and the social lives of the NDEr's. Therefore, this study aims to review the near-death experiences of individuals with different religious and cultural views.

Methodology: This is a systematic analysis study. All the case report, case series and qualitative research studies which presented patients' NDE experiences were included in the study, without language restrictions, and in the period of 1980–2022. The stages of screening, selection, data extraction, and quality assessment have been gone through by two of the researchers. Data analysis and synthesis has been done qualitatively. JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist tool was used to evaluate the quality of the included studies.

Findings: After the initial search, 2,407 studies were included, 54 of which underwent final examination. The total number of the NDEr's in the studies was 465 men, women, and children. Among these studies, 27 were case reports, 20 were case series, and 7 were qualitative studies. Near-death experiences have been categorized into 4 main categories and 19 subcategories. The main categories include emotional experiences (2 subcategories), cognitive experiences (4 subcategories), spiritual and religious experiences (4 subcategories), and supernatural experiences [9 subcategories in two categories (out of body experiences, and supernatural and metaphysical perceptions)].

Conclusion: The most frequent near-death experiences were supernatural experiences, especially the experience of leaving the body. The basis and the content of the patterns mentioned by the NDEr's are similar, and the differences are in the explanation and the interpretation of the experience. There is a common core among them such as out-of-body experiences, passing through a tunnel, heightened senses, etc. Therefore, correct knowledge of near-death experiences leads to providing helpful answers to patients.

Introduction

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are deep psychic, conscious, semi-conscious, or recollected experiences of someone who is approaching or has temporarily begun the process of dying which usually occur in life-threatening conditions ( Greyson, 2007 ). In these experiences, the individual seems to be awake, and observes his/her body and the world from a point outside the physical body ( Blanke et al., 2009 ). There are common features such as a feeling of inner peace, out of body experiences, traveling in a dark environment or “void” (usually associated with passing through a tunnel), reviewing one's life from childhood onwards, seeing a bright light, entering an extraterrestrial “other realm,” and communicating with “sentient beings” ( Ring, 1980 ; Greyson, 1983 ; Moody, 2001 ; Martial et al., 2017 ). In a general classification, two factors have been introduced as the origin of these experiences. Van Lommel et al. (2001) and Hess (2019) differentiate between theories that link NDE to physiological changes in the brain and theories which see NDEs as a psychological reaction to approaching death ( Van Lommel et al., 2001 ; Hess, 2019 ). The previous studies have highlighted the uniqueness of NDE memories in the autobiographical memory ( Williams et al., 2008 ), stating that NDE memories contain more sensory, emotional, and self-referential details in comparison with the memories of other real and imaginary events, or the memories of a coma or impaired consciousness following an acquired brain dysfunction without NDE ( Thonnard et al., 2013 ). Near-death experiences occur in various situations, including cardiac arrest in MI(myocardial infarction) (clinical death), the shocks caused by the blood loss after delivery or in postoperative complications, septic or anaphylactic shocks, electrocution, the coma caused by traumatic brain injury, intracerebral hemorrhage or cerebral infarction, suicide attempts, near drowning or suffocation experiences, apnea, and other cases where death is unavoidable ( Van Lommel et al., 2001 , 2017 ). The occurrence of near-death experiences is increasing thanks to improved survival rates through modern medical techniques. The results of a study show that sharing and investigating this phenomenon may happen 5–10 years after the occurrence of the experience, which often prevents the accurate evaluation of physiological and pharmacological factors ( Van Lommel et al., 2001 ). In addition, the results of studies show that the prevalence of this phenomenon in the patients who have gone into cardiac arrest varies between 3.6 and 23% ( Parnia et al., 2001 ; Schwaninger et al., 2002 ; Klemenc-Ketis et al., 2010 ). Other retrospective studies have estimated that between 43 and 48% of adults, and 85% of children who have been affected by life-threatening illnesses may have experienced the NDE phenomenon ( Ring, 1980 ; Sabom, 1982 ; Morse, 2013 ).

The occurrence of these experiences leads to positive consequences in some NDEr such as a more altruistic life, higher spiritual growth, having interest in the meaning of life, fewer materialistic values, or a reduction in the fear of death ( Noyes, 1980 ; Groth-Marnat and Summers, 1998 ; Knoblauch et al., 2001 ; Parnia et al., 2001 ; Moody, 2005 ; Khanna and Greyson, 2014a ). Their subjective nature and the lack of a clear framework for these experiences make the description and the interpretation of these experiences dependent on individual, cultural, or religious factors ( Van Lommel et al., 2017 ). Near-death experiences vary depending on the survivors' own cultural and religious background ( Parnia, 2017 ), and are almost always described based on the individual's religious beliefs. Most of the early studies on NDEs only depict positive emotions ( Ring, 1980 , 1984 ).

Some studies have also mentioned negative experiences in NDEs, including “hellish” ones, although it seems that some NDEr's may still be reluctant to share their experiences ( Charland-Verville et al., 2014 ; Cassol et al., 2019 ). Numerous quantitative and qualitative studies have been published on patients' experiences of this phenomenon. In the oldest study in this field, Raymond A. Moody compared the continental differences of experiencers ( Moody, 2001 , 2005 ; Schlieter and Schlieter, 2018 ). Combining research results allows qualitative studies to be conducted to reveal new insights or to identify whether subject saturation has occurred ( Campbell et al., 2012 ). In addition to qualitative evidence, the majority of studies have collected quantitative data on patients' experiences through structured questionnaires or interviews. The results of the researches that have been carried out since 1981 in the field of NDE indicate that the treatment staff, especially nurses and doctors, have little knowledge of these experiences, while this knowledge is necessary to identify the NDEr's and help them cope with their experiences ( Foster et al., 2009 ). As it was mentioned, these experiences cause deep and lasting changes in patients' personalities, which highlights the necessity of helping these patients to properly understand and perceive the NDE phenomenon and integrate its consequences ( Foster et al., 2009 ; Van Lommel, 2010 ).

As far as the knowledge of the researchers allows, no systematic analysis has been designed in this field so far. Due to the fact that different studies have reached different results and the results of these studies have not been certain, so it is necessary to search for a definite result for a correct understanding of this phenomenon. In the present study, prior registration (Priori), data combination, more inclusive search based on the use of thesaurus systems MeSH and Emtree, investigation in large databases such as SCOPUS, WOS, MEDLINE/PubMed, Embase, Google scholar and ProQuest, use From Gray Literature, including: Thesis and conference papers and Proceedings, as well as the use of experts' opinions and the review of key journals, this systematic review can have a more comprehensive review of the relevant subject. Examining these experiences may pose challenges to the researchers of sciences such as psychology, parapsychology, psychiatry, medicine, philosophy of religion, and psychology of religion, each of which requires competent and well-reasoned answers. This systematic review reports a combination of the evidence related to patients' experiences- case reports, case series, and qualitative research- in order to achieve a comprehensive perception of patients' experiences. Considering the potential causes and the unpredictable aspect of this phenomenon, an overview of patients' experiences seems necessary.

Research questions

This study focused on two specific review questions: (1) “What common experiences regarding the NDEr's accounts of NDE phenomena can be drawn from the results of the existing studies?”, and (2) “What broad knowledge can be gained from the NDEr's accounts of these common experiences?”

Materials and methods

This systematic review has been prepared based on the Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewers' Manual ( Mcarthur et al., 2015 ). Furthermore, the process of selecting the primary studies was done based on the PRISMA-P 2015 checklist ( Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Standards for Systematic Reviews of Comparative Effectiveness Research, 2011 ), and consensus-based clinical case reporting guideline development guidelines ( Gagnier et al., 2013 ).

Study eligibility criteria

Inclusion and exclusion criteria, types of studies.

In the current research, all case reports, case series, and qualitative research studies mentioning near-death experiences have been selected for entering. Other types of studies including cohort studies, case control, cross sectional, review, and clinical trial were not included in this research.

Types of participants

In this study, the eligible population included the individuals who had experienced unavoidable death and NDE without any age, gender, race, or ethnicity restrictions.

Search strategy components

Without any language restrictions, studies were searched in PubMed/Medline, Scopus, Medline/Ovid, SPORTD (EBSCO), CENTRAL, and EMBASE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and Google Scholar search engines from Dec 15, 1980 to June 15, 2022. These were searched in ISI, Scopus, and ProQuest database. The details regarding the process of searching in the PubMed database have been provided below.

(“End Of Life”[tiab] OR End-Of-Life OR[tiab] “Determination of Death”[tiab] OR “Near-Death Experience”[tiab] OR “Out of body Experiences”[tiab] OR “Cardiac Death”[tiab] OR (Death[tiab] AND Cardiac[tiab])) OR “Sudden Cardiac Death”[tiab] OR (“Cardiac Death”[tiab] AND Sudden[tiab]) OR (Death[tiab] AND “Sudden Cardiac”[tiab]) OR “Cardiac Sudden Death”[tiab] OR (Death[tiab] AND “Cardiac Sudden”[tiab]) OR (“Sudden Death”[tiab] AND Cardiac[tiab]) OR “Sudden Cardiac Arrest”[tiab] OR (Arrest[tiab] AND “Sudden Cardiac”[tiab]) OR (“Cardiac Arrests”[tiab] AND Sudden[tiab]) OR (“Cardiac Arrest”[tiab] AND Sudden[tiab]) OR “Brain Death”[tiab] OR (Death[tiab] AND Brain[tiab]) OR “Brain Dead * ”[tiab] OR “Coma Depasse”[tiab] OR “Irreversible Coma”[tiab] OR (Coma[tiab] AND Irreversible[tiab]) OR Coma * [tiab] OR Comatose[tiab] OR Pseudocoma * [tiab]) AND 1980/12/15:2022/12/15[dp].

The selection of keywords of this systematic review was done through a combination of Mesh Term, Free Text words, and Emtree. In case of coming across the studies in other languages such as Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, etc. while searching, Google translation service was used, and for more certainty in this regard, a translator familiar with that language was asked for help. The aim of this study was to obtain all the articles that have been published in the field in order to minimize the risk of publication and reference bias in this article. Besides, PubMed's “My NCBI” (National Center for Biotechnology Information) email alert service was used to identify newly published studies. Manual search including gray literature, the reference list of the primary included studies, and key journals were searched to find more studies. If the researchers came across a study which matched the objectives of the present study, in case of not having access to the full text of the articles, data's being unpublished, or the existence of wrong and ambiguous data, the responsible author of the article would be emailed, and every 1–10 days, three other emails would be sent. The authors of the article were assured that the article would be reported appropriately. If no message was received from the author of the article after 3 emails, the article would inevitably be excluded. The two authors would try to reach an agreement in case of any disagreement, and in case of not reaching an agreement, the opinion of a third knowledgeable individual would be used as the decision criterion.

Screening and selection

At first, the studies obtained in the search phase were transferred to the End Note software (× 7), and duplicate articles were removed from the software. Then two researchers (H, A and AH, H) separately reviewed all the primary studies based on the titles and the abstracts of the articles, and presented a number of studies which were in line with the search strategy in order to determine eligible studies based on the inclusion criteria. The selected studies were classified into three categories: relevant, irrelevant, and uncertain. The articles which were reported to be irrelevant by both researchers were excluded from the study, then the same two researchers separately evaluated the obtained studies based on the full texts of the articles. Each researcher provided a list of selected articles and the two lists were compared. In case of any disagreement between the researchers, it would be resolved through discussion and exchange of opinions. In case they could not reach a consensus, a third individual would act as an arbitrator. Then the agreement between the two arbitrators would be evaluated and, after a general agreement, the result would be reported as a statistical Kappa coefficient. According to this, in the present study, there was no disagreement between the two researchers in the steps performed. The agreement coefficient is calculated to be 100%.

Study quality and the risk of bias assessment

The assessment of the risk of bias and the quality of study methodology was performed by two researchers (H, A and AH, H), separately, using JBI Critical Appraisal Checklists for Case Series and Case Reports, and JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for Qualitative Research ( Moola et al., 2020 ). These tools consist of 10 questions, and each question is answered in 4 ways: yes, no, unclear, and not applicable. Then all the studies were placed in three categories: Low Risk, High Risk, and Moderate Risk of Bias. The researchers tried to reach consensus in case of any disagreement.

Case Series and Case Reports checklist questions included 10 questions, respectively (1−Were there clear criteria for inclusion in the case series? 2−Was the condition measured in a standard, reliable way for all participants included in the case series? 3−Were valid methods used for identification of the condition for all participants included in the case series? 4−Did the case series have consecutive inclusion of participants? 5−Did the case series have complete inclusion of participants? 6−Was there clear reporting of the demographics of the participants in the study? 7−Was there clear reporting of clinical information of the participants? 8−Were the outcomes or follow up results of cases clearly reported? 9−Was there clear reporting of the presenting site(s)/clinic(s) demographic information? 10−Was statistical analysis appropriate.), and the questions of the qualitative checklist included 10 questions (1-Is there congruity between the stated philosophical perspective and the research methodology? 2−Is there congruity between the research methodology and the research question or objectives? 3−Is there congruity between the research methodology and the methods used to collect data? 4−Is there congruity between the research methodology and the representation and analysis of data? 5−Is there congruity between the research methodology and the interpretation of results? 6−Is there a statement locating the researcher culturally or theoretically? 7−Is the influence of the researcher on the research, and vice- versa, addressed? 8−Are participants, and their voices, adequately represented? 9−Is the research ethical according to current criteria or, for recent studies, and is there evidence of ethical approval by an appropriate body? 10- Do the conclusions drawn in the research report flow from the analysis, or interpretation, of the data?) ( Moola et al., 2020 ).

Data extraction

Data extraction was carried out by two researchers (H, A and AH, H), separately, using an information extraction form developed by the researcher. At first, an article was evaluated using this form as pilot evaluation, then it was used for evaluating other articles as well. Each researcher submitted the data extraction form of his articles and the two lists were compared. In case of any disagreement between the researchers, it would be resolved through discussion and exchange of opinions. If consensus was not reached, a third individual would act as an arbitrator, then the agreement between the two arbitrators would be evaluated. The following data be extracted from all studies: the first author's name, the article's year of publication, the country where the study had been done, the type of study design, the number of individuals who had experienced unavoidable death, and the characteristics including age (or age groups), gender, the NDEr's (near-death experiencers) underlying factors, and the type of NDE. The NDEr's quotes in the original studies were required for data analysis in order to preserve the meaning of the original text as a unit interpreted by the authors, or as raw data.

In order to analyze qualitative data, Graneheim and Lundman method was used ( Graneheim and Lundman, 2004 ; Hsieh and Shannon, 2005 ). Semantic units were extracted from the participants' statements in the form of primary codes. The codes were also classified based on semantic and conceptual similarity and were as small and compressed as possible. There was a downward trend in data reduction in all analysis units and sub- and main classes. Finally, the data were placed in the main classes that were more general and conceptual, and the themes were abstracted. In addition, an example of data analysis has been shown in Table 1 .

Table 1 . An example of data analysis in the main themes.

Descriptive characteristics of the articles

After searching, 2,407 articles were found. Using Endnote software, the titles and the abstracts of the articles were checked, and 905 duplicate articles were removed. Then the titles and the abstracts of 1,502 articles were examined by the researchers (H, A and AH, H). A total of 1,350 irrelevant articles were excluded based on the study objectives. At this stage, in case of doubting the relevance of an article with the study objectives, the full text of the article was reviewed by the researchers. In the next step, a search was done to access the full texts of the articles and, finally, the full text of 152 articles were reviewed. Considering the inclusion and the exclusion criteria based on the research objectives, some articles were excluded for the reasons given in the Prisma flowchart ( Figure 1 ). To ensure that all the articles had been retrieved, the reference lists of the final articles were also manually searched; no studies were added in this stage. Finally, 54 studies were finalized.

Figure 1 . PRISMA schematic flowchart of enrolment and exclusions.

Tables 2 , 3 summarizes the characteristics of the included studies. In this table, the name of the first author, the title of the article, the year of publication, the NDEr's characteristics, the NDE's underlying factors, and after-death experiences are stated separately for each study. The studies had been published from 1985 to 2021. The 460 NDEr's included men ( n = 126), women ( n = 150), children ( n = 22) and N/C ( n = 162). The studies included 27 case reports, 20 case series, and 7 qualitative studies.

Table 2 . Characteristics of the case report studies and background detail of near-death experiencers ( N = 27).

Table 3 . Characteristics of the case series and qualitative studies and background detail of near-death experiencers ( N = 27).

Near-death experiences have been classified into 4 main categories, and 19 sub-categories. The main categories include emotional experiences (2 subcategories), cognitive experiences (4 subcategories), spiritual and religious experiences (4 subcategories), and supernatural experiences (9 subcategories in two categories (out of body experiences, and supernatural and metaphysical perceptions). The Individuals reported heightened senses, in 39 studies and out-of-body experiences, in 35 studies. In 28 studies, the patients reported positive experiences including love, the feeling of peace, and tranquility, and in 6 studies, they reported negative experiences, mostly torture and hellish experiences. Most of the experiences presented by the NDEr's were supernatural and metaphysical experiences, which are shown in Figure 2 and Table 4 .

Figure 2 . Categorization of individuals who had experienced unavoidable death.

Table 4 . The presence or absence of any category of experience in the included studies.

Methodological quality

Despite all the differences in methodological design and quality, none of the 21 studies received more than 5 negative ratings; therefore, they were all included ( Tables 5 , 6 ). All the studies clearly described their research objectives, used an appropriate research methodology and design, and collected data in a way that answered the research question. In addition, Table 2 examines the quality of studies; 11 studies were of poor quality, 37 of medium quality, and 5 of good quality.

Table 5 . Quality assessment for case study/case series that we include in this article.

Table 6 . Quality assessment for qualitative study that we include in this article.

This systematic revue study was conducted with the aim of explaining Individuals' near-death experiences and identifying common experiences. The results of this study are categorized into 4 main categories including emotional, cognitive, religious, spiritual and supernatural experiences.

