Summary: People who report near-death experiences (NDEs) often describe shared elements—such as leaving the body, moving through a tunnel, and seeing a bright light—but a new analysis of personal narratives finds these elements do not always occur together or in a fixed sequence.
Source: Frontiers
Researchers analyzed 154 first-person narratives to examine how often different near-death-experience features occur and the temporal order in which they appear.
What happens during a near-death experience remains a subject of intense interest and debate. Many survivors report vivid, detailed memories from moments when they were close to death. Although NDEs vary widely, several features recur across accounts: a sense of detachment from the physical body (out-of-body experience), movement through a tunnel, encountering a bright light, a profound feeling of peace, and meetings with deceased persons or spiritual beings. A study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience explored how frequently these features appear and whether they follow a consistent chronological pattern.
Despite substantial research into individual phenomenological aspects of NDEs, the temporal structure of these experiences has been less studied. Do core NDE features unfold in a predictable order? Or does each person’s narrative follow a unique sequence? To address these questions, the research team led by Charlotte Martial examined freely expressed written accounts to map both the frequency and the chronology of reported features.
The study analyzed 154 French-language NDE narratives from people who scored at or above the threshold on the Greyson NDE scale. The researchers identified the presence of specific NDE features in each narrative and recorded the order in which they were described. On average, participants reported about four distinct features per NDE. The most common elements were a feeling of peacefulness (reported by 80% of participants), seeing a bright light (69%), and encounters with spirits or other people (64%). Less commonly reported features included racing thoughts (5%) and precognitive visions (4%).
When the authors examined temporal placement, they found that an out-of-body experience was the first reported feature in about one-third of cases (35%), while the most frequent concluding element was the return to the body (36%). This pattern suggests that many narratives begin with a subjective detachment from the physical body and often end with reembodiment.
Across the dataset, the most frequently observed consecutive sequence was: out-of-body experience → experiencing a tunnel → seeing a bright light → feeling of peace. However, this exact sequence was relatively rare; only a minority of narrators reported the full progression in that order. The researchers did identify many pairwise relationships—certain features were more likely to follow particular others—but no universal, fixed timeline emerged. Instead, the temporal order of NDE features varied substantially across individuals.
Charlotte Martial and colleagues conclude that while NDEs may share core elements that allow them to be recognized as the same broad phenomenon, their internal ordering shows notable variability. This temporal diversity raises important questions about which aspects of NDEs are genuinely universal and which are shaped by cultural expectations, individual memory, or neurophysiological differences.
The authors emphasize the need for continued research to clarify how expectations, cultural background, and specific brain mechanisms contribute to the content and sequence of near-death experiences. Mapping relationships among NDE features and their typical positions within narratives may help refine scientific definitions of the phenomenon and improve our understanding of the underlying processes.
Funding: University of Liège and University Hospital of Liège; Belgian National Funds for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS); French Speaking Community Concerted Research Action.
Source: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Image source: NeuroscienceNews.com image in the public domain.
Original research: “Temporality of Features in Near-Death Experience Narratives” by Charlotte Martial, Héléna Cassol, Georgios Antonopoulos, Thomas Charlier, Julien Heros, Anne-Françoise Donneau, Vanessa Charland-Verville and Steven Laureys. Published online June 13, 2017. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2017.00311
Temporality of Features in Near-Death Experience Narratives
Background: After a near-death experience, experiencers often provide richly detailed accounts that can be parsed into distinct phenomenological features. While some authors have suggested regular patterns of NDEs, the temporal sequence of core features is not well established.
Objectives: This study aimed to determine how frequently specific NDE features occur overall and in particular positions within narratives, and to identify the most common temporal sequences of features.
Methods: The authors collected 154 freely expressed written NDE narratives in French (Greyson NDE scale ≥ 7/32). A text analysis inferred both the frequency and the temporal ordering of NDE features across these narratives.
Results: The most frequently reported sequence of consecutive features was: out-of-body experience → experiencing a tunnel → seeing a bright light → feeling of peace. However, this exact sequence appeared in a limited number of cases, and overall temporal sequences varied among participants.
Conclusion: The temporal ordering of NDE features can differ across individuals. Investigating associations and relationships among features may help create a more rigorous, scientifically grounded definition of near-death experiences.
“Temporality of Features in Near-Death Experience Narratives” by Charlotte Martial et al., Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Published online June 13, 2017. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2017.00311