What Modern Medicine Says About Near-Death Experiences

Reliable information on near-death experiences (NDEs) is sparse; the topic is as mysterious as one might assume. Too much of what you find delves into the darkness of the New Age movement, which embraces aspects of the demonic such as psychics, mediums, and necromancy. Looking to science would also fail to provide insight into the supernatural experience, as its modern practice often favors hyper-empiricism and hyper-materialism, accepting only natural phenomena and ignoring all evidence to the contrary. Thankfully, there are a handful of comprehensive and well-known medical studies into NDEs that we can turn to, including the multiple AWARE studies, led by Dr. Sam Parnia and others (Parnia et al., 2014), which offer reliable and surprising insights into the subject.

Before we explore some of the truly amazing results of these medical studies, it’s important that we define an NDE and provide its common characteristics. Though no two NDEs are the same, there are certain characteristics commonly observed across the spectrum. Medical researchers (Long 2014) have identified several such properties, which I have modified slightly here:

• Disembodiment: a perception of seeing and hearing apart from the physical body
• Tunnel experience: passing into or through a tunnel
• Intense light: encountering a mystical light
• Joy: intense and generally positive emotions
• Life review: a review of part or all of their prior life experiences
• Encounter: meeting and encountering deceased loved ones, saints, or even the Divine
• Decision: a choice to return to their earthly life

The AWARE study is a broad-based, multi-continent, multi-modal study. Dr. Parnia was joined by doctors and researchers from hospitals in and around London, across the United Kingdom and Europe, and the United States. It focused on cardiac units, since we are somewhat better at resuscitating people following heart attacks and other traumatic cardiac events.

Phase one of the original AWARE study included 2,060 people that suffered cardiac arrest and clinical death at the 18 participating hospitals. 330 (16%) of these people were resuscitated and survived, at least until the point of discharge from the hospitals (Parnia et al., 2014). Of the 330 survivors, 101 patients were found eligible for inclusion in the study, consented to it, and fully completed a three-stage interview process. Of the 101, nine experienced NDEs, or about 9% of eligible survivors.

One of these survivors, a fifty-seven-year-old man, recalled observing events from the top corner of his hospital room. He accurately described people who were present and sounds and activities that occurred during his resuscitation, all of which was corroborated by his medical records. Here are some of the quotes from his interviews:

I have come back from the other side of life . . . God sent me back, it was not my time—I had many things to do . . . I traveled through a tunnel toward a very strong light, which didn’t dazzle or hurt my eyes . . . There were other people in the tunnel whom I did not recognize. When I emerged, I described a very beautiful crystal city . . . There was a river that ran through the middle of the city with the most crystal-clear waters. There were many people, without faces, who were washing in the waters . . . The people were very beautiful . . . There was the most beautiful singing . . . and I was moved to tears. My next recollection was looking up at a doctor doing chest compressions.

(Parnia et al., 2014)

Does this description of Heaven sound familiar? In the Revelation 22:1–2, the angel took the Apostle John on a tour of the heavenly city. Look at how similar St. John’s account is to this man’s: “Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.”

In addition to the work of Dr. Sam Parnia and his colleagues, a surprising amount of medical and scientific research has been conducted in the field of NDEs. A large Dutch study of 344 cardiac arrest survivors from ten hospitals was published in 2001. Respondents were interviewed over a two-year period, and forty-one (12%) of the survivors reported similar experiences to those described above, including watching and remembering specific events from their cardiac arrest. (Lommel, et al. 2001)

In one interesting case, a nurse reported having removed a patient’s dentures and placing them in a drawer in a special crash trolley. This happened while the patient was in a coma. One week later, the patient returned to the same ward and, upon seeing the nurse, said, “Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are” (Lommel, et al. 2001). The patient went on to describe exactly how that nurse had removed his dentures and put them into the crash trolley. The patient also added specific details about the trolley, ‘‘It had all these bottles on it, and there was this sliding drawer underneath, and that’s where you put my teeth.”

The nurse’s response to this strange occurrence was also documented:

I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in a deep coma and in the process of CPR. When asked further, it appeared that the man had seen himself lying in bed and that he had perceived from above how the nurses and doctors had been busy with CPR. He had also been able to describe correctly and in detail the small room in which he had been resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present. (Lommel, et al. 2001)

It is incredible to find such documentation of seemingly supernatural phenomenon in medical studies. It is fortunate that the researchers chronicled this exchange between the patient and his nurse. It makes one wonder how often such details are left undocumented and unverified.  

Two American studies of NDEs in cardiac arrest were also published during the early 2000s. One study of nearly sixteen hundred cardiac patients over a thirty-month period found that the incidence of NDEs increased with the severity of the cardiac disease. Only 1% of those admitted with stable cardiac disease reported NDEs. This increased to 10% of those who were admitted with cardiac arrest (Greyson 2003). The second U.S. study found that 23% of cardiac arrest survivors had had an NDE. This second study further found, in following up with patients within six months of their NDEs, that they were positively transformed by having had an NDE (Schwaninger 2002). In general and across multiple studies, patients with NDEs were subsequently found to be happier, more socially orientated, less materialistic, more altruistic, and less afraid of death than people who had not had such an experience (Parnia et al., 2014).

Overall, the quantity of credible medical research into NDE phenomenon has been steadily increasing since the 1970s. These studies are all captivating and worthy of further examination—winnowing their results to just the few that we’ve looked at here was a challenging exercise!

Author’s Note: Due to the lack of a comprehensive Catholic account on NDEs, I wrote my book Near-Death Experiences, available from Sophia Institute Press, building off the accounts of Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Teresa of Avila, and even Scripture itself, to provide a safe harbor into the study of the topic—a fruitful exercise that will undoubtedly increase one’s faith and awe in our merciful God!

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash