by Jeffrey Long
A few of the NDEs that needed to be presented in this book were cases in which we could not contact the NDErs. When these NDEs are presented they are paraphrased, for ethical reasons. All paraphrased NDEs in this book are introduced as paraphrased accounts. All paraphrased NDEs are posted on the NDERF website in their original form.
Chapter 3: Proof #1: Lucid Death
Following a cardiac arrest, EEG changes consistent with decreased blood flow to the brain are seen in about six seconds. The EEG flatlines in ten to twenty seconds. See J. W. DeVries, P. F. A. Bakker, G. H. Visser, J. C. Diephuis, and A. C. van Huffelen, “Changes in Cerebral Oxygen Uptake and Cerebral Electrical Activity During Defibrillation Threshold Testing,” Anesthesiology and Analgesia 87 (1998): 16–20.
Near-death experiences associated with cardiac arrest have been reported in dozens of previously published studies. Over one hundred NDEs occurring during cardiac arrest have been reported in these five studies alone: M. Sabom, Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982); P. van Lommel, R. van Wees, V. Meyers, and I. Elfferich, “Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands,” Lancet 358 (2001): 2039–45; S. Parnia, D. G. Waller, R. Yeates, and P. Fenwick, “A Qualitative and Quantitative Study of the Incidence, Features and Aetiology of Near Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest Survivors,” Resuscitation 48 (2001): 149–56; J. Schwaninger, P. R. Eisenberg, K. B. Schechtman, and A. N. Weiss, “A Prospective Analysis of Near-Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest Patients,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 20 (2002): 215–32; B. Greyson, “Incidence and Correlates of Near-Death Experiences in a Cardiac Care Unit,” General Hospital Psychiatry 25 (2003): 269–76.
B. Greyson, E. W. Kelly, and E. F. Kelly, “Explanatory Models for Near-Death Experiences,” in The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation, ed. J. Holden, B. Greyson, and D. James (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2009), 229.
Prior NDE studies consistently describe enhanced mental functioning during the experience. Here are two illustrative studies: J. E. Owens, E. W. Cook, and I. Stevenson, “Features of ‘Near-Death Experience’ in Relation to Whether or Not Patients Were Near Death,” Lancet 336 (1990): 1175–77; E. W. Kelly, B. Greyson, and E. F. Kelly, “Unusual Experiences Near Death and Related Phenomena,” in Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century, by E. F. Kelly, E. W. Kelly, A. Crabtree, A. Gauld, M. Grosso, and B. Greyson (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 367–421, quote on 386.
J. Long and J. Long, “A Comparison of NDEs Occurring Before and After 1975: Results from a Web Survey of Near Death Experiencers,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 22, no. 1 (2003): 21–32.
G. K. Athappilly, B. Greyson, and I. Stevenson, “Do Prevailing Societal Models Influence Reports of Near-Death Experiences? A Comparison of Accounts Reported Before and After 1975,” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 194 (2006): 218.
Chapter 4: Proof #2: Out of Body
M. Sabom, Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982).
P. Sartori, “A Prospective Study of NDEs in an Intensive Therapy Unit,” Christian Parapsychologist 16, no. 2 (2004): 34–40. Results of this study were later presented in further detail: P. Sartori, The Near-Death Experiences of Hospitalized Intensive Care Patients: A Five Year Clinical Study (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008).
J. Holden, “Veridical Perception in Near-Death Experiences,” in The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation, ed. J. Holden, B. Greyson, and D. James (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2009).
K. Clark, “Clinical Interventions with Near-Death Experiencers,” in The Near-Death Experience: Problems, Prospects, Perspectives, ed. B. Greyson and C. P. Flynn (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1984), 242–55.
K. Augustine, “Does Paranormal Perception Occur in Near-Death Experiences?” Journal of Near-Death Studies 25, no. 4 (2007): 203–36; Sharp, K. C. “The Other Shoe Drops: Commentary on ‘Does Paranormal Perception Occur in Near-Death Experiences?’” Journal of Near-Death Studies 25, no. 4 (2007): 245–50.
P. van Lommel, R. van Wees, V. Meyers, and I. Elfferich, “Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands,” Lancet 358 (2001): 2039–45.
For more information on the AWARE study, see University of Southampton Media Centre, “World’s Largest Ever Study of Near-Death Experiences,” http://www.soton.ac.uk/mediacentre/news/2008/sep/08_165.shtml.
