Variations from the Prototypic Near-Death Experience: The "Individually Tailored" Hypothesis (open access)

Variations from the Prototypic Near-Death Experience: The "Individually Tailored" Hypothesis

Study of firsthand accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs), which revealed a number of variations from the prototypic NDE description, including feeling judged during a life review, seeing a nondeceased friend in the tunnel, experiencing no pain upon returning to the physical body, and crossing a barrier before being sent back.
Date: Spring 1995
Creator: Serdahely, William J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Describing the Light: Attribution Theory as an Explanation of the Near-Death Experience (open access)

Describing the Light: Attribution Theory as an Explanation of the Near-Death Experience

Article exploring near-death experiences and attribution theory, which focuses on how information is used to create causal inferences and answer causal questions. The finding that near-death experiencers (NDErs) rarely describe unknown events, characters, or objects suggests that NDErs make attributions to answer why these experiences occurred. Examining various descriptions of NDEs demonstrates how attribution theory explains individuals' descriptions of their NDEs.
Date: Spring 1995
Creator: Norton, Max C. & Sahlman, James M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Death of a Gedanken Creature (open access)

Death of a Gedanken Creature

Paper describing a thought experiment in which a hypothetical creature created by a computer program inhabits a simple universe consisting of itself, food, and predators. As this creature "dies" it "internally" experiences these environmental features independent of their actual presence. More evolved hypothetical creatures generate novel forms of "inner" experiences as they "die." Applying these results to humans suggests an "internal" genesis of near-death experiences.
Date: Spring 1995
Creator: Thaler, Stephen L.
System: The UNT Digital Library