A near-death experience, also called NDE, is a very special experience that can occur when you are on the brink of death. This experience can be both positive and negative. For some, these are real experiences that determine the further course of your life. Others dismiss them as hallucinations and dreams.
Near death experience
Some people can teeter on the brink of death as a result of a life-threatening situation. In most cases they are clinically dead for a short time. Clinically dead means that there is no longer any sign of life. During the time of clinical death, a very special experience can occur. We call this experience a near-death experience or NDE. This concept is derived from the English expression Near-death experience.
Positive experiences
Many people would have had a near-death experience like this. Most experience this special event as very positive: the feeling of infinite love surrounded by a very large white light. People step out of their body and lookat their motionless body from another dimension . They see how care providers work with their bodies. Very soon they realize that they are. Most see themselves in a black tunnel. At the end of that tunnel is a white light. One is drawn towards the light at a very high speed. The light is very soft, beautiful and warm but you can’t describe it. The moment you are drawn towards the light, you experience a feeling of very great love, not at all comparable to the love that one can feel on earth. A feeling of total bliss. For many of them this is a very special experience that can sometimes change a life.Others speak of beings, with a more or less human shape, who slide towards you. During a near-death experience (when your time has not actually come yet) it is as if a hand pushes you back, causing you to, as it were, fall back into his own body slides.
Negative experiences
A special category are hell experiences or negative near-death experiences. Some people also get black visions, scenes from hell. Some experiences are terrifying. These negative experiences are much less common than the positive ones. Usually these experiences are not told because people then relive everything, which is a nightmare for most. Yet the effect of such a hell experience can be positive if one has good guidance. In Switzerland there is a center where one can share such experiences.
Raymond Moody
Raymond Moody, an American philosopher and psychiatrist, first used this term. In 1975 he published many of these testimonies in his book Life After Life. This book was a great success. He attributes the main reason for this success to the fact that the book brings us hope. Hope that after death you will see your loved ones who died too soon in another world. Although he himself admits that a near-death experience is not proof that there is life after death.
Hallucinations?
However, most doctors do not believe these near-death experiences and dismiss them as nonsense. Near-death experiences occur when the brain has received too little oxygen for a short or longer period of time. At that moment the patient is no longer fully conscious and can experience very special things. These experiences are usually not very structured, i.e. a hallucination or dream. The question remains whether the medical staff will listen to the patient’s story when he comes out of the coma.Yet there is a medical team in the Netherlands that believes these stories. This medical team, led by cardiologist Pim van Lommel, conducted a large-scale study into near-death experiences in people who had suffered a cardiac arrest. The results of this research were published in the renowned journal the Lancet. Of all patients studied, 18% had a near-death experience. What has also surprised the researchers is the universal dimension of the phenomenon. No single factor (neither medical nor personal) determines who can have a near-death experience.According to the cardiologist, the current view of doctors is too limited to explain this phenomenon . Perhaps our consciousness does not always coincide with the functioning of the brain. Perhaps it can also be experienced separately from our body.