OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
November 26, 2025
Sherilyn L. Herron, Pamela Aselton, Raeann LeBlanc
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...
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
May 30, 2017
Débora González, Maria Carmo Carvalho, Jordi Cantillo et al.
43 citations
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...
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
October 29, 2014
Inge B. Corless
5 citations
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...
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
June 1, 2000
Emily Williams Kelly, Bruce Greyson, Ian Stevenson
26 citations
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,...
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
March 1, 1993
Bruce Greyson
49 citations
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...
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
August 1, 1991
Pamela N. Prince, Robert Hoffmann
8 citations
This study examined the dreams of eight individuals admitted to the Palliative Care Unit of the Elisabeth Bruyere Health Centre, Ottawa, Canada. Content analysis of the dream reports in this sample supports the hypothesis that a continuity exists between dreaming and waking experience [1]. Results do not indicate that themes of death and aggression, negative emotion, or infant and child...
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
May 1, 1991
Edward A. Maitz, Ronald J. Pekala
This article briefly describes the phenomenological reports of individuals who have survived a near-death experience (NDE) and summarizes the methodological problems of assessing and defining their experience, specifically the out-of-the-body (OBE) experience associated with an NDE. The authors, using a single-person research design, offer one approach to quantifying the OBE associated with an...
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
November 1, 1983
Russell Noyes
As a result of serious accidents and illnesses many persons undergo death-rebirth experiences. The changes in attitudes, personality, and beliefs that sometimes follow these experiences reflect rebirth and reveal a fundamental human strategy for coping with the threat of death. Many persons report that this threat is replaced by a sense of aliveness and a belief in life after death. These...
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
May 1, 1982
Kenneth Ring, Stephen Franklin
56 citations
Interviews with thirty-six persons who had been close to death as a result of a suicide attempt were conducted to determine whether such persons report Moody-type near-death experiences. Seventeen persons, or 47 per cent of the sample, related such experiences which were more common for men than women (p <.05). Although suicide-related near-death experiences do not appear different from...
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
February 1, 1980
William A. Richards, John Rhead, Stanislav Grof et al.
20 citations
Thirty cancer patients suffering from psychological distress participated in a pilot project of individual psychotherapy that offered – over a four week period of time – approximately twelve hours of conventional verbal interaction and a single intensive drug-assisted therapy session that employed dipropyltryptamine (DPT), a short-acting psychedelic drug. The efficacy of the total therapeutic...
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
December 1, 1979
Russell Noyes, Donald J. Slymen
74 citations
A factor analysis of questionnaire responses from 189 victims of life-threatening accidents yielded three factors of subjective effects. These factors, which included depersonalization, hyperalertness and mystical consciousness, appeared meaningful in terms of the endangered personality's effort to cope with a threat to life. Perception of a serious threat, loss of consciousness, and rescue...
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
July 1, 1976
Russell Noyes, Roy Kletti
Depersonalization is a frequent reaction to life-threatening danger. As an adaptive pattern of the nervous system it alerts the organism to its threatening environment while holding potentially disorganizing emotion in check. As a psychological mechanism it defends the endangered personality against the threat of death and, at the same time, initiates an integration of that reality. And, as a...