Observations.net

This author has a working hypothesis on how to interpret the NDE.

First point to consider: The NDE is a near death experience, not full death. People don't return from full death. The few exceptions being Jesus Who fully died on the cross and Who rose again three days later, and Lazarus who was fully dead, whom Jesus raised. A person whose heart stopped beating for a few seconds, or even a few minutes, and was subsequently resuscitated was never fully dead.

Second point: The NDE involves phenomena that cannot be explained by dying brain theories and the like. Published accounts narrate NDE descriptions of activity from vantage points not limited to the body such as hovering overhead or traveling into nearby rooms (near-death.com/out-of-body-experiences-and-the-nde). There are accounts of blind people able to accurately describe visual appearances (near-death.com/people-born-blind-can-see-during-nde).

Third point: NDE accounts, as they are represented after the fact, are hopelessly contradictory. The various stories alternately support Protestant Christianity (appearance of Jesus but no reference to Mary), Catholic Christianity (youtube.com/watch?v=WK_PN3DCs2k), new age (near-death.com/reincarnation) and Eastern religion (nalandawest.org/near-death-experiences-buddhist-perspectives) and even atheism/pantheism (appearance of various semi-divine characters and no reference to God - youtube.com/watch?v=Vk2qly-4kw8). These accounts do not simply describe different aspects of a larger phenomenon. They flat out contradict each other. As such, if one is true, others must be false.

Fourth point: It is my personal observation that non-NDEs are often labeled as near death experiences, e.g. fear death experiences (fear of imminent death can trigger an NDE-like event), dreams, meditation sessions, drug trips, even fabricated stories; people who were never clinically dead claim to have seen the other side.

So what is there to make of this?

Discounting the totally fake accounts, the NDE points to the existence of an immaterial spirit (life force) and soul (the psyche or personality) that can leave the physical body. But given that the person is not fully dead, the individual is still connected to the physical body. I contend that the person is still capable of hallucinating. The person is still able to create their own perception of reality.

Pointing to the observation that the NDE is part hallucination, is the hallucinatory drug known as DMT that can cause experiences that overlap with the NDE (NDE-lite: bigthink.com/neuropsych/near-death-experience-dmt-trip). Something is going on inside the human brain during these out of body experiences. So although these drug and NDE experiences do literally involve leaving the body and experiencing other realms, there is a hallucinatory aspect to them because the soul is not fully separated from the body.

The following is a strange NDE tale - youtu.be/MfOAvfwEMVs. The woman's NDE sounds like a bad dream or drug trip. It is obvious that she was creating her own experience.

Further, individuals add their own interpretations to the event after the fact. As human beings, they are incapable of not seeing the event through the filter of their own belief system. Some NDErs claim that God still visits them subsequent to the NDE and continues to teach them new things. But who is actually visiting them - God, the devil or their own overactive imaginations?

So, basically, it is impossible to know what parts of an NDE account are real, what parts are hallucination, and what parts are post-event interpretation (either by the NDEer or the writer relaying the NDEer's account). Assessing the NDE is made even more complicated by the hoaxers who fabricate spiritual experiences and misrepresent these counterfeit accounts as actual NDEs.

And there is another point that must be raised. How much of the NDE is demonic? When a lost soul experiences such an event, and that soul is not under the protection of Christ, where does that soul go and what does it see? When I hear a new ager use the telling of an NDE to support false, destructive doctrines such as reincarnation, I sense that I am in the presence of evil.

In essence, while the NDE points to the existence of an immaterial soul, it does not provide an accurate and reliable view of the afterlife. The NDE is simply not on the level of the Bible and is to be treated with skepticism.