Connecting with Our NDE Community
Sharing new studies, essays, organizations, and more
Welcome to this week’s Coming Home newsletter!
At Coming Home, we’re committed to bridging the gap between academic research and the public understanding of near-death experiences (NDEs).
Our mission is to make complex ideas accessible while maintaining scholarly integrity, and to nurture a growing community fascinated by this field of study.
This week we’re not only pursuing our own themes; we’re creating a space where near-death experiencers, scholars, and scientists can share their work and engage in meaningful dialogue. By fostering this wider conversation, we hope to inspire further research and exploration on the topic of NDEs and consciousness.
To this end, we’re excited to share recent developments in NDE research, including fascinating new studies on NDEs and their similarities to psychedelic experiences, as well as how out-of-body experiences might enhance our overall sense of empathy.
We’ll also highlight key organizations driving NDE research and recap our most recent essays. Finally, we’d like to hear from you and what you’ve found most compelling in your engagement with NDE research in the past few weeks.
By bringing together diverse perspectives and the latest research, we aim to deepen our collective understanding of NDEs.
Your participation enriches our community and can help guide the future direction of the larger NDE discourse.
Recent Articles
It’s been an exciting few weeks in the NDE research space.
This week we’re highlighting two new studies: the first explores how out-of-body experiences might enhance empathy, and the second compares the similarities between NDEs and psychedelic experiences.
Both studies have made headlines in the press. Follow the links here and here for more discussion. Details on the studies are below.
Exploring the Transformative Potential of OBEs: In a new study published last month, researchers explored the possibility that out-of-body experiences (OBEs) might enhance empathy. The findings suggest that these extraordinary events can significantly alter how individuals perceive themselves and relate to others. Many who’ve undergone OBEs report a heightened sense of caring and understanding towards others afterward. The study proposes that OBEs may temporarily diminish the sense of a separate self, fostering a stronger connection with others. This process likely involves brain regions responsible for body perception and self-awareness, hinting at a complex interplay between altered states of consciousness and social-emotional functioning. The researchers suggest that this reduced self-focus could be key to the increased empathy observed in OBE experiencers.
Within-Subject Comparison of Near-Death and Psychedelic Experiences. Another recent study comparing near-death experiences (NDEs) and psychedelic trips in individuals who’ve had both reveals striking similarities. These experiences share mystical aspects, like feeling connected to something greater, and often lead to lasting positive life changes. However, some sensory differences emerged: NDEs more often involved feeling “out of body,” while psychedelic experiences featured intense vivid visual imagery. This comparison suggests psychedelics might help scientists understand the profound states encountered in near-death situations. While not identical, especially in their sensory components, this research opens new avenues for studying these important experiences and their implications for consciousness and personal transformation.
Our Recent Essays
And in case you missed them, here are a few of our own recent publications:
Research Bodies and Institutions
We also want to share with you all a few of the exciting organizations around the world that are driving the research conversation around NDEs.
Below are some of the key institutions making this work happen.
We are sharing these in the hopes that Coming Home readers will find new resources for their questions and interests around NDEs, and to help build bridges within and between different groups in the NDE community.
The International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) has been a global leader in NDE research and education since 1981, providing a platform for researchers, experiencers, and the public to share knowledge and experiences.
The Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) at the University of Virginia is renowned for its rigorous scientific approach to studying NDEs and related phenomena, conducting cutting-edge research to understand the nature of consciousness.
The Windbridge Research Center focuses on exploring consciousness and the possibility of its survival after death, employing innovative methodologies to investigate these complex topics.
The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) conducts research at the intersection of science and human experience, exploring the frontiers of consciousness through a multidisciplinary approach.
The Rhine Research Center continues the legacy of J.B. Rhine in parapsychology and consciousness studies, investigating exceptional human experiences and their implications for our understanding of consciousness.
The Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona is known for its interdisciplinary approach to consciousness research, bringing together experts from various fields to tackle the hard problems of consciousness.
We Want to Hear from You
Finally, we want to hear from you all about what’s happening in the NDE world.
Our readership and community is what makes Coming Home great, and we want to hear your voice.
We invite you to share in the comments section below:
Your favorite organizations working in NDE research
Publications or journals you find insightful
Podcasts or YouTube channels exploring NDEs
Individual stories, books, or essays that have impacted your understanding of NDEs
Your own publications or original research on NDEs and related themes around consciousness studies
As we share our own essays, as well as the work of so many others, we want to include your findings from around the NDE world so that other readers can come here and stay connected to the latest happenings related to NDE research and events.
Together, we’ll continue to explore the mysteries of NDEs and consciousness, pushing the boundaries of our understanding by fostering a space for open, thoughtful sharing.
Thank you for being part of our community. We look forward to hearing from you.
Warmly,
Jesse and Eliot Estrin
I've now consumed all the Coming Home videos, great stuff, thanks!
I'm now exploring NDE videos on other YouTube channels. The other channels I'm seeing so far don't have the same level professional presentation as Coming Home. Lots of stories, but with a bit of a tacky look usually.
I guess my question is, would anyone like to advise me of channels to avoid because the channel has agendas other than NDE? Is there a scammer element to the NDE video world? Any bad actors I should steer clear of?
Or, to put it another way, have NDE stories become a fad thing with some people? Are phony NDE stories a problem?
Thanks.
First, thanks for your Coming Home project, I'm finding it quite educational and inspiring. You're request for input from readers is very timely. Here's one area that's been on my mind this week, that I'm hoping to find more discussion of.
So far all the videos I've seen reference a common theme of spiritual beings made of love guiding humans to be kinder to their fellow humans. Ok, great, we can obviously use a lot of help in that department.
What I've just recently realized is that there seems to be no reference to any creatures other than ourselves. The focus of love seems to be exclusively human. I'm wondering what to make of that. Such a limited focus reminds me of Christian theology which seems to propose that the creator of the universe has as it's primary interest a single species on one small planet in one of billions of galaxies. That idea sounds less like a God to me, and more like the usual human ego tendency to assume everything is all about "me".
So I've been speculating in an attempt to make sense of the human centric focus of NDE experiences. Here's what I've come to so far.
What if the NDE experience is a dramatically simplified story that attempts to educate us about reality on a level that we can understand? As example, imagine trying to explain sex to a four year old, you'd have to leave a lot out of the explanation, because a four year old simply can't grasp a sophisticated explanation.
What if spiritual beings are echoing a version of Christian theology back to us because they assume that's what citizens of Western culture will be able to relate to? Maybe they aren't teaching NDE experiencers THE TRUTH about reality, but only the tiny fraction of the truth that we are capable of grasping, in a very basic story form which is familiar to us.
Or, another theory could be that NDE experiences are just another version of the human brain being largely incapable of thinking about much of anything other than itself.
I'm completely sold that those making NDE reports are being sincere and honest, and that they really did have some very powerful experience. But that doesn't automatically equal their interpretations of these experiences as being a fully accurate explanation of what's happening. So far my main source of doubt on that score is the exclusively human nature of these reports.
That's what I've got this week. Feedback welcome!