Getting comfortable with near death experiences. An overview of near-death experiences.

N ear-death experiences (NDEs), profound experiences reported by some people who survive close brushes with death, are important to clinicians because they often lead to pervasive changes in attitudes and behavior; because they may be confused with psychopathological states; and because they may enhance our understanding of consciousness. Proposed psychological and physiological explanations lack empirical support and fail to explain NDEs, which pose a challenge to current models of the mind-brain relationship.