From spirits to tunnels and out-of-body experiences, it seems dying isn’t all fiction.
Maybe you’ve experienced it yourself, and have lived to tell the amazing story, or perhaps you’ve simply heard it told by others: almost dying, seeing “the light” and coming back to life.
It’s an amazing thing. Are near-death experiences the same for everyone, though? Scientists from the University of Liège and University Hospital of Liège, in Belgium went looking for the answer to that question and here’s what they found.
Many of us experience the same events when we’re close to death. The order in which they happen varies greatly though. Researchers aren’t sure why this is, but they think it could have something to do with varying cultural beliefs and differences in our biology, from person to person.
Researchers got their data by collecting and analyzing written accounts from 154 individuals who had gone through a near-death-experience. What they found was that, on average, most people experience about 4 different phenomena while it’s happening.
Peace and a Bright Light
The most common feeling when close to dying was one of overall peacefulness, which 80% of participants recorded. Nearly 70% of people said they saw the stereotypical “bright light”, and about 65% reported encountering spirits or people.
Somewhat surprisingly, the most uncommon experience was that of “having your life flash before your eyes”. Only about 5% of participants reported this, as well as seeing visions of the future.
Amazingly, up to 35% of people said they had a definite out-of-body experience, wherein they felt detached from their physical body, and then returned to ‘come back to life’.
As previously stated, many people experience a variety of these phenomena and usually in varying orders.
Just over 20% of participants experienced the following exact order of events: an out-of-body experience, followed by seeing a tunnel, then a bright light, and finally a feeling of peace.
So, it seems that dying in style isn’t just something from the movies, after all. For more intriguing information on what goes on biologically in a near-death-experience, click here to read Medical News Today.
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