Features of Near Death Experiences
Article 2, NDE series
Let’s take a closer look at a typical NDE experience!
What pattern of perceptions, feelings and cognitive1 experiences does someone
coming close to death or in a situation of physical or emotional crisis,
experience?
In another article2, we mentioned that the person to
first study this phenomenon has been Raymond Moody. He found that although the
circumstances that may lead people to have a close encounter with death are
obviously diverse, nevertheless the experiences recalled by those involved in
these events are unusually similar. In other words, although each NDE is
unique, all these experiences share many similarities. When one examines an
'ideal' NDE, a series of approximately 15 recurring features can be found.
At the beginning of his book, Raymond Moody provided
the readers with an 'ideal' or 'complete' NDE, based upon all the common NDE
features. He emphasized that this experience was not a narrative of one
person's experience, but rather a 'model', or a composite of the common
features found in many accounts. It was meant to provide the readers with an
understanding of the experience before each of the different features were
explained in more detail. This is a very good summary of the common features of
the NDE phenomenon.
Moody's narrative reads like this:
A man is dying and, as he reaches the point of
greatest physical distress, he hears himself pronounced dead by his doctor. He
begins to hear an uncomfortable noise, a loud ringing or buzzing, and at the
same time feels himself moving very rapidly through a long dark tunnel.
After this, he suddenly finds himself outside of his
own physical body, but still in the immediate physical environment, and he sees
his own body from a distance, as though he is a spectator. He watches the
resuscitation attempt from his unusual vantage point and is in a state of
emotional upheaval. After a while, he collects himself and becomes more
accustomed to his odd condition.
He notices that he still has a 'body', but one of a
very different nature and with very different powers from the physical body he
has left behind.
Soon other things begin to happen. Others come to meet
and to help him. He glimpses the spirits of relatives and friends who have
already died, and a loving warm spirit of a kind he has never encountered
before- a being of light- appears before him.
This being asks him a question, non verbally, to make
him evaluate his life and helps him by showing him a panoramic, instantaneous
playback he major events of his life.
At some point he finds himself approaching some sort
of barrier or border, apparently representing the limit between earthly life
and the next life.
Yet, he finds that he must go back to the earth, that
the time for his death has not yet come.
At this point he resists, for by now he is taken up
with his experiences in the afterlife and does not want to return.
He is overwhelmed by intense feelings of joy, love,
and peace.
Despite his attitude, though, he somehow reunites with
his physical body and lives.
Later he tries to tell others, but he has trouble
doing so. In the first place, he can find no human words adequate to describe
these unearthly episodes. He also finds that others scoff, so he stops telling
other people.
Still, the experience affects his life profoundly,
especially his views about death and its relationship to life.
Most people who have had an NDE do not tend to have so
many of the above features. In fact they may only recall a limited number such
as 5 or 6 of the 15 NDE features. Also the sequence in which the features takes
place may vary, in other words somebody may have an out of body experience at
the beginning of their NDE while another person may see a light at the
beginning and have an out of body experience at the end.
We hope that the above narrative has provided you with
an understanding of the overall features of the NDE experience. In another
article you can find specific experiences given by many people from all over
the world and from throughout history3.
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1 Cognitive experiences : refer to experiences dealing
with cognition, in other words to the mental process of knowing, formulating
judgments, reasoning, perceiving and being aware.
2 Near Death Experiences
3 Recent and historical reports of Near Death
Experience cases
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