Supernatural experiences were the most frequent category of experiences related to NDE, which consist of two subcategories: out of body experiences, and supernatural and metaphysical perceptions. In many studies, supernatural perceptions include passing through a tunnel involuntarily, moving toward the ceiling [out-of-body experience (OBE)], seeing one's own physical body from above whilst outside the body (the phenomenon of self-bilocation), having awareness of the places far from the body, self-permeability (passing through physical objects such as walls), being present in several locations at the same time (self-multilocation) (composed bodies), the feeling of being floating, entering a non-terrestrial location (heaven), and telepathy (non-verbal communication) with others. It can be said that the most important feature of NDEs is an out-of-body experience (OBE), which had been experienced by the majority of the NDErs. OBE is a type of autoscopy (literally, “watching oneself”) in which the soul is separated from the body, but the individual is in a fully conscious state or beyond normal consciousness ( Long and Perry, 2010 ). Soul, in religion and philosophy, the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being that which confers individuality and humanity, often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self. For most theologies, the Soul is further defined as that part of the individual, which partakes of divinity and transcends the body in different explanations ( Ciocan, 2019 ). The individual seems to be awake, and watches his body and the world from a disembodied place and outside his physical body ( Blanke et al., 2016 ), or perceives verified events that have occurred at a distance outside his/her scope ( Greyson et al., 2009 ). A typical narrative is: “I was lying on the bed. Suddenly, I ascended in a suspended state, watching myself and the events that were taking place from somewhere above the floor, for example, near the ceiling.” ( Green, 1968 ; Van Lommel, 2010 ). After an OBE, some individuals have had numerous supernatural perceptions. In some cases, there is a higher number of perceived experiences and, in others, there are fewer ones. However, there are many commonalities among the mentioned metaphysical experiences. The results of various studies show that after the soul leaves the body, NDErs enter a cylindrical tunnel, at the beginning of which there is absolute darkness and, at the end, a very dazzling light toward which the individual is guided. In most cases, this experience has been a very difficult one to forget. This experience is called a Tunnel Experience (TE) ( Sabom, 1978 ). A tunnel experience may be defined as the perception of a realistic enclosed space which is much longer than its diameter. The peripheral features and the deep perspectives of this phenomenon indicate organizing the space around a central area in the visual field ( Moody, 2001 ). Tunnel experiences have been reported in different forms including cylinder, pipe, tunnel, passage, corridor, spiral, well, funnel, shaft, hole, culvert, cave, long enclosure, sewer, cone, and so on ( Drab, 1981 ). Greyson claims that crossing the tunnel occurs mostly for Indian and Buddhist NDEr's ( Greyson, 2015 ). However, the results of another study conducted on the Muslim population have also confirmed similar experiences (Ghasemiannejad-Jahromi A and R., 2018). In his study, Todd Murphy states that tunnels are not seen or are very rare in Thai NDEs ( Murphy, 2001 ). This systematic review study shows that the supernatural and metaphysical experiences of the participants have similar roots for every race and religion, with differences in the expression of details.

The second category of NDEs were spiritual and religious experiences, consisting of the 4 subcategories: meeting with the dead and acquaintances, meeting with religious figures, feeling oneness with the universe, and observing punishment and reward for actions. Some NDEr's have reported encounters with their deceased relatives and friends ( Tassell-Matamua, 2013 ; Ghasemiannejad et al., 2014 ). Additionally, some children who have experienced NDEs have reported meeting the individuals whom they did not know at the time of the NDE, but later recognized as their deceased relatives from the family photos they had never seen before ( Morse et al., 1985 ; Lopez et al., 2006 ). Other NDErs report encountering a recently deceased individual, whose death they hadn't been aware of ( Greyson, 2010 ). One of the common aspects of the experiences was meeting with religious figures. The results of a study that compared NDE experiences in different cultures show that in western NDEs, when one is in the tunnel, he/she perceives that a group of deceased relatives and friends have come to welcome him/her, while in Thai NDEs, the experiences usually start with Yamatoots (Yamadutas are the messengers of death according to Hinduism, the agents of Yama, the god of the netherworld) ( Murphy, 2001 ). In Thai NDEs, there is no experience of being light , and the Buddha appears only symbolically. One of the Thai experienced mentioned, “I asked [Yamatoot] to take me to visit the Lord Buddha. I told him I had to see the Buddha. Yamatoot looked up and pointed at the sky, saying, ‘That big star is the Buddha”' ( Moody, 2001 ). In Western NDEs, the majority of the NDErs were Christians, and had seen the figures associated with Jesus Christ and the apostles ( Greyson, 2010 ). In a study whose target population were Twelver Shīʿīsm (also known as Imāmīyyah, is the largest branch of Shīʿa Islam, comprising about 85 percent of all Shīʿa Muslims), the reported religious and spiritual figures were among Shiite imams ( Ghasemiannejad-Jahromi et al., 2018 ). For a better understanding of this category, the individuals' religious and cultural backgrounds should be considered while interpreting the experiences, encounters, and observations. The results of some other studies reveal a feeling of oneness with the universe and the whole cosmos, where the NDErs had stated that they had unified with the whole universe or a part of creation such as plants, with no distance between them ( Long and Perry, 2010 ; Ghasemiannejad et al., 2014 ). The idea that the individual is inextricably connected to the rest of the world, or that everything is part of a whole, can be found in many of the world's religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions ( Ivanhoe et al., 2018 ). Most of the individuals who have experienced the feeling of oneness say that they will choose this state of mind if they have eternal life. Oneness is perhaps the deepest and the most sublime state that a human being can achieve ( Klussman, 2022 ). The last subcategory of spiritual-religious experiences was observing punishment and reward for actions. Research shows that some NDEr's are able to perceive the external consequences of their actions and deeds in the world, as well as their inner and hidden effects ( Holden et al., 2009 ; Greyson, 2014 ; Khanna and Greyson, 2014b ).

Another category of NDEs were cognitive experiences, which consisted of 4 subcategories, including heightened senses, an altered nature of time, reviewing life events, and the sudden perception of a specific knowledge. In regard with the heightened senses, a review of the reports of the NDEr's shows that their visual descriptions are impressive (efficacious) and clear (obvious), all while these individuals are unconscious and often clinically dead at the time of experiencing and seeing such wonderful sights. In NDEs, all the senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell have been described. The heightened senses and the improved consciousness among these individuals even indicate that these experiences are to be very different from dreams and sleep, and at the moment it is difficult to find a recognized medical explanation for NDEs. This phenomenon is medically inexplicable. There is no other type of altered consciousness experience in which events are that clear, consciousness is that strong, and events follow one another in such a specific order. The research conducted in this field shows a stable pattern of enhanced consciousness and heightened senses, which leads to the clarity of NDEs and proves them ( Bryant and Peck, 2009 ; Khanna and Greyson, 2014b ). Moreover, according to some experienced, in NDEs, time loses its meaning and sense, and they see the events of their life in a fraction of a second ( Holden et al., 2009 ). Reviewing the past events of one's life is another cognitive experience in which NDErs may see a part or all of their life. The individual's encounter with self is one of the most important and common features of these experiences. At this stage, one encounters his/her own words, actions, and thoughts, and sees his/her own life in the form of a book, show, or movie, and judges it. The results of other research show that while reviewing their lives, the individuals review their past actions, words, and thoughts, and realize that each of them has a special energy, which has affected both themselves and others in this world ( Facco and Agrillo, 2012b ; Tassell-Matamua, 2014 ). In addition, the results of various studies, including Long's research, state that the events observed in the NDEr's life reviews are based on reality. These results assume that if NDEs are real, it is expected that the events observed during the life review be confirmed by the individual, and vice versa, if NDEs are not real, significant errors must occur during the life review. However, the latter is not the case, and everything has been confirmed by the individuals ( Bryant and Peck, 2009 ; Khanna and Greyson, 2014b ).

The last category of near-death experiences is emotional experiences, which includes two subcategories: positive experiences and negative experiences. Many NDErs state that they have experienced immense peace, and that it has been their most memorable experience, in such a way that they hesitated whether or not to return to life. In addition, in the cases where an individual had died with severe pain, his/her pain had disappeared with the sudden experience of relaxation ( Klemenc-Ketis et al., 2010 ; Long and Perry, 2010 ). Most of the early studies on NDEs depicted only positive emotions ( Ring, 1980 , 1984 ). However, an interdisciplinary study was published, in which they identified 55 NDErs, eleven of whom reported negative experiences ( Lindley et al., 1981 ). Another study indicated that 1–10% of the samples had not described positive feelings ( Charland-Verville et al., 2014 ), these different proportions can be attributed to very broad definitions of disturbing NDEs, as well as different methods ( Greyson, 2003 ; Charland-Verville et al., 2014 ). Reviewing the conducted studies shows that hellish and purgatory scenes are rarely found in NDEs, but heavenly scenes are seen more often and are very similar to each other. It may be concluded that the disturbing dimensions of the experience, added to its mystical aspect, can prevent the individuals from sharing it ( Cassol et al., 2019 ). Based on the results of a study, frightening NDEs are divided into three groups: 1. The negative events may be viewed as warnings about unwise actions, leading to self-analysis and, ultimately, a “spin” in the NDEr's life, 2. The NDEr may treat the event as if it is not important, and 3. The frightening event may lead to difficulty in integrating the experience, developing a sense of stigma ( Greyson, 2014 ).

Advantages and limitations

The present study has combined data focusing on the principle of comprehensiveness and quality. To perform a comprehensive search, the synonym recognition systems of Thesaurus Mesh and Emtree were used to determine the keywords. Then the search was done in the vastest electronic databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and ProQuest with a wide time range, using experts' opinions, without time or place limitations. Considering the variety of the experiences reported by the experienced, the results were reported qualitatively. Some of the studies date back to the years before 1990, some of whose PDFs were incomplete, and the data of a number of their cases had been presented incompletely.

It can be almost concluded that according to the researchers who have presented valuable research in this field, the basis and the content of the patterns mentioned by the NDEr's are similar, and the differences are in the explanation and the interpretation of the experience. There is a common core among them such as out-of-body experiences, passing through a tunnel, heightened senses, etc. This is what all ethnic groups and nations face, without exception and without being influenced by religion, race, culture, and the native customs of their countries. Besides this central core, a series of other events or actions take place, which are more detailed and rooted in the personal archive of the NDEr's, consisting of all kinds of symbols, images, and characters which have been important only to that person. It is clear that aspects of near-death experiences are influenced by culture, while there are also parts that are universal. The most critical versatile features include altered states of consciousness and delusions, which seem to occur in all cultures studied so far. However, the specific characteristics of this experience vary significantly according to cultural context. The first point is that apparently, the content of experiences shows variations. For example, in some cultures, certain religious figures may be seen, and unlike them, others may see their deceased relatives. Second, the pattern of this experience is diverse, so people from certain cultures may have the experience of leaving the body, going to the tunnel, and reviewing life, and unlike them, the experience of others does not include these, and finally, the concept and perception of the near-death experience are different among cultures. In the current study, four main NDE categories were extracted from case reports, case series, and qualitative research studies, in the majority of which the experiences were common. The heightened senses and the improved consciousness among these individuals even indicate that “these experiences are neither dreams, nor sleep, nor the disorders caused”; “This phenomenon is medically inexplicable.” The research conducted in this field show a stable pattern of enhanced consciousness and heightened senses, “which leads to the clarity of NDEs and proves their being real.” The familiarity of the treatment staff, especially nurses and doctors, with NDE components and elements, gaining knowledge in this regard, and an awareness of appropriate and pertinent interventions can lead to proper reactions and feedbacks in response to the NDEr.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author contributions

HA, AH, AO, and MR designed the study, supervised and directed the study, carried out the implementation, aided in designing the study, and worked on the manuscript. HA and AH processed the experimental data, performed the analysis, and drafted the manuscript. All authors discussed the results, commented on the manuscript, and approved the final manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: near-death experience (NDE), out-of-body experience (OBE), death, systematic review, psychological experiences

Citation: Hashemi A, Oroojan AA, Rassouli M and Ashrafizadeh H (2023) Explanation of near-death experiences: a systematic analysis of case reports and qualitative research. Front. Psychol. 14:1048929. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1048929

Received: 20 September 2022; Accepted: 31 March 2023; Published: 20 April 2023.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2023 Hashemi, Oroojan, Rassouli and Ashrafizadeh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Hadis Ashrafizadeh, ashrafizadeh.h1993@gmail.com

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Getting comfortable with death & near-death experiences. Near-death experiences: an essay in medicine & philosophy

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• PMID: 24279183
• PMCID: PMC6179873

Near-death experiences are an ancient and very common phenomenon that spans from ancient philosophy, religion and healing to the most modern clinical practice of medicine. Probably we are not much closer to an ultimate explanation of NDEs than were early thinkers like Plato and Democritus. Puzzling cases of near-death experiences continue to come to light and the ancient debate about what they mean continues unabated.

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Near-Death Experiences Evidence for Their Reality

Introduction.

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are reported by about 17% of those who nearly die. 1 NDEs have been reported by children, adults, scientists, physicians, priests, ministers, among the religious and atheists, and from countries throughout the world.

While no two NDEs are the same, there are characteristic features that are commonly observed in NDEs. These characteristics include a perception of seeing and hearing apart from the physical body, passing into or through a tunnel, encountering a mystical light, intense and generally positive emotions, a review of part or all of their prior life experiences, encountering deceased loved ones, and a choice to return to their earthly life. 2

There is no uniformly accepted definition of near-death experience. Definitions of NDE with some variability have been used throughout the 35 plus years that NDE has been the subject of scholarly investigation. For my retrospective investigations, an NDE was required to have both a near-death and experience component.

Individuals were considered to be “near-death” if they were so physically compromised that if their condition did not improve they would be expected to irreversibly die. Near-death experiencers (NDErs) included in my investigations were generally unconscious and may have required cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The “experience” component of an NDE had to occur when they were near death. Also, the experience had to be reasonably lucid, which excluded fragmentary or brief disorganized memories. For an experience to be classified as an NDE, there had to be a score of seven or above on the NDE Scale. 3 The NDE Scale asks 16 questions about the NDE content and is the most validated scale to help distinguish NDEs from other types of experiences.

In 1998, a website called the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF, nderf.org) was established to conduct NDE research and to be a public service. It is NDERF policy that all NDE accounts shared with NDERF are posted on the website if the NDErs give permission to do so. Nearly all NDErs allow their experiences to be posted on the NDERF website. Portions of the NDERF website, including the NDE questionnaire, have been posted in over 20 different languages. The NDERF website has consistently been at or near the top of websites listed from a Google search for the term “near-death experiences.” This prominence of the NDERF website provided a unique opportunity to conduct a large-scale study of NDEs, including NDEs from around the world. At the current time there are over 3,700 NDEs posted on the NDERF website, which is by far the largest collection of publicly accessible NDE accounts in the world.

The NDERF website has a form allowing near-death experiencers to share a detailed narrative of their experiences, and includes a detailed questionnaire. Extensive prior studies found that an Internet survey has validity that is equivalent to traditional pencil-and-paper survey. 4 All experiences shared with the NDERF website are reviewed. Sequentially shared NDEs from the NDERF website were studied. NDEs included for study were single NDE accounts, shared in English, and were shared by the individual who personally had the NDE. An investigation of the NDEs shared with NDERF led to nine lines of evidence suggesting the reality of NDE.

Results Suggesting the Reality of Near-Death Experiences

Line of evidence #1, lucid, organized experiences while unconscious, comatose, or clinically dead.

Near-death experiences occur at a time when the person is so physically compromised that they are typically unconscious, comatose, or clinically dead. Considering NDEs from both a medical perspective and logically, it should not be possible for unconscious people to often report highly lucid experiences that are clear and logically structured. Most NDErs report supernormal consciousness at the time of their NDEs.

The NDERF survey asked, “How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal, everyday consciousness and alertness?” Of 1,122 NDErs surveyed, 835 (74.4%) indicated they had “More consciousness and alertness than normal”; 229 (20.4%) experienced “Normal consciousness and alertness”; and only 58 (5.2%) had “Less consciousness and alertness than normal.”

The NDERF survey also asks, “If your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience was different from your normal everyday consciousness and alertness, please explain.” In response to this question, NDErs commonly reported that consciousness during their experiences was “clear”, “more aware”, and often associated with heightened awareness.

Near-death experiences often occur in association with cardiac arrest. 5 Prior studies found that 10–20 seconds following cardiac arrest, electroencephalogram measurements generally find no significant measureable brain cortical electrical activity. 6 A prolonged, detailed, lucid experience following cardiac arrest should not be possible, yet this is reported in many NDEs. This is especially notable given the prolonged period of amnesia that typically precedes and follows recovery from cardiac arrest. 7

Line of Evidence #2

Seeing ongoing events from a location apart from the physical body while unconscious (out-of-body experience).

A common characteristic of near-death experiences is an out-of-body experience. An out-of-body experience (OBE) is the apparent separation of consciousness from the body. About 45% of near-death experiencers report OBEs which involves them seeing and often hearing ongoing earthly events from a perspective that is apart, and usually above, their physical bodies. Following cardiac arrest, NDErs may see, and later accurately describe, their own resuscitation.

The first prospective study of the accuracy of out-of-body observations during near-death experiences was by Dr. Michael Sabom. 8 This study investigated a group of patients who had cardiac arrests with NDEs that included OBEs, and compared them with a control group of patients who experienced cardiac crises but did not have NDEs. Both groups of patients were asked to describe their own resuscitation as best they could. Sabom found that the group of NDE patients were much more accurate than the control group in describing their own resuscitations.

“A man should look for what is, and not what he thinks should be.” -Albert Einstein

Another prospective study of out-of-body observations during near-death experiences with similar methodology to Sabom’s study was published by Dr. Penny Sartori. 9 This study also found that near-death experiencers were often remarkably accurate in describing details of their own resuscitations. The control group that did not have NDEs was highly inaccurate and often could only guess at what occurred during their resuscitations.

Two large retrospective studies investigated the accuracy of out-of-body observations during near-death experiences. The first was by Dr. Janice Holden. 10 Dr. Holden reviewed NDEs with OBEs in all previously published scholarly articles and books, and found 89 case reports. Of the case reports reviewed, 92% were considered to be completely accurate with no inaccuracy whatsoever when the OBE observations were later investigated.

Another large retrospective investigation of near-death experiences that included out-of-body observations was recently published. 11 This study was a review of 617 NDEs that were sequentially shared on the NDERF website. Of these NDEs, there were 287 NDEs that had OBEs with sufficient information to allow objective determination of the reality of their descriptions of their observations during the OBEs. Review of the 287 OBEs found that 280 (97.6%) of the OBE descriptions were entirely realistic and lacked any content that seemed unreal. In this group of 287 NDErs with OBEs, there were 65 (23%) who personally investigated the accuracy of their own OBE observations after recovering from their life-threatening event. Based on these later investigations, none of these 65 OBErs found any inaccuracy in their own OBE observations.

