Varieties of near-death experience.

Near-death experiences are profound subjective events frequently reported by individuals who have come close to death. They are of importance to mental health professionals, not only because they often happen to patients under our care, but because they have been reported to produce widespread and long-lasting changes in values, beliefs, and behavior that dramatically affect the experiencers' attitudes toward living and dying (Bates and Stanley 1985; Bauer 1985; Flynn 1982; Greyson 1983b; Noyes 1980; Ring 1984). Several studies, including surveys of recently resuscitated hospitalized patients (Ring 1980; Sabom 1982) and a nationwide poll of the general population (Gallup and Proctor 1982) have estimated that near-death experiences are reported by 30%-40% of individuals who come close to death, or about 5% of the adult American population.