Memories of Near-Death experiences are they memories of imagined events?

Background: The phenomenon of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) has always intrigued but is still not fully explained despite numerous theories and studies. Since reports of NDEs are proposed to be imagined events (French, 2001), and since memories of imagined events have, on average, fewer phenomenological characteristics than real event memories (e.g. Johnson et al., 1988), we here compared phenomenological characteristics of NDEs reports with memories of imagined and real events. Methods: We included 3 groups of coma survivors (8 patients with NDE as defined by the Greyson NDE scale – the “NDE memory group”- , 6 patients without NDE but with memory of their coma – the “coma memory group” – and 7 patients without memories of their coma – the “no memory group”) and a group of 18 age-matched healthy volunteers. Five memories were assessed using Memory Characteristics Questionnaire (MCQ – Johnson et al., 1988): target memory (NDE for NDE memory group, coma memory for coma memory group, and first childhood memory for no memory and control groups), old and recent real event memories and old and recent imagined event memories. Results: In NDE group, NDE memories showd more characteristics than memories of imagined and real events (p<0.02). These memories contain more self-referential and emotional information and have better clarity than memories of coma (all p<0.02). Conclusion: The present study showed that NDE memories contain more characteristics than real event memories and coma memories. Thus, they cannot be considered as classic imagined event memories. On the contrary, their physiological origins could lead them to be really perceived although not lived in the reality. Further work is needed to better understand this phenomenon