In short
Whether near-death experiences (NDEs) are real, what they typically include, and what science can explain about them.
Guests/backgrounds
Sue Blackmore, visiting psychology professor at University of Plymouth; has studied NDEs for 50 years and had her own tunnel/out-of-body-like experience. Gimo Borjigin, University of Michigan researcher; monitored brain activity in cardiac-arrest patients. Christopher Timmerman, UCL Centre for Consciousness Research co-director; studies NDEs and DMT/altered states.
Key claims
NDEs are hard to define and study, but reports are consistent (tunnel/light, out-of-body, life review, other realms). In 2023, EEG showed unusual gamma activity in some patients after ventilator withdrawal, including visual cortex, temporal lobe (memory), and right TPJ (empathy/out-of-body links). DMT experiences resemble NDEs; endogenous DMT surges are speculative but testable.
Notable examples
Kayleigh’s heart-attack NDE included tunnel/light, out-of-body, life review, and a “boundary of no return.” Sue Blackmore’s Oxford experience involved seeing from above, “flying,” and expanding into “space.”
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOUnderstanding Near-Death Experiences
0:30 to 0:57
Exploration of a near-death experience described by Kaylee.
“Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now?”
Understanding Near-Death Experiences
1:01 to 2:38
Exploration of a near-death experience described by Kaylee.
“I didn't have any feeling in my extremities.”
Listener's Inquiry into NDEs
2:38 to 3:41
Discussion prompted by listener Steve's skepticism about NDEs.
“All thanks to an email we received from listener Steve in Chile.”
Expert Insights from Sue Blackmore
3:41 to 6:42
Interview with Sue Blackmore about the definition and history of NDEs.
“Sue Blackmore is a visiting professor of psychology at the University of Plymouth in the UK.”
Components of Near-Death Experiences
6:42 to 8:11
Describing common elements of NDEs, including light and out-of-body experiences.
“That feeling of leaving your body behind can be part of a near-death experience.”
Emotional Impact of NDEs
8:11 to 10:54
Discussion on how NDEs can change people's perspectives on life and death.
“And then there can be a decision to return and get the sense that, you know, should I let go and go on into the light?”
Kaylee's Transformative Experience
10:54 to 13:14
Kaylee reflects on her NDE and the life-changing choices she made afterwards.
“I used to be a really miserable person, upset for, you know, the things in my life that didn't go according to my plan or, you know, just not having the best luck in life.”
Mysticism vs. Biology in NDEs
13:14 to 13:28
Questioning the nature of NDEs: mystical experiences or brain constructs?
“We know what it's like to experience an NDE, but are they as mystical as they seem?”
Investigating Brain Activity During Death
14:51 to 21:56
A study reveals brain activity patterns in patients who died after heart attacks.
“Gimo Borjigin, at the University of Michigan in the US, has done just that.”
DMT and Near-Death Experiences
22:01 to 24:13
Exploration of the relationship between DMT and near-death experiences.
“But there might be a sort of side door into this.”
Show all 12 chapters
The Challenges of Understanding NDEs
24:18 to 27:50
Discussion on the complexities of studying near-death experiences and their implications.
“NDEs and DMT experiences sound very similar to me.”
Listener Question Introduction
28:03 to 28:22
Learn how listeners can engage with the show by submitting questions.
“The presenter was Caroline Steele, and the producer was Harrison Lewis.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Susan Blackmore:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
0:30Susan Blackmore:at Whole Foods Market. Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now? Expense reports, receipt chasing, month-end close that takes weeks. You become what you spend on, and that's not what you're building toward. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that eliminates that work before it starts. AI agents that handle the manual stuff automatically, so your team can spend their time on what actually compounds. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. I was laying in bed, paralyzed. I didn't have any feeling in my extremities. And that feeling persisted and continued to the point where my, I guess you could say essence or soul or whatever felt like it was slowly separating from my body.
1:31Susan Blackmore:and I was looking straight up at the ceiling, and I kept moving closer and closer. It wasn't until the ceiling became essentially right up to my nose that I turned around onto my stomach. When I turned my body over, I realized I was looking down at myself, at my suffering body and felt extreme pity.
2:20Steven:you're listening to crowd science from the bbc world service the show that answers your science questions in this episode we're brushing shoulders with death i'm caroline steel and you've been listening to kaylee in the us describing what it's like to have a near-death experience. All thanks to an email we received from listener Steve in Chile.
2:48Susan Blackmore:I'm a university student currently taking CPR classes. During my coursework, I recently learned about near-death experiences. As far as I'm aware, NDEs are unexplainable events that people sometimes experience when close to death. They often comprise of visions or extreme emotional states. I've been reading up on them recently and must admit I'm sceptical they exist. My question for you, Caroline, are near-death experiences real?
