Encounters with spiritual beings are common in near-death experiences. However, a person can see God, angels, or the afterlife according to their own religion and cultural traditions. This is evidenced by the research of American researcher Robert King, who studied 79 accounts of near-death experiences mentioning Jesus. Predictably, all the narrators represented Western culture.
The author accessed the NDERF and IANDS websites, where people can publish their accounts of near-death experiences, and ran a search using the keywords “Jesus” and “Christ.” The descriptions of his appearance and behavior varied greatly, but there was always a positive influence: Jesus urged a return to life, spoke of the person’s unrealized purpose and virtues (forgiveness, love), shared divine knowledge or prophetic revelations, and provided a sense of comfort.
It’s important to remember that near-death experiences can be considered one of the phase states. In one REMspace experiment, lucid dreamers intentionally initiated a popular near-death experience scenario (flying through a tunnel towards a light) in a lucid dream. In moments of life-threatening danger, people see what they expect because they’ve heard many similar stories. Nevertheless, as King concludes, such encounters improve people’s psychological well-being and instill in them a desire to live.
Have you experienced anything fundamentally new in a phase state that you’d never even heard of in reality?
The article was published in November 2024 in the Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition.
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