People who have had near-death experiences or who have found themselves teetering on the edge between life and death often describe their experiences as mystical. Regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, and faith, they all experience the distortion of time and space, see bright lights, and feel out-of-body sensations. However, scientists are still baffled as to the origin of these experiences, since the brain is not functioning at the time of clinical death.
According to Daniel Kondziella, a neurologist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, things may not be that simple. “I have a theory that near-death experiences may occur when the brain is still functionally and structurally intact. I think that before passing out, people have the near-death experience. When they are then resuscitated, the last thing that they remember is that experience,” – the scientist told NBC News.
In a study published in 2019, Kondziella shares the findings from an online survey of 1,034 people from 35 countries. Approximately 10% of all participants (106 people), reported a near-death experience, with a score of ≥7 on the Grayson scale, adopted for the assessment of near-death experiences. These data were compared with disorders of the REM sleep phase, such as sleep paralysis, during which a person experiences similar sensations: auditory and visual hallucinations, a feeling of floating outside of the body, and fear of death.
The results showed that REM sleep disturbances were more common in people who have had near-death experiences; they were present in 47% of cases. Those who have not had near-death experiences were three times less likely to have REM sleep disturbances – only 14%. This finding indicates a significant relationship between the two conditions and suggests that they have a common neurological basis. It also corroborates Kondziella’s hypothesis that the physiology of the brain during a near-death experience is not impaired, and is thus able to preserve and reconstruct the memories of the near-death experience.
We remind you that back in 2012 at the Phase Research Center, under the leadership of Michael Raduga, researchers were able to use a phase state to re-create typical near-death experiences in the form of leaving the body and flying into a tunnel toward the light.
The article was published in 2019 in PeerJ magazine.
