A near-death experience (NDE) is the perception reported by a person who nearly died or who was clinically dead and revived. They are somewhat common, especially since the development of cardiac resuscitation techniques. The experience often includes an out-of-body experience. 

According to IANDS, NDEs have occurred for thousands of years. Major studies indicate that 35-40 percent of people who come close to death may later report an NDE. It is not known whether the other 60-65 percent do not have an NDE, have one but do not remember, or choose not to discuss it.

A 1982 Gallup poll estimated that eight million people have had a near death experience meaning that they declared having experienced something transcendent and spiritual while they were physically dead before returning to the world of the living. Their descriptions of this experience are an increasingly popular topic for talk shows, books, television news and magazines. It is becoming almost a fashion and many stars chose to have their own N.D.E instead of the real one.

These experiences follow the general same scenario:

The patient lie on a bed usually in an hospital, he can hear someone refering to his death like the classic "We're losing him". He then feel he leaves his own body, and usually remembers the vision of his body somewhere below. He is then drawn into what is described as a tunnel, a passageway, a portal, and toward a mystical, powerful light at the end of a tunnel.

When he comes out, there is a very brilliant, warm, loving and accepting light. People at this point describe just amazing feelings of peace and comfort. In this light they say that relatives or friends of theirs who have already died seem to be there to help them through this transition. Another thing they will often tell us is that at this point they are met by some religious figure.

Christians say Christ, Jews say God or an angel. This being, in effect, asks them a question. Communication does not take place through words as you and I are now using, but rather in the form of an immediate awareness: "What have you done with your life? How have you learned to love?" . Patients can also experience vivid experiences of reviewing their lives, either as a series of episodes or in a flash. Their life is displayed around them in the form of a full-color, three-dimensional panorama, and it involves every detail of their life, they say, from the point of their birth right up to the point of this close call with death.

At some point they reach a boundary and return to life, with or without a choice being offered. The return to the body is often recorded as a blank, though others record this part of the experience as painful.

People who have undergone near death experiences often report feeling literally revitalized by the event. They may approach life with a greater awareness of its value, or with a changed perspective about the importance of relationships as compared to mere material gain. No more fear of death, renewed commitment to loving others, living in the present and not worrying about the future and a great sense of contentment are the usual attitudes they adopt.

These experiences are about near-death - not actual death. People whose physical functions have stopped for a short time are not truly, irrevocably dead. Their experiences may well be biologically induced, the result of shock, trauma of oxygen deprivation to the brain and the accounts they give are untestable against hard evidence. Perhaps these are glimpses of an afterlife, or perhaps they are simply psychological phenomena. However, the people who experience them remain convinced of their reality.