Near-death experiences share strange patterns, new study reveals

Among the images of near-death experiences that have transcended the most is that of the light at the end of a tunnel, although not all people who have seen themselves in that situation close to the threshold of death and have returned to tell about it report this type of vision. Others speak of luminous spaces, curved horizons or the intense sensation of being surrounded by light. A recent study has revealed that although these near-death experiences may vary, they could share a peculiar pattern.

In that study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, researchers asked 50 people to draw maps of the spaces they remembered seeing during these near-death experiences. The results showed a disturbing pattern: the geometry of the spaces was linked to the colors that the participants remembered having perceived.

Near-death experiences (NDEs) have always fascinated scientists, who study them from fields such as neurobiology or psychology. However, they are difficult to analyze in their full complexity, as those who experience them often find it difficult to put it into words or put it on paper.

In this recent study, neurophenomenology researcher at the University of Haifa (Israel) France Lerner and her team decided to address this question from a visual perspective. Therefore, they recruited 50 people who claimed to have had NDEs and asked them to reconstruct their memories through a series of guided online sessions, using a catalog of geometric pictograms that helped them represent the spaces they remembered.

In addition to representing the shape of each space, they also indicated where they perceived themselves within those spaces, how they moved through them, and the colors they remembered seeing.

After comparing these reconstructions, they located similarities in certain geometries of the spaces, which appeared recurrently. The researchers identified four main categories: conical spaces - among which was the famous tunnel -, wide and curved spaces - similar to arches -, flatter spaces with a gentle curvature, and spaces that seemed to completely envelop the person, as if they were inside a sphere or oval.

They also discovered another intriguing pattern that was related to the colors that the study participants associated with each shape. Thus, of the 28 conical spaces that were described, 22 were achromatic, that is, they were perceived in white, black, gray or as a light without a defined color.

On the other hand, 27 of the 31 wide and curved spaces were perceived with color. The other two geometric categories had a mix of experiences with and without color, the researchers indicate.

For Lerner and his colleagues, this relationship between shapes and colors can offer clues about the perceptual processes behind these experiences.

Thus, tunnel vision can occur when the supply of oxygen to the retina or brain is interrupted, which restricts the visual field. The fact that white, black or gray predominates in these circumstances is related to vision in another everyday situation, since when there is little light, the eyes lose sensitivity to color.