What It’s Like to Die: 9 Shocking Stages of a Near Death Experience
Excerpted from The NDE Conspiracy.
If you spend enough time talking to people about their near-death experiences, you’ll quickly realize that there are consistencies mentioned over and over in various NDE accounts.
If you read outside of the Christian publishing space, you’ll find that other authors and researchers such as Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Jeffrey Long, and others have developed helpful frameworks to assist in structuring our conversation and research around NDEs.
Much to my surprise, authors working in the Christian publishing side of the NDE space tend to focus exclusively on Heaven and hell stories, but fail to work within these frameworks, which seem to come mostly from the academic and research-oriented side of the NDE community.
Seeing a gap, I began working on my own framework beginning in Randy Kay’s and my collaborative books Real Near Death Experience Stories and Stories of Heaven and the Afterlife. This current 9-point version of my framework was solidified in our book, Near Death Experiences. The framework follows:
1. Gateway to the Afterlife
While all roads don’t lead to Heaven, just about any road has the potential to bring you to that brink where you cross the veil to the other side. Some of the near-death experiencers you will meet in this book were engaged in activities that some would label as danger- ous, but the majority of them were simply going about their daily business carrying out tasks and activities they had done many times before. You will be both amazed and surprised by the great variety of experiences that ushered these men and women across the threshold into the afterlife.
2. Out-of-Body Experience (OBE)
In some ways you could describe the entire NDE, DNDE, STE, and DBE journey as a sort of out-of-body experience, but what we want to get at in this particular section of the framework is the point at which the experiencer departs from their physical body up until they cross some sort of border or threshold to the other side. Some of the frameworks we mentioned briefly in this chapter differentiate the OBE from experiences of going through a tunnel and being drawn toward a bright light. For purposes in this book, I’m putting all of those sorts of experiences under this heading of out-of-body experience.
3. Heightened Senses
Most near-death experiencers report having a heightened sensory experience when they are no longer tethered to their physical body. The typical senses we associate with our physical body such as taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight are cranked up to a superhuman level. Experiencers report not needing to talk when they are in their spirit body. Communication is a sort of instantaneous thought-to-thought, or perhaps better stated, spirit-to-spirit exchange. Many also report receiving or having access to knowledge that gives them a deep understanding of the things they’re encountering on the other side. Sometimes that might look like receiving a massive knowledge download in Heaven and at other times that looks like fully understanding why the people you see tormented in hell are there.
The NDE Conspiracy
Shaun Tabatt
4. Encountering Other Beings
Near-death experiencers often share about beings they encounter on the other side during their afterlife journey. These beings can include:
Angels, demons, and even satan
Divine beings: Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit
Deceased people: family, friends, strangers
These beings are the less controversial of the bunch. Some experiencers also report encountering animals in Heaven. We’ve heard stories including:
Lions
Horses
Deceased pets
I joke that there are no house cats in Heaven as people always tell us about their dogs. We’ll see if future interviews prove me wrong.
5. Life Review
Many near-death experiencers report a time during their NDE when they see their life passing before their eyes. Some describe it as a movie of their life that is playing in their head. This can include the good things they’ve done in life as well as the bad things. Some people say that in the midst of the life review, they’re able to sense and experience how other people were impacted by the choices and actions that are replaying in front of them. It is not uncommon for people to express feeling overwhelmed by the many things that God has forgiven them for.
6. Encountering Otherworldly (“heavenly” or “hellish”) Realms
When NDEers cross over to the other side, not only do they meet other beings, they can also encounter entire cities, structures like houses, other buildings, roads, etc., and vast landscapes filled with all of what we would expect to encounter in nature, all very much like what we might encounter here on earth.
Sometimes these things are simply part of the scenery in Heaven or hell that don’t have a significant meaning, and other times they reveal profound truths. As you read through afterlife stories, keep an eye out for the hidden truths that might be revealed in these structures and landscapes.
7. Learning Special Knowledge
During their time on the other side of the veil, many experiencers receive special knowledge. This may come through something they saw, something they experienced, or a special impartation of knowledge or information from a being they encountered.
8. Returning to Your Earth-Bound Body
All journeys must eventually come to an end. Some NDEers know they’re returning to their body very early in their experience, while others don’t know up until the moment they’re about to return to their body. Some people’s re-entry accounts are just as dramatic as the circumstances that started the experiencer down their whole NDE journey in the first place, while others are about as exciting as waking up from a nap.
9. Post-NDE Lingering Effects
Whether somebody has a Heaven experience, hell experience, or the afterlife combination platter of the two, it’s impossible to not be profoundly marked by it. People report having dramatic shifts in their personality, new direction in their journey of faith, and some are now fully awakened to the supernatural activity that is taking place here on earth.
While the majority of the people we’ve encountered have been dramatically changed for the better, we’ve also met experiencers who still carry a certain amount of trauma and PTSD from some especially disturbing experiences with hell and the demonic.
Personally, I’ve found the framework beneficial to better help me structure my own work and research as I help near-death experiencers retell their experiences in books and interviews. I especially have found it beneficial to share with men and women who are fresh from their NDE to give them a structure within to retell their experience. Even for people who are non-experiencers, I recommend getting a good grasp of the general structure of an NDE framework, so they can more effectively share NDE stories with friends and family. It’s a topic I’ve found nearly everybody has an interest in.
What Really Awaits Us Beyond the Veil?
You've read the amazing accounts and heard the incredible interviews of people who’ve died, experienced the afterlife, and come back to tell about it―but can you actually believe them?
As one of the most trusted Christian voices in the NDE space, bestselling author and podcaster Shaun Tabatt has spent years researching and investigating testimonies of near-death experiences throughout history. His interviews with survivors have been heard by millions around the world, and what he’s found will fundamentally change the way you think about afterlife accounts.
In this astonishing, eye-opening book, Shaun reveals the truths, the lies, and the ugly sides of NDE accounts, empowering you to discern what’s trustworthy, disprove what’s dangerous, and confidently know what awaits you on the other side.
Full of never-before-published testimonies of heaven and hell, penetrating research, notable stories and documentation throughout history, and real-world wisdom, this vital, accessible book turns a critical eye on afterlife accounts and the NDE industry, helping you:
Stay grounded in biblical truth and a biblical worldview.
Understand the 9-point NDE framework and standard terminology.
Separate the truth from the lies in NDE and afterlife descriptions.
Expose perilous pitfalls, such as psychics, mediums, aliens, spirits, and memories of past lives.
Share the true hope of the afterlife with others.
Don’t fall for false witnesses or half-truths. What lies beyond the veil is more amazing than you can imagine―it’s time to discover the truth for yourself!
