Throughout history and across cultures, people have reported experiences that seem to transcend ordinary consciousness, traditionally interpreted as signs of divine or supernatural influence. Nonordinary states were often intentionally cultivated through ritual, trance, meditation, and communal ceremonies for healing, guidance, and insight, particularly during times of crisis. Modern research suggests that such experiences remain widespread. Large-scale surveys report subjective phenomena including precognitive dreams, meaningful coincidences or synchronicities, crisis-related telepathic impressions, and encounters with the deceased. Although individuals may subjectively experience such events only occasionally, they are broadly distributed across the population. This prevalence challenges the assumption that exceptional experiences are rare or pathological. Instead, they appear to be a relatively common dimension of human experience, worthy of psychological investigation as part of how people interpret and make meaning of their lives. These exceptional experiences are clearly out of the ordinary and could be life-changing—that is, subjective experiences can be a gateway to self-transformation, especially when they are interpreted as meaningful within a spiritual framework. The term ‘awakening’ refers to the experience of and process leading …

At RealClearScience, Michael Zignarelli asks a critical question, “Has Science Dismissed Near-Death Experiences Too Quickly?” Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and I think so: we are currently writing a book on the science evidence for them and the difference that it makes (Worthy 2027). In his article, the Messiah university leadership professor focuses on one aspect of the NDE that certainly requires explanation, the way people who are pulled back from the brink of death have often discovered during the experience things that they seemingly could not have known by other means: A patient in cardiac arrest later described an ordinary act performed in the emergency room while he was, according to the nurse, “in a deep coma.” The claim carried weight for the same reason crime-scene details do: someone else could verify it. The NDE witness’s story checked out as true… In another case from the Netherlands, a five-year-old emerged from coma speaking of meeting an older sister named Rietje, a sibling who had died and whose existence had never been revealed to the child. July …

At the Daily Mail last month, Wiliam Hunter reports on a recent study of 48 near-death experiences: Some participants described seeing heavenly beings, while one even said they experienced a terrifying journey into a black hole. Others, meanwhile, described grand visions featuring religious figures and profound emotional experiences. For example, one participant told scientists: ‘There were stone stairs on the left in front of me, and Jesus was toward the top, wearing a white robe,’ while another described how ‘God appeared as a great light in the distance’. Yet some people’s visions of the afterlife were far more fantastical, featuring bizarre elements that you wouldn’t find anywhere in the Bible. “What REALLY happens when you nearly die” October 24, 2025 Odina, Adobe Stock, licensed The variety is what we might expect. People try to describe things they never experienced before in terms they themselves understand. The authors are developing a hypothesis that there is a geometry to near-death experiences. From the preprint paper: While most studies rely on narrative accounts, little attention has been given …