3:22Steven:You might be familiar with the idea of near-death experiences, or NDEs. They're extraordinary and sometimes profound experiences reported by people who have nearly died. They sound almost mythical or magical. So listener Steve wants us to investigate the science behind them. Are they real? But first, what exactly are they? Sue Blackmore is a visiting professor of psychology at the University of Plymouth in the UK. She's been studying near-death experiences for the past 50 years. It's really hard to define the near-death experience for one reason, that the same experiences don't have to be near death.
4:04Steven:Subjective experiences can be a bit messy and historically defining an NDE has been very difficult. In the early 1970s, Sue had an extraordinary experience of her own which she couldn't explain. It was my first time at Oxford and I was sitting around late at night in a friend's room listening to music, Grateful Dead or Pink Floyd or something like that, it would have been smoking a little bit of cannabis, but I really didn't want any that night. I was feeling rather peculiar. I think it was extreme sleep deprivation, having too much of an exciting time in my first time. So I sat there and I was going down a tunnel.
4:46Steven:It was a tunnel of trees and it was sort of gloomy towards a light at the end. And a friend said to me, where are you, Sue?
4:54Susan Blackmore:Where are you, Sue?
4:57Steven:And suddenly it all became clear and I was, as it were, looking down from the ceiling on the three of us sat there.
5:08Steven:But with this boy asking me, well, what can you see? Where can you go? Can you go out of the building? What can you see? Where can you go? I wasn't able to be afraid. I just answered the questions and I could sort of hear the voice from far away. and I went out and went flying around all over the place then I tried to get back into my body and it was too difficult and I got too small and I became like really tiny and that was very frightening and I tried to get bigger and I got too big and I just went on and on and expanding and I just expanded into everything and there was No me, no anything else.
5:52Steven:Just space.
5:58Steven:This one evening totally changed the trajectory of Sue's career. She ended up dedicating her life to better understanding experiences like her own. There had been cases reported in the literature of the Psychical Research Society, for example, which was founded in 1882, but there wasn't a name that kind of pulled it all together. That happened with Raymond Moody's book Life After Life in 1975 or 1976. And that really was a dramatic change. There was a sudden rush to categorise and define these extraordinary events, which we can now do. According to research from the late 1970s, Sue had an out-of-body experience.
6:42Steven:That feeling of leaving your body behind can be part of a near-death experience. Kayleigh, who we heard from at the start of the show, experienced all the components that can make up an NDE when she had a heart attack in her bed at home.
7:01Susan Blackmore:I ended up seeing this really bright light, this tunnel of sorts.
7:10Steven:They're described as being a flow of different experiences, usually starting with the sense of going down the dark tunnel towards a bright light, often followed by going into the light.
7:24Susan Blackmore:And so I was traveling towards this light.
7:30Steven:Or an out-of-the-body experience when the person seems to be still perfectly conscious, but not inside their body. They seem to be looking down from above.
7:39Susan Blackmore:My, I guess you could say essence or soul or whatever felt like it was slowly separating from my body.
7:48Steven:And after that can come sometimes a life review where the whole life seems to go in front of you.
7:54Susan Blackmore:I saw everything from the moment I was born until that moment where I died.
8:01Steven:And finally there's going into other worlds.
8:06Susan Blackmore:I essentially headed towards this light where I was no longer in the house. I was in some different realm.
8:15Steven:And then there can be a decision to return and get the sense that, you know, should I let go and go on into the light? Or I want to go back for my children or I want to go back for any number of reasons. And then the experience would end.
8:29Susan Blackmore:I, like, knew if I continued towards this light that I would no longer have the ability to go back to my body, that that would be it.
8:43Steven:These kind of experiences, tunnels, lights, out-of-the-body experiences and going to other worlds, they happen. But that whole sequence of experiences is quite rare. Most experiences are rather shorter than that. Near-death experiences vary from person to person, but there are some patterns. Many people recall moving through a tunnel and heading towards a bright light, and a few people report seeing their whole life flash before their eyes, known as a life review. Some people experience just one of these things, while others, like Kayleigh, experience it all. A whole sequence of events.
9:23Susan Blackmore:after I had the life review I was back in that place that boundary of no return and then I had to turn around and go back home to my body so then when I went back I ended up back in my bed
9:44Steven:that must have been so bizarre going from that like really mind-blowing experience to being back in your bed, back in normal life.
9:53Susan Blackmore:I think the most bizarre part about it was how emotionally changed I felt.