The high percentage of accurate out-of-body observations during near-death experiences does not seem explainable by any possible physical brain function as it is currently known. This is corroborated by OBEs during NDEs that describe accurate observations while they were verifiably clinically comatose. 12 Further corroboration comes from the many NDEs that have been reported with accurate OBE observations of events occurring far from their physical body, and beyond any possible physical sensory awareness. 13 Moreover, NDE accounts have been reported with OBEs that accurately observed events that were completely unexpected by the NDErs. 14 This further argues against NDEs as being a result of illusory memories originating from what the NDErs might have expected during a close brush with death.

Line of Evidence #3

Near-death experiences with vision in the blind and supernormal vision.

There have been a few case reports of near-death experiences in the blind. The largest study of this was by Dr. Kenneth Ring. 15 This Investigation included 31 blind or substantially visually impaired individuals who had NDEs or out-of-body experiences. Of the 31 individuals in the study, 10 were not facing life-threatening events at the time of their experiences, and thus their experiences were not NDEs. There were 14 individuals who were blind from birth in this study, and nine of them described vision during their experiences. This investigation presented case reports of those born totally blind that described in NDEs that were highly visual with content consistent with typical NDEs.

The NDERF website has received additional case reports of near-death experiences among those legally blind. For illustration, the following NDE happened to Marta, a five-year-old blind girl who walked into a lake:

“I slowly breathed in the water and became unconscious. A beautiful lady dressed in bright white light pulled me out. The lady looked into my eyes asked me what I wanted. I was unable to think of anything until it occurred to me to travel around the lake. As I did so, I saw detail that I would not have seen in “real” life. I could go anywhere, even to the tops of trees, simply by my intending to go there. I was legally blind. For the first time I was able to see leaves on trees, bird’s feathers, bird’s eyes, details on telephone poles and what was in people’s back yards. I was seeing far better than 20/20 vision. 16

An NDERF survey question asked 1,122 near-death experiencers, “Did your vision differ in any way from your normal, everyday vision (in any aspect, such as clarity, field of vision, colors, brightness, depth perception degree of solidness/transparency of objects, etc.)?” In response, 722 (64.3%) answered “Yes”, 182 (16.2%) said “Uncertain”, and 218 (19.4%) responded “No”. A review of narrative responses to this question revealed that vision during NDEs was often apparently supernormal. Here are some illustrative examples from NDEs:

“Colors were beyond any I had ever seen.” “Everything seemed so much more colorful and brighter than normal.” “My vision was greatly increased. I was able to see things as close or as far as I needed. There was no strain involved it was almost like auto zooming a camera.” “I had 360 degree vision, I could see above, below, on my right, on my left, behind, I could see everywhere at the same time!”

Vision in near-death experiencers that are blind, including totally blind from birth, has been described in many case reports. This, along with the finding that vision in NDEs is usually different from normal everyday vision and often described as supernormal, further suggests that NDEs cannot be explained by our current understanding of brain function. This is also further evidence that NDEs are not a product of what NDErs would have expected to occur during a life-threatening event.

Line of Evidence #4

Near-death experiences that occur while under general anesthesia.

Under adequate general anesthesia it should not be possible to have a lucid organized memory. Prior studies using EEG and functional imaging of the brains of patients under general anesthesia provide substantial evidence that the anesthetized brain should be unable to produce lucid memories. 17 , 18 As previously discussed, following cardiac arrest the EEG becomes flat in 10 to 20 seconds, and there is usually amnesia prior to and following the arrest. The occurrence of a cardiac arrest while under general anesthesia is a combination of circumstances in which no memory from that time should be possible. Here is an illustrative example of an NDE that occurred under general anesthesia during surgery for a heart valve replacement:

“During my surgery I felt myself lift from my body and go above the operating table. The doctor told me later that they had kept my heart open and stopped for a long time, and they had a great amount of difficulty getting my heart started again. That must have been when I left my body because I could see the doctors nervously trying to get my heart going. It was strange to be so detached from my physical body. I was curious about what they were doing but not concerned. Then, as I drifted farther away, I saw my father at the head of the table. He looked up at me, which did give me a surprise because he had been dead now for almost a year.” 19

I reviewed 613 near-death experiences shared with NDERF, and found 23 NDEs that appeared to have occurred while under general anesthesia. Cardiac arrest was the most common life-threatening event that was described in association with the occurrence of these NDEs. I compared the responses of these 23 NDErs to the 590 non-anesthesia NDErs by reviewing how both groups responded to 33 survey questions that asked about the content of the NDEs. Chi-square statistics was used for this comparison. Due to the large number of questions asked, statistical significance was set at p=0.01. The only statistically significant difference between the two groups was that the anesthesia NDEs were more likely to describe tunnels in their experiences.

An NDERF survey question asked, “How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness?” For the NDEs occurring under general anesthesia, 19 (83%) of the respondents answered, “More consciousness and alertness than normal,” to this question, compared to 437 (74%) for all other NDEs. The responses to this question by the two groups were not statistically significantly different. This suggests, remarkably, that the level of consciousness and alertness in NDEs is not modified by general anesthesia.

Other near-death experience investigators have reported NDEs occurring while under general anesthesia. Dr. Bruce Greyson, a leading NDE researcher at the University of Virginia, states:

“ In our collection of NDEs, 127 out of 578 NDE cases (22%) occurred under general anesthesia, and they included such features as OBEs that involved experiencers’ watching medical personnel working on their bodies, an unusually bright or vivid light, meeting deceased persons, and thoughts, memories, and sensations that were clearer than usual.” 20

NDEs due to cardiac arrest while under general anesthesia occur and are medically inexplicable.

Line of Evidence #5

Near-death experiences and life reviews.

Some near-death experiences include a review of part or all of their prior lives. This NDE element is called a life review. NDErs typically describe their life review from a third-person perspective. The life review may include awareness of what others were feeling and thinking at the time earlier in their life when they interacted with them. This previously unknown awareness of what other people were feeling or thinking when they interacted with them is often surprising and unexpected to the NDErs. Here is an example of a life review: “

I went into a dark place with nothing around me, but I wasn’t scared. It was really peaceful there. I then began to see my whole life unfolding before me like a film projected on a screen, from babyhood to adult life. It was so real! I was looking at myself, but better than a 3-D movie as I was also capable of sensing the feelings of the persons I had interacted with through the years. I could feel the good and bad emotions I made them go through.” 21

In my review of 617 near-death experiences from NDERF, a life review occurred in 88 NDEs (14%). None of the life reviews in these NDEs appeared to have any unrealistic content as determined by my review or based on comments by the NDErs about their own life reviews. Life reviews may include long forgotten details of their earlier life that the NDErs later confirm really happened. If NDEs were unreal experiences, it would be expected that there would be significant error in life reviews and possibly hallucinatory features. The consistent accuracy of life reviews, including the awareness of long-forgotten events and awareness of the thoughts and feelings of others from past interactions, further suggests the reality of NDEs.

Line of Evidence #6

Encountering deceased loved ones in near-death experiences.

Near-death experiences may describe encounters with people that they knew during their earthly life. The following is an example of encountering a deceased loved ones in an NDE. This example is also notable as the NDEr was born totally deaf:

“I approached the boundary. No explanation was necessary for me to understand, at the age of ten, that once I cross[ed] the boundary, I could never come back— period. I was more than thrilled to cross. I intended to cross, but my ancestors over another boundary caught my attention. They were talking in telepathy, which caught my attention. I was born profoundly deaf and had all hearing family members, all of which knew sign language! I could read or communicate with about twenty ancestors of mine and others through telepathic methods. It overwhelmed me. I could not believe how many people I could telepathize with simultaneously. 22

When people known to the near-death experiencers are encountered in NDEs, the great majority are people who are deceased. A study by Dr. Emily Kelly was a comparison of 74 NDEs with descriptions of encountering deceased individuals with 200 NDEs that did not describe encounters with the deceased. 23 This study found that when NDErs encountered beings known to them from their earthly lives in their NDEs, only 4% described meeting beings that were alive at the time of their experiences. I reviewed 84 NDEs from NDERF that described encounters with individual(s) that they knew in their earthly life. 24 There were only three NDEs (4%) where the encountered beings were alive at the time of the NDEs, consistent with the findings of the Kelly study.

In dreams or hallucinations when familiar persons are present they are much more likely to be living and from recent memory. 25 This is in sharp contrast to near-death experiencers where familiar persons encountered are almost always deceased. Cases have been reported by NDErs of seeing a person who they thought was living, but in fact had recently died. 25 , 26 These cases illustrate that NDEs cannot be explained by the experiencer’s expectation of what would happen during a life-threatening event. Further evidence that NDEs are not a result of expectation comes from the aforementioned Kelly study where in one-third of the cases the encountered deceased person had a poor or distant relationship with the NDEr, or was someone that had died before the NDEr was born. 23

Line of Evidence #7

Near-death experiences of young children.

Investigation of near-death experiences in very young children is important because at an early age they are less likely to have established religious beliefs, cultural understandings about death, or even an awareness of what death is. Very young children would be very unlikely to have heard about near-death experiences or understand them. I investigated the NDEs in children age five and younger in the same group of 613 NDErs previously discussed in the section on NDEs while under general anesthesia. Two NDEs were excluded as they did not provide their age in the survey. The study groups included 26 NDErs that were age 5 and younger (average 3.6 years old) and 585 NDErs age 6 and older at the time of their NDEs. The NDERF survey included 33 questions about the content of their NDEs. Chi-square statistics was used to compare the responses to these 33 questions between the two groups. 27 There was no statistically significant difference to the responses between the two groups to any of the 33 questions. The NDERF study found that the content of NDEs in children age five and younger appeared to be the same as the content of NDEs in older children and adults. The finding of the NDERF study are corroborated by the investigation of Dr. Cherie Sutherland who reviewed thirty years of scholarly literature regarding the NDEs of children and concluded:

“It has often been supposed that the NDEs of very young children will have a content limited to their vocabulary. However, it is now clear that the age of children at the time of their NDE does not in any way determine its complexity. Even prelinguistic children have later reported quite complex experiences…. Age does not seem in any way to affect the content of the NDE.” 28

Very young children have near-death experience content that is strikingly similar to older children and adults. This is further evidence that NDEs are occurring independently of preexisting cultural beliefs, religious training, or awareness of the existence of NDE.

Line of Evidence #8

Cross-cultural study of near-death experiences.

Portions of the NDERF website, including the questionnaire, have been translated into 23 different languages. Over 500 near-death experiences in non- English languages have been shared with NDERF over the years. Dozens of volunteers have translated the non- English NDEs into English. Both the non-English and English translated versions of the NDEs are posted on the NDERF website. Over 60,000 people currently visit the NDERF website each month. Many website visitors are bilingual and this help assure that the NDEs are accurately translated.

My investigation of NDEs from around the world that have been translated into English shows that their content is strikingly similar. 29 If near-death experiences were considerably influenced by pre-existing religious and cultural beliefs, it would be expected that there would be significant differences in the content of NDEs from different cultures around the world. However, in my review of over 500 NDEs from dozens of countries around the world I found impressive similarities in the content of these NDEs.

I investigated 19 non-Western NDEs, where a “non- Western country” was defined as areas of the world that are predominantly not of Jewish or Christian heritage. 30 These 19 non-Western NDEs were compared to a group of NDEs shared in English from Western countries that were predominantly English speaking. This investigation concluded:

“All near-death experience elements appearing in Western NDEs are present in non-Western NDEs. There are many non-Western NDEs with narratives that are strikingly similar to the narratives of typical Western NDEs. At a minimum, it may be concluded that non- Western NDEs are much more similar to Western NDEs than dissimilar.” 31

Two recent investigations of Muslim near-death experiences in non-Western countries have been reported. An investigation of 19 Iranian Muslim NDEs concluded:

“Our results suggest that Muslim NDEs may actually be quite common, as they are in the West, and may not be especially different in their key features from Western NDEs and therefore not heavily influenced by cultural variations, including prior religious or spiritual beliefs.” 32

Another study of eight Muslim NDEs found:

“Although the documentation standard of the available cases is generally low, these accounts indicate that structure and contents of NDEs from many non-Western Muslim communities are largely similar to those reported in the Western NDE literature.” 33

The lack of significant differences in the content of near-death experiences around the world, including NDEs from non-Western countries, suggests that NDE content is not substantially modified by preexisting cultural influences. This finding is consistent with the previously discussed finding that children age five and under, who have received far less cultural influence than adults during their brief lives, have NDEs with content that is essentially the same as older children and adults. Other common forms of altered consciousness, such as dreams or hallucinations, are much more likely to be significantly influenced by prior cultural beliefs and life experiences. The lack of significant differences in the content of NDEs around the world is consistent with the concept that NDEs occur independently from physical brain function as currently understood.

Line of Evidence #9

Near-death experience after effects.

Following near-death experiences significant changes in the lives of NDErs are commonly observed. The most recent version of the NDERF survey asked NDErs, “My experience directly resulted in...:”

The responses of 278 NDErs to the question were:

Changes in beliefs and values following near-death experiences are often called aftereffects. Given that a life-threatening event without an NDE might result in life changes, some of the best evidence for NDE-specific aftereffects came from the largest prospective NDE study ever reported. This study, conducted by Pim van Lommel, MD, divided survivors of cardiac arrest into a group that had NDEs, and a group that did not. 12 The aftereffects of both groups were assessed two and eight years after the cardiac arrests. The group of cardiac arrest survivors with NDEs were statistically more likely have a reduced fear of death, increased belief in life after death, interest in the meaning of life, acceptance of others, and were more loving and empathic. It may take years after NDEs for the aftereffects to become fully manifest. The aftereffects may be so substantial that NDErs may seem to be very different people to their loved ones and family. The consistency, intensity, and durability of NDE aftereffects is consistent with the NDErs’ typical personal assessments that their experiences were very meaningful and significant. It is remarkable that NDEs often occur during only minutes of unconsciousness, yet commonly result in substantial and life-long transformations of beliefs and values.

Conclusion of Study

Multiple lines of evidence point to the conclusion that near-death experiences are medically inexplicable and cannot be explained by known physical brain function. Many of the preceding lines of evidence would be remarkable if they were reported by a group of individuals during conscious experiences. However, NDErs are generally unconscious or clinically dead at the time of their experiences and should not have any lucid organized memories from their time of unconsciousness.

It is informative to consider how near-death experiencers themselves view the reality of their experiences. An NDERF survey of 1122 NDErs asked “How do you currently view the reality of your experience?”, and received the following responses:

The great majority of more than 1,000 near-death experiencers believed that their experiences were definitely real. The 1,122 NDErs surveyed included many physicians, scientists, attorneys, and nurses. These findings suggest that, for the majority of us who have not personally experienced an NDE, we should be very cautious about labelling NDEs as “unreal.” Given that such a high percentage of NDErs consider their experiences to be “definitely real,” it would be reasonable to accept their assessment of the reality of their personal experience unless there is good evidence that their experiences were not real.

After over 35 years of scholarly investigation of near-death experience, the totality of what is observed in NDEs has not been adequately explained based on physical brain function. It is beyond the scope of this article to review the many proposed “explanations” of near-death experience. Over the years, there have been over 20 different “explanations” of NDE suggested that cover the gamut of physiological, psychological, and cultural causes. If any one or several of these “explanations” were widely accepted as plausible, then there would be no need for so many different “explanations” of NDE. Among those who believe that physical brain function must explain everything that is experienced in all NDEs, there is no consensus whatsoever about how physical brain function produces NDEs.

The combination of the preceding nine lines of evidence converges on the conclusion that near-death experiences are medically inexplicable. Any one or several of the nine lines of evidence would likely be reasonably convincing to many, but the combination of all of the presented nine lines of evidence provides powerful evidence that NDEs are, in a word, real.

Jeffrey Long, MD, is a radiation oncologist in Houma, Louisiana and a recognized world expert on near-death experiences. Dr. Long established the nonprofit Near Death Experience Research Foundation and a website forum ( www.nderf.org ) for people to share their NDEs.

None reported.

Near-Death Experiences

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

A near-death experience (NDE) is the conscious, semi-conscious or recollected experience of someone who is approaching or has temporarily begun the process of dying—for example, during a cardiac arrest that is followed by resuscitation. People who recall near-death experiences have described perceiving a variety of surreal phenomena, such as seeing themselves from above or passing through a tunnel of light.

Reports of these experiences sometimes include religious or spiritual interpretations and have fueled debates about whether a person’s consciousness can persist after death. Some scientists dispute that NDEs reflect post-mortem consciousness and have sought to explain them in terms of changes in brain function during the process of dying.

• What Are Near-Death Experiences?
• The Meaning of NDEs

Thanks to advanced medical care, it has become increasingly common for people on the verge of dying to be revived and returned to normal consciousness, even after their body has begun to shut down. A subset of these people recall episodes from the period of time before they awoke that are often extraordinary and personally meaningful. The descriptions may include some details that are particular to the individual (such as seeing a family member) and others that appear, in some version, in many people’s NDE reports.

A near-death experience is, simply, an experience that a person reports having had while in a physical state in which the risk of death was imminent. Commonly, the person’s heart temporarily ceased to function at some point prior to recovery, as after a heart attack. Reports of NDEs can include images, sensations, and other conscious elements that are often vivid and striking.

The nature of near-death experiences varies from case to case, but some features have appeared in multiple reports. Feelings of peacefulness or serenity are typical in NDE accounts. They may also include vivid imagery, such as bright light, movement through a tunnel, or visions of events from one’s past (also called a “life review”). Some NDEs include “ out-of-body experiences ,” in which one feels removed from one’s physical body. And some reports describe encounters with other beings, such as loved ones or anonymous entities perceived as angels. 

For some, the different elements of a near-death experience may unfold in sequence—for example, passage into darkness, followed by a sense of leaving one’s body and seeing it from outside, and then an apparent encounter with a mysterious being, ultimately ending with a return to regular consciousness.

In one reported near-death experience, a man whose heart had stopped beating and who showed no signs of brain activity was subsequently revived. Later, he recalled having encountered a “compassionate being” during the episode who gave him a feeling of warmth. In another case, a woman described a memory of floating above her body, looking down at the doctors who were treating her and listening to what they said.

Estimates vary, with some suggesting that as many as 10 to 20 percent of people who have been declared dead have had a near-death experience . In one study of patients who had survived cardiac arrest, 9 percent of survivors who could be interviewed reported a NDE.

Some other experiences seem to overlap partly with NDEs. Out-of-body experiences, one potential element of a NDE, can also occur in circumstances in which death is not imminent—such as while a person is under anesthesia. Comparisons have been made between NDEs and experiences people have while on certain kinds of hallucinogenic drugs. Events that may prompt NDE-like phenomena also include fever, fainting, injury, and other physiological disruptions.

