Skip to content

Near-death experience research published in 2025

30 studies whose primary subject is near-death experience were published in 2025, up from 28 in 2024. Newest first. Back to the near-death experience overview

Studies

Psychometric evaluation of the Danish Near-Death Experience Content (NDE-C) scale in a sample of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survivors

medRxiv November 19, 2025 T. A. Stripp, N. Hvidt preprint

Background: Near-death experiences (NDEs) are profound phenomena reported after life-threatening events such as cardiac arrest. The Near-Death Experience Content (NDE-C) scale was developed to improve psychometric assessment of NDE phenomenology, but no validated Danish version exists. Objective: To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Danish NDE-C scale among out-of-hospital cardiac...

Rereading Memories or a New Experience: A Critical Review of the Theory of Rereading Memories in Near-Death Experiences

DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) November 1, 2025 Hamidreza Shakerin

This Paper Offers the first comprehensive critique of the naturalistic psychological explanation that interprets near-death experiences (NDEs) as mere rereading or reconstruction of brain-stored memories. Physicalists claim that classic NDE features—out-of-body perception, tunnel experience, life review, luminous beings—are nothing but neural reactivation of archived personal engrams under...

DOI: 10.22091/jptr.2025.13323.3329 (opens in new tab) Soul False memory Afterlife Feeling +17

Architecture of Near-Death Experience Spaces

bioRxiv Preprint Server October 17, 2025 France Lerner, Guillaume Tahar, Netta Shafir preprint

Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) challenge conventional research methods, as they are often described as exceeding the limits of verbal expression. While most studies rely on narrative accounts, little attention has been given to graphic representations as a complementary mode of investigation. This study employs a hybrid approach combining a semi-structured digital questionnaire with a graphic...

The veridical Near-Death Experience Scale: construction and a first validation with human and artificial raters

Frontiers in Psychology October 16, 2025 Bruce Greyson, Jeffrey Long, Janice Miner Holden et al. 3 citations

Introduction: In this study, we describe the construction of the veridical Near-Death Experience Scale (vNDE Scale), a structured instrument for evaluating the evidential strength of perceptions reported during near-death experiences (NDEs), and its first validation by human and artificial raters. Methods: The construction was implemented using a typical Delphi Method. The first draft of the...

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1661390 (opens in new tab) Scale ratio Perception Preference Cognitive psychology +1

Religious and spiritual experiences from a neuroscientific and complex systems perspective.

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews October 1, 2025 Peter Jedlicka, Martha Nari Havenith 3 citations

The emergence of spiritual and religious practices can be seen as a major cognitive transition in the evolution of biological organisms. Spiritual and religious experiences are closely linked to evolved complex brain structures, as well as their dynamics and plasticity. In this review, we will focus on the neural mechanisms that make such experiences possible. We will also address the...

A virtual reality intervention to reduce death anxiety and stress in adults: examining the effect of a near-death experience simulation

Frontiers in Virtual Reality September 29, 2025 Parya Khandan, Benjamin Ennemoser, Ryan D. Foster et al.

Death anxiety (DA) and stress pose significant psychological challenges that negatively impact health and wellbeing. Exposure therapy—a behavioral approach that reduces fear by repeatedly and safely exposing individuals to feared stimuli—has demonstrated effectiveness in treating anxiety. However, traditional exposure methods are limited in addressing DA, as individuals cannot authentically...

DOI: 10.3389/frvir.2025.1644131 (opens in new tab) Full text (opens in new tab) Virtual reality Death anxiety Stress Near-death experience nde +2

The intertwining of death and life: a hermeneutic phenomenological investigation of near-death experiences among coma survivors.

BMC Psychology September 29, 2025 Hajar Behzadi, Mohammad Farzollah Abbasi, Sally Pezaro et al.

Background: Death is an experience that every human being faces. As such, the near-death experience (NDE) has been a topic of interest to humanity for millennia. The NDE is often understood as a subjective event of altered consciousness that can occur during life-threatening events and/or near the time of biological death. This study investigated the near-death lived experiences of coma...

Induced After-Death Communication (IADC) Experience and Near-Death Experience (NDE): Two Variations of a Single Phenomenon

Psychology International September 26, 2025 Claudio Lalla, Fabio D’Antoni

Background: Induced after-death communication (IADC) experiences have been reported to share many phenomenological features with Near-Death Experiences (NDEs). This study aimed to empirically test the hypothesis that the majority of IADC experiences manifest a phenomenology that largely overlaps with that of NDEs. Methods: A cross-sectional observational design with retrospective data...

