What People Commonly Report During a Near-Death Experience

A near-death experience is something a person reports after coming close to death. Some people describe them as the most vivid events of their lives. Researchers have recently begun to study them more carefully. This article describes what survivors say, without arguing for or against any explanation.

What do people report?

A few themes come up again and again. MDedge reports on the AWARE II study, which found that survivors’ accounts included a perception of separation from one’s body, observing events without pain or distress, and an awareness and meaningful evaluation of life, including their actions, intentions, and thoughts toward others.

Medical News Today describes a second part of the study, in which 126 cardiac arrest survivors gave self-reports. Five themes emerged. Some people recalled feeling the impact of CPR on their bodies or hearing the medical team talk. Others recalled events in the intensive care unit afterward. Others described an experience of death itself: some felt they were heading toward a destination, and others underwent an evaluation of their lives.

How do researchers measure them?

With a standard scale. Medical News Today says the AWARE II researchers asked open-ended questions about patients’ experiences and then used a 16-item near-death scale. They concluded that there is a distinct “recalled experience of death” that differs from other experiences people have in hospitals.

How common are they?

Not rare, but not universal. In the first AWARE study, PulmCCM reports, 9 of the 140 survivors interviewed described near-death experiences. In AWARE II, 21 percent of the 28 interviewed survivors described a transcendent experience of death, and 39 percent recalled something from the arrest. Freethink reports the study’s lead, Dr. Sam Parnia, saying that around one in five survivors of CPR may have a near-death experience. These numbers come from small groups, since few people survive cardiac arrest.

What do researchers disagree about?

What the experiences mean. Dr. Parnia has said these lucid experiences should not be dismissed as a trick of a disordered or dying brain, and that they may reflect something people share. PulmCCM comments that there is no reason to disbelieve them, but that they would be more convincing if linked to brain recordings showing consciousness during the arrest. An outside expert told MDedge it is very hard to say whether there is conscious perception. Researchers also say the long-term psychological effects of these experiences on survivors should be tracked.

How do faith traditions understand them?

In different ways. See How Different Faith Traditions Interpret Near-Death Experiences.

Where can I learn more?

See What Happens to Consciousness During Cardiac Arrest? for the research, and Clinical Death vs. Biological Death for the medicine.