Near-Death Experiences Just a Dream
• Wishful Thinking
The biological basis for those silly old near-death experiences: bothersome rapid eye movement.
It found that people with near-death experiences were more likely to have a sleep-wake system in which the boundaries between sleep and wakefulness were not as clearly regulated, and the dream sleep state - when there is rapid eye movement - can intrude into normal wakeful consciousness.
Examples of "REM intrusion" include waking up and feeling that you cannot move - sleep paralysis - having sudden muscle weakness in your legs, and hearing sounds just before falling asleep or just after waking up that other people cannot hear.
Of the people with near- death experiences, 60 per cent reported REM intrusion, compared with 24 per cent of people who had not had near-death experiences.