Dissociation in people who have near-death experiences: out of their bodies or out of their minds?

Background Some people who come close to death report having experiences in which they transcend the boundaries of the ego and the confines of time an d space. Such near-death experiences (NDEs) share some features with the ph enomenon of dissociation, in which a person's self identity becomes detache d from bodily sensation. This study explored the frequency of dissociative symptoms in people who had come close to death. Methods 96 individuals who had had self-reported NDEs, and 38 individuals w ho had come close to death but who had not had NDEs completed a mailed ques tionnaire that included a measure of "depth" of near-death experience (the NDE scale) and a measure of dissociative symptoms (the Dissociative Experie nces Scale). Median scores in the two groups were compared with Mann-Whitne y U tests. The association between depth of NDE and dissociative symptoms w as tested by Spearman's rank-order correlation between scores on the NDE sc ale and the dissociative experiences scale. Findings People who reported NDEs also reported significantly more dissocia tive symptoms than did the comparison group. Among those who reported NDEs, the depth of the experience was positively correlated with dissociative sy mptoms, although the level of symptoms was substantially lower than that of patients with pathological dissociative disorders. Interpretation The pattern of dissociative symptoms reported by people who have had NDEs is consistent with a non-pathological dissociative response t o stress, and not with a psychiatric disorder. A greater understanding of t he mechanism of dissociation may shed further light on near-death and other mystical or transcendental experiences.