The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
March 1, 2006
Geena Athappilly, Bruce Greyson, Ian Stevenson
52 citations
Near-death experiences collected after 1975 differ from those collected before only in more frequent reports of tunnel phenomena, a feature that may not be integral to the experience. The other 14 features described by Moody as characteristic of near-death experiences did not change. These findings challenge the idea that cultural models substantially shape near-death experience accounts.
Psychiatry
November 1, 1993
Bruce Greyson
52 citations
Near-death experiences are profound subjective events reported by about 30%-40% of individuals who come close to death, or roughly 5% of the adult American population. These experiences are important for mental health professionals because they often happen to patients and can produce widespread, long-lasting changes in values, beliefs, and behavior, dramatically affecting attitudes toward living and dying.
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
March 1, 1993
Bruce Greyson
49 citations
People who have had near-death experiences (NDEs) endorse more antisuicidal attitudes than those who came close to death without an NDE. The deeper the NDE, the more antisuicidal statements were endorsed. The attitudes most strongly linked to NDEs involve transpersonal or transcendental beliefs, suggesting that NDEs reduce suicide risk by fostering a sense of purpose in life.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
August 3, 2012
Bruce Greyson, Janice Miner Holden, Pim van Lommel
47 citations
No Summary
Consciousness and Cognition
March 19, 2017
Lauren E. Moore, Bruce Greyson
46 citations
Memories of near-death experiences are recalled as more vivid and detailed than memories of actual real events or imagined events. In a study of 122 people who had a near-death experience, participants rated their memory of that experience higher on a standard memory questionnaire than their memory of a real event that happened around the same time, which in turn was rated higher than a memory of an imagined event. The findings suggest that near-death experiences are not remembered as imagined or dreamlike but as even more real than everyday experiences.
Religion Brain & Behavior
April 8, 2014
Bruce Greyson, Donna K. Broshek, Lori L. Derr et al.
45 citations
Alterations of consciousness are central to diagnosing epilepsy, and some patients report unusual experiences during seizures that might resemble spontaneous mystical states. This study used a validated Mysticism Scale to assess such experiences in 98 epilepsy patients, 86 of whom had EEG recordings. Fifty-five percent recalled some subjective experience during seizures, but none met criteria for a mystical experience. While some features, especially those of introvertive mysticism, were reported, they were not linked to any specific brain lobe or hemisphere. Mysticism Scale scores showed no significant association with demographics, medical history, seizure risk factors, or seizure characteristics.
International Journal for the Psychology of Religion
October 1, 2013
Bruce Greyson
45 citations
Two thirds of people who had a near-death experience reported mystical features such as a sense of sacredness, divine union, timelessness, positive mood, noetic quality, and ineffability, whereas none of those who came close to death without such an experience did. Near-death experiencers scored higher on the Mysticism Scale than nonexperiencers, most often endorsing noetic quality, positive affect, and unity, and least often ego loss, timelessness, and ineffability. Depth of near-death experience correlated highly with mysticism scores, but factor analysis yielded two distinct factors representing mystical and near-death elements, indicating commonalities yet differentiation between the two.
Psychiatric Services
November 26, 2003
Bruce Greyson
44 citations
Among 832 psychiatric outpatients, 33% reported encounters with death. Those who had been close to death but did not have a near-death experience showed greater psychological distress than other patients. However, the 22% of patients who did report a near-death experience after a brush with death had less psychological distress than those who had been close to death without such an experience. This suggests that near-death experiences may be associated with lower distress, even though the experiences themselves phenomenologically resemble pathological states.
Perspectives in biology and medicine
September 1, 1998
Bruce Greyson
43 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) are profound psychological events with transcendental elements that occur to individuals close to death or in intense danger. Once considered meaningless hallucinations, NDEs are now studied seriously by medical researchers. They affect about a third of people who come close to death, or roughly 5 percent of the American population. Accounts of similar events appear across many cultures and historical periods. NDEs matter to physicians because they can occur in patients, lead to lasting aftereffects influencing health and treatment response, and may illuminate mind-body interaction, especially near death. Predisposing factors are not well understood; experiencers are psychologically healthy and similar to controls in age, gender, race, religion, and mental health, though they may be better hypnotic subjects, remember dreams more often, and report childhood trauma.