Faith at the Edge of Life: A Mixed-Methods Study of Near-Death Experiences and Spiritual Transformation in the Philippines

Religions September 9, 2025 Fides del Castillo, Gregory S. Ching, Clarence Darro del Castillo et al. 1 citation

Near-death experiences (NDEs) encompass transformative existential experiences that lead to religious change. Although most previous research focused primarily on Western contexts, there remains less understanding of individuals’ interpretations of NDEs in pluralistic societies such as the Philippines. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study examined the relationship between NDEs and...

DOI: 10.3390/rel16091158 (opens in new tab) Buddhism Spirituality Transformative learning Faith +14

Some verbal cues to deception in near-death experiences

زبان پژوهی August 17, 2025 Shima Solati, Ali Izanloo, Azam Estaji

Introduction Lying is a ubiquitous element of communication and causes chaos (Urch, 2006). There are many approaches to understanding the reasons for lying. However, detecting it has always been of interest to researchers, and for almost a century, verbal cues to deception have been studied to assess the credibility of judicial statemen truth-tellers (Sporer at al., 2021). To this end, many...

Near-Death Experiences: A Bibliometric and Systematic Review of Published Literature From 1977 to 2025.

OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying July 30, 2025 Sandra Barreto 3 citations

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....

DOI: 10.1177/00302228251363788 (opens in new tab) Full text (opens in new tab) Near-death experiences Bibliometric analysis Interdisciplinary research Systematic review +1

The veridical Near-Death Experience Scale (vNDE Scale): construction and a first validation with human and artificial raters

July 26, 2025 Bruce Greyson, Jeffrey Long, Janice Holden et al. preprint

Introduction: In this study, we describe the construction of the veridical Near-Death Experience Scale (vNDE Scale), a structured instrument for evaluating the evidential strength of perceptions reported during near-death experiences (NDEs), and its first validation by human and artificial raters.Methods: The construction was implemented using a typical Delphi Method. The first draft of the...

DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/cd6be_v2 (opens in new tab) Scale ratio Artificial intelligence Cartography

The central clinical relevance of near-death experiences in acute care contexts: identification, prediction, and management

Frontiers in Psychology July 22, 2025 Pascal Michael, Pauline Fritz, Olivia Gosseries et al. 1 citation

Near-death experiences (NDEs), a syndrome of experiences with mystical-type content classically arising in the context of life-threatening situations, are under-researched in terms of their relevance for acute medical care. We here discuss several reasons to raise the importance of conducting more comprehensive NDE research in emergency and critical care contexts, including but not limited to...

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1544438 (opens in new tab) Relevance law Context archaeology Identification biology Acute care +2

Dying to Work: A Thematic Analysis of How Near-Death Experiences Affect Employees’ Work Lives

Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion July 1, 2025 Jamie A. Gruman, Akierah D. Binns

Near-death experiences (NDEs) refer to the experiences people have when they are close to death as a result of medical emergencies or accidents (Kelly et al., 2007). Such experiences often have life-changing effects referred to as aftereffects. However, there is virtually no research on NDE aftereffects in the context of work. In the present study, we interviewed 14 working adults to explore...

Veridical Flashbacks and Dreams of a Pre-Christian Life in Norway, Following a Near-Death Experience in Adulthood

Journal of Scientific Exploration June 30, 2025 James G. Matlock

Following a near-death experience (NDE) at 28, a woman began to have visions of an apparent past life in the region of southern Norway where she lives presently but set toward the end of the pre-Christian era, in the 900s CE. Altogether, she had five flashbacks triggered by places or views, six memory dreams that may also have been triggered, and two related experiences, all pertaining to the...

Systematic Review on the Aftereffects of Near-Death Experiences.

OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying June 11, 2025 Adela Miquel-Sendra, Joaquín García-alandete 3 citations

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,...

A neuroscientific model of near-death experiences.

Nature Reviews Neurology June 1, 2025 Charlotte Martial, Pauline Fritz, Olivia Gosseries et al. 19 citations

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are episodes of disconnected consciousness that typically occur in situations that involve an actual or potential physical threat or are perceived as such, and the experiences are characterized by a rich content with prototypical mystical features. Several explanatory theories for NDEs have been proposed, ranging from psychological or neurophysiological to...

The Bereaved Detachment Experience: An NDE-like Phenomenon.

OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying April 28, 2025 Robert A. King

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...

Local field potential changes during euthanasia may parallel with near death experience.

Scientific Reports April 3, 2025 Julieta Trejo, Kaitlin M Killian, Zhen Wang et al. 1 citation

A global experience that every human life meets is death. For several decades, individuals have reported their unique encounters with near-death experience (NDE), which has raised many unanswered questions. In the present experiment, we utilize continuous local field potential (LFP) during the euthanasia process to show the dynamic changes of frequency band power in four distinct regions of the...

The Near-Death Experience and Self-Determination Theory.

OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying March 1, 2025 Robert A. King 7 citations

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...