Everyone dies, but what actually transpires during that process is a deep mystery that scientists are only beginning to seriously investigate. Increasingly, near-death experiences, or NDEs, are part of that growing field.
An incredible 5 to 10 percent of the general population reports memories of an NDE. Oftentimes, people’s recollections are similar: perceiving separation from the body and viewing it from above, passing through a tunnel and seeing a light, encountering deceased loved ones or compassionate entities and being overcome by ineffable wisdom and a feeling of profound peacefulness. Many people describe these memories in crisp detail and say that they felt “more real than real.”
“We found a very robust explanation for the generation of such a rich experience while a person is really in crisis,” says Charlotte Martial, a neuroscientist at the University of Liège in Belgium and co-lead author of the findings, published this week in Nature Reviews Neurology.
Martial and her colleagues’ model lays out a step-by-step hypothesis for the conditions that give rise to NDEs. They also propose an evolutionary theory for why these experiences occur.
To read more, click here.