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FYI: What Causes Near-Death Experiences?
This week’s Newsweek proclaims that “Heaven Is Real”–a neurologist concludes it after a near-death experience. But how much do we know about those experiences?
Newsweek slid head-first into controversy for its cover story this week. In “Heaven Is Real: A Doctor’s Experience With the Afterlife,” neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander writes about falling into a coma, then having an experience that convinces him Heaven exists. He describes being in “a place of clouds” and seeing “shimmering beings”; a woman traveling with him offers him a message of hope and love. It’s one of the more public examples of a documented near-death experience, but it’s not anywhere close to the first: a Gallup poll approximated that 3 percent of Americans have reported one.
Some of the most common elements of a near-death experience include a feeling of peace or euphoria; a strange, nebulous feeling that they were “floating around the room” or having an out-of-body experience; seeing a tunnel with light at the end; or seeing family members or otherworldly phenomenon. But it’s also very difficult to measure or observe scientifically, despite being such a common and varied phenomenon, so it’s very hard to account for everything that happens during one.
There’s no consensus about what causes near-death experiences (or NDEs, as they’re sometimes known). Partially, that’s because it’s a vague, catch-all term. How “near” to death are we talking here? Near death for how long? Even the word “death” itself is kind of hard to pin down, especially when we’re bringing more people back from it than ever before. (The closest we’ve gotten to a reasonable definition is probably “no detectable vital signs that show the person to be living at all, physiologically or mentally,” but that’s been defined and redefined many times in the past.)
What causes near-death experiences? I’ll take a wild stab; near-death?
a near death experience is nothing more than a clip or a preview of that which exists after the physical wears out.