A near-death experience (NDE) is a personal experience associated with death or impending death. Such experiences may encompass a variety of sensations including detachment from the body, feelings of levitation, total serenity, security, warmth, the experience of absolute dissolution, and the presence of a light.
Neuroscience research suggests that a near-death experience is a subjective phenomenon resulting from “disturbed bodily multisensory integration” that occurs during life-threatening events. NDEs are a recognized part of some transcendental and religious beliefs in an afterlife.
Etymology
Ascent of the Blessed by Hieronymus Bosch is associated by some NDE researchers with aspects of the NDE.
The equivalent French term expérience de mort imminente (experience of imminent death) was proposed by the French psychologist and epistemologist Victor Egger as a result of discussions in the 1890s among philosophers and psychologists concerning climbers’ stories of the panoramic life review during falls. In 1968 Celia Green published an analysis of 400 first-hand accounts of out-of-body experiences. This represented the first attempt to provide a taxonomy of such experiences, viewed simply as anomalous perceptual experiences, or hallucinations. These experiences were popularized by the work of psychiatrist Raymond Moody in 1975 as the near-death experience (NDE).