While a sense of joy or serenity is a commonly mentioned feature of near-death experiences, there have also been reports of frightening near-death experiences . These may involve negative feelings provoked by a typical NDE phenomenon (such as feeling outside of one’s body), a sense of being alone in darkness, or other frightening scenes. This kind of NDE appears to be relatively rare.

Given the remarkable stories of those who have near-death experiences—and a general curiosity about the nature of death and what does (or doesn’t) follow it—NDEs have invited a variety of interpretations. Some find spiritual validation in the mysterious accounts of what may seem like a brush with the afterlife. Skeptics of that view point instead to potential brain-based reasons for such vivid experiences.

And, of course, individuals who have survived a near-death state grapple with the meaning of their own experiences, and some report positive changes in their outlook on life and death. No matter the ultimate explanation for NDEs, experts encourage those close to these individuals to allow them to talk about these potentially impactful experiences and to respond non-judgmentally.

People who have near-death experiences may find religious significance in what they remember: They might conclude, for example, that an out-of-body experience and the sense of movement toward light represented their soul departing for heaven, or that they interacted with an angel or God. The details of these interpretations seem to vary based on a person’s religious background. More broadly, people who have a NDE may feel that they have encountered something divine, a glimpse of the afterlife, or some other truth beyond the realm of the normal.

While many people interpret vivid near-death experiences as evidence that a person’s consciousness or soul continues to exist after death, from a scientific perspective, NDEs do not prove that life continues after death. While NDEs are not fully understood, various potential explanations that do not involve a disembodied consciousness have been explored.

Multiple hypotheses have been proposed, with some bearing on particular elements of near-death experiences. For example, out-of-body experiences in NDEs may be accounted for by the disruption of the temporal parietal region, key to the sense of embodiment, as the brain approaches death. And some have suggested that the tunnel imagery of many NDEs is due to the effect of slowed-down blood flow on the retinas. However, the neurological basis of NDEs is not yet fully understood, and some researchers are open to alternative accounts that go beyond brain activity.

One hypothesized explanation for near-death experiences is that the body releases the hallucination-inducing chemical such as dimethyltryptamine (DMT) when it is near death, but this has yet to be established. There are similarities between experiences caused by hallucinogens and near-death experiences; however, there is evidence that ketamine has effects that are more similar to NDEs than are the effects of DMT.

Near-death experiences can leave a lasting impression on the person who has survived. Among the transformative effects described by those who had NDEs are an increased sense of purpose and appreciation and a reduced fear of death . A person may report becoming more open and loving in the aftermath of a NDE. And in some cases, the person may perceive that they have gained intuitive abilities, such as seeming to know what someone is thinking or feeling.

What do people who have a close brush with death and astronauts who venture into space share in common?

When was the last time you thought about your health before traveling for business or pleasure? Did you know that not doing so could be life-threatening or life-changing?

It happens to all sorts of people, including former skeptics.

A Personal Perspective: There's so much focus on the worried mind of OCD. What about healing the broken heart?

A new movie based on a novel by John Green has a new twist on OCD.

Feeling that one is still connected with the deceased can have a positive impact on the grief process, research suggests.

Some people appear to know in advance the date of their death. In near-death experiences, people may be told that it is "not your time yet." Is this an example of precognition?

Might the ancient books of the dead still have something to teach us about better living now?

The exploration of the mysteries surrounding the deathbed continues.

Frontline workers were confronted with extraordinary suffering during the first year of the pandemic. Many carry emotional trauma from that time with them today.

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There Are Seven Types of Near-Death Experiences, According to Research

Depending on your beliefs, the experience of death hovers over our lives like an unknowable but inevitable void. Aside from the well-cited 'bright-light at the end of the tunnel' cliché, we have no idea what it's going to look or feel like, but we know for sure that we're all eventually going to find out.

One person who has a better idea than most is Sam Parnia, the director of resuscitation research at Stony Brook University School of Medicine in the US, who has conducted the largest study to date on resuscitated patients in an attempt to try to unravel the mental and cognitive experience of dying. As part of his research, he's interviewed more than 100 people who've been brought back to life after suffering from a fatal cardiac arrest, and found that nearly half of them have some memory, ranging from terrifying to blissful, of their death.

Publishing in the journal Resuscitation , Parnia has grouped those memories into seven broad categories, proving that dying is a far more diverse experience than we've previously imagined. These categories are:

• Seeing animals or plants
• Bright light
• Violence and persecution
• Seeing family
• Recalling events post-cardiac arrest

That last one is pretty fascinating, with two of the patients interviewed able to recall the events that happened after they had technically died and, according to our understanding of the human brain, should have ceased to be aware.

"We know the brain can't function when the heart has stopped beating, but in this case conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes into the period when the heart wasn't beating, even though the brain typically shuts down within 20 to 30 seconds after the heart has stopped," Parnia told The National Post last year .

However, these recall experiences only occurred in 2 percent of patients, and the majority of people remembered seeing and feeling things that weren't real at the time of their death.

"I was terrified. I was told I was going to die and the quickest way was to say the last short word I could remember," said one patient. Another explained that it felt like "being dragged through deep water with a big ring and I hate swimming - it was horrid".

But it's not all bad news: 22 percent of patients had a pleasant experience, seeing plants and animals, their family, or simply feeling a warm light before the end.

Last week,  a reddit thread also probed the experience of death, asking those who have technically died to report back on what it really felt like. Obviously the responses are unverified, but they back up Parnia's conclusion that the experience is incredibly diverse.

Adam Withnall over at The Independent   has written a fantastic review of the responses, but overall, he finds that they can be broadly grouped into three categories. "There are those who felt nothing at all; those who had an experience of light and some interaction with another person/being; and those who felt they could watch what was happening while they were 'dead' without being able to do anything," he writes.

Here is just a small sample of the more than 700 comments on the thread :

"I was getting an angiogram done, wide awake watching the screen and talking to the doctor. Alarms started to go off and everyone became panicked. My world became soft and foggy and everything faded to black. Next thing I remember was opening my eyes and hearing a Dr ay "we got him back". It was really a peaceful feeling more than anything."

"I collapsed at a work meeting in February 2014 and had no pulse or cardiac rhythm for about five minutes. My last memory was from about an hour prior to the incident, and my next memory was from two days later, when I emerged from a medically-induced coma."

"Pure, perfect, uninterrupted sleep, no dreams."

"I do remember a little bit of the ambulance ride, but not from my own body. It was seriously the strangest thing I have ever experienced. It could have been a dream, but I saw my own unconscious body, completely flatlined, in the ambulance. I remember the EMT who was in the ambulance with me (whom I did not see before I passed out) had mint green hair and I couldn't remember his name, but I asked for him when I regained consciousness about three days later."

"I was standing in front of a giant wall of light. It stretched up, down, left and right as far as I could see. Kind of like putting your eyes 6″ from a fluorescent lightbulb. The next memory I have is waking up in the hospital."

"I saw nothingness. Black, long empty, but I had a feeling like everything was great and nothing was wrong at all. Imagine how preexistence felt, much the same as post existence."

Parnia hopes his research opens the door for further research into near-death experiences, and will also encourage people think about the end of our lives in a more scientific way, and taking death out of the realm of religion or superstition.

"Anyone with a relatively objective mind will agree that this is something that should be investigated further," Parnia told BBC Future . "We have the means and the technology. Now it's time to do it."

Sources: BBC Future , reddit , The Independent

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Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary (1973-2015)

Near death experiences and the evidence - a review essay.

Gary R. Habermas , Liberty University Follow

Publication Date

Document type, disciplines.

Biblical Studies | Comparative Methodologies and Theories | Ethics in Religion | History of Religions of Eastern Origins | History of Religions of Western Origin | Other Religion | Religion | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion

Published in Christian Scholar's Review, 26 no 1 Fall 1996, p 78-85.

It is probably an understatement to say that the phenomena of near-death experiences (NDEs) is riding a massive wave of popularity and has been for much of the last twenty years. Best-selling books, firsthand articles, television documentaries and movies regularly describe the fascination we have with stories "from the other side." The typically-reported sensations are now common parlance: floating above one's dying body, travelling down a dark tunnel, sensing the presence of departed loved ones or spiritual beings, and experiencing a Being of light.

From a more critical perspective, one problem with this popularity is that friends and foes alike generally concentrate on the more sensational aspects of these reports with little or no interest in the more evidential claims that are being made. Thus, allies often bask in the mere descriptions of these extraordinary reports while antagonists think that they have debunked these wonders by responding, in kind, to the same popular sensations. On both side serious attention is seldom given to accounts that claim corroborative evidence in favor of the NDEs.

One recent book is a welcome exception to this trend. Susan Blackmore's Dying to Live: Near-Death Experiences is a serious attempt to investigate the best arguments both for and against these phenomena. A Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of the West of England, Blackmore is the author of numerous publications on this subject and one of the recognized experts in the field. Her background and the amount of her research lend credibility to her treatment.

This review article will examine Blackmore's arguments. In particular, she recognizes the importance of the evidential cases and thinks that they are potentially the most important ones. As we are in agreement on the centrality of this aspect, I will concentrate chiefly on some of these instances.

Recommended Citation

Habermas, Gary R., "Near Death Experiences and the Evidence - A Review Essay" (1996). Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary (1973-2015) . 337. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/lts_fac_pubs/337

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• Death And Dying

8 Popular Essays About Death, Grief & the Afterlife

Updated 05/4/2022

Published 07/19/2021

Joe Oliveto, BA in English

Contributing writer

Cake values integrity and transparency. We follow a strict editorial process to provide you with the best content possible. We also may earn commission from purchases made through affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Learn more in our affiliate disclosure .

Death is a strange topic for many reasons, one of which is the simple fact that different people can have vastly different opinions about discussing it.

Jump ahead to these sections: 

Essays or articles about the death of a loved one, essays or articles about dealing with grief, essays or articles about the afterlife or near-death experiences.

Some fear death so greatly they don’t want to talk about it at all. However, because death is a universal human experience, there are also those who believe firmly in addressing it directly. This may be more common now than ever before due to the rise of the death positive movement and mindset.

You might believe there’s something to be gained from talking and learning about death. If so, reading essays about death, grief, and even near-death experiences can potentially help you begin addressing your own death anxiety. This list of essays and articles is a good place to start. The essays here cover losing a loved one, dealing with grief, near-death experiences, and even what someone goes through when they know they’re dying.

Losing a close loved one is never an easy experience. However, these essays on the topic can help someone find some meaning or peace in their grief.

1. ‘I’m Sorry I Didn’t Respond to Your Email, My Husband Coughed to Death Two Years Ago’ by Rachel Ward

Rachel Ward’s essay about coping with the death of her husband isn’t like many essays about death. It’s very informal, packed with sarcastic humor, and uses an FAQ format. However, it earns a spot on this list due to the powerful way it describes the process of slowly finding joy in life again after losing a close loved one.

Ward’s experience is also interesting because in the years after her husband’s death, many new people came into her life unaware that she was a widow. Thus, she often had to tell these new people a story that’s painful but unavoidable. This is a common aspect of losing a loved one that not many discussions address.

2. ‘Everything I know about a good death I learned from my cat’ by Elizabeth Lopatto

Not all great essays about death need to be about human deaths! In this essay, author Elizabeth Lopatto explains how watching her beloved cat slowly die of leukemia and coordinating with her vet throughout the process helped her better understand what a “good death” looks like.

For instance, she explains how her vet provided a degree of treatment but never gave her false hope (for instance, by claiming her cat was going to beat her illness). They also worked together to make sure her cat was as comfortable as possible during the last stages of her life instead of prolonging her suffering with unnecessary treatments.

Lopatto compares this to the experiences of many people near death. Sometimes they struggle with knowing how to accept death because well-meaning doctors have given them the impression that more treatments may prolong or even save their lives, when the likelihood of them being effective is slimmer than patients may realize.

Instead, Lopatto argues that it’s important for loved ones and doctors to have honest and open conversations about death when someone’s passing is likely near. This can make it easier to prioritize their final wishes instead of filling their last days with hospital visits, uncomfortable treatments, and limited opportunities to enjoy themselves.

3. ‘The terrorist inside my husband’s brain’ by Susan Schneider Williams

This article, which Susan Schneider Williams wrote after the death of her husband Robin Willians, covers many of the topics that numerous essays about the death of a loved one cover, such as coping with life when you no longer have support from someone who offered so much of it. 

However, it discusses living with someone coping with a difficult illness that you don’t fully understand, as well. The article also explains that the best way to honor loved ones who pass away after a long struggle is to work towards better understanding the illnesses that affected them. 

4. ‘Before I Go’ by Paul Kalanithi

“Before I Go” is a unique essay in that it’s about the death of a loved one, written by the dying loved one. Its author, Paul Kalanithi, writes about how a terminal cancer diagnosis has changed the meaning of time for him.

Kalanithi describes believing he will die when his daughter is so young that she will likely never have any memories of him. As such, each new day brings mixed feelings. On the one hand, each day gives him a new opportunity to see his daughter grow, which brings him joy. On the other hand, he must struggle with knowing that every new day brings him closer to the day when he’ll have to leave her life.

Coping with grief can be immensely challenging. That said, as the stories in these essays illustrate, it is possible to manage grief in a positive and optimistic way.

5. Untitled by Sheryl Sandberg

This piece by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s current CEO, isn’t a traditional essay or article. It’s actually a long Facebook post. However, many find it’s one of the best essays about death and grief anyone has published in recent years.

She posted it on the last day of sheloshim for her husband, a period of 30 days involving intense mourning in Judaism. In the post, Sandberg describes in very honest terms how much she learned from those 30 days of mourning, admitting that she sometimes still experiences hopelessness, but has resolved to move forward in life productively and with dignity.

She explains how she wanted her life to be “Option A,” the one she had planned with her husband. However, because that’s no longer an option, she’s decided the best way to honor her husband’s memory is to do her absolute best with “Option B.”

This metaphor actually became the title of her next book. Option B , which Sandberg co-authored with Adam Grant, a psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, is already one of the most beloved books about death , grief, and being resilient in the face of major life changes. It may strongly appeal to anyone who also appreciates essays about death as well.

6. ‘My Own Life’ by Oliver Sacks

Grief doesn’t merely involve grieving those we’ve lost. It can take the form of the grief someone feels when they know they’re going to die.

Renowned physician and author Oliver Sacks learned he had terminal cancer in 2015. In this essay, he openly admits that he fears his death. However, he also describes how knowing he is going to die soon provides a sense of clarity about what matters most. Instead of wallowing in his grief and fear, he writes about planning to make the very most of the limited time he still has.

Belief in (or at least hope for) an afterlife has been common throughout humanity for decades. Additionally, some people who have been clinically dead report actually having gone to the afterlife and experiencing it themselves.

Whether you want the comfort that comes from learning that the afterlife may indeed exist, or you simply find the topic of near-death experiences interesting, these are a couple of short articles worth checking out.

7. ‘My Experience in a Coma’ by Eben Alexander

“My Experience in a Coma” is a shortened version of the narrative Dr. Eben Alexander shared in his book, Proof of Heaven . Alexander’s near-death experience is unique, as he’s a medical doctor who believes that his experience is (as the name of his book suggests) proof that an afterlife exists. He explains how at the time he had this experience, he was clinically braindead, and therefore should not have been able to consciously experience anything.

Alexander describes the afterlife in much the same way many others who’ve had near-death experiences describe it. He describes starting out in an “unresponsive realm” before a spinning white light that brought with it a musical melody transported him to a valley of abundant plant life, crystal pools, and angelic choirs. He states he continued to move from one realm to another, each realm higher than the last, before reaching the realm where the infinite love of God (which he says is not the “god” of any particular religion) overwhelmed him.

8. “One Man's Tale of Dying—And Then Waking Up” by Paul Perry

The author of this essay recounts what he considers to be one of the strongest near-death experience stories he’s heard out of the many he’s researched and written about over the years. The story involves Dr. Rajiv Parti, who claims his near-death experience changed his views on life dramatically.

Parti was highly materialistic before his near-death experience. During it, he claims to have been given a new perspective, realizing that life is about more than what his wealth can purchase. He returned from the experience with a permanently changed outlook.

This is common among those who claim to have had near-death experiences. Often, these experiences leave them kinder, more understanding, more spiritual, and less materialistic.

This short article is a basic introduction to Parti’s story. He describes it himself in greater detail in the book Dying to Wake Up , which he co-wrote with Paul Perry, the author of the article.

Essays About Death: Discussing a Difficult Topic

It’s completely natural and understandable to have reservations about discussing death. However, because death is unavoidable, talking about it and reading essays and books about death instead of avoiding the topic altogether is something that benefits many people. Sometimes, the only way to cope with something frightening is to address it.

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• Coping With Grief

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17 Near-Death Experience Accounts from "Beyond the Light"

17 near-death experience accounts from "beyond the light".

Copyright 1994 by P. M. H. Atwater (reproduced here with the author's permission)

Beyond the Light , originally in hardcover, Birch Lane Press, New York City (reprinted as a paperback through Avon Books, New York City, 1995 - ISBN: 0-380-72540-1)

Seventeen Case-Studies of the Near-Death Experience Follow

"I must say that this experience was quite unsettling to say the least.  I was floating over my body.  I could see and hear everything that was being said and done.  I left the room for a short while and then returned to where my body lay.  I knew why I died.  It was because I couldn't breathe.  There was a tube down my throat and the medical staff did not have an oxygen mask on my nose.  I had also been given too much anesthetic.

"In my out-of-body state, I'm using my mind to try and make my right arm and hand move - my arms are extended parallel to my physical body.  I want my right hand to move, any thing to move.  I was trying to pull the tube out of my mouth.  I looked down at my face and tears were streaming.  One of the nurses blotted the tears from my face but she didn't notice my breathing had stopped, nor did she see me next to her.  At this point, I'm trying really hard to make my physical arm move, but it's like my whole body is made of lead."

Cidavia-DeRepentigny's determination in her out-of-body state to make an arm move finally paid off; and, with great clamor and commotion, the tube was pulled out, an oxygen mask attached, and her breathing restored.  She had a similar near-death episode when she was hospitalized at thirteen, and again in 1991 when she faced death a third time.  The more recent occurrence resulted from a nearly fatal bout with pneumonia, only this time she witnessed her own soul as a spirit residing outside of her body:

"I could see my spirit standing before me.  My spirit was so beautifully perfect, dressed in a white gown that was loose, free-flowing, and below the knee.  From my spirit there emanated a bright, soft-white halo.  My spirit was standing six to eight feet from my body.  It was so strange, for I could see my spirit and my spirit could see my pathetic body.  I had not an ounce of color and I looked all withered and cold and lifeless.  My spirit felt warm and so, so celestial.  As my spirit slowly moved away, my spirit told my body goodbye, for my spirit saw the light and wanted to go into it.  The light was like a circular opening that was warm and bright."

