The Phenomenology of Distressing Near-death Experiences and Their Aftereffects

Abstract: The purpose of our study was to explore what it is like to have a distressing near-death experience (NDE) and the aftereffects that follow. Positive NDEs have previously been more extensively studied, whereas research about distressing NDEs is still lacking. There have only been a handful of studies that have used qualitative methods to study both distressing and positive NDEs. We accessed all distressing NDE narratives from the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) database. In total we analyzed eight individual narratives using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Our findings show that distressing NDEs can include features such as disturbing feelings and experiences of darkness in different forms. Results also show that there are both emotional and social difficulties in dealing with the NDE afterwards. Aftereffects such as receiving negative feedback when talking about the experience and heightened emotions were reported. We found some hybrid experiences, where the distressing experience had positive features as well. Future research about NDEs should focus on hybrid experiences and employ mixed methods and more qualitative research in general.