“As in cross-cultural and clinical research, people near the end of life often have experiences that are more organized than dreams and more emotionally intense than everyday memory. Although the meaning of these experiences is a matter of debate in the literature, the themes and the process of transformation that they represent keep this question alive in the scientific community.”
One of the reasons why the subject matter is not easily dismissed is that the memories are not isolated to one event. Near-death experiences have been found to occur in a variety of clinical situations, although the most common situation that has been studied is cardiac arrest. In a scoping review of prospective studies, the prevalence of near-death experiences as reported by interviewed survivors of cardiac arrest ranged from 6.3% to 39.3%.
These themes are not proof of any one explanation. These themes, however, are a good guide of what people have said most often when they got to the edge and back.
1. A bright presence experienced as love
The great majority of reports include a bright light that is not agonizing to look at. The key component of the experience is not only the brightness of the light but also its significance, which is warm, inviting, and personalized, as if it “knows” the individual. In a major prospective study that was the focus of a scoping review, the sensation of seeing or being surrounded by light (70%) was one of the most frequent components of those who met the criteria for a near-death experience.
2. Viewing the body from another location
The sense of being outside the body is one of the most discussed feelings because it is always linked to normal, concrete things: the angle of the room, the behavior of the staff, the sense of being above the scene. In the same scoping review, the sense of being outside the body was also a common factor, and in one of the studies that were summarized, 70% of the people who were classified as having a near-death experience had this sense. This factor is very important in a clinical setting because it affects how people later understand their experience with death.
3. A life review that feels emotionally shared
Rather than a montage sequence, the life review may also be defined as immersive and educational, with focus on the aftermath. The key ingredient is the element of empathy, feeling it again and the feelings that experience gave to others. Although they are fewer in number than peace or light experiences in the retrospective data sets, they are generally remembered as experience-defining events when life reviews are conducted.
4. Reuniting with the deceased sometimes unexpectedly
The theme of experiences of encounters with deceased relatives or known individuals is a theme that is prevalent in modern experiences and historical events, although the encounter may be with someone that the experiencer did not know was deceased. Cross-cultural studies of the phenomenon have referred to these as “anomalous information” experiences, experiences of encounters with someone later verified to be deceased, as a theme in the literature, although they recognize that these historical events cannot be proof. For families, the theme may be less about the metaphysics and more about the grieving process.
5. Sudden, all-encompassing feeling of peace
Peace is one of the most common emotions that have been identified.In one of the studies used in the scoping review, the emotion of peace (85%) was identified as the most frequent component. The intensity of the emotion is generally felt to be disproportionate to the medical emergency, and this is why so many patients return with a reduced fear of death, although they are still afraid of becoming ill.
6. Movement through darkness, corridors, or tunnels
The “tunnel” metaphor is a familiar one in popular culture, but it also appears in clinical interviews. There is a sense of being drawn to or caught up in a sense of purposeful movement rather than disorganized chaos.It is also noted that some perceptual phenomena, such as reduced visual fields, might possibly explain tunnel experiences, but the subjective experience is more likely to be one of guidance and direction.
7. Encounters with beings who communicate without speech
Many experiences involve the presence of guides, light beings, or communicators who speak directly into one’s mind. The communication is often described as being instantaneous and complete more like understanding a sentence than hearing one. Cross-cultural work emphasizes a consistent structure (encounter, instruction, return) with culturally variable imagery, which suggests a combination of universal patterns and personal symbolism.
8. A boundary that feels non-negotiable
One of the things that keeps recurring in the narrative is the sense of approaching a boundary: a line, a gate, a bridge, or a threshold that marks the point of no return. The boundary is often marked by a choice to be told to go back, or to choose to return because of some kind of unfinished business. This is one of the reasons why many people who survive find the experience to be organized and coherent rather than dreamlike.
9. A final window of clarity before death (terminal lucidity)
Near-death experience themes are not limited to those who return.But there is also the experience of “terminal lucidity,” the return of cognitive function in individuals with severe neurological impairment, just prior to death. In one instance, the daughter of an 86-year-old woman with severe dementia described the sudden return of her mother’s mental faculties: “When I came into the room, she looked at me and called out my name. She recognized me.” This has evolved from anecdotal evidence to research, with a study in 2009 of 100 consecutive deaths in New Zealand finding a six percent incidence of lucid periods.
What is left, typically, is not an image, but an orientation. Some individuals report a decreased fear of death and a preoccupation with relationships and meaning.Others report more complex experiences: difficulty finding the words to describe what has occurred, or the sense of no longer being a part of the life from which one has been briefly absent.
As the criteria for research continue to be honed and the language of research continues to evolve, perhaps the most significant role that these stories play is simply descriptive to offer a vocabulary for the experiences that patients and families already have, in quiet, for the months and years following survival or for the final conversations before the final goodbye.
