What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about the Brain

A close brush can leave a lasting mental legacy—and may tell us about how the mind functions under extreme conditions

• Near-death experiences are triggered during singular life-threatening episodes when the body is injured by a heart attack, shock, or blunt trauma such as an explosion or a fall.
• These events share broad commonalities: becoming pain-free, seeing a bright light at the end of a tunnel, or detaching from one's body and floating above it and even flying off into space.
• Why the mind should experience the struggle to sustain its operations in the face of a loss of blood flow and oxygen as positive and blissful rather than as panic-inducing remains a mystery.