The phenomena of out-of-body experience (OBE) and near-death experience (NDE) have attracted increasing research interest. In this study, we used a set of videos to examine verbal and gestural descriptions of a group of people talking about their OBE experiences. Two chi-square tests were used to find out what type of sentences and what type of gestures were more frequently used to describe...
Although sensory and quasi-sensory experiences of the deceased (SED) have been the subject of much debate, research on the phenomenology of auditory verbal experiences in the bereaved has been neglected. This case study describes the phenomenology of a regularly occurring voice hearing experience and its meaning for a single bereaved individual. The voice of the deceased can be heard as though...
This article presents findings from a qualitative phenomenological study exploring the lived experience of nurses who have witnessed end-of-life dreams and visions (ELDVs) of dying patients. Using Seidman's Three-Interview Series, conducted asynchronously via email, eight nurses from Western Massachusetts contributed six comprehensive and two partial experiential accounts. The study revealed...
Interest in near-death experiences (NDEs) has grown across disciplines such as medicine, psychology, and literature, yet no consensus exists on their origin or nature. This study presents a bibliometric and systematic review of 775 articles published between 1977 and April 2025, using PRISMA guidelines. Data was extracted from the Scopus database and analyzed with the Bibliometrix package in R....
Background: There is promising evidence that psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy may be a powerful new treatment approach for mortality-related distress. However, less is known about the possible benefits for people experiencing grief. Aim: To explore what is known about using psychedelics to attend to grief following death due to advanced illness. Design: This scoping review followed Arskey and...
Near-death experiences (NDEs) are events reported by individuals close to death. This review examines the aftereffects of NDEs based on scientific literature from 2014 to 2024. Positive NDEs often lead to increased spirituality, reduced fear of death, a deeper appreciation of life, and greater compassion. In contrast, negative NDEs, though less common, can cause confusion, emotional distress,...
When people experience the death of loved ones, some of them report after-death communications (ADCs) in which they have the impression of again encountering those loved ones by means of different types of visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and/or sentient phenomena. There is one particular type of ADC that can be referred to as a bereavement detachment experience (BDE) because the experient...
When people experience a near-death or life-threatening incident, they sometimes report an altered state of consciousness in which they have the perception of being out of or away from their physical body. During such an experience these individuals at times have the impression of encountering a spiritual personage who offers them a choice to stay or return to their physical life and/or...
Many people living with HIV (PLWH) experience death anxiety and depression, which may impact negatively on their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Mindfulness is a psychological resource that protects against death anxiety and depression and promotes HRQoL. Although a direct association among these variables exist, little is known about their interactive effect. This study examined the...
Death awareness and near-death experiences initiate shifts in awareness, priorities, and relationships. This narrative inquiry explored the stories of four individuals who had near-death experiences. Participants shared their experiences before and after the experiences. Findings include considerations of how mortality awareness connects with life experiences. Resonant threads across narratives...
Adverse life events are associated with the often-terrifying REM sleep parasomnia of sleep paralysis (SP), but the impact of bereavement on SP has not been specifically examined. This exploratory, mixed-methods study (N = 168) includes qualitative data from 55 participants who described factors they believed led to their SP. Of these, almost half with a traumatic loss listed death-related...
The typical near-death experience (NDE) is generally understood as an altered state of consciousness in which the experient has the impression of existing as an extrapersonal self out of and/or away from their physical body during real or presumed life-threatening and/or near-death circumstances. This presumed extrapersonal self can sometimes have a perception of being located within the...
Mental health problems were found to be more common than physical health problems in cancer caregivers in palliative care units. This is a quasi-experimental study planned to determine the effect of the meditation based mandala programme on distress, anxiety and depression in caregivers of cancer patients in a palliative care unit. Planned as a single-group pre-test/post-test design, with a...
Background and Objective: Near-death experiences (NDEs) greatly change the lives of Near-death experiencers (NDErs); however, the influence of the knowledge of these experiences on other people is unclear. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of knowledge of NDEs on various aspects of life and the sleep quality of those without NDEs. Methods: The research population...
The near-death experiences (NDE) in dialysis patients of our country have not been previously studied. The objective of this study is to investigate the characteristics of NDEs in patients on dialysis. We performed a cross sectional study of the adult patients of chronic kidney disease stage 5 without dialysis and on dialysis who survived cardiac arrest by cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) as...
The near-death experience (NDE) most generally refers to a state of altered consciousness with various features that can occur during real or presumed near-death circumstances and/or life-threatening incidents. Some NDEs are associated with a nonfatal suicide attempt. This paper discusses how a belief by suicide attempters that their NDEs are a true portrayal of objective spiritual reality can...
Persons who come close to death but survive catastrophic accidents sometimes report very vivid experiences during times when their survival was in doubt, when they were believed to be dead, and during resuscitation efforts. This qualitative study builds upon existing research on near-death experiences (NDEs) by focusing on the oral accounts from a sample of individuals with large and...
Stress is a commonly reported concern of individuals with chronical diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS). This study sought to investigate the relationships between self-transcendence, death anxiety, and perceived stress among individuals with MS from Iran. A second aim of the study was to assess the buffering effect of self-transcendence in the relationship between death anxiety and...
This study examined effects of a mindfulness induction on proximal and distal defense responses to mortality salience and negative affect. Three experimental conditions were included: mindfulness, mind-wandering, and worrying. Participants in the mindfulness condition underwent a mindfulness induction at the experiment’s outset, while participants in the other two conditions underwent a...
The death of a loved one is ultimately a universal experience. However, conventional interventions employed for people suffering with uncomplicated grief have gathered little empirical support. The present study aimed to explore the potential effects of ayahuasca on grief. We compared 30 people who had taken ayahuasca with 30 people who had attended peer-support groups, measuring level of grief...
End-of-life experiences go by various terms, including near-death experiences (NDEs), deathbed visions, deathbed phenomena, deathbed coincidences, and nearing death awareness. Deathbed escorts is the term applied to the vision of deceased family members or friends who inform the dying person that they will be accompanied in the transition from life. In this article, I examine the subject of...
Little is known about the psychological phenomenology of death. Reported across known history and in all cultures by those who have died or been close to death, NDEs challenge objective-mechanistic models by suggesting the phenomenology of death may involve a variety of complex psychological processes. This article discusses three notable characteristics of the NDE—loss of the fear of death,...
In this article, we reviewed results of research on near-death experiences (NDEs) over the past 3 decades and examined the effect of viewing the hour-long 2002 BBC documentary The Day I Died: The Mind, the Brain, and Near-Death Experiences on accurate knowledge about near-death experiences among advanced undergraduates at a southwestern university. In a quasi-experimental research design, the...
Most people who have a near-death experience (NDE) say that the experience convinced them that they will survive death. People who have not had such an experience, however, may not share this conviction. Although all features of NDEs, when looked at alone, might be explained in ways other than survival, there are three features in particular that we believe suggest the possibility of survival,...
Near-death experiences (NDEs) have been reported to decrease fear of death and foster a “romanticized” view of death, yet also promote antisuicidal attitudes. This study was an empirical investigation of psychodynamic hypotheses suggested to explain that paradoxical effect, using a thirty-six-item questionnaire constructed for this purpose. One hundred-fifty near-death experiencers (NDErs) and...