Cidavia-DeRepentigny spoke of feeling torn between two worlds - wanting to remain on earth while at the same time feeling a strong pull to unite with her spirit self and pass into the light.  After another round of hospitalization, she was left confused and disoriented, ready to change her life yet hesitant to begin.  She lamented about the lack of people she could discuss her situation with, although her church bishop did express some degree of understanding.  Her lament is commonly shared by most experiencers.

"My first visual memory was looking forward and seeing a brilliant bright light, almost like looking directly at the sun.  The strange thing was that I could see my feet in front of me, as if I were floating upward in a vertical position.  I do not remember passing through a tunnel or anything like that, just floating in the beautiful light.  A tremendous amount of warmth and love came from the light.

"There was a standing figure in the light, shaped like a normal human being, but with no distinct facial features.  It had a masculine presence.  The light I have described seemed like it emanated from that figure.  Light rays shone all around him.  I felt very protected and safe and loved.

"The figure in the light told me through what I now know to be mental telepathy that I must go back, that it was not time for me to come here.  I wanted to stay because I felt so full of joy and so peaceful.  The voice repeated that it wasn't my time; I had a purpose to fulfill and I could come back after I completed it.

"The first time I told my parents about my experience was right after I began to talk.  At the time, I believed that what happened to me was something everyone experienced.  I told my mom and dad about the big glass case I was in after I was born, and the figure in the light and what he said to me.  They took my reference to the glass case to mean the incubator.  My father was a medical student at the time, and he had read a book about near-death experiences.  From comparing the information in the book with what I told them, they decided that's what I was describing.  My mom told me all of this years later when I brought the subject up again.

"I began attending church at the age of five, and I would look at the picture of Jesus in the Bible and tell my mom that's who it was in the light.  I still have many physical difficulties with my health because of being premature.  But there is a strong need inside me that I should help others with what death is, and talk to terminally ill patients.  I was in the other world and I know there is nothing to be afraid of after death."

Several years before his death, Bryce Bond, a famous New York City media personality turned parapsychologist, shared with me the story of what happened to him when he once collapsed after a violent allergic reaction to pine nuts and was rushed to a hospital.  He remembered suddenly passing through a long tunnel toward a brilliant light, and then (pages 13-14, paperback version, "BEYOND THE LIGHT"):

"I hear a bark, and racing toward me is a dog I once had, a black poodle named Pepe.  When I see him, I feel an emotional floodgate open.  Tears fill my eyes.  He jumps into my arms, licking my face.  As I hold him, he is real, more real than I had ever experienced him.  I can smell him, feel him, hear his breathing, and sense his great joy at being with me again.

"I put my dog on the ground, and step forward to embrace my stepfather, when a very strong voice is heard in my consciousness.  Not yet, it says.  I scream out, Why?  Then this inner voice says, What have you learned, and whom have you helped?  I am dumb-founded.  The voice seems to be from without as well as within.  Everything stops for a moment.  I have to think of what was asked of me.  I cannot answer what I have learned, but I can answer whom I have helped.

"I feel the presence of my dog around me as I ponder those two questions.  Then I hear barking, and other dogs appear, dogs I once had.  As I stand there for what seems to be an eternity.  I want to embrace and be absorbed and merge.  I want to stay.  The sensation of not wanting to come back is overwhelming."

Bryce was also greeted by all of his relatives who had passed on before him.  He experienced these loved ones as somewhat younger in form and face than when he had last seen them, healthier and happier.  He remembered racing backward through the same tunnel he had entered when it was time to leave and reviving in time to witness a hypodermic needle being plunged into his arm.  "I heard a voice say, 'Welcome back.'  I never asked who said that nor did I care.  I was told by the doctor that I had been dead for over ten minutes."

"My mother and I were driving out to the lake one afternoon.  My dad was to follow later when he finished work.  We were having company for dinner, and, as we rode along, my mother spotted some wild flowers at the side of the road.  She asked if I wouldn't stop the car and pick them as they would look nice on the dinner table.  I pulled over to the right side of the road (it was not a major highway), parked the car, and went down a small incline to get off the road to pick the flowers.  While I was picking the flowers, a car came whizzing by and suddenly headed straight for me.

"As I looked up and saw what I presumed would be an inevitable death, I separated from my body and viewed what was happening from another perspective.  My whole life flashed in front of me, from that moment backwards to segments of my life.  The review was not like a judgment.  It was passive, more like an interesting novelty.

"I can't tell you how many times I think of that near-death experience.  Even as I sit here and write my story for you, it seems as though it happened only yesterday."

Milke suffered no injury.  The speeding car veered off just as suddenly as it had appeared, and sped away.  I have observed that the terror of an ultimate end, the kind of terror that sees no hope, no other alternative except death itself, is sometimes enough to shift people into a near-death mode.  Illness, injury, or body trauma is not necessary.

"Since then, suicide has never crossed my mind as a way out.  It's a copout to me and not the way to heaven.  I wish you luck in your research and hope my experience will help stop someone from taking his own life.  It is a terrible waste."

Suicide near-death episodes can lay to rest problems and conflicts, explain away confusions, and emphasize the need to remain embodied.  Experiencers usually return with a feeling that suicide solves nothing, and they are notably renewed and refreshed by that feeling, using their near-death event as a source of courage, strength, and inspiration.

But not all suicide scenarios are positive.

Some are negative, and these can be so negative that they upset the individual more than the original problem that precipitated the suicide.  This kind of devastation can be transforming if used as a catalyst to help the person make the kind of changes that comprise constructive, long-term solutions.  Such changes can come from an inner awakening, or from the fear that what was experienced may indeed herald the individual's final fate if something is not done to turn things around.

"A big Austrian trench mortar bomb, of the type that used to be called ash cans, exploded in the darkness.  I died then.  I felt my soul or something coming right out of my body, like you'd pull a silk handkerchief out of a pocket by one corner.  It flew around and then came back and went in again and I wasn't dead anymore."

Hemingway remained deeply affected by this out-of-body/initial near-death experience throughout his life, and was never again as "hard-boiled" as he once had been.  "A FAREWELL TO ARMS" contains a passage where the character Frederic Henry undergoes the same confrontation with death that Hemingway did:

"I ate the end of my piece of cheese and took a swallow of wine.  Through the other noise I heard a cough, then came the chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh - then there was a flash, as when a blast-furnace door is swung open, and a roar that started white and went red and on and on in a rushing wind.  I tried to breathe but my breath would not come and I felt myself rush bodily out of myself and out and out and out and all the time bodily in the wind.  I went out swiftly, all of myself, and I knew I was dead and that it had all been a mistake to think you just died.  Then I floated, and instead of going on I felt myself slide back.  I breathed and I was back."

"Mine was a difficult birth, according to my mother.  She said she didn't hear me cry after I was born because I was a 'blue baby.'  They did not bring me to her for two days.  My face was black and blue, and she said the skin was all cut up on the right side of my face.  That's where the forceps slipped.  I was given a tracheotomy to help me breathe.  I am totally deaf in my right ear.  Also, the right side of my face and head is less sensitive than the left.  When I get tired, the right side of my face droops a little, like Bell's palsy.

"I am forty years old now.  All my life going back to my childhood I can remember having this same recurring dream.  It is more vivid than any other dream.  It starts and ends the same - I am kneeling down and bent over, frantically trying to untie some kind of knots.  They almost seem alive.  I am pulling on them and they are thick and slippery.  I am very upset.  Pulling and snapping.  I can't see what they're made of.  I remember getting hit in the face while trying to untie or break free of the knots, and waking up crying.  Then I would go back to sleep thinking it was only a dream or a nightmare.  When the dream would happen again on another night, I would sleep through it longer, as I began to get used to it.

"After I am able to sleep through the knotty part, suddenly my struggling stops.  I feel like a puppet with all the strings cut.  My body goes limp.  All the stress and struggle is drained right out of me.  I feel very calm and peaceful, but wonder what caused me to lose interest in the knots.  They were important one minute; the next minute I am floating in this big bright light.  I know I can't touch the ground because there is light there, too.  I look at the light and try to move toward it.  I can't, and this upsets me.  There is a woman in a long, flowing gown floating away to my left.  I call and call to her but the light is so bright sound does not travel through it.  I want to talk to the woman.  My dream ends there.

"About a year ago, I walk out of my house to go to work.  The ground is wet from rain, yet I find this book lying there - dry.  No one is around, so I pick it up.  The book is called 'CLOSER TO THE LIGHT,' by Melvin Morse, M.D., and Paul Perry.  It is on the near-death experiences of children.  That night I start reading it and cannot put it down.  For the first time in my life, I now understand my dream.  Those knots were when I struggled in the womb with the umbilical cord; getting hit in the face is when the doctor grabbed me with the forceps, then I died.  After that, I went into the light.

"But, wait a second.  You're not supposed to remember being born.  We don't just sit around at parties and talk about what we remember of our birth.  We only talk about what our parents tell us.  I look forward to having my dream again.  I'm ready now to experience more of it than before, and without being upset."

It can be argued that since Liona's birth was so intensely traumatic, his repetitive dream may be more of the trauma's replay than any memory of a near-death experience.  And that argument carries considerable weight, as prebirth awareness is commonly reported and often verified.  For instance, David Cheek, past president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis and a retired obstetrician, believes that humans are remarkably capable while still in the womb.  He is quoted as saying: "Babies are at least somewhat aware from the moment their mothers become aware of their pregnancy."

Yet this supposition does not take into account the woman in the long flowing gown who is also part of Liona's dream sequence.  The antiseptic uniforms of attending physicians and medical personnel do not explain away this "gossamer" figure, nor does the idea of a mental replay account for how these images have haunted him.  Neither does it explain why, since earliest childhood, he has displayed the typical aftereffects of a near-death survivor.

What we are seeing here, and why I have used Liona's case as an example of the initial experience, is that current near-death research has shown that more and more children are being discovered who remember having had a near-death experience, either before, during, or after the moment of birth.  This memory usually remains vivid in children's minds either from repeated storytelling after they learn how to talk, or because of repetitious imagery that intrudes upon their dreamlife, as in the case of John R. Liona.  By the way, I have found that interviewing children can be as surprising as it is revelatory, for children seem able to hear parental conversations while still in the womb, and can repeat what was heard once they are old enough to talk - with embarrassing exactness.

"My experience happened during the birth of my first child.  For many years I blamed it on the anesthetic.  I had three more children without pain because I believed that if there wasn't any pain, I wouldn't have to have anesthetics that caused experiences like this.  Living proof of mind over matter, right?

"What happened was this: Everything was bright yellow.  There was a tiny black dot in the center of all the yellow.  Somehow I knew that the dot was me.  The dot began to divide.  First there was two, then four, then eight.  After there had been enough division, the dots formed into a pinwheel and began to spin.  As the pinwheel spun, the dots began to rejoin in the same manner as they had divided.  I knew that when they were all one again, I would be dead, so I began to fight.  The next thing I remember is the doctor trying to awaken me and keep me on the delivery table, because I was getting up.

"When my daughter was born, her head was flattened from her forehead to a point in back.  They told me that she had lodged against my pelvic bone.  But the doctor had already delivered two others that night and was in a hurry to get home.  He took her with forceps.  I've often wondered if my experience was actually hers, instead."

Although distressing to her, Eppley had this to say about her experience:

"I survived and became very strong.  Before it happened I was a very weak person who had depended on others all my life.  It constantly amazes me that people talk about how much they admire my strength.  I developed a lot of character having lived this life and raising four children alone.  I can honestly say that I like and respect myself now.  I did not when the near-death experience happened.  I believe maybe it was sent to show me that I could be strong.  I certainly needed that strength in the years that came after."

She expressed disappointment that her case did not match all the wonderful stories other near-death survivors tell.  A fellow experiencer suggested that maybe the reason for this was her refusal to "let go" and surrender to the experience, that the battle she had waged so fiercely may have blocked any further development of an uplifting scenario.  This idea is not so far-fetched, since recent research suggests that "surrender" may indeed be the factor that determines not only depth of experience but who might possibly have one to begin with, i.e., people who refuse to relinquish the power of their will seldom report the phenomenon.

Yet, if you explore Eppley's life before and after her experience, a startling pattern emerges: This disappointing experience presaged two disappointing marriages, the birth of three more children, verbal and physical abuse, an attempt on her life, plus the ordeal of raising her family without support.  The battle fear generated in her near-death episode was the first time she had ever stood up for herself.  By her admission, the strength she gained from that fight enabled her to call upon deep reservoirs of power she never knew she had.  Thus, wining one battle gave her the courage to win many.  She has since remarried, and is now a radiantly happy woman.  What was originally fearsome turned out to be a godsend.

Eppley's case is an example of why I challenge the surrender theory.  Yes, research is persuasive on this issue: It does appear that people who fight the experience seldom have much of an experience, if any.  Still, there is a question worthy of asking here, and that question is: Would Eppley have benefited as much as she did had her scenario been sweetly angelic?  No one can say, of course, but the question is a valid one, for in asking it we broaden the base of our inquiry from concentrating on the event alone to an equal consideration of the one who experienced the event.

"My incident took place in August of 1955.  I had been taken to Middlesex Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, due to a miscarriage.  Placed in a ward because I was a military dependent, the doctor who was to care for me never came.  I was placed at a forty-five-degree angle due to bleeding and was left that way for almost eight days.  No one heard my pleas.  By the eighth day, I could not hear anyone, my eyes could not see, and I was later told that my body temperature registered 87.6 degrees.  I should have been dead.

"I recall being pulled down into a spinning vortex.  At first, I did not know what was happening.  Then I realized my body was being drawn downward, head first.  I panicked and fought, trying to grab at the sides of the vortex.  All I could think of was my two children.  No one would care for them.  I pleaded, Please, not now, but I kept moving downward.

"I tried to see something, but all there was to see was this cyclonic void that tapered into a funnel.  I kept grabbing at the sides but my fingers had nothing to grasp.  Terror set in, true terror.  I saw a black spot, darker than the funnel and like a black curtain, falling in front of me.  Then there was a white dot, like a bright light at the end of the funnel.  But as I grew closer, it was a small white skull.  It became larger, grinning at me with bare sockets and gaping mouth, and traveling straight toward me like a baseball.  Not only was I terrified, I was really livid, too.  I struggled to grab hold of anything to keep me from falling, but the skull loomed larger.  'My kids, my baby is so little.  My little boy, he's only two years old.  No!'  My words rang in my head and ears.  With a bellowing yell, I screamed: 'No!  damn it, no!  Let me go.  My babies need me!  No!  No!  No!  No!'

"The skull shattered into fragments and I slowed in movement.  A white light, the brightest light I have ever known or will ever see again was in place of the skull.  It was so bright yet it did not blind me.  It was a welcome, calming light.  The black spot or curtain was gone.  I felt absolute peace of mind and sensed myself floating upward, and I was back.  I heard my husband calling me, off in the distance.  I opened my eyes but could not see him.  Two doctors were at the foot of my bed - both were angry and compassionate at the same time.  I was taken to the operating room, given several pints of blood, and was released one week later.

"No one would believe my handshake with the grim reaper.  Scoffers almost put me in tears.  Everyone laughed at me, including my husband, so I never told my story again - until I wrote to you.  It was the most horrendous, yet the most gratifying experience I've ever had in my life."

A flood of memories poured forth once Hipple started talking about her experience, including a nearly forgotten incident that had occurred in 1943 when she had a tonsillectomy:

"Ether was the sedation used to put me to sleep.  I recall being terrified by the mask and the awful smell.  I can still taste it as I think about it.  As the sedation took hold, there was the vortex, the dizzy spinning sensation, as I was dragged downward into sleep.  I screamed, not knowing what was happening to me."

As she compared the two episodes, she recognized that the vortex experienced during surgical anesthesia in childhood was the same as the one she had encountered as an adult - minus the smell and taste.  This association underscores what you find in medical literature.  It is well known and documented that certain chemicals, especially ether, can cause vortex or spinning hallucinations.  Missing from medical literature, however, is mention of anything more significant than this imagery.  No attention is given to possible aftereffects (above and beyond chemical side effects).  Hipple suffered no side effects from the sedation she was given in 1943, nor any aftereffects from being pulled into the vortex, except for a dislike of ether.  But her adult confrontation with the same type of vortex did have aftereffects, the kind associated with the near-death phenomenon.

Unlike Eppley, Hipple's hellish near-death scenario was lengthy, intense, fully involved, and resolved in "heavenly" light.  A dream?  "Absolutely not!"  She continues:

"My near-death experience has made me quite sensitive to many more things than my mind understands.  It also helped me to be less serious about myself.  I'm dispensable.  I have discovered I do not value 'things' as I once did.  I befriend people in a different way.  I respect their choices to be the people they want to be.  The same for my own family.  I will guide, but not demand.  As for the "Light" - it was then and remains so, my encounter with the most powerful of all entities.  The giver of life on both sides of the curtain.  After all, I was given a second chance.  I am blessed and cannot ask for more."

A closer examination of Hipple's life reveals the sudden development of unique sensitivities afterward.  The pending death of an unborn daughter was revealed to her in an usually detailed vision.  When her husband died in a trucking accident at 4:15 am, she was up and prepared for it, and even heard a thump against her trailer home at the exact moment he was killed some distance away.  Strange sensations about her sister awakened her from a deep sleep at the exact moment her sister died.  "I am more sensitive to people's thoughts and actions than before.  I follow hunches that are sometimes quite accurate."

Like Eppley, Gloria Hipple now glows with a special confidence, charm, and wisdom.  She speaks effusively of God and angels.  "The curtain, the darkness, the skull, the void, the terror, the anger, the fight, the light.  There was nothing more than that, but it changed my life."  Her hellish ex-experience transformed her from being dependent on outer circumstances and material possessions to the realization of greater truths and the power of inner peace.  No drug-induced hallucination ever recorded fostered the kind of life-shift that happened to this woman, and she is one of millions.

