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Near Death Experiences
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Many people have experienced strange Near Death Experiences (NDEs) after a trauma such as an accident. People who experience NDEs often report seeing an intense light, feeling outside one's body, seeing oneself on the operating table, etc. Such phenomena have been linked with a variety of ideas including psychic, paranormal and mystical theories.
New research from the University of Kentucky suggests a more down to earth possibility: predisposition to such experiences might be linked to sleep disorders.
The research, published in the journal Neurology, compared 55 people who had experienced an NDE with 55 similar people who had not. They found that those with an NDE background were more likely to have a sleep-wake system where the boundaries between the two states were blurred. Examples of such "REM state intrusion" included sleep paralysis, sudden muscle weakness an hearing sounds on the edge of sleep.
According to study leader Kevin Nelson: "REM-state intrusion could promote the prominent visual phenomena of near-death experience."
This research does not claim that NDEs are just dreams, however it does suggest a possible link between REM state intrusion and a predisposition to NDE.
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