For many Near-Death Experience (NDE) experiencers, an NDE permanently and dramatically alters personal attitudes, beliefs, and values. We studied their self-reported answers regarding impact on life and changes of opinion (concerning meaning of life, death, altruism, religion, and spirituality) following the NDE. Moreover, this retrospective investigation compared the answers of experiencers who lived NDEs after a non-life-threatening event (i.e., “NDE-like” experience) or after a pathological coma (i.e., “real NDE”). 106 NDE experiencers (i.e., Greyson NDE scale total score >7/32) were invited to answer a questionnaire on demographic and clinical data and subjective changes with Likert scales, whose +3 and -3 anchors were positive changes and negative changes, respectively. 71 experiencers (67%) responded to the structured questionnaire. 61 (86%) of them reported a positive effect on their life (rating>0,median+3). The large majority of participants declared that NDE leads to positive changes in meaning of life (79%; rating>0,median+3), death acceptance (89%; rating>0,median+3), altruism (80%; rating>0,median+3), religion (38%; rating>0,median+1), and spirituality (66%; rating>0,median+3). Percentages did not significantly differ between “NDE-like” (n=14) and “real NDE” (n=57) groups. Our findings showed that, for the majority of experiencers, NDE has a positive impact on life and their self-reported changes meet the definition of spiritual transformation (Schwartz, 2000). Lastly, it appears that self-reported opinions of “real NDE” group are similar to those of “NDE-like” group. Visit her website
Follow Us