Near-death experiences

No two accounts are identical, and no single feature appears in all of them. The features that recur most are:

• A sense of peace and the absence of pain
• A sense of leaving the body, sometimes with a view of the scene from above
• Movement through darkness or a tunnel toward light
• Meeting deceased relatives or other presences
• A review of one's life
• Reaching a border or limit, and returning

Bruce Greyson turned these into a sixteen-item questionnaire, the NDE Scale, which is the standard research instrument.^[2]

They are common. In a prospective study of 344 cardiac arrest survivors in Dutch hospitals, Pim van Lommel and colleagues found that 18 percent reported an NDE.^[3] In the AWARE study, about 9 percent of the survivors who completed in-depth interviews did.^[4]

They are not explained by any single medical factor yet identified. In the Dutch study, the length of the cardiac arrest, the medication given, and fear of death beforehand did not predict who had an experience.

They change people. Follow-up studies find lasting effects: less fear of death, more interest in meaning and in other people, and less interest in status and possessions. These changes are larger than in survivors who had no NDE.^[3][5]

Not all are pleasant. A minority of experiences are frightening or distressing.

• Cause. Researchers disagree about whether NDEs can be fully explained by brain processes. See Skeptical accounts of near-death experiences.
• Accurate perception. Some people report seeing or hearing things during resuscitation that they could not have perceived normally. A few such reports have been corroborated by staff. Attempts to test this under controlled conditions, using hidden targets visible only from above, have not produced a confirmed case.^[4]
• Culture. The broad themes appear across cultures, while details vary. The tunnel and the life review are less common in some non-Western accounts.^[6]

The framework takes NDEs to be what they appear to be: a glimpse of consciousness continuing apart from the body. The Bridge draws on the work of Greyson and van Lommel, and puts particular weight on the after-effects. It also describes an NDE as a shortcut to knowledge that most people must take on faith.^[7]

The research supports the claims that the experiences occur, share features, and transform those who have them. It does not settle what they are. See Convergent testimony as a method.

1. Moody, R. A. (1975). Life after life. Mockingbird Books.
2. Greyson, B. (1983). The near-death experience scale: Construction, reliability, and validity. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 171(6), 369-375.
3. van Lommel, P., van Wees, R., Meyers, V., & Elfferich, I. (2001). Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: A prospective study in the Netherlands. The Lancet, 358(9298), 2039-2045.
4. Parnia, S., Spearpoint, K., de Vos, G., Fenwick, P., Goldberg, D., Yang, J., et al. (2014). AWARE: AWAreness during REsuscitation. A prospective study. Resuscitation, 85(12), 1799-1805.
5. Greyson, B. (2021). After: A doctor explores what near-death experiences reveal about life and beyond. St. Martin's Essentials.
6. Kellehear, A. (1996). Experiences near death: Beyond medicine and religion. Oxford University Press.
7. Ryan, J. C., & The Source of Aletheia Coordinating Council. (2026). The Bridge: Spiritual awakening handbook. The Source of Aletheia International Institute.