People experiencing cardiac arrest are usually amnesic or confused regarding events occurring immediately prior to or after the cardiac arrest. Here are three illustrative studies: M. J. Aminoff, M. M. Scheinman, J. C. Griffin, and J. M. Herre, “Electrocerebral Accompaniments of Syncope Associated with Malignant Ventricular Arrhythmias,” Annals of Internal Medicine 108 (1988): 791–96; P. van Lommel, R. van Wees, V. Meyers, and I. Elfferich, “Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands,” Lancet 358 (2001): 2039–45; S. Parnia and P. Fenwick, “Near Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest: Visions of a Dying Brain or Visions of a New Science of Consciousness,” Resuscitation 52, no. 1 (2002): 5–11.
There have been multiple reports from other NDE researchers of NDErs observing earthly events far from their physical bodies and beyond any possible physical sensory awareness. Here are two studies containing fifteen NDEs with corroboration of the NDErs’ remote observations by others: E. W. Cook, B. Greyson, and I. Stevenson, “Do Any Near-Death Experiences Provide Evidence for the Survival of Human Personality After Death? Relevant Features and Illustrative Case Reports,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 12 (1998): 377–406; E. W. Kelly, B. Greyson, and I. Stevenson, “Can Experiences Near Death Furnish Evidence of Life After Death?” Omega 40, no. 4 (1999–2000): 513–19.
Chapter 5: Proof #3: Blind Sight
K. Ring and S. Cooper, “Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind: A Study of Apparent Eyeless Vision,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 16 (1998): 101–47. Results of this study were later presented in further detail: K. Ring and S. Cooper, Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind (Palo Alto, CA: William James Center for Consciousness Studies, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, 1999).
Ring and Cooper, Mindsight, 25.
Ring and Cooper, Mindsight, 46–47.
Ring and Cooper, Mindsight, 41–42.
Ring and Cooper, Mindsight, 151.
Ring and Cooper, Mindsight, 153.
Ring and Cooper, Mindsight, 157, 158, 163.
Chapter 6: Proof #4: Impossibly Conscious
B. Greyson, E. W. Kelly, and E. F. Kelly, “Explanatory Models for Near-Death Experiences,” in The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation, ed. J. Holden, B. Greyson, and D. James (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2009), 226.
J. C. Eccles, Evolution of the Brain, Creation of the Self (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), 241.
Awakening (full or partial) under general anesthesia probably occurs in 1 to 3 in 1,000 cases: T. Heier and P. Steen, “Awareness in Anaesthesia: Incidence, Consequences and Prevention,” Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica 40 (1996): 1073–86; R. H. Sandin, G. Enlund, P. Samuelsson, and C. Lennmarken, “Awareness During Anaesthesia: A Prospective Case Study,” Lancet 355 (2000): 707–11.
The experience of anesthesia awakening is very unlike what is described in NDEs: J. E. Osterman, J. Hopper, W. J. Heran, T. M. Keane, and B. A. van der Kolk, “Awareness Under Anesthesia and the Development of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” General Hospital Psychiatry 23 (2001): 198–204; P. H. Spitelli, M. A. Holmes, and K. B. Domino, “Awareness During Anesthesia,” Anesthesiology Clinics of North America 20 (2002): 555–70.
K. R. Nelson, M. Mattingley, S. A. Lee, and F. A. Schmitt, “Does the Arousal System Contribute to Near Death Experience?” Neurology 66 (2006): 1003–9.
J. Long and J. M. Holden, “Does the Arousal System Contribute
to Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences? A Summary and Response,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 25, no. 3 (2007): 135–69. This article is available through a link at http://www.nderf.org/evidence.
Eccles, Evolution of the Brain, Creation of the Self, 242.
Chapter 7: Proof #5: Perfect Playback
Personal communication from Raymond Moody, MD, to Paul Perry.
J. A. Long, “Life Review, Changed Beliefs, Universal Order and Purpose, and the Near-Death Experience: Part 4, Soulmates,” Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF), http://www.nderf.org/purpose_lifereview.htm.
S. Blackmore, Dying to Live: Near-Death Experiences (New York: Prometheus, 1993).
S. Blackmore, “Near-Death Experiences: In or Out of the Body?” Skeptical Inquirer 16 (1991): 34–45, available at Susan Blackmore’s website, http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Articles/si91nde.html.
