Intensity and Memory Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences
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Plain English Summary
Have you ever had a dream so vivid it felt realer than real life? That's what near-death experiences (NDEs) seem to be like -- and the more intense the experience, the more stunningly vivid the memories. Researchers surveyed 152 people who'd had NDEs and found that stronger experiences produced richer, more detailed memories packed with sensory detail and deep personal significance. Here's the remarkable part: these memories didn't fade over time. Even after an average of 23 years, they stayed rock-solid. That's a striking finding, since these experiences happen during states of severely altered consciousness when you'd expect the brain to be terrible at forming memories.
Abstract
Memories of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) seem to be very detailed and stable over time. At present, there is still no satisfactory explanation for the NDEs' rich phenomenology. Here we compared phenomenological characteristics of NDE memories with the reported experience's intensity. We included 152 individuals with a self-reported "classical" NDE (i.e. occurring in life-threatening conditions). All participants completed a mailed questionnaire that included a measure of phenomenological characteristics of memories (the Memory Characteristics Questionnaire; MCQ) and a measure of NDE's intensity (the Greyson NDE scale). Greyson NDE scale total score was positively correlated with MCQ total score, suggesting that participants who described more intense NDEs also reported more phenomenological memory characteristics of NDE. Using MCQ items, our study also showed that NDE's intensity is associated in particular with sensory details, personal importance and reactivation frequency variables.
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Cites
- The Near-Death Experience Scale: Construction, Reliability, and Validity — Greyson, Bruce (1983)
- Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences Memories as Compared to Real and Imagined Events Memories — Thonnard, Marie (2013)
- "Reality" of near-death-experience memories: evidence from a psychodynamic and electrophysiological integrated study — Palmieri, Arianna (2014)
- Consistency of Near-Death Experience Accounts over Two Decades: Are Reports Embellished over Time? — Greyson, Bruce (2007)
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📋 Cite this paper
Martial, Charlotte, Charland-Verville, Vanessa, Cassol, Héléna, Didone, Vincent, Van Der Linden, Martial, Laureys, Steven (2017). Intensity and Memory Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences. Consciousness and Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2017.06.018
@article{martial_2017_intensity_memory,
title = {Intensity and Memory Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences},
author = {Martial, Charlotte and Charland-Verville, Vanessa and Cassol, Héléna and Didone, Vincent and Van Der Linden, Martial and Laureys, Steven},
year = {2017},
journal = {Consciousness and Cognition},
doi = {10.1016/j.concog.2017.06.018},
}