"I had a stomach stapling in 1980 and, in the process, had to have a deformed spleen removed.  I hemorrhaged on the operating table, and the doctor said that at three times he thought he was going to lose me.  The first day after surgery I had to have transfusions.  During one of the transfusions I started feeling really weird.  I felt like if I shut my eyes I would never open them again.  I called a nurse.  Of course, she said it was all in my head, and left the room.  I remember she just walked out the door and I started being pulled through a tunnel.  It was a terrible experience because all I could see were people from my past, people who were already dead, who had done or said something to me that had hurt me in one way or another.  They were laughing and screaming, until I thought I could not stand it.  I begged and begged that I be allowed to go back.  I could see a light at the end of the tunnel but I never really got close to it.  All of a sudden I was back in my bed, just thankful I had not died."

Brock, as it turns out, has had several near-death-type experiences, scattered over a long life.

"My mother told me that when she found she was pregnant with me, she prayed that I would die.  They were just coming out of the depression and they already had a baby and could not afford another.  When I was born, I was born with a harelip.  Mother thought that was her punishment for wanting me dead.  Within several days, and without any surgery, my harelip healed itself, and to this day I do not carry a scar.  She also told me that when I was only a few weeks old, she came to my bassinet and found me not breathing.  I had already turned purple.  She grabbed me, shook me, and blew in my face until I started breathing again.  I don't remember this experience, but I do remember being in a bassinet that had no liner.  I remember studying my hands and what my hands looked like as an infant.  My mother said I couldn't possibly remember this, but I did, and I was right."

Until the age of four, Brock survived numerous nearly fatal accidents that caused cessation of breath.  Her memory of each is detailed and verified by relatives, even though several occurred when she was only a toddler.  Right from her earliest years (I suspect from when she was but a few weeks old), she displayed the typical aftereffects of the near-death phenomenon, including stunningly accurate psychic abilities, extended perceptual range, and heightened faculties.  Like Hipple, she has been visited by the dead, "advised" of pending deaths, and has known the exact moment individuals died.

Yet Brock has been haunted throughout her life, and not just by the deceased who grabbed at her in death's tunnel.  An overshadowing theme of "Why would anyone want to harm me?" seems to have permeated every aspect of her life's experiences, from her memory of frightening creatures crawling into her bed when she was young and making her scream and cry, to adult misunderstandings and distressing dreams.  It's almost as if her mother's prayer that she die imprinted her brain in some manner.  I say that because Brock's many brushes with death, even as an infant, were precipitated by acts of self-destructive behavior.  That single overshadowing theme continued to undermine the satisfaction that her many accomplishments in life should have given her.  This did not change until after her husband's suicide in 1983.  At that time, according to Brock, her father and son, long since dead, and her recently deceased husband, physically and in broad day-light, drove up to her front door in an old Cadillac, honked the horn, and called out, "We're together now and we're okay.  We just wanted you to know."  With that said, the group, car and all, disappeared.  This ghostly spectacle gave Brock the reassurance she needed to finally free herself from the "ghost" of her own past.  Her mother's death decree, which she had subconsciously been trying to both justify and nullify throughout her life, was finally put to rest when her husband's suicide forced her to confront her own life's issues as she came to terms with his.

In Brock's case, her near-death episode was but one in a long series of similar events that finally brought her to that point of peace within herself where true forgiveness and understanding reside.

Our investigation begins with what happened in the spring of 1987 to Jennine Wolff of Troy, New York.  She was thirty years old at the time.  Due to complications from endometriosis, she suffered numerous bouts of hemorrhaging, several surgeries (including a hysterectomy), an additional hemorrhage of massive proportions, and, finally, emergency surgery.  During the final operation, she floated out of her body and entered another realm of existence (pages 51-53, paperback version, "BEYOND THE LIGHT"):

"Suddenly I was aware of being in the most beautiful garden I've ever seen.  I felt whole and loved.  My sense of well-being was complete.  I heard celestial music clearly and saw vivid colored flowers, like nothing seen on earth, gorgeous greenery and trees.

"As I looked around, I saw at a distance, on a hill, Jesus Christ.  All he said to me was that it was up to me whether to come back to earth or not.  I chose to come back to finish my work.  That is when I was born again.

"The changes in my life?  I am now more aware of people's feelings, beliefs, and needs.  I am more compassionate and considerate of others.  Also more confident in God's love."

When you delve into Wolff's history, a fascinating pattern emerges one of disciplined devotion to the spiritual path.  Raised in a strict but loving Presbyterian home, she suddenly developed the ability to have visions when but a teenager.  Her concerned parents took her for evaluation to the spiritualist camp of Lily Dale, located in New York State.  These experienced psychics advised them that their daughter had a special gift, and that she must decide whether to go on with a normal teenage life or commit herself to spiritual training.  She chose to develop her gift.  At the age of twenty-one and after seven years of instruction, Wolff met Sam Lentine, a blind biophysicist.  He had the scientific background; she had the spiritual.  Together they formed a professional partnership dedicated to the restoration of true health and wholeness throughout humankind.  Fourteen years later, after the partners had made tremendous strides in the health field and were becoming internationally known for their ability to facilitate the healing process, Lentine died.  Today, Wolff is a waitress at a senior citizens' facility.

Reflecting on her own death experience, as well as her present situation, she had this to say:

"It was my mother who came into my hospital room and said, 'You have died and come back.'  I knew I had died, but she confirmed it.  I felt like a baby afterward, and, at the age of thirty, was faced with learning about life all over again.  I couldn't stand light at first.  When I could, everything became brighter and better than before.  My whole perspective drastically improved; I felt more grounded, solid, okay.  My psychic gifts skyrocketed.  But it still took me a long time to readjust.  The doctors said, Oh, it's just the stress of what you've been through.  I disagreed.  What I was going through was unrelated to the surgery.  My mother and father understood, and, especially, my mother's constant love and support made it possible for me to grasp hold of my new life and deal with it.  My death stepped up my original commitment to serve as a healer.

"Afterward, my abilities sharpened, were better and more attuned.  I was much more understanding of others.  When I went back to work, Sam and I peaked in our performance - we did our best work.  Five years later Sam died.  You have to understand how close we were, how bonded our families.  Even though I knew death didn't end anything, Sam's transition threw me.  I had to readjust all over again.  I work with older people now, giving them my love with each touch.  I don't know what's ahead for me or where I'll go, but I am taking massage classes - learning to heal in a different way.  My life is now in God's hands.  New opportunities for me to serve are opening up."

"Gradually the earth scene faded away, and through it loomed a bright, new, beautiful world - beautiful beyond imagination!  For half a minute I could see both worlds at once.  Finally, when the earth was all gone, I stood in a glory that could only be heaven.

"In the background were two beautiful, round-topped mountains, similar to Fujiyama in Japan.  The tops were snowcapped, and the slopes were adorned with foliage of indescribable beauty.  The mountains appeared to be about fifteen miles away, yet I could see individual flowers growing on their slopes.  I estimated my vision to be about one hundred times better than on earth.

"To the left was a shimmering lake containing a different kind of water - clear, golden, radiant, and alluring.  It seemed to be alive.  The whole landscape was carpeted with grass so vivid, clear, and green, that it defies description.  To the right was a grove of large, luxuriant trees, composed of the same clear material that seemed to make up everything.

"I saw twenty people beyond the first trees, playing a singing-dancing game something like Skip-to-My-Lou.  They were having a hilarious time holding hands and dancing in a circle - fast and lively.  As soon as they saw me, four of the players left the game and joyfully skipped over to greet me.  As they approached, I estimated their ages to be: one, thirty; two, twenty; and one, twelve.  Their bodies seemed almost weightless, and the grace and beauty of their easy movements was fascinating to watch.  Both sexes had long, luxuriant hair entwined with flowers, which hung down in glossy masses to their waists.  Their only clothing was a gossamer loin cloth with a loop over one shoulder and a broad ribbon streaming out behind in graceful curves and curlicues.  Their magnificence not only thrilled me, but filled me with awe.

"The oldest, largest, and strongest-looking man announced pleasantly, 'You are in the land of the dead.  We lived on earth, just like you, 'til we came here.'  He invited me to look at my arm.  I looked, and it was translucent; that is, I could dimly see through it.  Next they had me look at the grass and trees.  They were also translucent.  It was exactly the way the Bible had described heaven.

"Then I noticed that the landscape was gradually becoming familiar.  It seemed as if I had been here before.  I remembered what was on the other side of the mountains.  Then with a sudden burst of joy, I realized that this was my real home!  Back on earth I had been a visitor, a misfit, and a homesick stranger.  With a sigh of relief, I said to myself, Thank God I'm back again.  This time I'll stay!

"The oldest man, who looked like a Greek god, continued to explain, 'Everything over here is pure.  The elements don't mix or break down as they do on earth.  Everything is kept in place by an all-pervading Master-Vibration, which prevents aging.  That's why things don't get dirty, or wear out, and why everything looks so bright and new.'  Then I understood how heaven could be eternal."

"You have more important work to do on earth, and you must go back and do it!  There will come a time of great confusion and the people will need your stabilizing influence.  When your work on earth is done, then you can come back here and stay."

Born on a Nebraska sandhill during the blizzard of 1898, Yensen recalled being force-fed religion as a youngster.  Not only did he turn against it, but he started challenging his parents at every turn - including questioning the way they ate.  He observed that their farm animals did just fine on a diet of fresh greens and whole grains, yet family members were always suffering indigestion and constipation from the white flour, sugar, and grease they consumed.  Behind his parents' back, he cured himself by eating bran flakes.  He continued to defy the conventions of his day, switching from atheism to mysticism after his near-death experience at the age of thirty-four, marrying afterwards, and built his own home in Parma, Idaho, from blocks of tuffa (pumice) he and his sons quarried.  He later became an educator, public speaker, was active in politics, specialized in historical sculpture (his work adorns Parma's city park), was a movie extra in several Hollywood films, an authority on organic gardening and nutrition, and was singled out as one of Idaho's "Most Distinguished Citizens."

Although a public figure, Yensen was frequently at odds with the school boards where he taught: opposing any procedure that capped a child's creative drive; speaking out against the incarceration of American citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II; and ignoring school rules by sharing his near-death experience in class as proof to his students that morality matters and life really has a purpose.  Ironically, Yensen was still questioning whether or not he had fulfilled his life's work when he returned "home" in 1992, the quiet benefactor of thousands.

"From my position near the ceiling, I watched as they began to wrap both my legs from tips of the toes up to my hips, then my arms and hands up to the shoulders.  This was to keep what blood remained for my heart and lungs.  Then they tilted my body so my legs were up in the air and I was standing on my head!

"I was furious about the way they had handled Jeff's birth and now they were running around like chickens with their heads cut off squawking loudly; and here I was looking at that silent, bandaged body lying on a tilt table, head to the floor, legs and feet in the air.  I was venting my anger and frustration from the corner of the ceiling on the right side of my body.  I can remember the anger vividly, fury at the powerless position this whole event put me in, and I was very 'verbal' about it - silently - up there, as my mind raced to express its reaction, worry, and concern.  Their statements 'We're losing her!  We're losing her!'  frightened me and I'd get pissed all over again.

"The scene changed and I was no longer in that room.  I found myself in a place of such beauty and peace.  It was timeless and spaceless.  I was aware of delicate and shifting hues of colors with their accompanying rainbows of 'sound,' though there was no noise in this sound.  It might have felt like wind and bells, were it earthly.  I 'hung' there - floating.  Then I became aware of other loving, caring beings hovering near me.  Their presence was so welcoming and nurturing.  They appeared 'formless' in the way I was accustomed by now to seeing things.  I don't know how to describe them.  I was aware of some bearded male figures in white robes in a semicircle around me.  The atmosphere became blended as though made of translucent clouds.  I watched as these clouds and their delicate shifting colors moved through and around us.

"A dialogue softly started with answers to my unfinished questions almost before I could form them.  They said they were my guides and helpers as well as being God's Messengers.  Even though they were assigned to me as a human and always available to me - they had other purposes, too.  They were in charge of other realms in creation and had the capacity of being in several places simultaneously.  They were also 'in charge' of several different levels of knowledge.  I became aware of an ecstasy and a joy that permeated the whole, unfolding beyond anything that I had experienced in my living twenty-five years, up to that point.  Even having my two previous children, whom I wanted very much, couldn't touch the 'glow' of this special experience.

"Then I was aware of an Immense Presence coming toward me, bathed in white, shimmering light that glowed and at times sparkled like diamonds.  Everything else seen, the colors, beings, faded into the distance as the Light Being permeated everything.  I was being addressed by an overwhelming presence.  Even though I felt unworthy, I was being lifted into that which I could embrace.  The Joy and Ecstasy were intoxicating.  It was 'explained' that I could remain there if I wanted; it was a choice I could make.

"There was much teaching going on, and I was just 'there' silently, quietly.  I felt myself expanding and becoming part of All That Was in Total Freedom Unconditionally.  I became aware again that I needed to make a choice.  Part of me wanted to remain forever, but I finally realized I didn't want to leave a new baby motherless.  I left with sadness and reluctance.

"Almost instantly I felt reentry into my body through the silver cord at the top of my head.  There was something skin to a physical bump.  As soon as I entered, I heard someone near me say, 'Oh, we've got her back.'  I was told I had two pieces of placenta as large as grapefruits removed."

Morrison-Mays told no one except her husband about the monumental experience she had just had.  She managed to squelch any noticeable aftereffects until 1967, when developing psychic sensitivities warned her of a need to make a major change in her life or die.

"My inner voice burst into activity, somehow picking up the loose threads of my near-death experience.  The growth effect was propelling me to move on and develop my own responsibility and talents.  I finally listened.  My spiritual life was beginning.  I divorced and started a career as a musician (cellist) in a major symphony orchestra."

Twelve years later, because of serious difficulty walking and severe hip pain, she had a right hip osteotomy to reduce arthritic damage (the joint in her hip was placed in a different weight-bearing position).  The operation went well, but upon reviving, Morrison-Mays entered an altered state of consciousness similar to a near-death episode that she continued to slip in and out of for six months.  Throughout this lengthy visionary experience, she received lessons from The Other Side.  These "etheric" teachings covered such topics as the geography of the soul, karma, advanced physics, and the cosmology of the Human Experiment.  Again her life was profoundly affected.  She began volunteering in a hospice afterward and enrolled in a three-year spiritual psychology course.

A second near-death event seven years later plunked her right back in that same etheric classroom she had "attended" after hip surgery.  This occasion was precipitated by the sudden onslaught of a severe type of emphysema and the collapse of her adrenal system (Addison's disease).  Severe shakes from what she feels was a Kundalini episode complicated the situation.  (Traditionally, Kundalini is said to be a powerful energy that lies dormant in a person's sacrum until he or she begins to develop spiritually.  Then it supposedly rises up the spine, stimulating the glandular centers until it bursts out a person's head.)  Morrison-Mays turned to a chiropractic physician when medical treatment failed her and, once more, completely changed her life.  She left the world she had created for herself after her divorce and moved bag and baggage to Quincy, Illinois, the city of her birth.

Virtually wheelchair bound, and robbed by illness of much of her energy, Morrison-Mays has instituted a series of classical music concerts for the public that are staged in her own living room.  Newspaper headlines label her concerts, "Healing Music."  You would never know by the glow on her face and her ever-present smile that she lives in almost constant pain.

"I chose a 'big one' this lifetime.  The spiritual guidance I receive makes living this life possible.  I have walked through the Dark Side and have no fear of my Shadow anymore.  I am here to heal my life and do serious writing, though I'm not certain if I am ready to write about the teachings I have been given.  What I want is to do a book about the memories I have of choosing my parents before I was born, my experience in the womb, and my rebirthing through the near-death phenomenon."

A role model for the handicapped, Morrison-Mays has become a living legend.  She offered this about the severity of her situation: "There's still a quality of life available.  You just have to be open enough to explore it.  You can empower yourself."

"We smoked another joint and then headed toward the rapids.  Debbie begins laughing, and the next thing I know we're overtaken by laughter.  The giggling stops as we're swept off our feet and dragged downriver.  Debbie cries out, 'Steven I can't swim.  I'm drowning.'  I feel powerless because I can't get to her and I'm yelling, 'Hang on, don't panic,' when I take a tremendous mouthful of water.  Without any warning, time, as I know it, stops.

"The water has a golden glow and I find myself just floating as without gravity, feeling very warm and comfortable.  I'm floating in a vertical position with my arms outstretched and my head laying on my left shoulder.  I feel totally at peace and full of serenity in this timeless space.  Next I go through a past-life review.  It was like looking at a very fast slide show of my past life, and I do mean fast, like seconds.  I don't quite understand the significance of all the events that were shown to me, but I'm sure there is some importance.  When this ended, it was as if I was floating very high up and looking down at a funeral.  Suddenly I realized that I was looking at myself in a casket.  I saw myself dressed in a black tux with a white shirt and a red rose on my left lapel.  Standing around me were my immediate family and significant friends.

"Then, as if some powerful force wrapped around me, I was thrust out of the water, gasping for air.  There was Debbie within arm's reach.  I grabbed her by the back of her hair and I was able to get us both over to the rocks and out of the water.  After lying on the rocks for a while, I glance over at Debbie and it's like looking at a ghost.  As she describes what she went through, it became apparent that we both had the same experience underwater - the golden glow, the serenity, seeing our lives flash before us, floating over a funeral, and seeing ourselves in a casket.  That is the only time we ever talked about it.  I haven't seen or talked with Debbie since."

For the next eleven years, Ridenhour tried practically every drug in the universe in an attempt to recapture the euphoria of his near-death experience, but to no avail.  All he found was loneliness, prisons, and a failed marriage.  He entered a treatment center for drug and alcohol abuse in December 1984, and has been in various stages of recovery ever since.  Finally, he was able to find a counselor who knew something about the phenomenon he had experienced and she put him in touch with a near-death researcher.  He told his story, then quickly disappeared - unable to face the truth of what he had been through.  It wasn't until 1993, after suppressing the aftereffects of his experience for a total of twenty years, that Ridenhour found himself flat on his back because of a work-related injury and with no choice but to surrender.  "My life started changing right then and I can't stop it, so I'm opening up my heart and my soul to see where this takes me."

Ridenhour is now in nurse's training, determined to repay society for his previous mistakes and to help heal people.  His youth was wrapped around horrific incidents of child abuse and abandonment.  He grew up thinking he was unlovable and bad.  His near-death experience so challenged this distorted self-image that, although he wanted the euphoria back, he could not accept the rest of it.  Confused and frightened by the incident, he flung himself into a seemingly endless nightmare of self-destruction.

"None of the drugs worked," he confessed.  "They couldn't even come close to matching my near-death experience."  Later he was stunned to learn that many of the problems he had afterward are in fact typical aftereffects of the phenomenon.

