Near death experiences refer to special states of consciousness in which people believe they have been close to death or have already crossed the threshold to death. In fact, many of those affected found themselves in a situation that threatened their lives immediately – for example through a circulatory collapse.
Table of Contents
- Look into the hereafter?
- “Interviews with the dying”
- What are the causes?
- Christian esoteric perspectives
- Stimulus processing?
- When do near-death experiences occur?
- One affected person reports
- Mystical experiences
- Out of body experiences
- Testimonials
- Extraordinary experience
- Trance and dissociation
- Lack of oxygen
- The interpretation is culture-dependent
- No direct danger of death
- What does brain research say?
- What do the religions say?
- What does neurobiology say?
Look into the hereafter?
“All of a sudden I recognized the whole thing and had the feeling: ‘I’ve been here before’. (…) I had the feeling that the way through the gate would mean my final physical death. Knowing that I now have the chance to return with the insight that this state of being is a reality that is experienced more real than anything we understand by it here, and with the thought of my young wife and my three small children, I made my decision to return ”(From: Pim von Lommel / Endless Consciousness).
Many near-death sufferers report a bright light at the end of a tunnel. (Image: brueggerart / fotolia.com)
Others, however, who report similar experiences, were not near death but had an epileptic seizure, suffered a traumatic experience, or actively induced this altered consciousness – through meditation.
Esoteric authors see near-death experiences as evidence of life after death and pick out certain features of these experiences that they see as evidence: seeing one’s own body from the outside, beings that appear, a tunnel that those affected see and a unearthly light ”.
Critical researchers emphasize, however, that neither these beings nor the view into a tunnel or the overwhelming light appear to most people who have these experiences and interpret these imagery as self-produced. Neurobiologists soberly view near-death experiences as symptoms that certain functions of the brain are temporarily idle.
Accordingly, near-death experiences are comparable to a shock, a post-traumatic stress disorder , a trance or an anesthetic.
“Interviews with the dying”
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross made a name for herself in the German gossip press since she published “Near Death Reports” in 1969 in “Interviews with the dying”. She claimed that many of the people on the verge of death had similar experiences: separating from their bodies, looking back at their own lives, traveling through a tunnel and having a fulfilling light.
The Christian Raymond A. Moody sent a similar message of salvation into the world with “Life after death” in 1975: After death it goes on, and dying is beautiful.
Moody and Kübler-Ross were both believers and looked for exactly what fit into their religious stuff. Hubert Knoblauch, a sociologist, examined so-called near-death experiences without these esoteric-ideological glasses.
He interviewed over 2000 people about their experiences near death. The results were completely different from those of the two religious heralds of salvation: they could not be generalized. After all, 60% of East Germans and 30% of West Germans had terrible experiences.
According to the sociologist Hubert Knoblauch, how the afterlife is experienced depends on the cultural background of the person concerned. (Image: sunnychicka / fotolia.com)
Knoblauch could not confirm the beautiful death, who adheres to certain rules. Knoblauch’s conclusion was clear: “The whole structure of the afterlife that is encountered in the near-death experience is of course from this world”. In other words, how a person experiences this state depends on the culture in which they grew up.
The patients examined by Moody all came from the same Christian fundamentalist milieu as he, and his questions were suggestive. His “research” had nothing to do with science, but with the proclamation of faith.
What are the causes?
The causes of the altered consciousness have long been the subject of research. In a study in the 1990s, scientists examined possible changes in the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the brain.
In 1994, doctors at the Virchow Clinic made subjects breathe hastily and then fainted. The healthy clients showed similar images to near-death experiences: They saw their lives go by “like in a film” and thought they were leaving their bodies.
The psychic experience of leaving the body is also a core experience of the shamanic journey that a shaman embarks on in a non-everyday state of consciousness. He goes into a trance by fasting, drumming, drugs or dancing.
A core element of this psychic journey is the experience of a tunnel, behind which the entrance to an invisible world is hidden, which can be as full of wonder as it is terrible. Shamans also believe that their body “dies” while they are in this “other world”.
Shamans are in a state in which brain functions are changing, but usually not in a situation that is close to physical death.
For the near death experience, however, it is important that shamans also believe that on their journey into a hereafter, i.e. a world of the dead, they will penetrate and come into contact with the spirits of their ancestors.