10:03Steven:Our professor of psychology, Sue, has looked into how these experiences affect people's outlook. One thing that's important to know about near-death experiences is their after effects. Because very often people are changed by these experiences. and typically they are changed for the better. Typically they don't become more afraid of death, they become less afraid of death because they have the feeling that, well, that's how it's going to be and this time I'll really carry on. But more interesting, I think, is that it tends to change people's attitude towards what's important in life. So people describe becoming, well, more compassionate really, more interested in people and in their family or their friends or whatever, less interested in money and status and power because of what they've been through.
10:54Susan Blackmore:I used to be a really miserable person, upset for, you know, the things in my life that didn't go according to my plan or, you know, just not having the best luck in life. And now I have a completely different perspective. In what way? well when I had the life review in particular a lot of the most impactful memories we have you know a good chunk of them are good positive loving exciting memories and a good chunk of them are negative experiences and in those moments the more impactful ones I was no longer looking at my life on a movie screen, but it was like I shifted from the third person into the memory itself and I inhabited my body.
11:53Susan Blackmore:And the people that were in those negative memories, I not only felt every emotion I was feeling in that moment, but I had a life review of sorts of their own life. So I experienced every emotion that they had ever had in their life up until that point where they were doing me wrong in some way, shape or form. And so when I came out of the experience, it wasn't as if I had some omniscient sense of knowing like, haha, I know why you are the way that you are, why you're such a bad person. It wasn't like that. But there was a sense in which I didn't know why they were the way they were or why they acted in those ways.
12:36Susan Blackmore:And it gave me a lot of hope that maybe just maybe my life is meant to be greater than I previously thought.
12:48Steven:Kayleigh's experience sounds absolutely terrifying to me. But to be honest, I'm also jealous of the effect it's had on her. She went on to leave a difficult relationship, quit her job and go to university. she really took life into her own hands. During her NDE, Kaylee reached a turning point. Should she continue into the light and leave the earthly world behind, or choose to return to her body and embrace life? We know what it's like to experience an NDE, but are they as mystical as they seem? Is there really a tunnel leading to the other side, or is it a construction of our brains? That's coming up next.
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14:32Steven:You're listening to CrowdScience from the BBC World Service, the show that answers your science questions. In this episode, we're exploring a question from listener Steve, who wants to know, are near-death experiences real? Now, unfortunately, NDEs are hard to study. It would require peering inside someone's brain just before death. Gimo Borjigin, at the University of Michigan in the US, has done just that. with people who have suffered a heart attack. Most of cardiac rats happens at home. So by the time they're in the hospital, they're already comatose. In 2023, four patients were rushed into hospital after severe heart attacks.
15:15Steven:They were hooked up to an EKG to measure their heart rate. And their brain activity was also monitored using an EEG. So after all the tests are done, And physicians, if they thought it's very little hope the patient could recover, then they discuss the situation with their patient's loved ones. If they all decided there's very little hope for recovery, then they may decide to withdraw the ventilator. All the families in Gimo's study chose to switch off the ventilator. In our case, all four patients died within 30 minutes after the ventilator was removed. And what did you see happening in their brain?
15:58Steven:Yeah, a lot. Okay, first of all, as soon as you remove the ventilator, the two of the four patients showed their heart rate is actually increasing for a couple of minutes. And then suddenly heart rate crashes. That is, the heart is no longer pumping the blood, which is the definition of a clinical death. And then what's really interesting is they started showing this massive activation, gamma electric activity. So the gamma is the fastest brainwaves.
16:32Steven:The patients had died, but activity in the brains of two patients surged. Their brains were even more active than when they were alive, and the activity itself was unusual. Our brains are driven by electrical pulses shooting along cells called neurons. These pulses can happen at different frequencies, giving different kinds of brainwaves, each with a different purpose. Delta waves have the lowest frequency and are associated with unconscious bodily processes like our heartbeats, while gamma waves have the highest frequency and govern things like learning and cognitive function, so consciousness.
Read the full transcript
17:16Steven:Usually when we're going about our daily business, if you were to monitor our activity, the brainwaves show stronger signals than delta activity. Whereas if you're involved in concentrating on thinking, consciousness, or some kind of intentional activity, is it paying attention to something, learning new things, then your gamma activity goes up. And you saw more gamma? More gamma, yeah. Interesting. So does that suggest more consciousness? us? Yes, to me, that's what it means. So after the patients had died, GMI saw evidence that two of the patients could have become more conscious. And this heightened state lasted for an incredibly long time.
