Infrequent near death experiences in severe brain injury survivors - A quantitative and qualitative study

Abstract

Background:Near death experiences (NDE) are receiving increasing attention by the scientific community because not only do they provide a glimpse of the complexity of the mind-brain interactions in ‘near-death’ circumstances but also because they have significant and long lasting effects on various psychological aspects of the survivors. The over-all incidence-reports of NDEs in literature have varied widely from a modest Figure of 10% to around 35%, even up to an incredible Figure of 72% in persons who have faced close brush with death. Somewhat similar to this range of difference in incidences are the differences prevalent in the opinions that theorists and researchers harbor around the world for explaining this phenomena. None the less, objective evidences have supported physiological theories the most. A wide range of physiological processes have been targeted for explaining NDEs. These include cerebral anoxia, chemical alterations like hypercapnia, presence of endorphins, ketamine, and serotonin, or abnormal activity of the temporal lobe or the limbic system. In spite of the fact that the physiological theories of NDEs have revolved around the derangements in brain, no study till date has taken up the task of evaluating the experiences of near-death in patients where specific injury has been to brain. Most of them have evaluated NDEs in cardiac-arrest patients. Post-traumatic coma is one such state regarding which the literature seriously lacks any information related to NDEs. Patients recollecting any memory of their post-traumatic coma are valuable assets for NDE researchers and needs special attention.Materials and Methods:Our present study was aimed at collecting this valuable information from survivors of severe head injury after a prolonged coma. The study was conducted in the head injury department of Guangdong 999 Brain hospital, Guangzhou, China. Patients included in the study were the ones Recovered from the posttraumatic coma following a severe head injury. A total of 86 patients were chosen. Near death experience scale (NDES) score of 7 or more was used as the criteria of screening NDE experiences. After identifying such individuals, the Prakash-modification of the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to interview and record the data for qualitative analysis.Results:We found that contrary to earlier incidence reports, NDEs in post head injury patients were markedly low. Only 3 out of 86 of the patients recruited had a clear and confident experience of NDE. We conducted a qualitative study to explore further into these experiences. IPA of these 3 patients revealed four master themes: 1. Unique light visions 2. Intense feelings of astonishment, pleasure, and fear 3. The sense of helplessness 4. Supernatural but rationality of experience.Conclusion:NDE is uncommon in head-injury cases as compared to other near-death conditions. But the persons experiencing it have immense impacts on their belief systems and emotions. This experience should be further explored by studies of larger ...

Characterization of near death experiences using text mining analyses: A preliminary study

“…Fig 2 shows the 30 most reported words extracted from the 158 narratives. We can observe many similarities with previously identified Greyson NDE scale [8] features in the literature (i.e., feelings of peacefulness/well-being, out-of-body experience, seeing a bright light, an altered time perception https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227402.g002 [4,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]) with what was extracted in this study using text mining (i.e., see, light, body, time, voice). Moreover, our analyses revealed features that are consistent with the themes identified via thematic qualitative analyses [18] (i.e., light, darkness, tunnel, description of scenes, out-ofbody experiences, awareness of death, time perception).…”

“…According to the scale, an individual with a total score of 7 or higher on the scale's maximum score of 32 qualifies as a NDE experiencer [8]. Using this scale, investigations on NDEs could identify the top reported features of the questionnaire: feeling of peacefulness, out-of-body-experiences, seeing a bright light, alerted time perception [4,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

“…It consisted in one researcher analyzing in detail one interview transcript before analyzing the whole sample as compared to what was highlighted in the first one. Their findings revealed four main themes: vision of light, intense feelings of well-being astonishment, and fear; sense of helplessness; supernatural aspect of the experience [16]. Recently, Martial et al [17] used qualitative text analyses to explore the potential chronology of NDE features in self-reported written narratives.…”

Near Death Experiences: Falling Down a Very Deep Well

“…Such experience it occurs while the mind-body system activity it is suspended within the Tension-Tension Correlative Dynamics (involving domains of tension coupled to the subject's psychic → mental 5 inner-insight and domains of tension coupled to the subject's outer-outsight, see Section 2 and 3 for explanation) elapsing between the EM sensory module and the subject's egoic psychic complex (see Section 3 for explanation).…”

“…2) A neuro-psycho-physiological state called Near Death Like State (NDLS) 6 , experienced near or during a temporary and reversible subjective premortem-like state, during which the life-sustaining signs are shown to be eventually 5 As I discussed in [18], the psychodynamic distinction that can be made between psychic function, mental function, cognitive function, is the following:…”