Near-death experience

18% of cardiac arrest survivors reported NDEs, and their occurrence was not associated with duration of cardiac arrest or unconsciousness, medication, or fear of death before cardiac arrest.

prospective cohort study Sample size: 344

The 16-item NDE Scale is a reliable and valid measure that differentiates near-death experiences from organic brain syndromes and nonspecific stress responses.

scale development and validation study Sample size: 74

Argues that eyewitness accounts of life after death are a common motif in global folklore and religious literature, with medieval Christian visionary narratives offering close parallels to modern near-death experience stories.

historical analysis

DMT administration produced near-death experience phenomenology that significantly overlapped with features of actual NDEs.

within-subjects placebo-controlled study Sample size: 13

Distressing near-death experiences fall into three types: those resembling peaceful experiences but interpreted as unpleasant, a sense of nonexistence or eternal void, and graphic hellish landscapes and entities.

review

Near-death experiences were reported by 10% of cardiac arrest patients versus 1% of other cardiac patients, and were associated with younger age, loss of consciousness, prior paranormal experiences, and greater approach-oriented death acceptance, but not with objective proximity to death.

observational cohort Sample size: 1595

Patients who were truly close to death were more likely than those who were not to report enhanced perception of light and enhanced cognitive powers.

observational cohort Sample size: 58

Prior experiences suggestive of transcendence of death are more common among near-death experiencers than among control populations, but prior experiences suggestive of extrasensory phenomena are less common, and subsequent changes in attitudes are more common than in subjects with other psychic experiences.

retrospective study Sample size: 78

Near-death experiences are associated with lasting attitude changes, particularly reduced death anxiety and increased spiritual or paranormal beliefs.

review Sample size: 21

Individuals who reported near-death experiences had more temporal lobe epileptiform EEG activity and temporal lobe symptoms than controls, with epileptiform activity nearly completely lateralized to the left hemisphere.

observational cohort

People who reported near-death experiences also reported significantly more dissociative symptoms than those who came close to death without NDEs, and the depth of the NDE was positively correlated with dissociative symptoms.

observational cohort Sample size: 134

NDE memories have more phenomenological characteristics than memories of imagined and real events, and more self-referential and emotional information than coma memories.

observational cohort Sample size: 39

Near-death experiences challenge the assumption that consciousness is invariably linked to brain processes and must be taken into account in scientific discussions of the mind–brain problem.

review

The analysis identified 10 time-bounded themes of isolated events and 1 transversal theme of self-reflection in near-death experience narratives.

qualitative study Sample size: 34

Knowledge and attitudes about NDEs were positively related at pretest and posttest, and both increased significantly from pretest to one-week delayed posttest after the asynchronous training.

quasi-experimental study Sample size: 41

Proposes that NDEs and reincarnation-type memories may be connected stages of a broader continuity of consciousness, as outlined in the Continuity of Consciousness Model, and suggests a research program to test this hypothesis without claiming proof of reincarnation.

theoretical or philosophical paper

Argues that NDEs represent a data retrieval and upload process triggered by consciousness decoupling from the brain, with the life review as data retrieval visualization and slowed time as an effect of accelerated retrieval; cites vegetative patient recovery and Alzheimer's lucid moments as evidence for consciousness independent of the brain.

theoretical or philosophical paper

The article argues that beliefs about the afterlife among alternative spirituality adherents in Bosnia and Herzegovina shape their understanding of dreams involving the dead, and that these beliefs enable the dead to have agency upon the dreamers.

ethnography

Proposes that the modality of birth imprints a spatial template on the enteric nervous system, which is reactivated during near-death events, offering a potential explanation for individual variation in near-death experience phenomenology.

theoretical or philosophical paper

Argues that near-death experiences can serve as a bridge to increase scientific openness toward studying other spiritually transformative experiences, potentially broadening the field of consciousness research.

theoretical or philosophical paper

Argues that near-death experiences, terminal lucidity, and necrophany, as instances of the 'wildly sacred,' are being subjected to a 'scientific domestication' that challenges the fluid boundaries of the 'spiritual but not religious' intermediate space in health contexts.

theoretical or philosophical paper

Argues that near-death and out-of-body experiences result from microtubular consciousness disinhibited after brain activity ceases, with tryptophan activated by ultraviolet photons, and that any actual life-after-death would violate Landauer's principle and the second law of thermodynamics.

theoretical or philosophical paper

Only one of 24 cardiac arrest survivors (4.2%) met criteria for a near-death experience, with a Greyson Scale score of 7.

observational, prospective, multicenter study Sample size: 24

Near-death experiences in adult intensive care unit survivors are multidimensional subjective experiences that produce vivid, stable long-term memories and elevate spiritual needs, but their psychosocial impacts are heterogeneous.

scoping review