Researchers investigate 'life-review experience' in near-death people

(Medical Xpress)—A trio of researchers with Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center in Israel has found that many people do experience unusual memory events near death. In their paper published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, Judith Katz, Noam Saadon-Grosman and Shahar Arzy describe the study they carried out and how their findings compare to descriptions of the phenomenon in literature and art.

Most people have heard of the phrase "life passing before your eyes" and recognize it as something they have likely seen in a movie—a dying person experiences a succession of memories of major life events, generally moving one way or the other in time. In this new effort, the researchers sought to find out if the phenomenon is real or whether it is something created by writers and filmmakers.

The team started by examining documentation of interviews with seven people who had experienced a near-death experience. They developed a questionnaire that they sent out to 264 other people who medical reports suggested had also had near-death experiences.

From the questionnaires, the researchers concluded that unusual memory events did occur among those who had approached death—but not in the way depicted in movies. There was no chronological timeline, for example. Instead, people experienced random memories that they described as occurring without the feeling of time passing. Some described memories as feeling as if they were happening simultaneously, like a video collage of sorts, though they were able to separate the events they experienced. Many of the memories were described as exceptionally vivid and emotional.

Many of the responders also reported experiencing what they described as memories from the perspective of other people—they would feel as if in the mind of another person as events transpired that were actually from their own memories.

All of the respondents reported that their near-death experiences had a profound impact on them, and that it caused them to have a different outlook on life and death, most particularly in how they viewed or felt about the people in their lives.

The researchers did not attempt to find the source of the unusual memories, but suggest they may be due to the fact that they occur in parts of the brain that hold autobiographical information and processing—such as the medial, prefrontal and temporal cortices, all of which are the least impacted parts of the brain during blood-flow loss.

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