What is a Near Death Experience?

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Near Death Experiences

Article 1, NDE series

                   

What is a near death experience or NDE ?

Is it possible to die and be revived back to life? Even though the idea may seem contradictory at first, this is precisely what has been happening more and more due to the progress of resuscitation science. Over the past 50 years many people have been brought back to life after they had died, and some have had very intense life changing experiences.

But what exactly is an NDE? Since the earliest times, in many cultures, there have been accounts of unusual experiences reported by those who have come close to death or in a situation of physical or emotional crisis giving rise to a pattern of perceptions, creating a recognizable overall event, that has been called an NDE. Though being in a life-threatening situation or having a cardiac arrest does not, by itself, constitute an NDE, since the term is used to describe specific cognitive1 experiences and sensations such as including detachment from the body, total serenity, security…

It is thus no surprise that during the last twenty or thirty years, media outlets have been replete with articles on these accounts and that they have become the source of many debates and controversies all over the world. For the mystery of death has always fascinated mankind and rarely if ever, are people indifferent to such a topic.

Yet, it wasn't really until the 1970s that this subject entered the realms of science and the term NDE was used for the first time. This occurred after Raymond Moody, an American psychiatrist with a background in philosophy, published his best selling book "Life after life", in which he had collected the accounts given by 150 survivors of near death encounters which he obtained while a medical student.

Remarkably, he found that the survivors had all described similar unusual experiences. These included:

i) feeling peace;

ii) having a life review;

iii) seeing a tunnel;

iv) seeing a bright light;

v) seeing deceased relatives;

vi) having a perception of separation from the body (out of body experience)

vii) entering a heavenly domain.

The experiences were usually described from a time when the individual had been unconscious, reason why Moody termed anyone of these experiences “a near death experience” or NDE.

Obviously controversies abound regarding the causes of an NDE. Some believe an NDE can offer glimpses of the afterlife and will feel it is an opportunity to learn more about the mysteries of human existence. Others instead have a more skeptical approach and think an NDE is just an illusion which can be explained in scientific terms (for example brought about by an excess of carbon dioxide etc…). Their curiosity usually arises from wanting to find out the latest on the brain’s tricks or it may just be plain scientific curiosity.

Moving beyond controversy, perhaps, the most striking aspect of an NDE is not so much the features briefly summarized above, but rather the transformation those who have experienced it first hand, usually undergo. An NDE often leaves a person with a positive life effect making him or her more altruistic, more pious, less materialistic and less afraid of death. Surely, these long lasting and deep changes in attitudes and behaviors following an NDE are a reality that can be socially observed unlike the more personal (subjective) experiences we have referred to above. Now, given the NDE phenomenon’s positive impact on people’s lives, it undoubtedly calls for further research.

The NDE articles present in this web site will allow you to have a thorough overview of the NDE phenomenon, its frequency, theories of causation, the influence of personality, religion and culture, and obviously we will refer or describe studies carried out so far on the subject.

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1Cognitive experiences : refer to experiences dealing with cognition, in other words to the mental process of knowing, formulating judgments, reasoning, perceiving and being aware.