17:59Steven:So from that moment until the EEG and EKG both flatlined, lasted anywhere from seven minutes in patient one or 20 minutes for patient maybe two. So it could be quite long. 20 minutes of brain activity after death. And we have no idea what it felt like for the patients during that time. But to make an educated guess, Jimo had a look at which regions of their brains were the most active. Yeah, so several parts of the brain involved in visual perception. So I think we detected activation of gamma activity in all three parts of the brain, which is the back of your brain. First, Jimo saw that the visual cortex, the area of our brains associated with seeing things, lit up.
18:47Steven:Could the patients have been seeing a tunnel or maybe a bright light? This would be consistent with the reports from now, I think it's millions of survivors of cardiac arrest who had near-death experience, who had visual experience, who had claimed they'd seen light. This is consistent with our discovery of a strong activation, the visual cortex. That's so interesting. OK, so you see more gamma rays in areas of the brain associated with visual processing. Are there any other areas of the brain that have more gamma rays? Yes. It also involves temporal lobe, which is the part of the brain involves memory.
19:31Steven:Our temporal lobes are on either side of our brains, somewhere between our temples and our ears. Gimo thinks activity in this area could be a clue that the patients were looking back on their lives. Another very striking part of the brain that's activated is the right TPJ. It's got a right temporal, right or junction. Does that mean there's two junctions? There's a junction on the left and a junction on the right? Correct, yes. So on the left side of the brain, it's more important for speech perceptions. and in more recent years, cognitive neuroscience told us that a right side of the temporal parietal junction, where the so-called empathy is created.
20:12Steven:The TPJ, or temporal prior junction, is a connective region towards the back of the brain. In previous research undertaken by a different team, the TPJ has been stimulated intentionally. Electrical impulses were delivered by electrodes placed on the outside of the head of AWAKE volunteers. Fascinatingly, the patients consistently reported having an out-of-body experience as a result. In Gimo's research, she also saw activity in this area. In our study, it will show that this region is highly activated. So this may indicate that patients actually experience out-of-body sensation. So Jimo's found that not only does the brain remain active after death, but those regions of activity appear to match up to what people report when they have near-death experiences.
21:05Steven:Now, in an ideal but maybe impossible world, Jimo would repeat her study, but with people who survive. Now the question is, can you correlate the neural signatures of that consciousness in a dying human subject and to correlate with the subjective reports. These patients, when they survive the death or come back to life, can share with us. So I think that will be the challenge in the future, but it's going to be a potentially long, difficult process.
21:43Steven:At the moment, we're only speculating when we say GEMO's patients may have been having NDEs. Because we don't have any data on what's happening in the brains of patients who are close to death, but then survive. And because of logistical challenges, it will probably be a while until we do. But there might be a sort of side door into this. Christopher Timmerman is co-director of the UCL Centre for Consciousness Research in London in the UK. He also studies NDEs, and he's come up with a way of researching them that doesn't require a person that's close to death.
22:20Susan Blackmore:DMT or N-n-dimethyltryptamine.
22:22Steven:DMT is a powerful psychedelic substance.
22:26Susan Blackmore:You find it in many plants. It's widely distributed in nature. You can also find DMT in our bodies. Mammals produce DMT in very small amounts. It's also part of a brew called ayahuasca, which is this brew that has been used by indigenous people for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. It induces immersive visions and at times encounters with seemingly sentient beings or entities. And in these experiences, we observed a striking similarity with what people reported under near-death experiences.
23:08Steven:people who sign up for dmt studies often report a changed outlook on the world much like kaylee who we heard from earlier it's not an isolated event for near-death experiences
23:19Susan Blackmore:but it's it's something that is very common to altered states of consciousness and what i think is happening under the hood is that it's a reorganization of meaning it has to do with the experience of the self or their ego becoming dissolved once you dissolve that there's kind of like a reorganization of that meaning you know this is the true self this wider sort of thing
23:45Steven:that i'm experiencing so do you think by studying dmt experiences and by studying near-death experiences it can sort of teach us something about i guess consciousness and what it means to think.
23:59Susan Blackmore:It teaches about consciousness and the role that, for example, the sense of self plays in consciousness, the role that meaning, meaning making what seems meaningful and truthful plays in our subjective experience of the world and of ourselves.
24:18Steven:NDEs and DMT experiences sound very similar to me. And it's much easier to measure brain activity in someone taking DMT than it is in someone close to death.
24:29Susan Blackmore:What we see generally with DMT is that the filters of the brain, the typical filters that keep things tidy in our brains, for example, what we call alpha brain waves, they become dramatically reduced. And so the filters go out. And what we find as the result of the filters going out is that many areas of the brain become dysregulated, dysynchronized, and start hyper-connecting with the rest of the brain. And the areas of the brain where we find that this effect is more pronounced are areas of the brain that have evolved later. And so there are areas of the brain that have to do with memory, that have to do with imagination, and have to do with learning.
