Omega
March 1, 2025
Robert A. King
7 citations
People who have a near-death experience sometimes perceive being outside their body and encountering a spiritual figure who offers a choice to return to life or stay in an afterlife-like state. This paper applies self-determination theory to explain how such experiences can meet the three basic psychological needs for relatedness, competence, and autonomy, which may motivate the person to willingly return to life. The authors postulate that this process fosters intrinsic motivation to live well, leading to greater psychological wellbeing.
Omega
March 10, 2023
Robert A. King
4 citations
A near-death experience (NDE) is an altered state of consciousness that can occur during life-threatening incidents, including nonfatal suicide attempts. For some suicide attempters, believing their NDE reflects objective spiritual reality may either increase or decrease suicidal ideation, sometimes leading to further attempts. The paper also explores how NDEs can trigger suicidal ideation in people who had not previously attempted suicide. It provides examples and offers theoretical insights and therapeutic considerations based on this discussion.
Frontiers in Psychology
October 16, 2025
Bruce Greyson, Jeffrey Long, Janice Miner Holden et al.
3 citations
A new scale, the veridical Near-Death Experience Scale (vNDE Scale), was developed to assess how strong the evidence is for perceptions reported during near-death experiences. Thirteen experts used a Delphi method to agree on eight criteria, including timing of investigation, medical conditions, third-party verification, and the number and quality of perceptions, scored on a four-level Likert scale. The scale was then tested on 17 cases of potentially veridical NDEs by 11 human raters and three artificial raters using large language models. In 14 of the 17 cases (82.3%), human and artificial raters agreed at over 75% when considering two adjacent evidence levels, such as moderate plus strong or low plus very low. The scale offers a practical way to evaluate the evidential strength of reported NDE perceptions.
Crisis
September 1, 2024
Robert A. King
3 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) are altered states of consciousness during real or perceived life-threatening events. For decades, researchers assumed NDEs produce positive antisuicidal attitudes, making suicide afterward highly unlikely. This paper challenges that assumption by presenting four case studies of individuals who died by suicide after an NDE. While quantitative data are lacking, these cases show that suicide after an NDE does occur. The influence of the NDE on each suicide remains uncertain. The authors call for more research on post-NDE suicide risk and advise therapists to monitor for both active and passive suicidal ideation in NDE experiencers.
Omega
September 19, 2023
Robert A. King
3 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) often involve a sense of existing as a disembodied self, sometimes near the physical body or in a transcendental realm, and encountering deceased people, spirits, or divine beings. This paper argues that these features form a broader death motif in NDE reports. It provides qualitative examples of different types of death symbolism and suggests that this motif may serve a purposeful psychological function: to heighten awareness of a threat to life, using death symbolism to boost the desire and resilience to live and survive.
The Journal of near-death studies
January 1, 2022
Robert A. King
2 citations
Observed somatic continuance (OSC) describes experiences in which a person sees their own body continue to act semi-autonomously while they perceive themselves to be in a detached vantage point. This article discusses possible triggers for such experiences, drawing on theories from psychology, biology, and genetics. It considers how paranormal beliefs and space science might relate to these phenomena, though no single explanation is established. The authors suggest that OSC may arise from disruptions in normal bodily awareness or from psychological and biological factors, but they do not present empirical data or a definitive cause.
Anthropology of Consciousness
April 25, 2026
Robert A. King
Human behavior arises from an interplay between conscious and unconscious processes, but the nature of this interaction remains debated. This article examines cases of observed somatic continuance—out-of-body experiences where a dissociated, consciously aware ego watches as the physical body continues functioning independently. Such cases suggest the unconscious can sustain normal behavior without conscious input, conscious awareness can alter unconscious causation when not dissociated, and the unconscious can assume control during threats to life or social standing that involve dissociation. These insights may advance consciousness studies and clarify the unconscious's role in behavior.
July 26, 2025
Bruce Greyson, Jeffrey Long, Janice Holden et al.
preprint
A new scale, the veridical Near-Death Experience Scale (vNDE Scale), was developed to assess how strong the evidence is for perceptions reported during near-death experiences. Experts in near-death experiences reached consensus on eight criteria covering timing, medical conditions, third-party verification, and the type and quality of perceptions, scored on a four-level Likert scale. When 11 human raters and three artificial raters using large language models applied the scale to 17 cases, overall agreement between human and artificial judges exceeded 75% in 14 of the 17 cases (82.3%), considering adjacent levels of evidence strength. The scale offers a practical way to evaluate the evidential strength of such perceptions.
Omega
April 28, 2025
Robert A. King
Some bereaved people experience after-death communications (ADCs) in which they sense a deceased loved one through visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, or sentient phenomena. A specific type, the bereavement detachment experience (BDE), involves feeling out of or away from the physical body during the encounter, even without a near-death threat. These BDEs share features with near-death experiences (NDEs), such as meeting the deceased, traveling through darkness or a tunnel, encountering a bright light, entering otherworldly environments, and feeling love or peace. This exploratory study examines seven BDE cases for thematic patterns, compares them to NDEs, and explores beneficial psychological aftereffects, offering therapeutic insights for bereavement care.
Perceptual and Motor Skills
June 1, 2026
Robert A. King
People who have experienced an out-of-body experience (OBE) in which they saw their physical body from an outside location score higher on a measure of threat sensitivity than those who have not. The study compared 105 individuals who reported such an autoscopic OBE with 150 who had not, using the Threat Sensitivity Scale. The higher average threat sensitivity among those with an OBE remained even when accounting for whether participants had faced a life-threatening situation. The findings suggest that autoscopic OBEs are associated with greater threat sensitivity.