Characteristics of near-death experiences memories as compared to real and imagined events memories

PLoS One. 2013;8(3):e57620. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057620. Epub 2013 Mar 27.

Abstract

Since the dawn of time, Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have intrigued and, nowadays, are still not fully explained. Since reports of NDEs are proposed to be imagined events, and since memories of imagined events have, on average, fewer phenomenological characteristics than real events memories, we here compared phenomenological characteristics of NDEs reports with memories of imagined and real events. We included three groups of coma survivors (8 patients with NDE as defined by the Greyson NDE scale, 6 patients without NDE but with memories of their coma, 7 patients without memories of their coma) and a group of 18 age-matched healthy volunteers. Five types of memories were assessed using Memory Characteristics Questionnaire (MCQ--Johnson et al., 1988): target memories (NDE for NDE memory group, coma memory for coma memory group, and first childhood memory for no memory and control groups), old and recent real event memories and old and recent imagined event memories. Since NDEs are known to have high emotional content, participants were requested to choose the most emotionally salient memories for both real and imagined recent and old event memories. Results showed that, in NDE memories group, NDE memories have more characteristics than memories of imagined and real events (p<0.02). NDE memories contain more self-referential and emotional information and have better clarity than memories of coma (all ps<0.02). The present study showed that NDE memories contained more characteristics than real event memories and coma memories. Thus, this suggests that they cannot be considered as imagined event memories. On the contrary, their physiological origins could lead them to be really perceived although not lived in the reality. Further work is needed to better understand this phenomenon.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Death*
  • Humans
  • Imagination*
  • Memory*
  • Middle Aged
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Time Factors

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the University and University Hospital of Liège, the Belgian National Funds for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS), the European Commission (COST, DISCOS, MINDBRIDGE, DECODER), the James McDonnell Foundation, the Mind Science Foundation, the French Speaking Community Concerted Research Action (ARC 06/11-340), the Foundation Médicale Reine Elisabeth and the Public Utility Foundation “Université Européenne du Travail” and “Fondazione Europea di Ricerca Biomedica”. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.