The Different Experience A Report on a Survey of Near-Death Experiences in Germany

The text provides a short summary of a representative survey on NDE in Germany that has been conducted in 1997-1998 which is the first of this kind in Europe. On the background of previous research on NDE, we are posing several problems which have been central to our investigation. These problems include: the assumption of a unified pattern of experience, of the universality of the pattern, of the necessary link between NDE and clinical death etc. These and other assumptions have been tested in this representative survey which received replies by more than 2.000 persons. As a result we found that some 4 percent of the population reported NDEs. Moreover, the patterns of the NDEs do not seem to correspond to earlier findings: Aside from being much more diverse, they also differ with respect to cultural variables, particularly the difference between religious affiliations and the differences between post-socialist East Germany and West Germany.