Everything You Need to Know About Near-Death Experiences: Definition, Explanation, Spiritual Meaning
Near-death experiences or borderline death experiences are a phenomenon experienced during clinical death or deep coma. Following this, people have found themselves leaving their bodies and living through different stages which then profoundly changed their existence. These experiences lived and reported with precision and detail by tens of thousands of people, from all origins, represent an enigma for science. Touching on the scientific mysteries that are death and consciousness, they also raise questions for philosophy, religion, and psychology. These experiences of heightened consciousness lived in a state where the person was "unconscious" arouse keen interest from the general public as well as the scientific community. Indeed, these experiences testify to a possibility of life, or at least of consciousness, after death.
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What is a Near-Death Experience?
Definition
A near-death experience (NDE) is a phenomenon experienced by a person on the occasion of a severe traumatic event (clinical death, advanced coma, etc.). Several names exist, seeking to best define this phenomenon: borderline death experience, temporary death experience (TDE), approaching death experience (ADE), death-return experience, and in English: Near-death experience (NDE).
In 1975, the psychiatrist Raymond Moody, author of the bestseller Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon—Survival of Bodily Death, defined NDE as: "Any conscious perceptual experience occurring in individuals declared clinically dead or having come very close to physical death."
Explanation
On the occasion of an accident or illness, declared clinically dead for a few minutes, or plunged into a state of advanced coma, some people will enter a new state of consciousness, not linked to the body. In this state, they will experience important events, visit new places, feel sensations difficult to express in words, and have surprising and unexpected encounters. Once resuscitated, these people testify about their experience. Many precise sensory details specify these experiences. Scientific studies grouping subjects of very diverse origins (differences in country, culture, religion, educational and social level, etc.) show certain similarities between experiences but also divergences.
What Do People See During Near-Death Experiences?
Each person who has experienced an NDE describes it in a unique way; however, some common characteristics can be distinguished through the accounts. Here are the classic stages of NDEs:
Out-of-body phenomenon: leaving the body and sensation of floating above. People indicate having left their body, which they could see from the outside (below or beside) without being able to move it but as a spectator of the scene.
Vision of a tunnel of light into which the subject is drawn towards a very bright light.
At the end of the tunnel, encounter with deceased loved ones, beings of light, angels or spiritual entities, or even Jesus in person.
Feeling of love, peace, communion, and well-being.
Accelerated but extremely complete and precise vision of one's entire past life, like in a film with emphasis on the good and bad actions performed.
Painful and unpleasant reintegration into one's body.
How to Explain Near-Death Experiences?
What Does Science Say?
Many scientific studies are conducted today to understand and explain the phenomenon of NDEs. The scientific community considers the neurological (organic) approach, supposing that NDEs reflect the physiological mechanisms implemented in cases of severe stress or when the brain is dying. Some studies mention the possibility of a sensory hallucination, linked to a past experience. It could be that certain brain structures continue to function for a few minutes after clinical death or before falling into a coma. Thus, people experiencing NDEs would only see mental reconstructions of what they know and are fond of. These hypotheses are quite insufficient to explain the entirety of NDEs. Indeed, concrete testimonies invalidate these fragments of explanation.
Inexplicable Facts During NDEs
Very often, NDE testimonies are incompatible with scientific explanations.
It is common for people who have experienced an NDE to recount in minute detail a medical operation they underwent, reporting numerous dialogues they could neither see nor hear in the state they were in (brain disconnected, flat EEG). Other NDEs have revealed family secrets such as the existence of an unknown sibling.
All this indicates that the spirit might remain active without the help of the body, deeply challenging the dependence of consciousness on the body.
Spiritual Meaning of NDEs
NDEs and Spiritual Life
NDEs fundamentally alter the value system, inevitably leading the one who experienced it to a life change. This very strong and unforgettable experience leads to a change in worldview, a different understanding of the universe, and the disappearance of the fear of death. Often, materialistic attitudes and the pursuit of social and financial success transform into a need to help others. The chance of experiencing an NDE does not depend at all on religious orientation; however, many studies indicate an increase in religious feeling after the experience.
NDEs and Christian Faith
Near-death experiences, far from being in opposition to the Christian faith, confirm what Catholic teaching says about death and its aftermath. For example, the fact that "God is love" (1 Jn 4:8) and that Christ is "the life" (Jn 11:25) and "the Light [that] enlightens everyone" (Jn 1:9). It is striking to note the surprising convergence between NDE accounts and the Catholic faith: death is only a passage, the soul is eternal, it has a destiny that depends on the life each person has lived (Paradise, Purgatory, Hell), after death each person lives their particular judgment, etc.
However, NDEs do not reveal everything about man's destiny because they are an experience at the threshold of death and not after death.
Negative NDEs
It is estimated that 5 to 15% of NDEs involve negative experiences. In these cases, people report a frightening experience with visions of flames or dark waters and distressing aspects (sufferings, screams, howls, nothingness, void, hell). Negative NDEs are less well documented because those who experience them, very shocked, do not easily confide.
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