Cherise Brinkman

ENG 101
Dr. Cassel
11-2-18
Annotated Bibliography
My topic is about the science and spiritual background of Near-Death Experiences and how it has

affected people. What I want to know is why do NDE’s happen? When do Out of Body Experiences

happen? What do they see when they are “gone”? Does this experience increase one’s spirituality? Near

Death Experiences usually happen when an individual is close to death or is having an intense experience

physically or emotionally with danger. For example, a very common medical reason why people had

NDE’s is Cardiac Arrest or lack of blood flow.

*Cassol, Helena, et al. “Qualitative Thematic Analysis of the Phenomenology of Near-Death

Experiences.” PLoS ONE, vol. 13, no. 2, Feb. 2018, pp. 1–14. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.01930

In this article, Cassol et al. talk about NDE’s and the process of testing to figure out the intensity of some

peoples NDE’s. In like all the other sources I found, NDE’rs have reported having an intense feeling of

peacefulness and joy while they were having their OBE. During their experience they often see a

deceased relative or a spiritual figure. As far as impact goes, NDE’s have impacted many people when it

came to their attitude and belief towards spirituality and life in general. In Cassol’s source. She uses

Moody and Ring as examples of the different features or characteristics that happen during a NDE’s. But

what is most used in her study is Greyson’s NDE scale. Greyson’s scale is a 16 multiple choice

questionnaire that determines the intensity of one’s NDE. This then leads to a thematic analysis that helps

identify any patterns with near death experiences. During the testing, people were rated 0-2 on their

intensity. 0, being not present, 1 being mildly present, and 2 being definently present. Cassol had a group

of participants to take this test and to write a narrative stating what their age, when they had their NDE,
time elapsed, and if the occurrence of the NDE was threatening. Below are some of the participants

answers relating to what happened or what they might’ve seen.

Table 3. Arbitrarily selected examples of verbatim for each extracted theme.

Verbatim (gender; age at interview; reported time since NDE)

Light:

“I moved forward. I was not walking. I felt attracted by the light and only my will was making me move forward.” (Male; 43 years old; 15 years)

“Suddenly everything got spotless white. A very bright white that I had never seen before. As if there were a multitude of rays coming from this
light. But it was not dazzling. It was glorious! Beings appeared and then

disappeared, as if they were passing through the light.” (Female; 76 years old; 6 years)

“The moment after, I was ’integrated’ in an intense light that was so white that we cannot even imagine it, not enough words to describe that
light. It is not dazzling, but it is extremely powerful, it is powerfully bright.” (Male; 61 years old; 20 years)

Return:

“Quiet floating ride around the hospital and finally a meeting with a guy that sees me, hears me, ‘thinks’ me. He gives me the choice between
two doors: this one, you go back home, but it will be difficult. OK, I go back, I cannot leave the children alone with their mother. Going back to
my body is a horrible pain; I had simply forgotten what life was like, pain and 90% ignorance.” (Male; 50 years old; 15 years)

“Everything disappeared all at once and I once again saw the doctors and the firemen taking care of me. The paramedic told me that I just had a
cardiac arrest of 30 seconds. 30 seconds only, even though I have the impression that a very long time went by!” (Male; 52 years old; 4 years)

Meeting/encounter:

“He talks to me. In fact, he does not talk to me: I am hearing his voice inside of me. . . I only remember one sentence, and I do not remember if
he communicated anything else.” (Male; 61 years old; 20 years)
“I was also seeing forms, of a human appearance but beheaded. They inspired me fear.” (Male; 44 years old; 7 years)

“I saw my son who died at the age of 23.” (Female; 61 years old; 5 years)

Hyper lucidity:

“I felt like I was a genius! I was thinking very fast, everything was working out well for me!” (Male; 64 years old; 9 years)
“When my expansion was over, I was everywhere, I was everything at the same time, I was the sky, I was the ground, I was the trees and I felt
the wind blowing in my leaves, I was the sea, and I was also my parents, my friends, people I had not met before but who, at that point, I knew
because they were part of me. I was genuinely everything at the same time, everything was connected in one way or another.” (Female; 34 years
old; 19 years)

“My mind is lighter and quicker. It is free to think and to evolve without any restriction. I am still surprised about these infinite possibilities
available to me as a mind, impossible to imagine or to realize with a physical body.” (Male; 61 years old; 20 years)

Description of scenes:

