This article tells a little about what NDEs are and the study of this phenomenon. Very good help toward our Epicurean understanding that death is nothing to be feared.
"The Afterlife Is in Our Heads"
by Kristen French September 28, 2022
Excerpt:
“You don’t want to undermine the person’s lived experience,” Seth said. “If they experience flying through a tunnel of light, into a beautiful white open space, then that’s what they experience. But memories, things that minds do, like remember things and talk about them, depend on brain activity. No brain activity, no mental process. If somebody with no brain activity were able to experience something and remember it later, then pretty much everything we know about the brain, about science, about physics is wrong.”
While no single overarching explanation for the NDE has yet been established, neuroscientists have discovered a series of neurophysiological mechanisms that could, together, account for many aspects of the phenomenon. One hypothesis is that NDEs are produced by the release in the brain of a natural hallucinogen with neuroprotective properties.
Scientists haven’t assembled all the pieces to explain why brains in desperate throes generate feelings of peace and joy, ineffability, and the sense of being in the presence of something transcendent. “It’s always difficult for science to answer the big why questions,” Laureys said. Comas, of the Icloby Foundation, told me that by educating the public about near-death experiences, she and Melo hoped to “to eradicate the fear of death.” After all, she said, “The fear of death is the mother and father of all fears.” Who could argue with that? Scientific evidence says near-death experiences are directly linked to the workings of our brains. But evolution is a sly master. Perhaps our biology in its final hour is easing us gently into that good night.
