Researchers count features with a standard checklist, the 16-item Greyson NDE Scale. Numbers differ between studies because the samples differ: hospital patients interviewed days after cardiac arrest, versus people who chose to write their experience down years later.
Pick a feature to compare it across the datasets that measured it. Brackets are 95% confidence intervals.
Hospital studies find lower rates than self-selected surveys for almost every feature. Both are real: a survey only hears from people who wanted to tell the story.
In the Dutch prospective study 52% of those who had an NDE were under 60, against 34% of those who did not (p=0.012). Younger age also predicted an NDE in Greyson's cardiac-unit study. In Morse's Seattle series, critically ill children described NDE features; seriously ill children who had not come near death did not.
Van Lommel found women more often had deep experiences (p=0.011). A later analysis of the Greyson scale found no overall difference in incidence by sex.
It can be timed, which is why it dominates the literature. Accounts also come from drowning, trauma, childbirth, surgery and illness. Researchers find that once an experience happens, its cause does not seem to change what is in it.
The tunnel is largely a Western motif. In Pasricha and Stevenson's Indian cases people were taken by messengers to a clerk with a ledger, told a mistake had been made, and sent back. Tibetan deloks have their deeds weighed in public, in a mirror or read aloud, rather than replaying a life privately. The life review is culture- and era-sensitive; being met by others is not.
In the Liege analysis of 154 narratives, the famous out-of-body, tunnel, light, peace order appeared in only 6 of the 27 accounts that contained all four features.
Athappilly, Greyson and Stevenson (2006) compared 24 accounts collected before Moody's 1975 book with 24 collected after. A tunnel appeared in 16% of the earlier accounts and 64% of the later ones: the only one of Moody's 15 features that changed.
In the NDERF survey 62.5% called theirs wonderful, 33.8% mixed and 3.8% frightening. In 123 Liege narratives, 17 were distressing.
Sixteen questions, scored 0, 1 or 2, out of 32. Seven or more counts as an NDE.
Sixteen questions, each scored 0, 1 or 2, for a total out of 32. A score of 7 or more is the usual threshold for calling an experience an NDE. The items fall in four groups:
"Unity with the universe" and "scenes from the future" are already items 7 and 11, so this atlas tracks them with the standard scale rather than as extra questions.
Both groups 30 or more, the difference survives multiple-comparison correction, is at least 10 percentage points, and agrees in direction with published research where any exists. Bars stay greyed until 30.
Loading…
Self-reported, self-selected, anonymous. What visitors describe, not a rate in any population. Groups under 5 are never shown. Cite the research figures above, not these.
Loading…
Accounts read on NDERF and IANDS and scored on the Greyson items by this atlas. Only the codes are kept; no account text is copied here. A feature counts only when the writer mentions it, so these rates are a floor. The writers chose to tell their story, so this is not a rate among people who nearly died. Kept apart from both the research figures and what visitors share here. Every group is shown, down to a single account, because these accounts are already public; bars are greyed below 30 as a warning that the sample is small.