NDE survivors say experience was "definitely real"

Bruce Greyson reports: "Jayne Smith, who had an NDE at age twenty-three during a bad reaction to anesthesia during childbirth, told me, 'Never, ever did I think it might have been a dream. I knew that it was true and real, more real than any other thing I’ve ever known.' LeaAnn Carroll developed a massive blood clot in her lung at age thirty-one that stopped her heart. She said about her NDE, 'My death experience is more real to me than life. Nancy Evans Bush, who had an NDE at age twenty-seven during a bad reaction to nitrous oxide, said, 'Yes, it was more real than real: absolute reality.' Susan Litton, who had an NDE at age twenty-nine, told me, 'There was no sense of doubt whatsoever. Everything had a sense of being more real than anything that would normally be experienced in the physical world as we know it.' Chris Matt, who had an NDE when he rolled his car over at age twenty-one, said, 'I have no doubt that it was real. It was vastly more real than anything we experience here.' Yolaine Stout, who attempted suicide at the age of thirty-one, said, 'This was more real than anything on earth. By comparison, my life in my body had been a dream.'

Greyson adds: "Their memories of the NDE had more detail, more clarity, more context, and more intense feelings than memories of real events. And that is exactly what people had been telling me for decades—that their NDEs were more real to them than everyday experiences. On the other hand, for people who had come close to death but didn’t have an NDE, their memories of the event were not recalled as more real than other real events. Two other research teams, in Belgium and in Italy, came up with the same results."

Greyson, Bruce. After (pp. 96-97). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.