near-death experiences People who come close to death and survive often report remarkable experiences. Feelings of peace, happiness, and even joy are common, which seems paradoxical in the circumstances. Many survivors report having rushed down a dark tunnel towards a bright light — although the tunnel itself can look like anything from tiny stars or spirals of light, to the inside of a sewer pipe or an underground cave. In one study, about a third of near-death survivors reported out of body experiences, in which they seemed to leave their body and were able to watch what was happening from a distance, as though as an impartial observer. Less often they recalled leaving the scene of (near) death and travelling elsewhere. Finally, some people report wonderful heavenly scenes, peopled with angels, spiritual beings, or deceased friends and relatives. Less commonly they arrive at some kind of barrier and have to decide to return, or not. A small proportion report a ‘life review’ in which scenes from their life flash before their inner eyes, often all at once, or with no sense of passing time. This life review is sometimes remembered as an ordeal, with religious figures making judgements in a great book, but it can be purely personal, leading to calm acceptance and a re-evaluation of one's life and deeds.
After a near-death experience many people report that their whole attitude to life is changed. They are less concerned with material things and more interested in helping others. Research confirms these changes but it is not clear whether they are a consequence of the experience itself or just of having been so close to death.
Not all near-death experiences are blissful, and recent research has discovered an increasing number of hellish experiences — although just how many is hard to estimate, since people may be less likely to report them, and more anxious to forget. In many religions suicide is treated as a sin, so believers might expect those who attempt suicide to be especially likely to have hellish experiences. In fact they mostly report blissful or peaceful feelings, and the effect, far from encouraging another suicide attempt, seems to be a renewed enthusiasm for life.
The term ‘near-death experience’ became popular only after Raymond Moody's best-selling collection of accounts in 1975. However, similar reports had previously been collected from people who subsequently did die (i.e. deathbed experiences). In fact, reports of such experiences are widespread in many ages and cultures, and in literature, art, and film. Plato describes one in the
Republic, Tibetan Buddhist literature includes the ‘returned from the dead’ writings, and there are myths from as far apart as ancient Greece, nineteenth-century native Americans, and Lithuanian folklore. In contemporary research, similar reports have been collected from Iceland, Britain, America, and India. In these accounts the basic features tend to be similar (including tunnels, lights, out-of-body excursions, and visions) but the details vary. For example, religious figures are often seen, but usually of the person's own religion. No Hindu is known to have seen Jesus, nor any Christian to have seen Hindu gods.
A few sceptics attribute the experiences either to wishful thinking or to taking drugs. This seems most unlikely, given the cross-cultural findings, and research showing that most drugs tend to reduce the clarity and complexity of near-death experiences. The important question is therefore why these experiences occur in a similar form all across the world.
The main contenders are either that near-death experiences are a glimpse of life after death, or that they are the effect of changes in an almost dying brain. The after-death hypothesis cannot be proven. If there is life after death, these experiences may tell us what it is like, but since none of the people concerned actually died we can never be sure. The closest we come to evidence is the claim that, during the experience, some people were able to see events at a distance that they could not possibly have known about or guessed. These claims are few, and none is substantiated by independent witnesses or physical evidence, although the best examples are probably those in which patients were able to describe complex medical procedures that occurred while they were comatose or even clinically dead.
There are several theories to explain how coming close to death can give rise to near-death experiences. Lack of
oxygen is often implicated, although many near-death experiences occur when people are not deprived of oxygen, as in falls from mountains, during suicide attempts by jumping from heights, or after accidents. In such situations, however, the production and actions of various
hormones and
neurotransmitters may be affected. There are theories based on stimulation of receptors in nerve cell membranes called NMDA receptors, on the effects of the neurotransmitter
serotonin, and on the level of
endorphins (the brain's own morphine-like chemicals). Endorphins are known to produce positive emotions and reduction of pain, and may be responsible for the blissful feelings in the midst of pain and fear. Disruption of the brain's neurotransmitters can produce random or excessive firing of neurons and this, depending on where it occurs, may produce the other experiences. For example, electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe of the cerebral hemispheres can produce life reviews and sensations of floating or flying, while random firing in the parts of the visual cortex (which also occurs with drugs such as LSD) causes the perception of lights, tunnels, and spirals.
These physiological explanations can account for much of near-death experiences, and may in time provide a complete account. Even so, they can never disprove the possibility of life after death. Some people may still prefer to believe that the experience is a glimpse of the next world rather than the product of the dying brain.
Susan Blackmore
Bibliography
Bailey, L. W. and Yates, J. (ed.) (1996). The near-death experience: a reader. Routledge, New York and London.
Blackmore, S. J. (1993). Dying to live: science and the near death experience. Prometheus, Buffalo, NY.
Moody, R. A. (1975). Life after life. Mockingbird, Atlanta, GA.
