“Reality†of near-death-experience memories: evidence from a psychodynamic and electrophysiological integrated study
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience June 19, 2014 Arianna Palmieri, Vincenzo Calvo, Johann Roland Kleinbub et al. 51 citations
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.