E. W. Kelly, B. Greyson, and E. F. Kelly, “Unusual Experiences Near Death and Related Phenomena,” in E. F. Kelly, E. W. Kelly, A. Crabtree, A. Gauld, M. Grosso, and B. Greyson, Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 382.
Kelly, Greyson, and Kelly, “Unusual Experiences,” 382.
O. Blanke, S. Ortigue, T. Landis, and M. Seeck, “Stimulating Illusory Own Body Perceptions,” Nature 419 (2002): 269–70.
O. Blanke, T. Landis, L. Spinelli, and M. Seeck, “Out-of-Body Experience and Autoscopy of Neurological Origin,” Brain 127 (2004): 243–58.
J. Holden, J. Long, and J. MacLurg, “Out-of-Body Experiences: All in the Brain?” Journal of Near-Death Studies 25, no. 2 (2006): 99–107.
E. Rodin, “Comments on ‘A Neurobiological Model for Near-Death Experiences,’” Journal of Near-Death Studies 7 (1989): 256.
Studies document that experiences associated with electrical brain stimulation and seizures are unlike NDEs: P. Gloor, A. Olivier, L. F. Quesney, F. Andermann, and S. Horowitz, “The Role of the Limbic System in Experiential Phenomena of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy,” Annals of Neurology 12 (1982): 129–44; O. Devinsky, E. Feldmann, K. Burrowes, and E. Bromfield, “Autoscopic Phenomena with Seizures,” Archives of Neurology 46 (1989): 1080–88.
Chapter 8: Proof #6: Family Reunion
E. W. Kelly, “Near-Death Experiences with Reports of Meeting Deceased People,” Death Studies 25 (2001): 229–49.
In a large number of NDEs in the NDERF study, the NDEr encounters a being during the NDE that may seem familiar but that she or he does not recognize. The NDEr may later recognize the being they encountered as a deceased family member, often when looking at old family pictures after the NDE. This has been described by other NDE researchers: P. van Lommel, “About the Continuity of Our Consciousness,” in Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness, ed. C. Machado and D. A. Shewmon (New York: Springer, 2004), 115–32; E. F. Kelly, E. W. Kelly, A. Crabtree, A. Gauld, M. Grosso, and B. Greyson, Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 391.
In hallucinations, living people are more likely to be seen than deceased individuals: K. Osis and E. Haraldsson, At the Hour of Death (New York: Avon, 1977).
Chapter 9: Proof #7: From the Mouths of Babes
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Afterlife,” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/afterlife/.
Robert T. Carroll, “Near-Death Experience (NDE),” The Skeptic’s Dictionary: http://www.skepdic.com/nde.html.
C. Sutherland, ‘“Trailing Clouds of Glory’: The Near-Death Experiences of Western Children and Teens,” in The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation, ed. J. Holden, B. Greyson, and D. James (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2009), 92, 93.
Other studies found that childhood NDEs are far more similar to adult NDEs than dissimilar: International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS), “Children’s Near-Death Experiences,” http://www.iands.org/nde_index/ndes/child.html; J. Holden, J. Long, and J. MacLurg, “Characteristics of Western Near-Death Experiencers,” in The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation, ed. J. Holden, B. Greyson, and D. James (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2009).
Holden, Long, and MacLurg, “Characteristics of Western Near-Death Experiencers,” 114.
W. J. Serdahely, “A Comparison of Retrospective Accounts of Childhood Near-Death Experiences with Contemporary Pediatric Near-Death Experience Accounts,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 9 (1991): 219.
B. Greyson, “Consistency of Near-Death Experience Accounts over Two Decades: Are Reports Embellished over Time?” Resuscitation 73 (2007): 407–11.
P. van Lommel, R. van Wees, V. Meyers, and I. Elfferich, “Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands,” Lancet 358 (2001): 2039–45.
M. L. Morse and P. Perry, Transformed by the Light: The Powerful Effect of Near-Death Experiences on People’s Lives (New York: Villard Books, 1992).
Chapter 10: Proof #8: Worldwide Consistency
The distinction between Western and non-Western countries pertinent to the study of NDEs is presented here: J. Holden, J. Long, and J. MacLurg, “Characteristics of Western Near-Death Experiencers,” in The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation, ed. J. Holden, B. Greyson, and D. James (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2009), 110.
For an overview of prior non-Western NDE research and some of the methodological problems of studying non-Western NDEs, see A. Kellehear, “Census of Non-Western Near-Death Experiences to 2005: Observations and Critical Reflections,” in Handbook of Near-Death Experiences, ed. Holden, Greyson, and James.