Neurobiology has since found out that these experiences are not just spinning, but that the trance, similar to hallucinogens, actually produces visual worlds that resemble those of a dream. The difference to drug intoxication, however, is that the shaman recalls his experiences in detail. This is exactly what applies to near-death experiences.
Oxygen deficiency was not the cause of the experiences in patients with cardiac arrest; instead, seven of those affected who reported a near-death experience had even higher oxygen concentrations than patients without such an experience.
According to a study, the detailed memories of those affected show that near-death experiences are not hallucinations. (Image: vchalup / fotolia.com)
The near-death imaginations could not be explained as hallucinations either. The senior physician, Dr. Sam Parnia from Stony Brook Medical Center in New York emphasized: “All patients were able to remember what they had experienced very precisely and in great detail. That does not indicate hallucinations. ”
The body’s own substances obviously influence the near-death experience – but not only in the face of real death. The dying often report an overwhelming feeling of happiness. But what Christians and esotericists present as “proof” of an afterlife, turns out to be a push of the organism to survive.
People experience the same feelings of happiness in extreme situations, when they are on the verge of physical strain. Even more: for many marathon runners, the euphoria that sets in after running many kilometers is the reason why they take on this exertion.
People who are critically injured in a car accident, who are about to freeze to death, free climbers who climb an overhang, bungee jumpers or drowning people all report a state of bliss that just sets in at the height of the stress.
Victims of torture also know the experience that their minds detach themselves from their bodies and they no longer notice the pain. Agents even train themselves to consciously learn such states.
Instead of looking into the hereafter, the body is really concerned with this world: the brain releases more happiness hormones so that people in need survive the dangerous situation.
Scientists see so-called near-death experiences not as a single phenomenon, but as different experiences that have to be explained in different ways, but all of which cause the brain to release special substances to a high degree and block others.
From a Christian esoteric point of view, one of the elements of the near-death experience is the feeling of leaving one’s own body. (Image: Spectral-Design / fotolia.com)
Christian esoteric perspectives
One of the bestsellers in religiously inspired NDE literature is American fundamentalist Christian Raymond Moody. He systematically divides the near-death experiences into twelve elements:
- The unspeakable of experience.
- A feeling of peace and calm. The pain is gone.
- The knowledge of being dead. Sometimes a noise can be heard afterwards.
- A leaving the body or an out of body experience (OFS). Your own resuscitation or operation is perceived from a position outside and above your own body.
- Staying in a dark room at the end of which there is a small spot of light to which the dying person is drawn: the tunnel experience. They are drawn towards the light at high speed, which is very bright but not dazzling.
- Perception of an otherworldly environment, a wonderful landscape with wonderful colors, beautiful flowers and sometimes music.
- Encounters and communication with the deceased.
- Encounter with a radiant light or a being made of light. The experience of complete acceptance and unconditional love. One comes into contact with deep knowledge and wisdom.
- Life view, life panorama or review of the course of life since birth. Everything is lived through again. You see all of life in a single moment, there is neither time nor distance, everything is at the same time, you can talk for days about this view of life, which only lasted a few minutes.
- Foresight. One has the feeling of surveying and contemplating a part of life that lies ahead. Again, there is neither time nor distance.
- Perceiving a limit. One recognizes that after crossing this limit, it is no longer possible to return to one’s own body.
- The conscious return to the body. It takes a lot of effort to leave these beautiful surroundings again. After returning to the sick body, one feels deeply disappointed that something so wonderful has been stolen from one.
Moody describes: “A person is dying. As his physical distress approaches its climax, he overhears the doctor pronouncing him dead. Suddenly he perceives an unpleasant noise, a piercing ringing or humming, and at the same time he has the feeling. that he moves very quickly through a long, dark tunnel. ”
The Christian author explains how the soul seems to leave the body: “Then suddenly it is outside of its body, but in the same environment as before. As if he were an observer, he is now looking at his own body from a distance. Deeply disturbed in his feelings, he witnessed the resuscitation attempts from this strange observation post. ”
For some sufferers, the entire life happens in time lapse in front of the inner eye. (Image: okunsto / fotolia.com)
Stimulus processing?
Richard Kinseher, on the other hand, does not see NDEs as a dying process, but as stimulus processing in the brain.