"I thought it was all me.  I never made the connection between my experience and why I felt so lost.  It took getting injured at work before I stopped trying to run away and just relaxed and let all that love and joy back, and the golden glow.  I had no choice, really.  I had to accept the truth that there is a power in me, and I can use it to help others."

Drug and alcohol free, Ridenhour has helped to organize an IANDS chapter in the Washington, D.C., area, one of many dedicated to providing informational meetings for near-death survivors and the interested public.

History gives us two examples that contrast how a society can be affected by an individual who has had a transcendent experience (pages 71-72, paperback version, "BEYOND THE LIGHT").

Around 300 B.C.  the Greek philosopher Plato wrote of Er, the soldier, whose dead body lay in waste beside his fallen comrades for ten days.  When at last help came, many were puzzled, for the body of Er had not decayed as had the others.  Confused, Er's relatives took him home for burial, but upon the funeral pyre he revived, stood up, and recounted what he had learned while on The Other Side for all to hear.  He then set about educating people concerning the spiritual truths that had been revealed to him, teaching them how they could live more fulfilling and satisfying lives.  (History leaves in doubt whether the story of Er was created by Plato, or a true report.)

By 1837, Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, a peasant farmer's son, had failed for the third time to pass the official state examination in Canton, China.  He fell into a prolonged delirium, his body wasting away as he lay near death for forty days.  He revived after having a miraculous vision that portrayed him and an "elder brother" searching out and slaying legions of evil demons in accordance with God's will.  Six years later Hsiu-ch'uan came across a Christian missionary pamphlet.  He used what he read in the pamphlet to "substantiate" his conviction that his vision was real, and that he, as the younger brother of Jesus Christ and God's Divine Representative, was ready and willing to overthrow the forces of evil (which he saw as the Manchus and Confucianism).  With the help of converts to his cause he established the God Worshippers Society, a puritanical and absolutist group that quickly swelled to the ranks of a revolutionary army.  Numerous power struggles later, Hsiu-ch'uan declared war against the Manchus and launched a civil uprising - the bloodiest in all history - which lasted fourteen years and cost twenty million lives.

Both men, Er and Hsiu-ch'uan (who changed his name to T'ien Wang, the Heavenly King), were transfigured and transformed by their unusual near-death experiences and became zealous in their desire to "wake up" the deluded of their day.  Each man felt the REAL TRUTH had been revealed to him and to him alone, and thus it was his sacred duty to "save" the populace.  With Er, many were educated about the secrets of heaven, some becoming as transformed as he from "the good news."  With Hsiu-ch'uan, wholesale carnage forged a "Heavenly Dynasty" that ripped asunder the very fabric of China.

Transcendent cases are powerful in both content and consequences, yet they are "risky business" in the way they can affect experiencers' lives .  .  .  and the lives of countless others.  This enigma repeats itself each time an individual is so transfigured and transformed.  Modern-day cases are no exception.

Not understanding how he could suddenly be airborne, Carter Mills attempted to reenter his body.  Crawling downward in swimlike strokes he had almost reached his goal when a gentle but firm hand tugged his right arm.  When he looked up, there were two angels replete with robes, wings, bare feet, and streaming hair - no color but opaque white - and no particular gender.  "What's going on?" he asked.  "We've come to take you to God," they answered.  After some confusion on Carter Mills's part the trio left the scene at tremendous speed, leaving the earth behind as if it were a star the size of a pinhead.  Their destination was an intensely bright light.  Carter Mills questioned, "How come I'm not cold and how come I'm not suffocating this far out in space?"  An angel replied, "This is your spiritual body, and these things do not affect it."  They took him to a suspended platform, and in the center was a being so powerful Carter Mills thought it was God.  The angels bowed and took their places with two others, each with wings outstretched and hands folded in prayer, at the platform's four corners.  Male in mannerisms and voice, the clean-shaven being turned out to be Jesus.

Carter Mills could not look Jesus in the face as he perceived himself as naked and unfit for such an audience.  After some coaxing from Jesus, he felt more at ease.  "I'm going to judge you," Jesus said.  Instantly Carter Mills's whole life began to play out, starting at birth.  He relived being a tiny spark of light traveling to earth as soon as egg and sperm met and entering his mother's womb.  In mere seconds he had to choose hair color and eyes out of the genetic material available to him and any genes that might give him the body he would need.  He bypassed the gene for clubfootedness, then watched from a soul's perspective as cells subdivided.  He could hear his parents whenever they spoke and feel their emotions, but any knowledge of his past lives dissolved.  Birth was a shock: awful lights, giant people, eyes peering over face masks.  His only comfort was his mother.

He relived each incident in his life, including killing a mother bird when he was eight.  He was so proud of that single shot until he felt the pain the bird's three babies went through when they starved to death without her.  "It's not true that only humans have souls," Carter Mills cautions today.  "Insects, animals, plants have souls, too.  Yes, I still eat meat, for in this plane species eat each other to survive, but I bless my food and say thanks for the gift life gives.  If I don't the food sours in my stomach."

He was shown that hell is a black blankness without God.  Upset, he yelled back, "How can you sit up here on this throne and allow such misery to happen on Earth?"  Gently he was told, "It's your own fault.  I gave you the tools to live by.  I gave you free will and free choice.  And I allow you to be part of my creation.  It is your free will and your free choice that is responsible for starvation, war, and hate."  Carter Mills felt pangs of guilt when he realized we coexist with God, no one is God's servant or slave.

Jesus, the angels and platform, disintegrated into a giant sphere of light once Carter Mills no longer needed their shape or form to put him at ease.  As the sphere grew it absorbed him, infused him with the ecstasy of unconditional love.  "Sexual orgasms can't compare.  You are so high.  Magnify that to infinity!"  He zoomed back to his mangled remains as a ball of all knowing light and crashed into his solar plexus with such force it jolted his body to action.  He had been told before leaving The Other Side, "No hospital, no blood, no operation, God will show you how to heal yourself."  Thus, when Carter Mills stood, he promptly walked to his car and drove home, on the way passing the ambulance that had been sent to rescue him.  Those present verified that he had been dead for twenty minutes.  The next morning Carter Mills awoke in a pool of blood.

The doctor he went to for aid committed him to a psychiatric ward as insane when he refused surgery.  Since three independent psychiatrists had to confirm the verdict, and one objected, Carter Mills was released.  Although his injuries were extensive and severe, he recovered by himself and returned to work.  His former wife took advantage of his plight and challenged the custody ruling three times.  She lost each try.

"The authorities tried to take my son away.  I lost half my friends, my job, almost everything else I had, but I didn't lose God's guidance.  I wouldn't talk about my experience for two years.  I went from an active social life to that of a cripple before I could change things.  I wanted to get a degree in psychology, but had to quit several years later when my money ran out."

Carter Mills's appearance on the Geraldo Show in 1989 was preceded by an old buddy breaking off their friendship just because he had agreed to discuss his near-death experience on national television.  Carter Mills was heartbroken, yet appear he did, there and hundreds of other places, sharing the voluminous knowledge he was given while on The Other Side.  For this he has been both hated and thanked, shunned and welcomed.  His mind is often flooded with incredibly accurate prophesies that leave him frustrated for want of knowing what to do about them.  Sometimes he feels as if he's losing personal control.  Light bulbs even blow up in his presence if he flips on/off switches too fast.  Nonetheless, he is now healthier than ever, youthful and energetic, and he brags about how his son has turned out in spite of all the problems.  "My sacrifices were worth it, for my son knows that God is real.  He is drug free and tuned to his own soul."

What may have been a near-death experience occurred several weeks after Benedict's birth when it was discovered that his bowels were ruptured.  His body was tossed to one side as a corpse, yet much to everyone's surprise he later revived.  As soon as he was big enough to grab hold of crayons, he started what became a compulsive urge to create symbolic renditions of the black/white yin/yang circles of Eastern religious thought.  He has no memory of why he drew those particular symbols.

He spent his grade school years in a Catholic boarding school in Vermont, and was baptized in the Salvation Army religion as a youngster.  He traveled extensively because of a military stepfather until the family finally settled down in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

In 1982 Benedict was diagnosed as having inoperable cancer.  He had retired from the frenzy of filmdom by then and was operating his own stained-glass studio.  As his condition worsened, he spent more and more time with his art.  One morning he awakened knowing he would die the next day, and he did.  As the typical heaven-like scenario began to unfold, Benedict recognized what was happening as it was happening.  The process was familiar to him because he had read many books about the near-death phenomenon previously.  Just as he reached the light at the end of the tunnel, he shouted, "Stop a minute.  This is my death and I want to think about this!"  By consciously intervening, Benedict willfully changed his near-death scenario into an exploration of realms beyond imagining, and a complete overview of history from the Big Bang to four hundred years into the future.

Instantly he was pulled by light away from the tunnel, far away from earth, past stars and galaxies, past imagery and physical realities, to a multiangled overview of all worlds and all creation, and past even that to the edge of existence where vibrations cease.  He saw all wars from their beginnings, race as personality clusters, species operating like cells in a greater whole.  By merging into the matrix of his soul, he confronted the "NO THING" from which all things emerge.  Benedict saw planetary energy systems in detail and how human thoughts influence these systems in a simultaneous interplay between past, present, and future.  He learned that the earth is a great cosmic being.

Benedict was aware of "walking" back into his body after deciding to return from his journey; as near as anyone can determine his experience took about ninety minutes.  His doctor's assessment, though, was the most shocking - the cancer he had once had completely vanished.

"Because this happened to me my fear is gone, and my perspective has changed.  You know, we are a very young species.  The violence that formed the earth is in us, too.  As the earth is mellowing, so are we as a people.  Once pollution slows, we will reach a period of sustained consciousness.  We have evolved as life forms from single-celled organisms to complex structures, and finally to a global brain.  Employment levels will never again be as they once were, which will force a redefinition of human rights.  We will adopt a more nurturing type of consciousness, freeing the mind for exceptional achievement.  I now know that all the answers to the world's problems are just beneath the surface in US ALL.  Nothing is unsolvable."

Since his experience, Mellen-Thomas Benedict has been flooded with ideas for inventions and the marketing plans necessary to promote them.  He has been granted a number of U.S.  patents and is actively engaged in developing new types of toys for all age groups, a new type of cellular telephone wristwatch, a new electric power-generating system, a new prototype for self-supporting communities where families can come back together with more control over their lives, and DNA research on the frontiers of science.  His first manufacturing project (that of a unique yet simple glass cutter), sold out faster than he could produce the product.  "I believe my inventions are channeled psychically because they are beyond my field of expertise," he explained.  At my insistence, Benedict participated in an experiment at Baylor University in Texas to identify the cellular makeup of a certain disease pattern, and was able to describe three cellprints a full year before they were verified medically.  In 1993, he went on to arrange laboratory experimentation with DNA coding and nerve-cell re-generation that has produced results of far-reaching magnitude.

After his near-death experience Berkley Carter Mills felt "directed" to contact and work with political leaders and the political process.  Successful at first, he later turned off more people than he turned on, sidestepping his potential to champion a campaign or run for office by giving talks instead of accomplishing tasks.  Although he has remained true to his inner guidance, he has been dogged by job losses, misunderstandings, arguments, and, at times, almost irrational paradoxes.  The harder he tries to help people the more doors slam in his face.  Although he has raised a wonderful son, he has yet to solve the enigma of how to fulfill the guidance he receives.

Mellen-Thomas Benedict was equally affected after his near-death episode, gifted with the same flow of information from The Other Side as Carter Mills and driven by the same need to reach out and assist others.  Benedict learned early on, however, that "obeying" inner guidance can be fraught with peril if one is not grounded.  This awareness led him to participate in many different classroom and study opportunities where he could learn to tame his own ego before he tackled "the gifts of spirit."  His guidance to become an inventor has kept him solidly in the path of practical application, with results that speak louder than preachments or prophesies.

Not that the cases of Benedict and Carter Mills are the same as those of Er and Hsiu-ch'uan; of course they are not.  But they do offer a contemporary rendition of the same subtle yet important message the earlier accounts illustrate (a message present in every transcendent or impactual near-death experience I have encountered), and that is: setting one's self apart, feeling somehow "chosen," tempts one to pursue power OVER others rather than fostering power TO others.  The difference here is ego, and how it can waylay even the most sincere.  "Heavenly" guidance leads to self-deception if one's ego is not redirected from self-satisfaction to service, from self-righteousness to renewal.

The issue of ego domination or ego desire directly impinges upon how a near-death survivor interprets his or her experience, integrates it, and comes to regard that sense of "mission" each is left with.  I cannot begin to emphasize strongly enough how powerfully the ego can misdirect even the best of intentions.

For more cases plus near-death aftereffects, refer to Beyond the Light .

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5 who survived cardiac arrest describe what they saw and heard before reviving

Every year, more than 350,000 people have a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital . Few survive. While many people who have been resuscitated have no memories of the experience, a recent study suggests others recall something , whether it’s a vague sense that people are around them, or more specific dreamlike awareness. 

Unlike a heart attack where people are awake and the heart is still painfully beating, those in cardiac arrest are always unconscious. They have no heartbeat or pulse and need CPR urgently. In essence, they have “flat-lined” and are so near death there is no activity on electronic monitors.

What a near-death experience is has never really been defined. Researchers have been trying to explore what’s happening when a patient’s heart stops to see if there are themes or patterns of consciousness.

“There is an assumption that because people do not respond to us physically, in other words, when they’re in a coma, that they’re not conscious, and that’s fundamentally flawed," said Dr. Sam Parnia, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at NYU Langone Health, and the lead author of the recent study.

To find out more about the experiences of the few survivors who have a sense of consciousness during heart-related near-death events, NBC News connected with participants in the NYU Langone research and others from the Cardiac Arrest Survivor Alliance online community, a program of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation, and the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation .

They shared what they saw, heard and felt during resuscitation, how their lives changed afterward and what they believe other people should know about death and dying.

"Calm, quiet, peaceful"

Greg Kowaleski, a father of three who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was 47 and playing a pick-up ice hockey game when he collapsed on the rink. Fortunately for Kowaleski, a pediatric cardiologist who is a good friend of his happened to be there, skating for the opposing team.

Dr. Jeff Zampi determined that Kowaleski didn’t have a pulse and immediately began chest compressions. Using an automated external defibrillator, or AED, Zampi was able to shock his friend’s heart back into a normal rhythm. 

Although the cardiac arrest was in 2021, Kowaleski still recalls the “incredibly vivid” memory he had while Zampi was resuscitating him. Kowaleski found himself boarding an airplane that was completely empty, the blue seats stretching out in front of him.

“The sun is really bright outside, like a beautiful day and I sit down next to the window in my seat, looking out on the tarmac,” he said. 

“As I’m sitting there waiting, I hear somebody call my name,” he said. “It’s my friend Jeff.”

In the memory, Zampi told him he was on the wrong flight and needed to get off. “I got up and I followed him out of the plane,” he said. “And then as we’re getting off the plane, boom! I came back. I woke up.”

Since then, Kowaleski said he’s struggled a little bit with what exactly the experience meant.

“The place where I went, wherever it was, I will say it was extremely peaceful,” he said. “I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced anything so calm, quiet, peaceful.”

What he does know is that he doesn’t really fear death anymore.

“It’s not a scary, bad place to go, wherever I was.” 

"There was no gender"

In 2016, Em James Arnold, a parent in New York City, had a cardiac arrest and was revived.

Arnold’s girlfriend started CPR, but the resuscitation lasted 90 minutes and required nine defibrillator shocks. A combined team of FDNY firefighters and FDNY emergency medical services crews responded to the 911 call, which was made by Arnold’s 12-year-old daughter.

During the near-death experience, the cardiac arrest survivor — who was assigned male at birth and now prefers they/them pronouns — had a profound and life-changing memory.

Arnold remembers traveling feet-first over an expanse of water, floating on what seemed to be a stone-like surface. Overhead was an endless sky, and Arnold felt completely safe, free of fear, and neither male nor female.

Arnold, now 53, has had gender dysphoria since about the age of 3 or 4, although they didn’t always know there was a name for the feeling that one’s gender identity doesn’t match the one registered at birth.

“For me, that was like a lifelong puzzle," Arnold said. "And then, when I go into cardiac arrest and I’m in that water, there was no gender, so there was no assignment there. It allowed me to embrace that of myself.” 

After waking from a three-day coma and a long hospitalization, doctors gave Arnold an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, or ICD, a battery-operated implanted device that can shock the heart if necessary. Two years later they had surgery to repair a damaged heart valve.

After the experience, Arnold began emerging out and presenting as mixgender/transgender and, soon after, married their girlfriend.

“She’s the one who walked me through this, as she constantly says to me, be yourself, be yourself, just be yourself,” Arnold said. “That’s the hardest thing for anybody to do.”

The couple has a new baby, now 8 months. The cardiac arrest “helped me understand that gender is nothing,” Arnold said. 

Like opening your eyes in a cave

Zach Lonergan, a 32-year-old scientist who lives in Pasadena, California, was regularly logging 15- to 18-mile runs with his friends as they prepared for the Los Angeles Marathon.

As part of the training, they all decided to run the Rose Bowl Half Marathon.

“We’re like, oh, 13 miles for a half marathon is no big deal,” Lonergan said.

However, when race day came in January, Lonergan wasn’t feeling well.

“Of course, I ignored my symptoms and decided to run a really fast race,” he said.

Despite feeling tired for the last few miles, he crossed the finish line. When he went to pick up his medal, he collapsed.

Without a pulse or heart beat, emergency workers performed CPR and shocked Lonergan's heart twice. 

Lonergan doesn’t remember the collapse.

He does recall being awake and aware in a dark place that was unfamiliar, describing it like opening your eyes in a cave. 

“It felt strange, but at the same time, it was the most peaceful time of my entire life,” he said. “In this darkness, I felt extremely warm, and extremely peaceful.” 

After he was resuscitated, doctors gave him an ICD implant that would shock the heart, if necessary.

After he recovered, Lonergan did feel some anxiety, especially when it came to running. However, he also recalls it being a time of “prolonged peacefulness.”

Grateful to be alive, he no longer feared death. He took a “reunion tour” to reconnect with friends he hadn’t seen in years. 

“You only get one life and you have to cherish the people you have around you,” he said. “I think that’s been the biggest gift that I’ve gotten.”

"All-surrounding sense of love"

Dr. Melinda Greer, 65, was being evaluated for chest pain at a cardiac intensive care unit when her heart stopped. Greer, a retired pediatrician in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, had asystole, a failure of the heart’s electrical system which causes the heart to stop pumping, or flat-line.

That was 10 years ago. She is finally opening up about what she feels was a positive experience.