“I found out I was on a kind of pirogue that followed the flow of a very black river. I was moving toward a bridge where beheaded beings were
standing. They extricated other persons from the pirogues that passed under the bridge. They tore away their nails and they tortured them. It was
really horrible.” (Male; 44 years old; 7 years)
“From a moment to the next I found myself on the top of a hill, overlooking a huge place composed of forests of fir trees and flowers. I felt an
indescribable wind, filled with happiness. The sky was filled with magnificent colors that I had never seen before. Clouds passed in the sky
rapidly.” (Male; 44 years old; 7 years)

Darkness:

“First, I remember being in a dark place, with no walls or rooms. I was wondering what I was doing there.” (Female; 76 years old; 6 years)

“I heard a machine then nothing more, no more sound, nothing. I was in an absolute darkness.” (Female; 34 years old; 19 years)

Out-of-body experience:

“It all starts with a very clear feeling: the certainty of leaving my body.” (Male; 61 years old; 20 years)

“It is when I was transported to go down from the second floor on the stretcher that I had the strange feeling of seeing, from very high above the
stairwell, that stretcher carried by four of my comrades that I was hearing as if they were very far. From that height, I could see everything.”
(Male; 70 years old; 51 years)

Awareness of death:

“I knew I was dead, but I felt good, happy.” (Male; 56 years old; 6 years)

“I am thinking: « Well, I am dead ». In fact, it is quite pleasant; I abandoned my life, my sick and emotionally troubled body for this marvelous
state of well-being and peace.” (Male; 61 years old; 20 years)

PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193001 February 14, 2018 7 / 14

Verbatim (gender; age at interview; reported time since NDE)

Life events:

“I do not know how it all began but I saw my life flashing before my eyes, essentially from the age of approximately 2 years old to 18. I had no
notion of time. It seems like I was living whole scenes of my life over again. It was a real pleasure to live these happy moments over again, like
when I was steeling the cherries from the trees when I was a child. I was feeling good. I did not want that moment to end.” (Male; 62 years old; 5
years)

Entrance in the NDE:

“I wandered for a while in what used to be my life, stopping, from time to time, on some events I had forgotten about or, by contrast, looking
with delight at another scene that I had particularly enjoyed. Fragments deeply buried in my memory scrolled. Things that I had completely
concealed from my conscious memory. I am surprised to find out about some scenes that seemed to be part of my life and that my memory has
decided to overshadow. However, here they are! I am surprised to have done one thing or the other. All of this in a clear and sharp form.” (Male;
61 years old; 20 years)

“After a period of dark night, I found myself standing with no transition in a waiting room.” (Female; 51 years old; 11 years)

Altered time perception:

“According to me, it seems that death comes relatively gently, at least in such a case. We open our eyes and we see tons of dancing lights. Even if
I didn’t live the experience, the sensation of sliding in a bath of liquid nitrogen seems to be the best way to express what I felt. Then, simply, the
pain stops.” (Male; 50 years old; 1 year)

“I am unable to tell how much time it lasted.” (Male; 65 years old; 6 years)

“This impression of slow motion and of floating is still present within me, as if the notion of space and time had diluted.” (Male; 57 years old; 13
years)
*Khanna, Surbhi, and Bruce Greyson. “Near-Death Experiences and Spiritual Well-Being.” Journal of

Religion & Health, vol. 53, no. 6, Dec. 2014, pp. 1605–1615. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10943-013-9723-

0.

In this article Surbhi and Greyson go into the deep meaning of spirituality and how it affects

people’s everyday life. In it text it states that spirituality is thought of as “The way in which people

understand and live their lives in view of ultimate meaning and value” (Muldoon & King). So, when it

comes to NDE’s, spirituality plays a big part in the effect it has on people. After this experience people

often feel major characteristic changes such as: loss of fear of death, increased compassion, heightened

self-esteem, a deeper belief religion or spiritual, etc. But most of the time when someone has a NDE, they

don’t open up about it because of the fear of lack of acceptance or social support. Near Death Experiences

are generally thought of a process that occurs for some individuals as they come close to death or are

“clinically dead” for a period of time (Furn 1987). Most NDE’s happen when someone is at the point of

clinical death where there is a period of unconsciousness caused by lack of oxygen in the brain which is

also caused by arrest of circulation or breathing (Van Lommel 2011). It is also stated that they found 116

survivors of cardiac arrest and 15.5% of them reported having an NDE (Greyson 2003).

