🔦 Near-Death Experiences (NDEs)

A Page of Similarity Theory
By Simon Raphael

🌀 Philosophical Framework

Near-death experiences (NDEs) offer a window into the deepest structures of consciousness. Across all cultures and beliefs, people describe a journey marked by profound similarities:

• A sense of separation from the body.

• Movement through a tunnel or corridor.

• Encounters with others who are, without exception, deceased — never the fully living.

• Encounter with a radiant light.

• A panoramic life review, often including the perspectives of others.

These shared motifs suggest the presence of a substrate — an underlying framework that persists even after physical life ends. The system continues; we are still within it.

And yet, there is also diversity. Christians encounter Christ, Hindus may see Yama or other deities, atheists may meet abstract light or neutral presences. This shows that beliefs and expectations shape the imagery, even while the underlying journey remains the same. Consciousness provides both the structure and the creative colouring.

A particularly striking dimension is the life review. Here, experiencers re-live their lives not only through their own eyes, but through the eyes and hearts of those they affected. They feel the joy they gave and the pain they caused — often more intensely than when the events first happened. What was once dismissed or ignored is revealed as deeply consequential.

Many who undergo this process return profoundly changed. They describe themselves as more compassionate, less fearful of death, more oriented toward love and service. Harm is recognised as real suffering, and love is revealed as the only constructive path. This transformation is consistent across testimonies: love, not destruction, is the building block of existence.

The tunnel and the light represent the transition corridor — the consistent rule of passage. The light is not only visual brightness but ontological luminosity: the unveiling of a greater field of being. It is continuity, invitation, and expansion of awareness.

Philosophically, NDEs point to a universe where consciousness is both traveller and creator. It travels through universal structures but also generates worlds of meaning and moral truth. Above all, it reveals that compassion and love are not optional virtues but the deepest fabric of consciousness itself.

🔬 Scientific Framework

Research over five decades has identified recurring features of NDEs. Studies by Raymond Moody, Kenneth Ring, Bruce Greyson, Janice Holden, and others document the core motifs that appear with remarkable consistency:

• Separation from the body: Experiencers describe leaving the physical form and observing it from above.

• Movement through a tunnel or corridor: A sensation of travel toward another realm.

• Encounters with the deceased: Reports consistently note meeting dead relatives, friends, or figures — not the fully living.

• Encounter with a radiant light: Often perceived as warm, loving, intelligent.

• Life review: A panoramic re-living of events, often including the thoughts and feelings of others.

👁️ The Blind Who See

Research by Ring and Cooper (Mindsight, 1999) documents cases where congenitally blind individuals report visual experiences during NDEs. They describe people, colours, and environments despite never having seen in ordinary life. This challenges reductionist models and suggests that consciousness is not confined to sensory pathways of the physical brain.

❤️ Transformation After NDEs

Clinical studies (Greyson, 1983; Holden et al., 2009) show that people who undergo NDEs are permanently changed: they report reduced fear of death, greater empathy, deeper spirituality, and an orientation toward compassion and service. These changes are measurable and long-term, indicating that the NDE is not a hallucination but a transformative event with enduring consequences.

🌍 Cross-Cultural Variation

Comparative research finds that while core features (tunnel, light, life review) are universal, cultural content differs: Christians may see Jesus, Hindus Yama, Buddhists bodhisattvas, and atheists neutral beings or abstract light. This supports the view that while the structure is universal, the content is shaped by personal and cultural frameworks.

⚖️ Scientific Objections and Counterpoints

Some scientists interpret NDEs as products of the brain under extreme stress, proposing that they are hallucinations or fabrications. Common explanations include:

• Hypoxia (lack of oxygen): Oxygen deprivation can cause tunnel vision, bright lights, and confusion.
  Counterpoint: NDEs occur under many conditions, including normal oxygen levels, and the experiences are often coherent, structured, and remembered for decades — unlike random hallucinations.

• Temporal lobe seizures: Electrical activity in the temporal lobe can create sensations of presence or vivid images.
  Counterpoint: NDEs are reported in people with no seizure history, and the experiences carry transformative aftereffects absent in epilepsy-induced visions.

• Neurotransmitter surges (endorphins, ketamine-like effects): Chemical floods may produce euphoria or visions.
  Counterpoint: Drug experiences vary widely, are often fragmented or bizarre, and rarely produce the consistent motifs (tunnel, life review, deceased relatives) or lasting positive personality change.

• Anoxia-related hallucinations (brain shutting down): As the brain dies, disorganised imagery may appear.
  Counterpoint: Many NDEs include veridical perceptions — accurate reports of events, conversations, or medical details that occurred while the brain was clinically inactive. These cannot be explained as random hallucination.

✨ Why These Explanations Fall Short

NDEs show qualities that distinguish them from hallucinations or dreams:

1. Consistency of motifs across cultures.

2. Clarity and order of the experience compared to confusion of hallucinations.

3. Transformative aftereffects — reduced fear of death, increased compassion, long-term change.

4. Veridical perceptions — accurate descriptions of resuscitation events and conversations inaccessible to unconscious patients.

As Bruce Greyson concludes: “No single physiological or psychological explanation accounts for all the features of NDEs.”

This suggests that while neuroscience can describe conditions around the experience, it cannot explain its origin, structure, or transformative power.

🌈 Implications for Similarity Theory

From both philosophical and scientific perspectives, NDEs converge on key insights:

• Consciousness is structured — tunnels, light, and encounters with the deceased reveal a universal framework.

• Consciousness is creative — beliefs and expectations shape the imagery of the journey.

• Consciousness is distributed — the blind see, and experiencers feel the emotions of others.

• Consciousness is transformative — those who return embody compassion and recognise love as the foundation of existence.

In Similarity Theory, these findings reinforce the claim that consciousness is not passive but the active ground of reality. NDEs are among the strongest experiential proofs that consciousness is creator as well as traveller.

📚 References

1. Moody, R. (1975). Life After Life. Bantam Books.

2. Ring, K. (1980). Life at Death: A Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death Experience. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan.

3. Greyson, B. (1983). “The Near-Death Experience Scale: Construction, Reliability, and Validity.” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 171(6), 369–375.

4. Ring, K., & Cooper, S. (1999). Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind. William James Center for Consciousness Studies.

5. Holden, J. M., Greyson, B., & James, D. (Eds.). (2009). The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation. Praeger.

6. Parnia, S. et al. (2014). “AWARE—AWAreness during REsuscitation.” Resuscitation, 85(12), 1799–1805.