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N
Near-Death Experiences
The expression near-death experience (NDE)
refers to the seemingly supernatural experiences
often undergone by individuals who have suffered
apparent death, and have been restored to life. The
systematic study of near-death experiences is
recent. Although accounts can be found in literature
and historical documents, it was only after the
advent of medical techniques of resuscitation, like
modern cardiopulmonary resuscitation measures,
that near-death experiences became a widespread
phenomenon.
The main impetus for modern studies on
NDEs was the publication in 1975 of the book Life
After Life, by psychiatrist Raymond A. Moody,
which followed earlier researches on this topic by
other physicians such as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
and Russell Noyes. Moody’s work describes the
results of more than eleven years of inquiry into
near-death experiences and is based on a sample
of about 150 cases, including persons who were
resuscitated after having been thought or
pronounced clinically dead by their doctors;
persons who came very close to physical death in
the course of accidents or severe injury or illness;
persons who, as they died, told their experiences to
other people who were present.
Moody describes various components that
seem to occur generally but not universally in the
NDE experience. These include the vanishing of
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A drawing by Dr. Susan Blackmore of the tunnel with a
light at the end, as seen by those in near-death experiences
(Dr. Susan Blackmore/Fortean Picture Library)
pain and the experience of peace, being drawn
into a tunnel or going up a stairway (or some
other symbol of crossing a threshold) until they
reach a realm of radiant golden-white light,