Consistency of Near-Death Experience Accounts over Two Decades: Are Reports Embellished over Time?
📄 Original study ↗📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
Critics have long suspected that people who report near-death experiences (NDEs) gradually embellish their stories over time, making the whole field unreliable. Bruce Greyson put that idea to the test in a remarkably thorough way: he had 72 people fill out a standardized NDE questionnaire in the early 1980s, then tracked them down roughly 20 years later and had them fill it out again -- without peeking at their old answers. The result? Their scores were essentially identical, with a rock-solid correlation of 0.83. Even more striking, the feel-good parts of the experience actually dipped slightly rather than getting rosier. Published in the respected medical journal Resuscitation, this study is a big deal because it tells every other NDE researcher: yes, people's memories of these experiences hold up over decades.
Research Notes
First long-term (20-year) quantitative study of NDE memory reliability using the NDE Scale. From UVA Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS). Published in a mainstream medical journal (Resuscitation), lending clinical credibility. Directly refutes the 'embellishment over time' criticism of retrospective NDE research. Key validation study for the entire NDE research field.
Longitudinal test-retest study of NDE memory reliability. 72 NDE experiencers (63% of 115 surviving original cohort) completed the NDE Scale in the early 1980s and again 2002-2005, mean interval 19.1 years (SD=2.4), without reference to original responses. Total NDE Scale scores unchanged: T1=14.60±6.97, T2=14.24±7.94, t(71)=0.69, p=0.49. Test-retest r=0.83 (p<0.001) for total; all 4 factors and 16 items at p<0.001. Score changes not correlated with time elapsed (r=-0.14, p=0.24). Contrary to embellishment hypothesis, positive affect reports showed nonsignificant decline. Published in Resuscitation.
Links
Related Papers
Cited By
- Seeing Dead People Not Known to Have Died: "Peak in Darien" Experiences — Greyson, Bruce (2010)
- Cosmological Implications of Near-Death Experiences — Greyson, Bruce (2011)
- Intensity and Memory Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences — Martial, Charlotte (2017)
- Epistemological Implications of Near-Death Experiences and Other Non-Ordinary Mental Expressions: Moving Beyond the Concept of Altered State of Consciousness — Facco, Enrico (2015)
- Explanation of Near-Death Experiences: A Systematic Analysis of Case Reports and Qualitative Research — Hashemi, Amirhossein (2023)
Companion
- Does the Arousal System Contribute to Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences? A Summary and Response — Long, Jeffrey (2007)
- Near-Death Experiences in Non-Life-Threatening Events and Coma of Different Etiologies — Charland-Verville, V (2014)
- Characteristics of Memories for Near-Death Experiences — Moore, L.E (2017)
- Near-Death Experience, Consciousness, and the Brain: A New Concept About the Continuity of Our Consciousness Based on Recent Scientific Research on Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest — van Lommel, Pim (2006)
Same Research Program
- Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands — van Lommel, Pim (2001)
- Incidence and Correlates of Near-Death Experiences in a Cardiac Care Unit — Greyson, Bruce (2003)
- Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms Following Near-Death Experiences — Greyson, Bruce (2001)
- Near-Death Experiences with Reports of Meeting Deceased People — Kelly, Emily Williams (2001)
Also by these authors
More in Nde
The Central Clinical Relevance of Near-Death Experiences in Acute Care Contexts
Neuro-Functional Modeling of Near-Death Experiences in Contexts of Altered States of Consciousness
AWAreness during REsuscitation - II: A Multi-Center Study of Consciousness and Awareness in Cardiac Arrest
Which Near-Death Experience Features Are Associated with Reduced Fear of Death?
Advancing the Evidence for Survival of Consciousness
📋 Cite this paper
Greyson, Bruce (2007). Consistency of Near-Death Experience Accounts over Two Decades: Are Reports Embellished over Time?. Resuscitation. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resuscitation.2006.10.013
@article{greyson_2007_consistency_nde,
title = {Consistency of Near-Death Experience Accounts over Two Decades: Are Reports Embellished over Time?},
author = {Greyson, Bruce},
year = {2007},
journal = {Resuscitation},
doi = {10.1016/j.resuscitation.2006.10.013},
}