Imagine a “waiting room” on the border of worlds, where you can talk to a departed loved one. This form of therapy actually exists: using special techniques, a psychologist can immerse a patient into the depths of consciousness so that they can communicate with the deceased, ask important questions, or ask for forgiveness. Italian researchers Claudio Lalla and Fabio D’Antoni believe that this is, in essence, an artificially induced near-death experience. The authors found 59 people who had experienced this method, almost all of whom (86%) passed the necessary threshold on the near-death experience scale.
The authors found that during therapy, the patient feels more connected to the other world and experiences vivid emotions. But therapy varies. Sometimes, it really resembles a near-death experience, and this variant is much more useful and effective for resolving grief. Other times, the therapy is more like a regular conversation, and then there is no longer any talk of similarity to clinical death.
Scientists are confident that such methods have great potential for healing the psyche in a state of grief after the loss of a loved one. The most impressive cases involve meetings with the dead or mystical beings, the very feeling of the other world, and a sense of peace and tranquility. Interestingly, the religion of the participants did not affect the content of their experiences.
Have you met with the deceased in a phase state (lucid dream, near-death experience, etc.)? Does this work as therapy?
The article was published in July 2025 in Psychology International.
Get all the latest news about lucid dreams via our channels on Telegram, Facebook, Twitter