As the nurse was performing CPR on her, Greer saw an “incredible white light” and felt “an incredible all-encompassing, all-surrounding sense of love.” 

She felt like she had returned to a “place that felt like home to me, and I was back amongst a group of what I can only call beings, because we weren’t physical, that I considered my group.” 

It was “a wonderful experience," she said. "I really was angry when they brought me back.”

After Greer left the hospital, she decided to retire early, focusing on creative pursuits and new experiences, rather than acquiring things. She encourages people to get more involved in the “positive aspects of living in a beautiful world.”

“Feel the wind, get out in nature, take off your shoes and socks and put your feet firmly on the ground and just listen to that inner voice, that’s what I would recommend," she said. "I wish I’d done it long ago.”

"I knew I could not leave them”

Connie Fuller, 55, lives in Warrior, Alabama, just north of Birmingham. In 2020, Fuller was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. In 2021, she and her husband made the hard decision to sell their swimming pool business to spend more time together. But the day of the sale was particularly stressful, and she started having chest pain.

She was admitted to the hospital for observation, although tests had ruled out a heart attack. It was at this point that she developed bradycardia, an abnormally slow heart rate, and her heart stopped.

Fuller doesn’t remember when the nurse started CPR. She didn’t feel any pain, although she found out later that the nurse broke her sternum and several ribs, a common occurrence during CPR.

“I love her, she saved my life," Fuller said.

What Fuller does remember is hearing her husband’s voice when he came back into the room.

“We started dating when I was 14, he was 16," she said. "He sounded like that little 16-year-old boy. That was the voice that I heard."

She feels that her husband’s voice helped pull her back into her body, as the medical team worked to revive her.

“I do remember thinking, this feels so good and so peaceful and it’s so calm and there’s no worries here,” she said. “But at the same time, I remembered my husband and my daughter and I knew I could not leave them.”

Based on her experience, Fuller advises family members to talk to patients, even when it seems they are dying.

“If it’s safe, and possible — allow the family members to be there to talk to the patient,” she said.

Fuller, who believes in God, wondered why she didn’t have experiences that are more like the traditional concept of heaven.

“Psychologically it’s been a lot to handle,” she said. "I thought, why wasn’t I in heaven? Why didn’t I see my relatives? Why didn’t I see the white light? You know, why didn’t that happen for me?”

Fuller turned out to have takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or broken heart syndrome , which is a weakness of the heart muscle that can be caused by severe stress.

“I thought at that time I had wasted my heartbeats worrying about a swimming pool store," Fuller said. "That’s when I prayed and I begged God, please give me one more chance to not waste any more heartbeats on something that’s not important. I won’t. I will not do that again.”

Theresa Tamkins is a health reporter and editor who has worked for BuzzFeed News, Health.com and Reuters Health. She covers infectious disease, fitness, nutrition and mental health, and has written for CNN, The Lancet, MSNBC, and WebMD, among others.

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5 Credible Stories of Near-Death Experiences (Peer-Reviewed) 

When it comes to near-death experience stories, there are many unscientific writings based on the writers’ own agendas rather than actual evidence. However, there is also a growing body of legitimate research around near-death experience (NDE) reports, and peer-reviewed scientific journals have published several medical studies on the subject.

In this article, we’ll explore common elements of near-death experience stories, what it means when a near-death experience can be verified, and five credible near-death experience short stories. Plus, download a free NDE Cheat Sheet that outlines the top 5 things to remember about near-death experiences.

Common Elements in Stories of Near-Death Experiences

For a near-death experience to occur, one must have limited brain function  yet still have a sensory experience—without full use of their physical senses. In the United States alone, about 9 million people have reported experiencing an NDE.

The patients’ reports reveal a pattern of several recurring elements. These elements include:

• out-of-body experience
• accurate visual perception (while out of the body)
• accurate auditory perception (while out of the body)
• feelings of peace and painlessness
• light phenomena (encounter with loving white light)
• life review
• being in another world
• encountering other beings
• tunnel experience
• precognition

For a quick and sharable overview of near-death experiences, download a free Top 5 Things to Remember about NDEs fact sheet .

Three Ways to Verify a Report of a Near-Death Experience Story

In some cases, where patients undergo clinical death and then return to physical life, they report that they maintained consciousness during the clinical death (despite the absence of brain function). Since this clinical death often happens in a hospital setting with professional medical oversight, thousands of these near-death experiences have been sufficiently well-documented for scientific study.

• Veridical reported data
• Visual perception of blind
• Personal information about deceased individuals

Each of these kinds of evidence is verifiable by independent researchers after the fact, and all of them are exceedingly difficult (if not impossible) to explain by merely physical or physiological theories (such as hallucinations, anoxia, narcotics, etc.).

Veridical Reported Data and Visual Perception of Blind

Frequently, during near-death experiences , some transphysical component leaves the body but does not go immediately to an other-worldly domain. Instead, it remains in the resuscitation room or somewhat near the body.

Some of these reports have highly unusual or unique characteristics that are not part of ordinary resuscitation or hospital procedures. Additionally, some patients blind from birth report visual data accurately about their experiences during clinical death.

As such, the details of these near-death experience stories can be verified by hospital staff and others who were present at the time. When the claims of an NDE have been verified, the account is deemed “veridical.” Virtually every peer-reviewed study reports multiple instances of such veridical data.

Personal Information about Deceased Individuals

Similarly, many NDEers meet deceased relatives whom they had never met in their own lifetime. They can only identify the relatives later in a photo or by describing them to a living relative who knew the deceased.

Five Stories of Near-Death Experiences

Read some accounts of near-death experiences below.

Near Death Experience Story One: Finding Dentures

In a 2001 study by renowned cardiologist Pim van Lommel, a man who had been in a deep coma later told a nurse that he recognized her. He told her that he saw where she had placed his dentures during resuscitation efforts and then described the cart where she placed them. They were there precisely as he described it.

Near Death Experience Story Two: A Child Meets Relatives

One man who had an NDE as a child recalled the experience of meeting dead relatives:

“There were some presences there. There were some ladies. . . I didn’t know them at the time. . . They were so loving and so wonderful, and I just didn’t want to come back. . . I didn’t see any pictures of them until I was an adult, but then I said, ‘Oh, yeah’. . . They were my great-grandmothers who had died years before I was born.”

Near Death Experience Story Three: Life-Review

Often, people relay their near-death experiences as a review of their lives. Though life review experiences cannot be deemed scientifically veridical, they are worth noting. They can have a profound effect on the NDEer and sometimes cause them to re-examine their life and morals. Below is a doctor’s description of the life review of an NDE patient:

When he realized that collision was imminent, the patient said that time seemed to slow down as he hit his brakes and went into an uncontrolled slide. Then, he seemed to pop out of his body. While in this state, he had a life review, which consisted of brief pictures—flashes— of his life. His car struck the truck, and the truck bed crashed through the window, causing multiple injuries to his head and chest. Medical reports show that he was in a coma and nearly died. Yet he had a vivid sensation of leaving his physical body and entering into darkness. He had the feeling of moving up through a dark tunnel toward a point of light. Suddenly, a being “filled with love and light” appeared to him. Now he had a second life review [or life review proper], one guided by the being of light. He felt bathed in love and compassion as he reviewed the moral choices he had made in his lifetime. He suddenly understood that he was an important part of the universe and that his life had a purpose. 

Near Death Experience Story Four: Traveling through Walls

Some NDEers report stories of veridical out-of-body experiences, including traveling through walls to the waiting room where they see their relatives and friends. One patient reported traveling through a wall and seeing her young daughter wearing mismatched plaids, which was highly unusual. Another woman traveled through a wall and overheard her brother-in-law in the hospital waiting room talking to a business associate in a very derogatory manner; she was able to report this back to him later.

Near Death Experience Story Five: A Blind Woman Has Sight Restored

As mentioned above, some blind people report being able to see during their NDE . Psychiatrist Brian Weiss tells the story of a blind, elderly woman:

"[She] suffered a cardiac arrest during her stay in the hospital where I [Weiss] was the chairman of the psychiatry department. She was unconscious as the resuscitation team tried to revive her. According to her later report, she floated out of her body and stood near the window, watching [the resuscitation]. She observed, without any pain whatsoever, as they thumped on her chest and pumped air into her lungs. During the resuscitation, a pen fell out of her doctor’s pocket and rolled near the same window where her out-of-body spirit was standing and watching. The doctor eventually walked over, picked up the pen, and put it back in his pocket. He then rejoined the frantic effort to save her. They succeeded. A few days later, she told her doctor that she had observed the resuscitation team at work during her cardiac arrest. 'No,' he soothingly reassured her. 'You were probably hallucinating because of the anoxia [lack of oxygen to the brain]. This can happen when the heart stops beating.' 'But I saw your pen roll over to the window,' she replied. Then she described the pen and other details of the resuscitation. The doctor was shocked. His patient had not only been comatose during the resuscitation, but she had also been blind for many years."

What Can These Near-Death Experience Stories Tell Us about Consciousness, the Afterlife, and God?

The above studies of near-death experiences give considerable probative evidence of transphysical consciousness after bodily death, which is not explained by current physicalist explanations and is unlikely to be presented by future ones. Nor can it be explained by the medical world; this challenges certain ideas of consciousness. 

“These features and the occurrence of heightened mental functioning when the brain is severely impaired, such as under general anesthesia and in cardiac arrest, challenge the common assumption in neuroscience that consciousness is solely the product of brain processes, or that the mind is merely the subjective concomitant of neurological events.” —Dr. Bruce Greyson of the University of Virginia School of Medicine

For the Catholic, the preponderance of evidence for a positive, loving experience after bodily death gives us an ultimate context in which to interpret happiness and suffering. We no longer need to limit happiness to our physical existence and our bodily lifespan but can explore transcendent and eternal happiness both now and in our eternal future.

The Importance of Near-Death Experience Stories

There is a growing body of legitimate research around near-death experience reports, and peer-reviewed scientific journals have published a number of actual medical studies on the subject. Verified NDE stories provide evidence that the soul does indeed continue beyond death.

To learn more about what near-death experience stories can teach us about God and heaven (and hell, too), see our post , “ NDE: The Definitive Guide to Near Death Experiences .” For a quick and sharable overview of near-death experiences, download our cheat sheet, Top 5 Things to Remember about NDEs .

*Originally published August 31, 2020.

Where Science and Spirituality come together.

5300 experiences from all over the world in many languages., all are welcome, with your help, nderf has over half a million readers a month to spread the word of love, peace and global unity., nderf nde definition:, "a lucid experience associated with perceived consciousness apart from the body occurring at the time of actual or threatened imminent death.", in search of immortality, 11/26/2021 - the bigelow contest, officially known as the bics contest, is the first contest of its kind to explore if there is evidence for consciousness outside of the body. over 1,000 people from around the world participated in this contest. just over two hundred essays were allowed to proceed to convince the judges that "yes" consciousness can, and does, exist separately from the body - even after death. many questions were explored, such as: what is consciousness; what evidence is convincing how do we know a distinguished panel of judges evaluated the bics essays and constituted one of the most stringent and scholarly peer-reviews conceivable. dr. pim van lommel , one of the leading researchers in the world on consciousness, and dr. jeff long , founder of nderf and media personality, brought home significant prizes. dr. van lommel was awarded the number 2 prize and dr. long was in the runner-up group. (click the links above to read these papers) for the nde community, this is one of the highest public affirmations of the validity of nde, as well as other types of paranormal experiences that are actually "normal." a hearty congratulations for these life-time achievement awards in moving humanity forwards.

NDE Explained

The perfect mix of science, community, spirituality and service.

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Jody Long, JD

Jeffrey long, md.

PHILOSOPHY/MISSION STATEMENT:

If enough people read about love, peace and hope; maybe they can change to become more loving, compassionate people who truly live their lives without fear.

We can then change the world to become a better place like heaven on earth - as above, so below.

Jody Long is a retired attorney, formerly licensed in Washington, New Mexico, Louisiana, and the Navajo Nation. Critical thinking, intense curiosity, and being a book reader extraordinaire, helps discern truth and allows for crucial commentary on a wide range of subjects from spirituality, history, economics, social organization, and power structures.

She is webmaster for the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) for 20+ years and provides support and a forum for NDErs and those who want to know about the afterlife. She has several decades of experience researching paranormal and related phenomena. She is also webmaster for After Death Communication Research Foundation (ADCRF) www.adcrf.org and the other consciousness experience website which is everything that is not an NDE or ADC (OBERF) www.oberf.org

Jody helped with "Evidence of the Afterlife," the New York Times best selling NDE book. She has written "From Soul to Soulmate: Bridges from Near Death Experience Wisdom" and "God’s Fingerprints: Impressions of Near Death Experiences," which was the first book of its genre published in mainland China.

Jeffrey Long is a medical doctor specializing in the practice of radiation oncology, using radiation to treat cancer in London,Kentucky.

As a scientist, Jeff founded NDERF in 1998. He wanted to know if NDEs were real by directly asking the NDErs themselves. The answer is a resounding YES! As a result of his research, he is the author of the New York Times Best Seller, "Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences." As a leading NDE researcher and a medical doctor, Jeff has appeared on national media including O'Reilly Factor, NBC Today, ABC with Peter Jennings, the Dr. Oz Show, the History Channel, the Learning Channel, and National Geographic. He has also appeared on Fox News Houston and at the New York Academy of Sciences, was an NDE expert in the movie "After Death." Dr. Long, author of "Near-Death Experiences: Evidence for their Reality" published in the medical journal, "Missouri Medicine" and is now listed in the National Library of Medicine. This is a big deal for establishing the credibility of NDE with scientists and the medical community. You can download and read the free article by clicking here .

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For those who want to know

God and the Afterlife expands upon Dr. Long’s findings about the afterlife and is the first deep scientific exploration of NDE accounts that encounter God or spiritual beings. He shares accounts from NDErs who meet God. What he discovers is that these testimonials share unique similarities that provide overwhelming evidence that God is real.

Read some of the best NDEs.

This is a feel-good book with some of the most profound NDEs ever submitted to NDERF. This book was written to share NDEs with people who enjoy reading books or who don't have access to a computer.

Love & Relationships

Love is the number one idea described by the NDErs and learning about love through relationships is the number one reason we come to earth. This book puts the two concepts together to help learn to apply them in our own lives.

Takes NDE Research to a whole new level!

“There is currently more scientific evidence to the reality of near death experience (NDE) than there is for how to effectively treat certain forms of cancer,” states radiation oncologist Dr. Jeffrey Long in his groundbreaking book Evidence of the Afterlife.

Touching Comments

We want to thank our readers by sharing some of the most heart-felt comments.

Just a thank you for continuing to post near death surveys on your website. As a spiritual seeker who also is dealing with cancer, these accounts are very comforting. I check for new postings regularly and always enjoy reading all the new postings as soon as they are available on the Website. I found Dr. Long's book to be an excellent source of information that was both analytically presented and inspiring. I've survived cancer a number of times and am prayerfully optimistic this will again be the case at age 64. However, I'm confident that a loving Creator awaits us to experience Atonement in Love once we lay our bodies down. Thanks to many NDE accounts of the marvelous love that awaits us, my fear of dying has diminished.

Thanks Jody. You know, what you and Jeff do with this website is extraordinarily important and useful. I cannot overstate how important NDE stories have been to me since losing my son three years ago. I have read many hundreds of stories on your website, and refer people to it frequently.

Just wanted to write and say how much your website has meant to me. I have been interested in NDEs for a long time. The first one I heard about on a BBC documentary resonated with me so much. I have just read Amy C NDE 4720 and was awash with tears. Happy tears , tears of relief! I have always worried about many of life's big questions and have been trying to grow on a spiritual level. I have been able to do so by reading as many NDEs as I can and learning from these peoples experiences. What you are providing people in your website is a gift. I have read your book "Evidence of the Afterlife" and want to thank you for that too. I now truly believe our time here on earth is given to us as a way for us to grow spiritually. I am a much calmer and happier person because of this knowledge. As a teacher I respect the nature of learning and look forward to a future where I am always learning and growing. Thank you for being a part of that.

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So many of these experiences are clearly from people who are unsure or in some manner insecure about telling their story. I wish these was some way I could reach them just to send a short message of thanks for posting. Not to breach their privacy or make their ego swell. Just to feel I can close the circle, let them know they really help, their experience in print is a powerful message. - R

Thank you for the suggestion and your time. Many blessings to you and thanks again for the work you do - L

Thank you, I really love your sites. Thanks for all of the hard work you do to get this information out there to the world. It's helped me so much!! :) Blessings to you... - R

I love your site. It has been such an inspiration to me over the years. I found John K's STE in the exceptional accounts section so uplifting. Like him, I am a monk in a monastery. I wonder if there's any way you could forward my thanks to him? Really a wonderful account. Thanks for all your work here. Bravo! - A

I just had to express my gratitude for this website I absolutely love it! I look forward to reading all the new stories every week. I too had an out of body experience when I was 7 yrs old so I understand. It also helps clarify things for me now. I just can't thank you enough. – L

Both my wife and I read your book and were very moved. We have gone to your website often over the past few years and have found great comfort in the postings from those who wrote about their NDEs. I just wanted to reach out and encourage your work in this area. You are well appreciated. -S

I wanted to thank you for your wonderful site. I have been following your messages for years. Many are uplifting to me and I am sure others. I can imagine that the people who have spoken of their NDE's are very relieved and happy to find that they have a place to share. – M

Thank you so much for the NDERF website. I found it thankfully due to an article in "Share International" by Patricia Pitchon. I have for quite a long time had an interest in NDE's , the many accounts on your website have given me a much deeper understanding of the nature of the Universe and of our role on the physical plane. It is also profoundly comforting. I have told several people about the website in hope of spreading the knowledge further. Your website has a huge positive effect on my life, I am so grateful, - K

Thank you so much for your site. It has given me a lot of comfort over the past few months. I've read so many stories and find them all fascinating and reassuring. While I haven't had an NDE, so many of the experiences sound familiar to me. It doesn't make sense, but that's the best way to describe the feeling I get when reading the stories. - Z

I am contacting you because you have the most beautiful stories on your site. I cannot wait to read them every Monday morning when I get up because they usually get updated over a weekend. - E

Please share your NDE with us.

We have two other websites devoted to other aspects of consciousness experiences. ADCRF www.adcrf.org is for after death communications (ADC). OBERF www.oberf.org is for all other experiences that are not an ADC or an NDE, such as spiritually transformative event, power of prayer, out of body experience, meditation experiences, premortal existence, precognitive dreams, etc.

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