*Tassell-Matamua, Natasha, et al. “Does Learning About Near-Death Experiences Promote Psycho-

Spiritual Benefits in Those Who Have Not Had a Near-Death Experience?” Journal of

Spirituality in Mental Health, vol. 19, no. 2, Apr. 2017, pp. 95–115. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1080/19349637.2016.1206844

According to Frontiers in Human Neuroscience and (Greyson, 2000), NDE’s are known

as profound psychological events with transcendental and mystical elements typically occurring

when individuals are close to death or are in some form of physical/ emotional danger. It is also

stated that many experiencers have reported having very vivid memories of their experience
 (Thonnard et al. 2013; Palmieri et al. 2014). This source also provides the order of some of these

features that happens during and OBE in chronological order. (Ring 1980) was the pioneer of his

work and study. He stated that there are five stages of this experience. And based on his studies,

48% of his samples have had NDE and have experienced some of these in this order. The order of

the five stages are: 1. Experience peace, well-being, absence of pain. 2. Sense of detachment from

the body, progressing OBE. 3. Entering darkness, a tunnel experience which has a positive effect.

4. Experience of light that is bright, warm, attractive. 5. Entering the light, meeting people or

figures. These are some sources that help show the background information on NDE and the

features of it.

How A Woman Found Faith Through Her Near-Death Experience: ‘I’m At Peace’. Megyn Kelly. 17 Aug.

2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZqAmIXCkNA

In this interview Megyn Kelly talks with a woman named Nancy Rynes who has had a

NDE and even wrote about her experience and how it changed her life. Nancy Rynes was born

into a very catholic family and over time distanced herself and became an atheist. One day Rynes

had to run some errands and was riding her bike around town. Before she left, Nancy had a bad

feeling about leaving the house, but she went anyway. About a mile into her bike ride, a woman

driving an SUV hit Nancy. She claims that she had a “sensitive dual conscience” moment along

with an OBE. Rynes saw herself pinned up on the SUV about 50-70ft away and watched herself

panic and struggle as she was still alive. Then three days later, Rynes went into surgery. During

her surgery, her blood pressure dropped, and her heart stopped beating. Next thing she remembers

was waking up in a serene looking field with trees and flowers. She says that she felt peace, love

and welcomed at this place. When she came back and survived her experience, Nancy became a

different person with a different outlook on life. She now takes more risks and doesn’t fear life

anymore. Not only that, but she also is more compassionate and spiritual.
Martial, Charlotte, et al. “Temporality of Features in Near-Death Experience Narratives.” Frontiers in

Human Neuroscience, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 13 June 2017,

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00311/full#h1

In this article, Martial and other writers talk about other sources and their studies on Near Death

Experiences. Throughout this website various scholars are mentioned that have done research on NDE’s

and have discovered several people have reported very detailed memories of their experience with death.

One scholar that is mentioned (Moody) talks about how he discovered the most frequent features while

someone is having a NDE. Another scholar who also discovered this was (Ring 1980), he was the first to

attempt to document the order of the NDE features chronologically. He used a total 120 individuals

including a self-reported NDE and 48% of his samples had experienced an NDE. In order, Ring states that

there are five stages of a Near Death Experience. The first one is experiencing peace, well-being: absence

of pain. The second is a sense of detachment from the body; progressing an OBE. Then the third is

entering darkness, a tunnel experience with positive effects. Then at the fourth stage they will have an

experience of a light that is bright, warm and attractive. Then finally at the fifth stage, experiencers will

enter the light and meet people or figures (loved ones). This cites provides great sources of information

and allows me to go deeper into my studies of NDE’s.

Nelson, Kevin R. “Near-Death Experience: Arising from the Borderlands of Consciousness in

Crisis.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 1330, no. 1, Nov. 2014, pp. 111–

119. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/nyas.12576.

In this article, Nelson talks about Near Death Experiences and how they are medical mystery that can

happen with certain health issues. NDE’s are often caused by cardiac arrest or lack of blood flow. When

this happens, your brain doesn’t completely shut off or die. It continues to function and send waves or

messages throughout your body. NDE’s can come from medical reasons, but also it can come from
danger. It also ties to Out of Body experiences. Out of body experiences can often happen with danger,

sleep paralysis, and even narcolepsy. In fact, over 76% of people have had an out of body experience that

tied to a medical problem or danger. Somehow it ties to your psych and causes a reaction that causes you

to heighten your thoughts and make things seem lucid and cause lucid like dreams. During these dreams,

people often feel euphoria or peace and often see relatives who have passed on.