Additional results and a more detailed discussion of the methodology from the NDERF cross-cultural study may be found at the link at http://www.nderf.org/evidence.
Kellehear, “Census of Non-Western Near-Death Experiences,” 150.
B. Greyson, E. W. Kelly, and E. F. Kelly, “Explanatory Models for Near-Death Experiences,” in Handbook of Near-Death Experiences, ed. Holden, Greyson, and James, 215.
Holden, Long, and MacLurg, “Characteristics of Western Near-Death Experiencers,” 132.
It is worth emphasizing how important further research will be in studying non-Western NDEs and for the cross-cultural study of NDEs in general. There is a need for further high-quality research that includes publication of representative cross-cultural NDE narratives. In addition, there needs to be standard questions about NDE content, such as the NDE Scale, with the questions carefully translated into a variety of non-English languages, as NDERF has done. There also needs to be an effort to determine if there was a life-threatening event at the time of the experience. I hope that future cross-cultural NDE studies will be able to access NDErs in a variety of ways to help assure that the NDErs studied are reasonably representative of all NDErs in a particular culture. And, of course, we need to study many more non-Western NDErs, prospectively if possible, to include specific non-Western countries and subcultures. Finding non-Western NDErs in societies that have little contact with other cultures will be especially challenging but also especially important.
The archive of non-Western NDEs at NDERF that were shared in English or translated into English is found at http://www.nderf.org/non_western_ndes.htm.
Chapter 11: Proof #9: Changed Lives
P. M. H. Atwater, The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences: The Ultimate Guide to What Happens When We Die (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing, 2007), 372.
One of the earliest studies of NDE aftereffects was by K. Ring, Heading Toward Omega: In Search of the Meaning of the Near-Death Experience (New York: William Morrow, 1984).
Two prospective studies of NDE in cardiac arrest survivors that assessed aftereffects were P. van Lommel, R. van Wees, V. Meyers, and I. Elfferich, “Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands,” Lancet 358 (2001): 2039–45; J. Schwaninger, P. Eisenberg, K. Schechtman, and A. Weiss, “A Prospective Analysis of Near Death Experiences in C
ardiac Arrest Patients,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 20 (2002): 215–32.
Three studies found an increase in aftereffects among NDErs whose experiences included more detailed content, or “depth.” In addition to van Lommel et al., “Survivors of Cardiac Arrest,” and Schwaninger et al., “Cardiac Arrest Patients,” see G. Groth-Marnat and R. Summers, “Altered Beliefs, Attitudes, and Behaviors Following Near-Death Experiences,” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 38, no. 3 (1998): 110–25.
P. van Lommel, “About the Continuity of Our Consciousness,” in Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness, ed. C. Machado and D. A. Shewmon (New York: Springer, 2004), 118.
B. Greyson, “Near-Death Experiences and Anti-suicidal Attitudes,” Omega 26 (1992–93): 81–89.
D. H. Rosen, “Suicide Survivors: A Follow-Up Study of Persons Who Survived Jumping from the Golden Gate and San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridges,” Western Journal of Medicine 122 (1975): 291.
P. Sartori, P. Badham, and P. Fenwick, “A Prospectively Studied Near-Death Experience with Corroborated Out-of-Body Perceptions and Unexplained Healing,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 25 (2006): 69–84.
Scholarly literature discussing psychic NDE aftereffects includes R. L. Kohr, “Near-Death Experience and Its Relationship to Psi and Various Altered States,” Theta 10 (1982): 50–53; R. L. Kohr, “Near-Death Experiences, Altered States, and Psi Sensitivity,” Anabiosis: The Journal for Near-Death Studies 3 (1983): 157–76; B. Greyson, “Increase in Psychic Phenomena Following Near-Death Experiences,” Theta 11 (1983): 26–29; C. Sutherland, “Psychic Phenomena Following Near-Death Experiences: An Australian Study,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 8 (1989): 93–102.
Personal communication from anonymous near-death experiencer to Paul Perry.
Some of the studies that found NDErs have a decreased fear of death include R. Moody, Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon; The Survival of Bodily Death (Atlanta: Mockingbird Books, 1975); B. Greyson, “Reduced Death Threat in Near-Death Experiencers,” Death Studies 16 (1992): 523–36; and P. van Lommel, R. van Wees, V. Meyers, and I. Elfferich, “Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands,” Lancet 358 (2001): 2039–45.