Definition

     A profound psychological event that typically occurs during a physical or emotional trauma, health crisis, or when a person comes close to dying. Although, nearly identical experiences may happen without being close to death. Near death experience (NDE) usually comes from one’s feeling of impending doom such as experienced during a cardiac arrest, a life threatening car accident, drowning, or being held at gun point.

     There are multiple characteristics that have been described to accompany a near death experience, these include:

-a very unpleasant sound/noise

-a sense of being dead

-pleasant emotions; calmness and serenity

-an out-of-body experience

-a sensation of moving upwards through a bright tunnel of light or narrow passageway

-encountering a being of light, or a light

-being given a life review

-reaching a border or boundary

-a feeling of being returned to the body, often accompanied by a reluctance.

-feeling of warmth even though naked

-a sense of being "somewhere else," in a landscape that may seem like a spiritual realm or world

-incredibly rapid, sharp thinking and observations

-encounter with deceased loved ones, possibly sacred figures (Jesus, a saint) or unrecognized beings, with whom communication is mind-to-mind; these figures may seem consoling, loving, or terrifying

-in some cases, a flood of knowledge about life and the nature of the universe

-sometimes a decision to return to the body