While science and religion argue about what near-death experiences (NDEs) are, even the term itself and the identification of those who survived it are yet to be fully defined. Descriptions of near-death experiences since the 1980s have been based on 16-item questionnaires rated on the Grayson scale. In the scientific community, it is generally accepted that a person with a score of 7 and above is assessed as having had an NDE. However, many researchers criticize this approach.
Some scientists have been asking for a new scale for assessing near-death experiences, containing additional items. Others believe that the questionnaire does not provide an objective assessment of such a complex phenomenon, so they resort to detailed interviews of people who have experienced clinical death. In January 2020, Belgian scientists led by Vanessa Charland-Verville from the University of Liege published a new study that performed textual analysis on 158 firsthand descriptions of near-death experiences.
Part of the analysis consisted of identifying keywords that people use to describe their NDEs. As the findings showed, these data do not always coincide with the data of the Grayson scale questionnaire. For example, 46% of participants used the word “nothing” when describing their experience, making it the 6th most popular keyword out of a selection of 30. Words like “tunnel” (35%), “love” (30%), and “fear” (24%) also do not appear on the Grayson scale.
The least positive words were “black,” “fear,” and “dead,” although previously it was believed that negative assessments of NDEs were rare. On the other hand, the religious terms “God,” “angels,” etc., were not included in this list. The most popular word was “light” (66%). Thus, the text mining analyses allowed the researchers to make independent conclusions, free from predefined concepts. In addition to the main method, this approach is undoubtedly promising.
The study was published in the Plos One journal in January 2020.
