Posttraumatic growth denotes positive psychological change after a traumatic experience that is an improvement over the state before the trauma. Inasmuch as it involves existential reevaluation, posttraumatic growth overlaps with spiritual change, although it also encompasses other domains of positive outcome. This study investigated posttraumatic growth and presence and depth of near-death...
During the last decades an increasing interest has developed in the so-called altered state of consciousness (ASCs); among these, near-death experiences (NDEs) are one of the most intriguing and debated examples. NDEs are deep and universal experiences with a clear phenomenology and incidence, while some of their features challenge the current views of human consciousness (focused on neural...
Latent semantic analysis—a technique to quantify qualitative data—was used on a large dataset of near death experience (NDE) accounts for which a sizable portion also had scores on Greyson’s NDE Scale. Given previous research with the NDE Scale showing there is a “core NDE” comprised of a probabilistic hierarchy of cognitive, affective, transcendental, and paranormal components, we hypothesized...
Electromagnetic (EM) aftereffects have been reported following near-death experiences (NDEs). These effects include both (a) EM actions, apparent actions by the individual on the surrounding EM environment, and (b) EM reactions, apparent reactions of the individual to the EM environment. This study investigated EM aftereffects among 216 NDErs, 54 persons who had been close to death without...
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...
Background: Cardiac arrest (CA) survivors experience cognitive deficits including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is unclear whether these are related to cognitive/mental experiences and awareness during CPR. Despite anecdotal reports the broad range of cognitive/mental experiences and awareness associated with CPR has not been systematically studied. Methods: The incidence and...
People who have near-death experiences (NDEs) often report a subsequently increased sense of spirituality and a connection with their inner self and the world around them. In this study, we examined daily spiritual experiences, using Underwood and Teresi’s (2002) Daily Spiritual Experience Scale, among 229 persons who had come close to death. Frequency of daily spiritual experiences before the...
Alterations of consciousness are critical factors in the diagnosis of epilepsy and seizure disorders. With this alteration in consciousness, some persons report unusual experiences that have been thought to resemble spontaneous mystical experiences. This study was designed to identify and characterize the mystical experiences associated with seizure activity, through the use of a quantitative...
Traumatic events may lead to dramatic changes in spirituality. The objective of this study was to explore whether posttraumatic spiritual transformation results not just from the traumatic event, but from spiritual experience during the crisis. The hypothesis tested was that survivors of a brush with death who had spiritual “near-death experiences” have greater spiritual growth and lesser...
Alterations of consciousness are critical factors in the diagnosis of epileptic seizures. With these alterations in consciousness, some persons report sensations of separating from the physical body, experiences that may in rare cases resemble spontaneous out-of-body experiences. This study was designed to identify and characterize these out-of-body-like subjective experiences associated with...
This article discusses spiritually transformative experiences and how they differ from psychotic experiences, including the context, content, how the experience is remembered, and effect on the individual.
Decades of studies on near-death experiences (NDEs) have reveals both cross-cultural and culture-specific features (Kellehear, 2009) and that it is important to determine which aspects are attributed to the physiological, biological, or psychological mechanisms shared by all humans and which aspects are of cultural origin. In this article, we examine Japanese NDEs and compare their features...
AbstractNear-death experiences, altered states during a brush with death, may include mystical features like a sense of sacredness and divine union, timelessness/spacelessness, positive mood, noetic quality, and ineffability. We quantified mystical elements in near-death experience by comparing responses on the Mysticism Scale of 292 near-death experiencers and 34 persons who had come close to...
People who have near-death experiences often report a subsequently increased sense of spirituality and a connection with their inner self and the world around them. In this study, we examined spiritual well-being, using Paloutzian and Ellison's Spiritual Well-Being Scale, among 224 persons who had come close to death. Participants who reported having near-death experiences reported greater...
SUMMARY The ubiquitous belief that, after death, our consciousness might persist in some discarnate form is fueled in part by phenomena like near‐death experiences (NDEs) and deathbed visions, mystical experiences reported on the threshold of death. Some NDEs, called “Peak in Darien” experiences, include visions of deceased people who are not known at the time to be dead. Cases of this kind...
Psico-USFApril 1, 2010Fernanda Barcellos Serralta, Fernanda Genro Cony, Zelia Cembranel et al.4 citations
Na literatura internacional, a experiência de quase-morte (EQM) é avaliada principalmente por meio do instrumento The Near-Death Experience Scale (NDE), elaborado por Bruce Greyson, em 1983. O objetivo do presente estudo é verificar a existência de equivalência semântica entre a versão original da escala (em inglês) e a versão traduzida ao português do Brasil, avaliando os significados geral e...
Classical physics, anchored in materialist reductionism, offered adequate descriptions of everyday mechanics but ultimately proved insufficient for describing the mechanics of extremely high speeds or small sizes, and was supplemented nearly a century ago by quantum physics, which includes consciousness in its formulation. Materialist psychology, modeled on the reductionism of classical...
Klemenc-Ketis and colleagues’ novel report of hyper capnia and hypokalemia associated with near-death experiences (NDEs) [1] was somewhat surprising, as Sabom [2] had previously reported lower than normal carbon dioxide levels measured at the time of a patient’s NDE, and Parnia and colleagues, in a prospective study of 63 cardiac arrest survivors, had found no signifi cant association of either...
Aim"Near-death experiences," commonly reported after clinical death and resuscitation, may require intervention and, if reliable, may elucidate altered brain functioning under extreme stress. It has been speculated that accounts of near-death experiences are exaggerated over the years. The objective of this study was to test the reliability over two decades of accounts of near-death...
Abstract: Keith Augustine has provided a legitimate and cogent critique of a transcendental interpretation of near-death experiences, exposing weaknesses in the research methodology, paucity of the data, and gaps in the arguments. He offers evidence from psychophysiological and cultural correlates of NDEs that he interprets as favoring a hallucinatory understanding of these phenomena. however,...
Abstract: Keith Augustine's critique of studies of veridical perception in near-death experiences is based on unsubstantiated speculation from the popular media, rather than on supportive data or peer-reviewed literature. Nevertheless, addressing the issues he raises would improve the methodology of near-death research and strengthen the evidential database for veridical perception.
Letter written to the editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies providing a response to Augustine's article "Does Paranormal Perception Occur in Near-Death Experiences?"
Keith Augustine's critique of studies of veridical perception in near-death experiences is based on unsubstantiated speculation from the popular media, rather than on supportive data or peer-reviewed literature. Nevertheless, addressing the issues he raises would improve the methodology of near-death research and strengthen the evidential database for veridical perception.
Abstract. Some individuals when they come close to death report having experiences that they interpret as spiritual or religious. These so‐called near‐death experiences (NDEs) often include a sense of separation from the physical body and encounters with religious figures and a mystical or divine presence. They share with mystical experiences a sense of cosmic unity or oneness, transcendence of...
Transcendental near-death experiences show some cross-cultural variation that suggests they may be influenced by societal beliefs. The prevailing Western model of near-death experiences was defined by Moody's description of the phenomenon in 1975. To explore the influence of this cultural model, we compared near-death experience accounts collected before and after 1975. We compared the...