Key Elements of The Near Death
Experience
Raymond Moody and subsequent researchers have identified several
key elements that make up an NDE. Not all persons experience all
elements, although a lucky few experience nearly all. The elements
are as follows:
1. Feelings of peacefulness.
An overwhelming number of persons report that their NDE, was
a truly beautiful and incredibly peaceful event needless to say,
as a result the vast majority report their NDE as a positive experience,
devoid of fear or the normal concepts associated with death. A
few report not even realizing that they are dead, initially.
2. Out of Body Experience.
About 30% of persons report physical separation from their body,
and many are able to accurately report events that took place
whilst they were at the very least unconscious. Many are able
to describe their resuscitations with a degree of medical accuracy
not found in the normal population. It is not uncommon for persons
to be able to report what was occurring in places other than where
their bodies were.
Investigation of The Out of Body Experience is the primary goal
of the Near Death Experiment.
3. Meeting of persons.
Frequently, persons meet with those who have died before them,
or with persons perceived as being guides or prominent spiritual
figures. For example, depending on culture people can report meeting
Jesus, or Mohamed. Interestingly people never seem to encounter
persons who have not yet died. In one case girl met her sister
who had died in a separate incident, only a short while before,
and whose death she was not told about until later.
4. The Tunnel Experience.
One of the more famous elements of the NDE is the tunnel experience,
which people describe as being the sensation of travelling down
a tunnel at enormous speed. The nature of the tunnel experience
varies with some merely sensing it.
5. Entering the LIGHT.
The so called "Light at the end of the tunnel". This
is experienced as a Being of light from whom total love and acceptance
emanates. Those attempting to describe the nature of this Being
afterward find the words to do so do not exist and any explanation
does no justice to its nature. The being is also described as
being brighter then the sun, but not being painful to look at.
6. Past life Review.
Nearly everyone has heard the expression, "My life flashed
before my eyes!", in relation to someone who has been near
death. This is another of the elements of the NDE that has entered
our cultural awareness, without most people understanding its
full implications.
In the past life review a person experiences their life, not
just as they lived it, but also from the perspective of others.
For example, if a person was to treat someone with kindness, indifference,
or hostility, they would feel how the other experienced their
behaviour. Experients describe this review as being a crucial
part of their NDE, as it showed them the parts of their lives
that were important. It shows that the way in which we treat those
around us is central to the "meaning of life".
7. The Border and return.
Many persons experience a border of some type, or another. They
know that to cross that border means to be fully dead and never
to return. Others are either told to return, by the Light, or
a being that they have met, whilst others are merely unceromoniously
removed from their experience and transported back to the real
world. Needless to say, many persons who have an NDE are distressed
at having to return to a world of pain and suffering, and temporarily
experience this as being a form of rejection.