He writes:
- In the context of NDEs, ‘out-of-body experiences’ with detailed perception of the environment are also reported: In order to be able to have sensory perception, the sensory organs must first be functional so that sensory stimuli can be registered. Then these stimuli have to be sent to the brain for further processing via nerve conduction. And only then – in the brain – does sense perception arise.
- According to my explanatory model, with NDEs you can consciously experience how a single stimulus is processed by the brain – a unique phenomenon. This makes it possible to understand how the brain processes stimuli, how experiences are stored and remembered. Here one could learn to understand the basic workings of the brain.
- According to my explanatory model, NDEs show how memory processes take place or how a virtual simulation is created by the brain (OBE). In the ‘The AWARE Study’, which has been running since 2008, the aim is to research NDEs as processes of dying – ie meaningless research is carried out on patients. If this delays treatment, it would be personal injury from questionable research.
- With NDEs, it becomes clear how memory processes take place. Because people are getting older and therefore suffer from diseases that impair memory (dementia, Alzheimer’s disease), every opportunity should be used to understand how the brain works – so that potentially useful therapies against forgetting can be developed.
When do near-death experiences occur?
1.) Cardiac arrest in patients with a heart attack or severe cardiac arrhythmias
2.) Coma due to brain damage in a traffic accident or cerebral hemorrhage
3.) Coma when people almost drown
4.) In the event of respiratory arrest or sugar coma
5.) In the event of unconsciousness due to low blood pressure – Shock
6.) With allergies
7.) With severe sepsis
8.) During anesthesia
9.) During an electric shock
For example, near-death experiences can occur during anesthesia.
In all of these situations, brain functions are temporarily out of order.
However, near-death experiences also occur without the brain functions being damaged:
1.) For illnesses with high fever
2.) With dehydration and hypothermia
3.) With depression and psychological crises
5.) With meditation, trance and ecstasy
6.) Spontaneous without any recognizable cause
7.) In situations of fear of death – not necessarily more real Close to death, for example when a truck drives in front of the car while aquaplaning, or when we slip while climbing a mountain
One affected person reports
“A few weeks ago I went to a hospital outpatient department after a harmless traffic accident due to neck pain and cervical spine syndrome . Despite the advice of a nurse, I did not want to lie down there, although I felt dizzy, which unfortunately resulted in a fall and an artery in my nose. What followed then slowly came back to my mind over the last few weeks. ”
In the operating room, the patient suffered a cardiac arrest : “Since there was massive shock and circulatory problems anyway and I actually reacted allergically, a cardiac arrest followed with resuscitation, which thank God !! was successful. I noticed a lot from this phase, the counting during the chest compressions, the putting on of the defibrillator and voices. Partly like in a dream, partly totally distant, partly totally factual. I got cold, and I went through the tunnel to the light, which has so often been described, saw dead relatives. ”
She describes an experience that esotericists see as evidence of the existence of an afterlife: “But I also heard a voice that asked me to come back. That told me what else I want to do in life, how great life is. As I found out in retrospect, it was the emergency doctor who was still present in the shock room. ”
She actively returned to life: “There was a moment when I realized (as clearly as it is subconsciously) that I was at the limit and how much I want to live. And it went back with the help of the doctors. ”
Like many other people affected, this borderline experience was a turning point for them to take life more seriously than before: “Life is a gift. I used to like to live, but only now have I seen how strong my will to live was. The doctors told me afterwards that I fought quite a bit. Don’t throw it away lightly, it’s always worth it. ”
The borderline experience leads many of those affected to then live more consciously and intensely. (Image: Denis Rozhnovsky / fotolia.com)
Mystical experiences
Near-death experiences show many elements, which are also reported by people who have had mystical experiences: a positive-sacred mood, a feeling of intense reality, the experience of a feeling of unity, the transcendence of time and space, a fleeting experience, speechlessness about the sensations and paradoxes Happenings.
Mystical and near-death experiences also have in common that many of those affected then attach greater importance to questions of meaning than before and deal intensively with religious and philosophical questions.
Science and religion answer this overlap between near death and mysticism differently. Religious authoritarians see evidence that the mystics look into the hereafter and that those who experience near death get an insight into life after death. In other words, you consider such experiences to be independent of the brain and body.
Agnostics, on the other hand, see these experiences as subjective and explain the interpretations as conditioned by socialization and culture.
