The devil in heaven: A near-death experience with both positive and negative facets

Abstract

ABSTRA CT: Although the considerable majority of reported near-death expe riences (NDEs) are associated with positive affect, there are occasional cases of so-called negative NDEs that are dominated by fear and anguish. The phenom enological status of the negative experiences and their relationship to the more typical positive NDEs have been the subject of increasing speculation. In that light, the NDE described in this paper is of interest because it began to unfold as a positive experience but then changed course to become a negatively toned one. We present the details of this case and note its principal theoretical implications.Surveys of the near-death experience (NDE) in different countries consistently confirm the overriding positive affect associated with the experience. Most notable in this respect are feelings of tranquility and well-being at the onset of the NDE and a sense of reassurance induced by ostensible contact with a transcendental or "heavenly" realm. The experient (NDEr) may express disappointment, even anger, at having to return to an earthly life but even in such cases the NDE is appreci ated as a positive experience.There is nevertheless a handful of reported cases of NDEs dominated by fear and anguish. Instances of these so-called negative near-death Dr. Irwin is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of New England in Australia; Ms. Bramwell is an undergraduate student in the same department. Requests

Solving the riddle of frightening near-death experiences: Some testable hypotheses and a perspective based on A course in miracles.

“…Of course, I hold no expectations that the framework I have outlined here will be sufficient to explain all cases of frightening NDEs. Indeed, there have been some instances already reported in the literature (Irwin and Bramwell, 1988) that appear not to conform to my analysis. But this is not surprising since any given NDE is certainly multi determined and obviously not all possible factors that may influence these experiences can be addressed by any one model.…”

A systematic analysis of distressing near-death experience accounts

“…Our main goal was to better document distressing NDEs which remain poorly studied (Bonenfant, 2001;Bush & Greyson, 1994;Greyson & Bush, 1992;Irwin & Bramwell, 1988). This study investigated three major aspects of these experiences: (1) the proportion of distressing NDEs in our sample, (2) their distribution according to the three categories previously established by Greyson and Bush (1992), and (3) the phenomenological and contextual differences existing between the memories of distressing and classical NDEs.…”

“…Only a small number of empirical studies have addressed distressing NDEs in-depth. In addition, most of them have focused on single cases, thereby affecting the generalisability of their observations (Bonenfant, 2001;Irwin & Bramwell, 1988). One noteworthy finding is the existence of experiences beginning the same way as classical NDEs, but that suddenly become negatively toned.…”

A near-death experience in Pu Songling's Strange stories from Liaozhai's studio.

“…Point 5is very interesting because it shows a series of pleasant and unpleasant phases in the life review. The unpleasant phase of the life review is not sufficient ground to classify this NDE a distressing NDE (Atwater, 1992;Bonenfant, 2000Bonenfant, , 2001Greyson and Bush, 1992;Irwin and Bramwell, 1988;Ring, 1994) because it seems to involve only events stored in one of the memory subsystems (Eichenbaum, 1997;Squire, 1992;Squire and Zola, 1996). What this specific report seems to show is that Tang was recalling only those events recorded in long-term memory and rendered recallable only after they had been tagged with emotional meanings (Richter-Levin and Akirav, 2003).…”