A near-death experience (NDE) is a profound event reported by people who have come close to death — during cardiac arrest, surgery, a serious accident, or another life-threatening crisis. Though NDEs are reported across cultures, medical settings, and belief systems, many experiencers have never spoken about it, unsure of how it will be received. Individuals that have a NDE are often referred to as “NDE’rs.”
What Is a Near-Death Experience?
There’s no single, universally agreed-upon definition, but researchers generally describe an NDE as a profound subjective experience occurring in the context of actual or perceived nearness to death, often marked by a cluster of distinctive features that set it apart from ordinary memory or dreaming.
One generally accepted definition of Near-Death Experience (NDE) is the reported memory of a range of impressions during a special state of consciousness, including a number of unique elements such as an out-of-body experience (OBE), pleasant feelings, seeing a tunnel, a light, deceased relatives, or a life review, and a conscious return into the body (van Lommel, P. , 2017) According to Dr. Pim van Lommel, a pioneer in the research on NDE, the experience can occur during a variety of circumstances; however they tend to occur most frequently During cardiac arrest (clinical death), shock after loss of blood (complicated childbirth), traumatic brain injury or stroke, near-drowning (children), or asphyxia, but NDE-like experiences are also reported during serious illnesses that are not immediately life-threatening, during isolation, depression, or meditation, or without any obvious reason (van Lommel, P., 2017).
Experiences similar to NDE’s, according to van Lommel, can occur during the terminal stages of invariably fatal illnesses and are called “deathbed visions”or “end-of-life experiences,” and imply the possibility that these experiences occur while a brain is still functioning and not necessarily as an individual is on a trajectory toward death. As medical science makes significant advances in resuscitative medicine and the ability to keep patients alive during such critical medical conditions such as cardiac arrest and cerebral trauma, near-death experiences ostensibly are occurring with increasing frequency.
Common Sequelae of NDE’rs Generally Regarded as Positive
Not every experiencer reports every feature, and experiences vary widely — but are usually transformational in the sense that the experiencers commonly report elements including:
- The loss of a fear of death
- profound changes to one’s perspective on life
- enhanced intuitive sensibility
- new paranormal abilities not seen prior to the experience
These characteristics are also referred to as spiritually transformative experiences (STE).
Another astonishing aspect of NDE is the remarkable consistency in content seen in NDE’rs report the content of their experiences, with consistency appearing to occur across time periods of experience, geography, age, and culture.
This content includes but is not exclusive to the following traits:
- A sense of peace, calm, or the absence of pain, even during a medical crisis
- A sensation of leaving or floating above the physical body
- Moving through darkness or a tunnel, often toward a light
- Encountering deceased loved ones, other beings, or a presence
- A life review — reliving or witnessing significant moments from one’s life
- A sense of arriving at a boundary or “point of no return”
- A feeling that the experience is more vivid or “more real” than ordinary consciousness, and ineffable in description (difficult to put into words).
How Common Are They?
Research estimates vary depending on the population studied and how an NDE is defined, but a meaningful minority of people who survive a close brush with death — cardiac arrest in particular — report an experience matching this pattern. NDEs are also reported in non-life-threatening circumstances, such as intense fear or grief, though these are studied somewhat separately.
Are NDEs Real?
Researchers disagree about what near-death experiences ultimately are — whether they reflect a discrete physiological event in a dying or stressed brain, a spiritual or transcendent reality, or something not yet well understood by either framework. That disagreement is unlikely to be settled soon, and reasonable, well-informed people land in different places on it.
What isn’t in serious dispute is the psychological impact. Whatever an NDE ultimately is, the experience is consistently reported as real, vivid, and often life-changing by the people who have one — and that impact deserves to be taken seriously on its own terms, independent of how the metaphysical question eventually settles.
Research Tools: The Greyson Scale and NDE-C
Two validated instruments are widely used in NDE research to help identify and characterize these experiences: the Greyson NDE Scale, developed at the University of Virginia, and the more recent NDE-C Scale. You can read more about each on our research pages, or see the fuller overview on our Near-Death Experiences Research page.
If You’ve Had a Near-Death Experience
If any of this resonates with something you’ve lived through, you’re not alone, and you don’t need to have the right words for it. You’re welcome to share your story with us, confidentially and at your own pace.
If Someone You Love Had One
Family members and friends often aren’t sure how to respond when someone close to them shares an NDE. The most helpful stance is usually simple: listen without rushing to explain, reassure, or dismiss. If you’re looking for more on what a person may be experiencing in the aftermath, and how you can support them, take a look at our page on what happens after an NDE.