Mortality
January 1, 1999
Bruce Greyson
42 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) lack a clear, agreed-upon definition and proper diagnostic tests. Researchers often confuse definitions, criteria for identifying NDEs, and tests of those criteria. Tests that describe common features, measure depth, or diagnose occurrence are used interchangeably, though they serve different purposes. Because no dichotomous diagnostic test exists, NDEs are defined by summing characteristic elements on scales—a circular approach that substitutes intervening variables for the phenomenon itself and ignores questions about the sensitivity and specificity of those elements. The field needs to identify the critical dimensions of NDEs, develop an accepted definition, and create a fixed-interval scale for measurement.
Spirituality in Clinical Practice
March 1, 2014
Bruce Greyson, Surbhi Khanna
40 citations
People who have a near-death experience during a brush with death report greater spiritual growth afterward than those who come close to death without such an experience. Among 230 self-selected participants, spiritual growth was stronger the deeper the near-death experience. Spiritual decline was similar in both groups and unrelated to the depth of the experience. Near-death experiences are therefore linked to increased posttraumatic spiritual growth but do not affect posttraumatic spiritual decline. The findings suggest that spiritual transformation matters for well-being and that therapies should include ways to foster spiritual growth.
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
October 29, 2014
Adriana Sleutjes, Alexander Moreira-Almeida, Bruce Greyson
38 citations
Most scholarly publications on near-death experiences (NDEs) are recent, often lack original empirical data, and are concentrated in North America and Western Europe. A review of 266 documents from 1945 to 2013 found a predominance of opinion articles, reviews, and phenomenological descriptions, with the oldest from 1977. Since 2000, longitudinal and cross-sectional studies have increased, along with diversification in publishing countries and discussions of mind-brain implications. Future research should aim for greater cultural diversity and test explanatory hypotheses with high-quality empirical data.
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
September 5, 2015
Surbhi Khanna, Bruce Greyson
37 citations
Near-death experiences are associated with greater posttraumatic growth—positive psychological change after a trauma—than close brushes with death without such an experience. Among 251 survivors, scores on the Near-Death Experience Scale significantly correlated with scores on the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory. Interpreting near-death experiences as spiritual events supports prior research that spiritual factors contribute to posttraumatic growth and aligns with the model that challenges to one's assumptive worldview stimulate such growth.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2014
Bruce Greyson, Nathan B. Fountain, Lori L. Derr et al.
35 citations
Out-of-body experiences are rare but real sensations reported by some people with epilepsy during seizures. In a group of 100 patients, 55% recalled some subjective experience with their seizures, and 7 reported out-of-body experiences. No demographic, medical, or seizure-related traits distinguished those who had out-of-body experiences from those who did not. These experiences did not affect epilepsy-related quality of life. Even among those who reported them, out-of-body sensations were extremely infrequent, often occurring only once or twice many years ago, making it impossible to link them to specific seizure characteristics or medications.
Journal of Religion and Health
January 1, 1993
Bruce Greyson
33 citations
People who have had near-death experiences report significantly more symptoms of a physio-kundalini syndrome—a set of bodily sensations linked to the spiritual concept of kundalini—than people who have not had such experiences. This finding supports the hypothesis that near-death experiences may involve the awakening of a biological process described in Eastern traditions as kundalini.
Humanities
November 9, 2015
Bruce Greyson
31 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) are vivid, often transcendent episodes that occur during life-threatening situations, involving sensations like leaving the body or entering another dimension. Reported across cultures and throughout history, 10% to 20% of people who nearly die experience them. While cultural factors shape some content, the core phenomenology remains consistent worldwide. This invariance could stem from universal psychological defenses, neurophysiological processes, or actual contact with a transcendent realm. Research is limited by NDEs' unpredictability. Regardless of cause, NDEs consistently produce profound, lasting changes in experiencers and may hold significance for others.
