Redefining Death - The Near-death Experience

The term "near-death experience" was first used by Dr. Raymond Moody in Life after Life (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1976), a compilation of interviews with people who claimed to have come back from the dead. A decade earlier, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross investigated out-of-body episodes recounted by her patients.

The near-death experience is not a phenomenon limited to modern times. It has been recounted in various forms of mysticism, as well as by well-known historical figures such as the Greek philosopher Plato (circa 428–347 BCE) and Benedictine historian and theologian St. Bede (circa 672–735). It appears, however, that the development and administration of emergency resuscitation has contributed to widespread reports of near-death experiences.

Some people who were revived after having been declared clinically dead have recounted remarkably similar patterns of experiences. They reported leaving their body and watching, in a detached manner, while others tried to save that body. They felt no pain, but rather experienced complete serenity. After traveling through a tunnel, they encountered a radiant light. Some claimed they had met friends and relatives who had died; many attested to seeing their whole lives replayed and of ultimately being given either a choice or a command to return to their bodies.

Many people who have had a near-death experience believe that they have experienced a spiritual event of great importance. For example, they may believe that they saw, or even entered, the afterlife. Studies conducted during the 1990s indicated that the near-death experience might be related to one or more physical changes in the brain. These changes include the gradual onset of anoxia (oxygen deprivation) in the brain; residual electrical activity in the brain; the release of endorphins in response to stress; or drug-induced hallucinations produced by drug therapies used during resuscitation attempts or resulting from prior drug abuse.

Not everyone who has been close to death has had a near-death experience. These experiences are atypical reactions to trauma, and the involvement of the temporal lobes of the brain in these experiences has been explored by researchers for decades. Most recently, Willoughby Britton and Richard Bootzin investigated temporal lobe functioning in forty-three individuals who had experienced life-threatening events. Of these forty-three participants, twenty-three reported having had near-death experiences during those events ("Near-Death Experiences and the Temporal Lobe," Psychological Science, vol. 15, no. 4, April 2004). The researchers found that people who reported near-death experiences had more of certain types of temporal lobe activity than those who did not have such experiences. The researchers concluded that "altered temporal lobe functioning may be involved in the near-death experience and that individuals who have had such experiences are physiologically distinct from the general population."