Near-death experiences are more common than many of us might think: Some studies estimate that between four and eight percent of the global population has had one, as have up to 23 percent of cardiac arrest survivors. These journeys into the borderlands of consciousness tend to feature a few common perceptual themes: ghostly figures and bright lights, tunnels, a sense of peace and calm. But questions about the nature of such experiences and how such perceptual phenomena arise abound.
Recently, visual artist and neurophenomenology researcher France Lerner and her colleagues asked 50 individuals who reported near-death experiences (NDE) to divide their recollections of them into phases, to reconstruct them using drawings of geometric shapes, and to describe the colors they perceived. The participants reported entering four types of spaces: cones, broad arches, gentle curves, and spaces resembling the inside of an egg. The cone shapes, the researchers note, look a lot like the tunnels ending in bright lights so characteristic of NDE stories.
Read More: “The New Science of the Near-Death Experience”
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