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality
August 18, 2014
Surbhi Khanna, Bruce Greyson
31 citations
People who have had near-death experiences (NDEs) report more frequent daily spiritual experiences afterward than those who came close to death without having an NDE. Among 229 individuals who had a close brush with death, those who described an NDE (204 people) scored higher on a measure of daily spiritual experiences after the event, while prior spiritual experience levels did not differ between the two groups. The depth of the NDE was positively linked to the frequency of later spiritual experiences. These findings align with other reported aftereffects of NDEs.
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
September 1, 1977
Bruce Greyson
31 citations
A belief in mind reading is often considered a psychotic symptom, though parapsychology reports veridical telepathy. In a psychiatric inpatient unit, 18% of patients claimed telepathic abilities; nine completed a free-response ESP task, and none scored above chance. Paranormal experiences were more frequent than in prior psychiatric studies, attributed to the study context. Schneider's first-rank symptoms and a belief in telepathy distinguished schizophrenics more reliably than other paranormal experiences. The psychodynamics of telepathy delusions were discussed, noting a predominance of women and younger men reporting them, along with potential effects of such research on patients' delusions.
The Journal of near-death studies
January 1, 1987
Bruce Greyson, Harris, Barbara
27 citations
After a near-death experience, people may face psychological difficulties. Guidelines and specific interventions developed at an interdisciplinary conference aim to help NDErs cope with these challenges.
Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior
March 1, 1986
Bruce Greyson
27 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) are profound subjective events with transcendental or mystical elements that can occur during a close brush with death. Among 61 consecutive hospital admissions for attempted suicide, 16 patients (26.2%) reported having an NDE triggered by the attempt. The presence of NDEs was not significantly linked to any demographic factors. Given how often NDEs follow a suicide attempt, more research is needed to understand their impact on later suicidal behavior.
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
June 1, 2000
Emily Williams Kelly, Bruce Greyson, Ian Stevenson
26 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) often convince those who have them that consciousness survives death, a conviction not shared by others. While any single NDE feature might be explained non-survivally, three features together suggest the possibility of survival: enhanced mental processes during serious physiological impairment, out-of-body experiences where the person views events from above, and awareness of remote events inaccessible to ordinary senses. The authors briefly report one case and describe two additional cases where the remote events apparently seen were verified by other people.
Journal of Humanistic Psychology
May 31, 2004
Bruce Greyson, Mitchell B. Liester
24 citations
Among people who have had near-death experiences, 80% also report later auditory hallucinations. Those who have these hallucinations overwhelmingly view them positively, unlike most schizophrenia patients who regard their auditory hallucinations negatively. Auditory hallucinations that are not tied to illness are common and can be highly valued by those who experience them.
Psychology of Consciousness Theory Research and Practice
January 19, 2015
Rense Lange, Bruce Greyson, James Houran
18 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) have a consistent structure that appears in both standardized scales and people's own verbal accounts. Analyzing a large dataset of NDE narratives with latent semantic analysis, researchers found that accounts from people who scored above the median on Greyson's NDE Scale contained seven distinct linguistic clusters. Four of these clusters involved transcendent or paranormal themes, while three focused on physiological or environmental details. The results confirm that the intensity of an NDE correlates with the content of the verbal report, supporting the concurrent validity of Greyson's NDE Scale. This approach demonstrates how computational text analysis can reveal structure in qualitative data relevant to consciousness studies.
University of North Texas Digital Library (University of North Texas)
January 1, 2004
Bruce Greyson, Kenneth Ring
17 citations
The Life Changes Inventory-Revised is a standardized scale that captures changes in attitudes and values often reported by people who have had near-death experiences. The scale builds on earlier versions tested across diverse samples and incorporates insights from qualitative research on how such experiences transform perspectives on life, death, and relationships. The inventory provides a reliable tool for measuring these shifts systematically.
The Journal of near-death studies
January 1, 1994
Bruce Greyson
17 citations
Near-death experiences are associated with lasting positive changes in attitudes, beliefs, and values, which may increase life satisfaction. The article reviews how these experiences often lead to reduced fear of death, a greater appreciation for life, increased compassion, and shifts in personal priorities. These transformations suggest that NDEs can profoundly alter an individual's worldview and enhance their overall sense of well-being.