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 traveling 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. Experiments 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 unceremoniously 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.