Near-death experiences (NDEs) produce memories that are phenomenologically and neurally similar to memories of real events, not imagined ones. In a study of 10 people who had NDEs and 10 controls, a hypnosis-based protocol improved recall detail for all memory types. NDE memories matched real-event memories in richness, self-reference, and emotion, and differed significantly from imagined-event memories. Electroencephalography showed that real-memory recall correlated with high alpha and gamma brain rhythms, while NDE memory recall correlated with theta and delta bands—theta being a marker of episodic memory and delta linked to recollection, trance states, and transpersonal experience. The findings indicate NDE memories are stored as episodic memories of events experienced in a distinct state of consciousness.
Working memory may operate on unconscious perceptual contents, though it remains linked to conscious perception. A large, multisite replication (19 labs, 531 participants, 720 trials) of Soto et al. (2011) found above-chance accuracy (.55) on a visual discrimination task when participants reported not seeing the subliminal Gabor grating. Performance correlated positively with cue detection sensitivity (r = .228), and the regression intercept was significantly above chance (β₀ = .521). The study provides an open-access dataset and confirms that measures were reliable and valid, supporting the existence of unconscious working memory.