Almost 40 Years Investigating Near-Death Experiences

2014

This article reviews mainstream scientific publications on near-death experiences (NDEs). We searched near-death experience in titles, key words, and abstracts at the Web of Knowledge database published between 1945 and 2013. We identified 266 relevant documents, the oldest from 1977. There was a strong predominance of opinion articles (book reviews, commentaries, and editorials), review articles, phenomenological description articles, and articles that originated in the United States. Since 2000, the number of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies has increased; there has been a diversification in the countries that have published on the subject and more articles that discuss the implications of NDEs for the mind-brain relationship. The results indicate that most scholarly publications on NDEs are recent, usually have no original empirical data, and are concentrated in North America and Western Europe. Future studies should focus on increasing the cultural diversity in the field and on testing explanatory hypotheses based on high-quality empirical data.

Springer eBooks, 2023

The notion that death represents a passing to an afterlife, where we are reunited with loved ones and live eternally in a utopian paradise, is common in the anecdotal reports of people who have encountered a "near-death experience" (NDE). These experiences are usually portrayed as being extremely pleasant including features such as a feeling of peacefulness, the vision of a tunnel leading to a brilliant light, the sensation of leaving the body, or the experience of a life review. NDEs are increasingly being reported as a clearly identifiable physiological and psychological reality of clinical and scientific significance. The definition and causes of the phenomenon as well as the identification of NDE experiencers are still matters of debate. The phenomenon has been thoroughly portrayed by the media, but the science of NDEs is rather recent and still lacking rigorous experimental data and reproducible, controlled experiments. It seems that the most appropriate theories to explain the phenomenon tend to integrate both psychological and neurobiological mechanisms. It is remarkable to observe the richness and intensity of the memory despite a critical cerebral context. This challenges our conception of consciousness and offers a unique opportunity to better understand the neural correlates of consciousness. In this chapter, we will attempt to describe NDEs and how to

The notion that death represents a passing to an afterlife, where we are reunited with loved ones and live eternally in a utopian paradise, is common in the anecdotal reports of people who have encountered a " near-death experience " (NDE). These experiences are usually portrayed as being extremely pleasant including features such as a feeling of peacefulness, the vision of a dark tunnel leading to a brilliant light, the sensation of leaving the body, or the experience of a life review. NDEs are increasingly being reported as a clearly identifiable physiological and psychological reality of clinical and scientific significance. The definition and causes of the phenomenon as well as the identification of NDE experiencers are still matters of debate. The phenomenon has been thoroughly portrayed by the media, but the science of NDEs is rather recent and still lacking of rigorous experimental data and reproducible controlled experiments. It seems that the most appropriate theories to explain the phenomenon tend to integrate both psychological and neuro-biological mechanisms. The paradoxical dissociation between the richness and intensity of the memory, probably occurring during a moment of brain dysfunction, offers a unique opportunity to better understand the neural correlates of consciousness. In this chapter, we will attempt to describe NDEs and the methods to identify them. We will also briefly discuss the NDE experiencers' characteristics. We will then address the main current explicative models and the science of NDEs.

Humanities, 2015

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are vivid experiences that often occur in life-threatening conditions, usually characterized by a transcendent tone and clear perceptions of leaving the body and being in a different spatiotemporal dimension. Such experiences have been reported throughout history in diverse cultures, and are reported today by 10% to 20% of people who have come close to death. Although cultural expectations and parameters of the brush with death influence the content of some NDEs, near-death phenomenology is invariant across cultures. That invariance may reflect universal psychological defenses, neurophysiological processes, or actual experience of a transcendent or mystical domain. Research into these alternative explanations has been hampered by the unpredictable occurrence of NDEs. Regardless of the causes or interpretations of NDEs, however, they are consistently associated with profound and long-lasting aftereffects on experiencers, and may have important implications for non-experiencers as well.

Journal of Near-Death Studies, 1981

Since the publication of Life After Life (Moody, 1975), numerous reports have confirmed the existence and basic pattern of the neardeath experience (NDE) as described by the author of this book. Considerable controversy continues to exist, however, over the interpretation of these near-death accounts. A major portion of this controversy focuses upon one central question: Is the NDE an authentic experience? For the near-death survivor who has encountered an NDE, there is usually little doubt as to the reality of the experience: "That was real. If you want to, I'm perfectly willing for you to give me sodium pentathol. .. It's real as hell."1 For a large segment of the medical and scientific community, however, these experiences are felt to be mental aberrations provoked by the emotional and physiological stresses of the near-death condition: "People who undergo these 'death experiences' are suffering from a hypoxic state

2013

The stories narrated by many people who experienced the Near-Death is being regarded by many scientists as strictly the effects of brain malfunction. Yet, other scientists are interested in collating and attempting to apply scientific methods in the study of the NDE. It is important to note that the study of the history of the phenomenon of the NDE suggests that their experiences may not be quickly shelved as ordinary or as strictly the effect of brain malfunction. The contemporary study of the mind-body relations from the perspectives of a parapsychologist and a modern physicist are beginning to shed light on the view that the NDE may not be ordinary as generally thought but a field of knowledge that has effect on the scientific meaning of death as the total end of life. The method implored in this research is historical and the aim is to highlight that the NDE is seemingly natural, ancient; and a universal phenomenon that is very important in the study of human extraordinary experiences. The researchers sided with the dualists who view the NDE as first, a phenomenon that shows the coexistence and a probable independent existence of the body from the mind; and second, that the NDE mechanism poses a challenge that can hardly be explained by the monist.

Missouri Medicine, 2015

Any evaluation of reports of near-death experiences must involve a mindset that is suitable to the task. These experiences challenge our understanding about the fundamental nature of consciousness, indeed of all of existence, at the most basic of levels, and if the mindset is too limited, we compromise our ability to approach the grander truth underlying our observations and attempts to understand them. The more broadly we can open our minds to the possibilities, the more readily we will come to a deeper understanding.

2006