Psychology, psychiatry and neurophysiology also know classic elements of near-death experience such as stepping out of the body and see this depersonalization as a biological process. There are autoscopic hallucinations, for example, in which someone sees an image of themselves outside of their own body. A basic pattern of optical hallucinations is the tunnel, which is documented by near-death experiences as well as shamanic journeys.
Out of body experiences
Out-of-body experiences are similar to near-death experiences in many ways, varying in length and duration. Those affected believe that they are detached from their body, a unit of their body, even if they are paralyzed or limbs have been amputated.
They feel no pain, believe they can float and glide through the air, they feel invisible and mean that they can see from a 360 degree angle. They believe they can slide through walls, people or ceilings.
These similarities suggest that in near-death experiences, certain areas of the brain are activated and others are paralyzed. Out-of-body experiences do not only occur in experiences close to death, but rather during meditation, with migraines and vascular brain damage, but also in the “aura” that precedes an epileptic attack.
Near-death experienced report of these AKEs, but also hypnotized and ecstatic people, LSD users as well as people under the influence of psilocybin or mescaline. In many cultures, consciously bringing about AKEs is considered the shaman’s “tool of the trade”.
Meditation enables out-of-body experiences. (Image: Coka / fotolia.com)
Testimonials
A victim shares an out-of-body experience that he did not associate with death:
“When I was about 10 years old, I lived with my older brother in the house of my uncle, who was a major in the US Army Medical Corps. One evening I was lying awake on my bed looking at the beams of the old Spanish building that housed the living quarters. I asked myself a few questions about what I was doing there and who I was. Suddenly I get up from the bed and go to the next room. Then I felt a strange feeling of weightlessness and a strange happy mixture of feelings. I turned on the spot to go back to bed when, to my amazement, I saw myself lying in bed. This surprising experience at this young age gave me a kind of jolt that shook me back into my body, so to speak. ”
He experienced both the feeling of happiness and “seeing his body from the outside”, as in the reports of near-death experiences.
Another affected person tells even more clearly how he left his body:
“I woke up around 3 a.m. I meditated briefly while lying down and then fell asleep again. A short time later, while I was still falling asleep, I clearly and consciously felt a kind of detachment of my body. It felt like a gentle floating back and forth. I still remember that I was surprised by the ease with which it was detached. I floated on my back from my bed over my wife’s and then slowly turned around and looked down at my EMPTY bed. ”
The out-of-body experience with an NDE reads very similarly: “I saw the room of the children’s ward from above: the cots, my mother at my bed and my shape (indistinct). (…) It seemed to me that I should hold back my strength and creativity. – The fact was that after this clear experience I took up contact with my body again. For a while I felt myself around and body at the same time. I experienced the hospital room like my own “body.” And when I noticed the pain of another crying mother who stayed overnight with her terminally ill child, it hurt me everywhere. ”
Out-of-body experiences are also associated with so-called true dreams. One affected person reports:
“Then it suddenly changed again when my son was 1.5 years old. He was pretty sick and I always worried that, despite the baby monitor, I might not hear him at night if something was wrong with him. It was very strange, almost like the first time, my son started to cry and suddenly I was in his room, he was sitting in his bed. I wanted to comfort him but it didn’t work and then I suddenly “woke up” and heard over the baby monitor that he was really crying and went into his room. He was sitting in his bed exactly as I had seen him shortly before. Then I realized that it couldn’t have been a dream. ”
Extraordinary experience
The imagery of near-death experiences partly coincides with lucid dreams, the illusory consciousness (oneiroid syndrome) and a loss of consciousness triggered by centrifugal force.
Trance and dissociation
In a dissociative trance, those affected lose the feeling of personal identity, their consciousness is narrowed to certain stimuli. Movement and language are reduced to repeating the same actions over and over again.
Trance of possession leads to the fact that the actors temporarily assume another identity which they ascribe to a spirit or God.
Psychologists describe the perception that the personality is being detached from the body as a dissociative experience.
Lack of oxygen
Research has shown that in some near-death experiences, there was a lack of oxygen or an excess of carbon dioxide in the brain. Artificially induced impotence led in many cases to out-of-body experiences, as well as feelings of peace and happiness , painlessness, light phenomena, an otherworld, mythical creatures and tunnel experiences .
The interpretation is culture-dependent
The sociologist Knobloch conducted a comprehensive study of near-death experiences and found that the experiences of the afterlife claimed by Christian esotericists like Moody were not at all a common characteristic – the reports rather reflected diverse biographical, cultural and social influences.
