Near-Death Experiences

Individuals who have shown many of the characteristics of death (stopped heart, flat brain scan, etc.) but have survived and been brought back to consciousness often report experiences that seem to have a bearing on the questions of individual survival of death and the possible existence of a human soul or surviving individual consciousness. Such experiences have been studied in modern times under the category of "near-death experiences."

Common to many such experiences is the powerful sensation of rushing through a long dark tunnel with a bright light at the end. This light brings an ecstatic feeling of joy, peace, and freedom from the body. Often the tunnel experience is preceded by a detached awareness in which some higher reality is interfused with perception of the physical environment surrounding the body, which may be perceived from a detached viewpoint, in which the self can look down on its own body, as in out-of-the-body travel. [Crucial to understanding the accounts of such experiences is separating the elements of the experience from the interpretation placed upon it by the person who has had the experience.]

Psychologists and doctors who have studied near-death experiences have also examined reports of out-of-the-body experiences, and have found enough commonalities to suggest that they are varieties of the same experience, the near-death experience often being distinguished by its intensity, its vividness, and its impact upon the person having the experience. For example, tunnel experiences are common to both, and as is the experience of viewing the physical body from a perspective outside of it. Many individuals find that such experiences are a powerful vindication of religious beliefs such as the existence of a soul as a separate entity from the body and the possibility of the continuation of the soul beyond the experience of bodily death. Clergy who undergo the experience are likely to change their views and teachings.

Various mundane theories have been offered to account for near-death and out-of-the-body experiences in terms of hallucination. For example, the tunnel sensations might be a reliving of the powerful experience of passing through the birth canal, since the baby usually emerges head first. Another psychological explanation centers upon the behavior of cells in the visual cortex when the brain is hyperactive through lack of oxygen. For a thoughtful examination of psychological theories, see the 1989 article, "Down the Tunnel" by Susan Blackmore. Blackmore has studied out-of-body experiences as a psychological phenomenon, but unlike most psychologists who theorize about such experiences, she has actually had such an experience herself. She rightly draws attention to the fact that skeptical explanations ignore the intense insightful and spiritual aspects of such experiences.

Investigators from different disciplines will emphasize their own bias. Allan Kellehear, who comes from a sociological perspective, compares the experience to crisis situations that happen to those lost at sea or trapped in a mine. Melvin Morse is a pioneer working with children who have NDEs and he finds that experiencers in this group to be contaminated by the life experiences that adults have accumulated.

Since 1981, research on the near-death experience has been focused by the International Association for Near-Death Studies founded in 1981 and headed by Kenneth Ring. It published a monumental study of the phenomenon in 1980 and has an active presence on the web. Whether the phenomenon is completely understood or not it has become increasingly important because half the recipients of medical procedures are likely to have a near-death experience.

Sources:

Atwater, P. M. H. Coming Back to Life: The After Effects of the Near-death Experience. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1988.

Blackmore, Susan J. Beyond the Body. London: Heinemann, 1982.

——. "Down the Tunnel." British and Irish Skeptic 3, no. 3 (May/June 1989).

——. Dying to live: Near-death experiences. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1993.

Crookall, Robert. Out-of-the-Body Experiences: A Fourth Analysis. New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1970.

——. The Techniques of Astral Projection: Denouement After Fifty Years. London: Aquarian Press, 1964.

Gallup, George, Jr., with William Proctor. Adventures in Immortality. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982. London: Souvenir Press, 1983.

Greyson, Bruce. "The Near-Death Experience as a Focus of Clinical Attention." Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 185, no. 5 (May 1997).

Groth-Marnat, G. and J. Schumaker. "The Near-Death Experience: A Review and Critique." Journal of Humanistic Psychology 29, no. 1 (January 1989).

International Association for Near-Death Studies. http://www.iands.org. April 10, 2000.

Kellehear, Allan. Experiences Near Death: Beyond Medicine and Religion. New York: Oxford Univ Press, 1996.

Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying. New York: MacMillan, 1969.

Moody, Raymond. Life After Life. New York: Bantam Books, 1975.

Morse, Melvin. Closer to the Light. New York: Villard, 1990.

Near-Death Experiences and the Afterlife. http://www.neardeath.com. April 10, 2000.

Ring, Kenneth. Life at Death: A Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death Experience. New York: William Morrow, 1980.

——, and Evelyn E. Valarino. Lessons from the Light: What We Can Learn from the Near-Death Experience. New York: Insight Books/Plenum Press, 1998.

SpiritWeb: NDE, Near Death Experiences. http://www.spiritweb.org/Spirit/nde.html. April 10, 2000.

Wilson, Ian. The After Death Experience. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1987.

Zaleski, Carol G. Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of Near-Death Experiences in Medieval and Modern Times. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.