Among 126 patients with prolonged ICU stays, 15% reported a near-death experience (NDE) as measured by the Greyson scale. Mechanical ventilation, sedation, analgesia, reason for admission, primary organ dysfunction, and dissociative and spiritual propensities were associated with NDE in initial analyses, but only dissociative and spiritual propensity strongly predicted NDE in a multivariate model. At one-year follow-up with 61 patients, NDE was not significantly linked to quality of life. The findings suggest that cognitive and spiritual factors, rather than medical parameters, are the main predictors of NDE recall in the ICU.
This commentary criticizes a recent paper by Parnia and colleagues that proposed guidelines for studying death and near-death experiences. The authors argue that the original paper contains omissions and knowledge gaps, including incorrect neurological claims about brain death and misunderstandings about consciousness terminology. While the commentators agree that research on near-death experiences needs a framework, they contend that the Parnia paper is misleading and, despite its intentions, actually impedes scientific understanding of near-death experiences and the neural mechanisms of the dying brain.