Visions of Hell in Near Death Experiences: A Companion Article to the Narrative Story, “In The Ring”

Abstract

This is a companion review article to a narrative medicine story in this issue of the journal. “In The Ring” is a true story of a patient’s father’s near-death experience of Hell and the history of its follow up impact on the patient and her doctor. This article explores the medical perspective on NDE’s. How are NDE’s different from other altered mental states? What about deep anesthesia recollections? How do the NDE’s compare to psychedelic experiences and the new psylocibin treatments for psychiatric conditions? How are they different from our usual dreams and nightmares? What is the line between our imagination, dreams, and our conscious state? What determines that line? What does science now understand about consciousness itself? What is the difference between computer artificial intelligence (AI) and sentience? Can there be “machine consciousness”? A deep dive into these existential and highly relevant questions is beyond the scope of this manuscript, but this article is an attempt to succinctly address some of these questions in relation to this journal’s narrative medicine story of Hell, “In The Ring” and presents a similar additional distressing NDE case.