Abstract

Reports of near-death experiences (NDEs) with suggestive or manifestly hallucinatory features strongly imply that NDEs are not glimpses of an afterlife, but rather internally generated fantasies. Such features include discrepancies between what is seen in the seemingly physical environment of “out-of-body” NDEs and what is actually happening in the physical world at the time, bodily sensations felt after near-death experiencers (NDErs) have ostensibly departed the physical world altogether and entered a transcendental realm, encounters with living persons and fictional characters while NDErs are ostensibly in a transcendental realm, hallucinatory imagery in NDEs, medical influences on the experience itself, the ubiquitous influence of culture and personal expectation on the content (not merely the description) of NDEs, and the failure of “prophetic” NDEs to accurately forecast future events, among other things. 1. Out-of-Body Discrepancies -- 2. Bodily Sensations -- 3. Living Persons -- 4. Hallucinatory Imagery -- 5. The Influence of Medical Factors -- 6. Cultural Differences -- 7. Unfulfilled Predictions -- 8. Conclusion