25:14Steven:So you mentioned that we humans produce some DMT. Do we have any idea what it is there for, like what we use it for in our bodies?
25:25Susan Blackmore:So there's a lot of speculation on what the role of endogenous DMT is. Some of it is supposedly that all these spontaneous mystical experiences that people have are caused by surges of endogenous DMT that is produced. But in reality, we don't know, or not yet at least.
25:48Steven:Perhaps the similarities between near-death experiences and taking DMT isn't a coincidence. Maybe DMT is actually the root cause of near-death experiences. Perhaps DMT led to the brain activity that Gimo saw in her patients. But for now, we just don't have the data to back that up.
26:08Susan Blackmore:A very simple question, for example, that could be answered is, for example, to measure the levels of DMT in the blood of individuals when they're having a near-death experience. In the same way that Gimo did her studies where she monitored the brain activity with brain waves, you can do something very similar by just probing the levels of DMT in the blood. if those are elevated at the moment of death, then we directly address this question of whether or not there's not only this overlap between DMT and near-death experiences, but DMT is the cause of near-death experiences.
26:55Steven:Steve, you wanted to know if near-death experiences are real. Well, people really do experience them, and with a plethora of testimonies, they are well-characterized. A string of events including blinding lights, out-of-body experiences and life reviews. And we have a good idea of which regions of the brain are responsible for each of those components. But we don't know what causes that brain activity. Could it be DMT? Or something else entirely? We also don't know for sure whether the experiences that people report when they escape death are also what people experience when they actually die.
27:37Steven:To work out whether near-death experiences are helping usher us into the beyond will only be known when we can answer those questions. And because of the challenges that come with looking inside the brain of someone just before death, it might be a while until we know for sure. So, in the meantime, let me leave you with the credits.
27:58Susan Blackmore:That's it for this edition of Crown Science from the BBC World Service. The question came from Steve in Chile. The presenter was Caroline Steele, and the producer was Harrison Lewis. If you have a mystical or scientific question you want scrutinized by the team, send them an email to crownscience at bbc.co.uk. Thanks for listening. Bye!
28:32Susan Blackmore:Is the American Dream still possible? I'm Asma Khalid, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. One of the most successful exports the United States has ever sold the world is the American dream, that tantalizing promise of a better, freer, richer life. But is it still attainable? I feel like the American dream is alive, but not well. For more, listen to the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Simon Jack. I'm Zing Zing. And together we host Good Bad Billionaire. The podcast exploring how some of the wealthiest people on the planet made their money.
29:10Susan Blackmore:And we are back with a new season. From sporting superstars to music moguls and celebrity CEOs. We'll be taking a closer look at the lives and fortunes of some of the world's richest people. And asking you to decide if they're good, bad or just another billionaire. Good, bad billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now or search for Good, Bad, Billionaire wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
29:36Thank you.
From the publisher
In your final moments, they say, you may walk down a tunnel of light. You might rise above your body, watching the scene below before passing into another world. Perhaps you’ll be met by glowing figures, see your life flash before your eyes, or feel a deep, unearthly calm.
These are the stories of people who’ve reached the edge of death and returned. They’re not rare, nor random, and they have a name: near-death experiences.
CrowdScience listener Steven in Chile first heard of them during a CPR class and wondered, are they fictitious?
Psychologist Susan Blackmore once had an out-of-body experience as a student in Oxford, UK — floating above herself before soaring over the rooftops and dissolving into the universe. That single moment changed everything. She’s spent her career trying to understand what happened, and she believes such experiences are explainable.
At the University of Michigan in the US, neuroscientist Professor Jimo Borjigin has done what few have dared: record the dying brain in action. Her studies show that even after the heart stops, the brain can produce powerful surges of coordinated activity, bursts that might explain the lights, the tunnels, and the sense of peace. She believes near-death experiences could become one of science’s most intriguing scientific frontiers for research into consciousness.
At University College London in the UK, neuroscientist Dr Christopher Timmermann is exploring similar states using psychedelics, pushing the boundaries between self and oblivion to identify what induces a near-death experience and what we can learn about our consciousness along the way.
Near death experiences, a paranormal mystery or explainable phenomenon?
Presenter: Caroline Steel Producer: Harrison Lewis Editor: Ben Motley
(Photo: Gap in the wall - stock photo Credit: peterschreiber.media via Getty Images)