What Is a Near-Death Experience?.

Debra Diamond examines the near-death experience from the scientific point of view.

What’s a near-death experience? A delusion? A neurochemical imbalance? The aftermath of anesthesia on a dying brain?

Raymond Moody coined the term “near-death experience” in his groundbreaking book Life After Life, in which he outlined nine elements of the experience, including a life review, an outof-body experience, encounters with deceased loved ones and a decision to return to one’s body. Bruce Greyson, a professor at the University of Virginia, expanded the list to encompass 16 elements, including a sudden insight, experiencing scenes from the future and coming to a point of no return.

According to most NDE literature, common elements include an out-of-body experience, a feeling of peace with the universe and a connection with a brilliant white light. Read more

Top 5 Phenomena That Offer Evidence for an Afterlife

Wondering what happens after you die? Greg Taylor lists five phenomena which offer evidence for an afterlife.

In the modern age, the debate over the possibility that our consciousness might survive the physical death of our body is often reduced to a false dichotomy of science vs religion. As such, scientists sadly often ignore and ridicule reports of strange phenomena from those who have approached, and in some cases gone beyond, the threshold of death, even though such experiences have a profound effect upon those who undergo them. Do these phenomena offer evidence that we might live on in some way past the demise of our physical selves? Here’s a list of five areas, taken from the book Stop Worrying! There Probably is an Afterlife (Kindle/Paperback), which suggest that it might just be so: Read more

Dr. Brian Weiss on the Patient Who Convinced Him There Is an Afterlife

What convinced  Ivy League-educated Dr. Brian Weiss to believe in the afterlife?

Past lives, the afterlife, channeling messages from beyond the grave -- some people call it fascinating, others call it frightening. And then there are the many skeptics who call it pure fiction. Dr. Brian Weiss, an Ivy League-educated psychiatrist, used to describe himself as one of those skeptics. But Weiss' views completely changed in 1980 when he met a patient he calls Catherine. Read more

Immortality Research Projects Funded

Millions of dollars have been handed out to researchers investigating human immortality.

Research projects investigating the near-death experience and the 'life review' component of the NDE are among the first recipients of funding from The Immortality Project at the University of California, Riverside, selected from among 75 proposals. The Immortality Project was established at UC Riverside in 2012 with a $5 million, three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation to undertake a rigorous examination of a wide range of issues related to immortality.

The funded proposals include: Read more

Near Death-Experiences: More Real Than Reality?

The reason that near-death experiences are so memorable and powerful is that they are extraordinarily vivid.

University of Liège researchers have demonstrated that the physiological mechanisms triggered during NDE lead to a more vivid perception not only of imagined events in the history of an individual but also of real events which have taken place in their lives! These surprising results - obtained using an original method which now requires further investigation - are published in PLOS ONE. Read more

What Happens When We Die?

What happens when we die? Near-death survivors describe life on other side. It's important to remember that what NDE survivors are describing is the death experience, not the afterlife. They don't know anymore about that than anyone else.

It's one of life's biggest questions: What happens when you die?

An increasing number of near death experiences, or NDEs, are being reported thanks to advances in medical science and increased resuscitations of the dead.

And several survivors have come forward to share their glimpses of what they believe is a realm beyond this life. Read more

Afterlife Stories from Children

One of the more fascinating facts about near-death experiences is that they are sometimes reported by very young children. Here's an interesting short video featuring the near-death experience research of Dr Melvin Morse which focuses on the NDEs of children. There is a haunting and eerie familiarity about them, and yet in some ways they avoid the stereotypes NDEs often contain.