DEFINING THE NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

The phenomenon of near-death is the most extraordinary experience a human being can undergo. An event wherein the individual has died or been killed, the near-death experience is, clinically, the point at which a person is evaluated as dead, but then, somehow, survives to describe what they encountered in the state of death.

It is important to understand that these experiences are near–death, not after-death. By definition, death means the point of no return. Those who went through such experiences were in the process of dying, or perhaps were declared dead, but they did not in effect literally die. What precisely constitutes death, and what the criteria are for declaring a person dead, is greatly debated.

Today, in most modern societies an electroencephalograph or EEG, which amplifies and records even the minutest of brain electrical activity, is used to identify death. When the machine shows a flat line in its readout, death is established. Yet even in a case where someone was clinically dead, only to be revived later, this clearly indicates that the body was not completely lifeless. In fact, some people who experience hypothermia, which is a dramatic lowering of the body temperature but not death, can show no sign of brainwave activity whatsoever, until later, when they are warmed up and resuscitated.

While the actual phrase “near-death experience,” otherwise referred to as NDE, is a relatively modern term, the phenomenon itself has been reported throughout the ages. Reports of such experiences date back thousands of years. There are cave paintings found in southern Europe that seem to depict afterlife scenes, images that appear similar to cases documented in our times. The earliest Western, secular description of a near-death experience is found in Plato’s Republic. In that work, a story is told of a Greek soldier named Er, who was taken for dead, only to awake and tell of his journey to another world. In the narrative, Er is killed and, as he is about to be cremated, he awakens and tells a story of leaving his body and traveling with others to a place where he is to be judged.

Today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, this occurrence and the reports of experiences such as Er’s seem quite widespread. According to some recent reputable polls in the United States alone, over thirteen million people have reported that they have gone through a near-death experience. Such experiences appear to have no relationship with one’s religious affiliation or lack thereof. Proportionately, the frequency of these experiences occur the same across cultures- whether one is devout and spiritual, or agnostic, atheistic, and materialistic. Age, race, gender, and so status also seem to make no difference in a person’s susceptibility to these experiences. 

Many who report experiencing near-death describe similar encounters with another world. There are many ways to divide these experiences, but to serve our immediate purpose and make the issue more comprehensible, the description will be divided into ten progressive stages.

Would you like to read more? The article continues with an Old Testament (Torah) perspective of the Ten Stages of the Near Death Experience by Rabbi Dovber Pinson. approx. 35 minute read