No direct danger of death
Near-death experience is a term that is easily misleading, as Garlic found that less than half of those affected were actually at risk of death. Conversely, very few of those questioned by him who were actually on the verge of death reported such an experience. Sociology therefore speaks of the near-death experience.
Knoblauch emphasizes: “Contrary to the common claim of a constant structure, there was a very large variety in terms of content elements.”
Conclusion: There are hardly any generally applicable elements. On the contrary, typical culture-related patterns show up: angels or grim reapers.
The anthropologist Hans Peter Duerr explains: “To believe that such abilities or conditions sometimes detach themselves from the organism and, for example, could go somewhere through a tunnel, is as pointless as the idea that one can knock a thought flat with a hammer.”
What does brain research say?
Neuroscientists believe that experience of near death is the brain’s ability to make sense of chaotic processes.
What do the religions say?
Shamanic cultures take it for granted that the soul detaches itself from the body. Jakob Ozols sums it up as follows: “After death, the soul figure separates from the body and continues its own life, largely separate from the body. However, she keeps going back to the skeleton, and especially the skull, to rest. In the case of the living it leaves the head only at night or in extraordinary situations, such as sudden shock, serious illness or in special conditions such as trance and ecstasy. The shape of the soul must not remain long. If it does not return soon, the person becomes ill, he is exposed to many dangers, and if the soul is absent for a longer period he even has to die. ”
The mythical religions of antiquity already refer to the paradisiacal elements that appear in some near-death experiences. The Sumerian myth of Gilgamesh tells: “After a long time, behind the seas at the end of the world, he reaches the Chubur river, the last frontier before the realm of the dead. Gilgamesh left the world and crawled through an endless dark tunnel. It was a long, uncomfortable walk … but in the end he saw light at the end of the dark tube. He came to the exit of the tunnel and saw a beautiful garden. The trees wore pearls and jewels, and a wonderful light emanated its rays over everything. Gilgamesh wanted to stay in the other world. But the sun god sent him back into his life through the tunnel. ”
Plato wrote about an experience on the border to death: “After he had left the body, he came to a place on the other side, which was criss-crossed by four huge caves … (Then) at the exit from the underworld he saw ‘impure and polluted souls’ ; but on the way that led down from heaven, pure and purified souls. They all lay down in a meadow and reported to each other their experiences in the respective place from which they came … (those) who had descended from heaven spoke of the immeasurable joy and bliss that was bestowed upon them there. ”
Visions of light can also occur independently of near-death experiences. (Image: sdecoret / fotolia.com)
What does neurobiology say?
The neurologist Dr. Birk Engmann from Leipzig says clearly: “Such experiences do not only occur after a clinical death, but also in everyday life, with diseases such as epilepsy or when someone misuses drugs. So different things in the brain can trigger the same reactions. I had a client who talked about visions of light and said they had a near-death experience. It turned out that he had never been clinically dead in his life. ”
According to Engmann, the term is wrong in common usage: “Near death is used when someone has survived a clinical death. It is not exactly clear what causes these symptoms, especially in clinical death. One cannot investigate near-death phenomena exactly at the moment when they are likely to occur, i.e. when brain death has just occurred. ”
The neurologist explains: “If someone is clinically dead, that is, the heart stops, then blood no longer circulates through the body. Because of this, all organs are no longer supplied with enough oxygen and nutrients, especially sugar. The brain can only do without oxygen for about five minutes, after which nerve cells die. Then there is irreversible damage and ultimately brain death. If the brain does not get enough oxygen in near death, it can no longer function properly: signals are no longer transmitted correctly. ”
But what does that say about the experiences that those affected tell in shimmering colors. Engmann explains: “For example, light visions can arise in the occipital lobe that processes visual input even though there is no light. Out-of-body experiences, on the other hand, are likely to arise in the area of the parietal and temporal lobes, because these brain regions are important for experiencing one’s own body and its spatial location. But that stops when you have survived near death and enough oxygen arrives in the brain again. ”
The neurologist Prof. Dr. Dr. Wilfried Kuhn from Schweinfurt identifies NDEs with seven characteristics: awareness close to death, experience, tunnel phenomenon, life review, extrasensory perceptions, spiritual transformation, difference from hallucinations.
