While attempted suicide generally increases the risk of later completed suicide, preliminary data and psychodynamic hypotheses suggest that serious suicide attempts followed by a transcendental near-death experience (NDE) may instead reduce subsequent overt suicide risk, even though NDEs can appear to romanticize death. The authors propose further studies on NDEs and their influence on suicidal ideation to better understand self-destructive urges and develop new suicide prevention strategies.
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.