Near-death experience: arising from the borderlands of consciousness in crisis.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences November 1, 2014 DOI: 10.1111/nyas.12576 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Near-death experience |
| Keywords | Consciousness |
| Key findings | Near-death experiences are explained by brain activity, particularly the blending of REM and waking consciousness during brain ischemia, rather than by a single physiological or anatomical cause. |
Abstract
Brain activity explains the essential features of near-death experience, including the perceptions of envelopment by light, out-of-body, and meeting deceased loved ones or spiritual beings. To achieve their fullest expression, such near-death experiences require a confluence of events and draw upon more than a single physiological or biochemical system, or one anatomical structure. During impaired cerebral blood flow from syncope or cardiac arrest that commonly precedes near-death, the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness is often indistinct and a person may enter a borderland and be far more aware than is appreciated by others. Consciousness can also come and go if blood flow rises and falls across a crucial threshold. During crisis the brain's prime biologic purpose to keep itself alive lies at the heart of many spiritual experiences and inextricably binds them to the primal brain. Brain ischemia can disrupt the physiological balance between conscious states by leading the brainstem to blend rapid eye movement (REM) and waking into another borderland of consciousness during near-death. Evidence converges from many points to support this notion, including the observation that the majority of people with a near-death experience possess brains predisposed to fusing REM and waking consciousness into an unfamiliar reality, and are as likely to have out-of-body experience while blending REM and waking consciousness as they are to have out-of-body experience during near-death.
Comparable studies
Other narrative reviews on near-death experience, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distressing Near-Death Experiences | 1992 | Review | |
| Attitude Change Following Near-Death Experiences Individuals who have had near-death experiences | 1980 | Review | n = 21 |
| Near-death experiences. | 2004 | Review | |
| The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences | 2009 | Review | |
| Near-death experiences in cardiac arrest survivors | 2005 | Review |
Citations in the library
Cited by 9
- Semiology and Mechanisms of Near-Death Experiences Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports July 27, 2019
- Making Sense of Near-Death Experience Research: Circumstance Specific Alterations of Consciousness Anthropology of Consciousness March 1, 2019
- What is the State-of-the-Art on Lucid Dreaming? 2015
- Characterization of near death experiences using text mining analyses: A preliminary study PLoS One January 30, 2020
- EEG signature of near-death-like experiences during syncope-induced periods of unresponsiveness. Neuroimage September 1, 2024
and 4 more in the library
Cites 17
- Out‐of‐body experience and autoscopy of neurological origin Brain January 15, 2004
- Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands The Lancet December 1, 2001
- Incidence and correlates of near-death experiences in a cardiac care unit General Hospital Psychiatry July 1, 2003
- Features of "near-death experience" in relation to whether or not patients were near death The Lancet November 1, 1990
- The threat simulation theory in light of recent empirical evidence: A review The American Journal of Psychology April 1, 2009
and 12 more in the library