Article (Scientific journals)
Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences Memories as Compared to Real and Imagined Events Memories
Thonnard, Marie; Charland-Verville, Vanessa; Brédart, Serge et al.
2013In PLoS ONE, 8 (3)
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Keywords :
Near-Death Experiences; Memories
Abstract :
[en] Since the dawn of time, Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have intrigued and, nowadays, are still not fully explained. Since reports of NDEs are proposed to be imagined events, and since memories of imagined event have, on average, fewer phenomenological characteristics than real events memories, we here compared phenomenological characteristics of NDEs reports with memories of imagined and real events. We included three groups of coma survivors (8 patients with NDE as defined by the Greyson NDE scale, 6 patients without NDE but with memory of their coma, 7 patients without memories of their coma) and a group of 18 age-matched healthy volunteers. Five types of 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. Since NDEs are known to have high emotional content, participants were requested to choose the most emotionally salient memories for both real and imagined recent and old event memories. Results showed that, in NDE memories group, NDE memories have more characteristics than memories of imagined and real events (p<0.02). NDE memories contain more self-referential and emotional information and have better clarity than memories of coma (all p<0.02). The present study showed that NDE memories contain more characteristics than real event memories and coma memories. Thus, this suggests that they cannot be considered as 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.
Research center :
GIGA CRC (Cyclotron Research Center) In vivo Imaging-Aging & Memory - ULiège
Disciplines :
Neurosciences & behavior
Author, co-author :
Thonnard, Marie  ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Centre de recherches du cyclotron
Charland-Verville, Vanessa  ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Centre de recherches du cyclotron
Brédart, Serge ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Psychologie : cognition et comportement > Psychologie cognitive
Dehon, Hedwige ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Psychologie : cognition et comportement > Psychologie cognitive
LEDOUX, Didier  ;  Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège - CHU > Soins intensifs
Laureys, Steven  ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Centre de recherches du cyclotron
Vanhaudenhuyse, Audrey  ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Centre de recherches du cyclotron
 These authors have contributed equally to this work.
Language :
English
Title :
Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences Memories as Compared to Real and Imagined Events Memories
Publication date :
27 March 2013
Journal title :
PLoS ONE
eISSN :
1932-6203
Publisher :
Public Library of Science, San Franscisco, United States - California
Volume :
8
Issue :
3
Peer reviewed :
Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi
Funders :
This research was funded by the University and University Hospital of Liège, the Belgian National Funds for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS), the European Commission (COST, DISCOS, MINDBRIDGE, DECODER), the James McDonnell Foundation, the Mind Science Foundation, the French Speaking Community Concerted Research Action (ARC 06/11-340), the Foundation Médicale Reine Elisabeth and the Public Utility Foundation “Université Européenne du Travail” and “Fondazione Europea di Ricerca Biomedica”.
Commentary :
MT & VCV contributed equally to this work
Available on ORBi :
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