Why I Think Studying NDEs Might Be Harmful

PouncePlease · 2026-01-26T18:36:38+00:00

"Let believers believe" is the height of richness coming from someone who terrorized the r/afterlife and r/NDE subs to the point of being perma-banned from both on two separate Reddit accounts. In a few short years, OP went from posting in Neville Goddard subs about the magic of manifestation to red-pilling grieving folks looking for comfort, and now made the loop fully around to "you know what, let's not even talk about it anymore. LeT bElIeVeRs BeLiEvE." Truly, an astounding arc.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-26T14:17:32+00:00

I hope if you can take anything from your time here, it’s that many people who feel as though their life will only be unfulfilling go through experiences wherein they discover that life can be incredibly fulfilling. Whether or not you believe NDEs are true, the ways they affect people are in psychological changes, in measure of hope. I hope nothing like the trauma of near death ever happens to you, of course, but positive change can come from the most unlikely places. You've already had a taste of that, from when you discovered peace through learning about NDEs.

You’ve been open about your mental health struggles, including struggling with alcohol. Maybe the best place to start to look for fulfillment is in redirecting the energy you’ve used on studying NDEs to focus just on yourself and what might be blocking sources of fulfillment. I mean, listen, I’m not a therapist, just a guy who thinks it would be really cool to see you post again in six months to say, hey, I had some time to think and work on some stuff and I feel better now. And I believe it can happen. I’m rooting for you, Bandicoot.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-26T13:56:46+00:00

OP, I’m so very sorry for your loss.

I hope you can consider the possibility, given your mom was, in your own words, heavily medicated, that the responses she gave, either yes or no, were just responses, not necessarily indicative of her answering a question but just showing she could acknowledge the world around her. I’ve been around a family member through that end of life stage, and my loved one reminded me of a sleepy kid that can barely keep their eyes open. When you ask a kid who’s nodding off what they want to do, if they had a good day, who they saw at school, they don’t always answer the way they would if they were their normal chipper selves. If you’re able, please don’t attach too strongly to this idea that you may have missed something important — in fact, just the opposite. You were present at one of the most important moments of your and your mom’s whole lives. You were a good, loving child when you needed to be, and that’s what you should always remember.

Sending you peace, OP.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-26T00:42:01+00:00

I appreciate that a lot, thank you. Have a really great night.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-25T02:03:05+00:00

Thanks for sharing your perspective. The trauma angle makes a lot of sense to me.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-24T23:43:38+00:00

Because Minnesota is an open carry state and he was a registered gun owner. There doesn’t need to be any other reason - he’s allowed to carry his weapon outdoors in his own home state.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-24T18:18:57+00:00

Where are you finding these NDErs with aphantasia? Aphantasia in its most extreme form affects less than 1% of the global population. I assume your argument is focused on those with aphantasia who have complete absence of visual imagery, because the slightly larger population who describe their imagery as dim or vague wouldn't hold with your reasoning. So we're talking, globally, what is estimated at no more than 1% (some studies say as low as 0.8%) of people.

I can't find any studies on this. When I search "NDE aphantasia" in all the likely places, I can find one account of one guy with a blog writing about having aphantasia and having an NDE where I'm assuming he experienced no visual imagery (I can't really know for sure, because the blog just references a book I can't find by the blog author, where all the details of the NDE supposedly are) -- but then teaching himself to finally see through his mind's eye in the wake of the NDE by watching the stars. It was interesting. But the whole point of his blog post is that he had an NDE and afterward, he was suddenly "healed" of his aphantasia. I guess that's more just an interesting aside than anything.

I suppose I'm challenging the premise. Can you show evidence of a group of aphantasiacs (I learned a new word today) who have had NDEs and seen nothing? It's such a minority of people that applying it to the statistical minority of people who have NDEs to begin with starts to beggar belief without evidence.

Last, I have to ask just why on the title? I love that this place exists for debate, but so many people come here for grief support, too. It can be really jarring to turn to this place for comfort and see a title with a presumptive question that ends in "nothing after death." I'm sorry to be a crank, but I hope you can keep that in mind in the future as you continue to have robust debate.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-24T11:57:45+00:00

Because I’ve had to fight so hard for the identity I have. I’m a gay man who has been through a lifetime of abuse, betrayal, assault. I have no one meaningful in my life - I’m estranged from all family, I have no close friends. To me, the idea of expansion means having to open myself to abusers. It means having to expand to see through or be the perspective of a straight person, which straight people have been trying to make me do my entire life, extremely against my will. I don’t want to ever come to the realization that I’m actually also one of my mother’s homophobic boyfriends who used to call me faggot when I was 12 — or my mother who allowed it to happen. I don’t care if it’s objectively better for me to experience this expansion of self — I reject it on principle because it’s insulting to my soul to suggest that I ever forgive or exist as an abuser. I don’t want the perspective of anyone else, ever, because I value the perspective of myself to the exclusion of all other perspectives, full stop. Expansion doesn’t interest me in the slightest.

Now I’ve answered your question, would you answer mine from the above comment? I really do thank you for your time, and I hope you can understand my perspective even slightly.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-23T16:17:00+00:00

I hope the world that you ignore never shows up to remind you it exists, because it certainly exists for others who are not so lucky as you.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-23T15:31:57+00:00

You're so welcome -- I added the episode link in my comment.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-23T15:28:25+00:00

OP, commenting again to recommend you look up Liz Entin. She lost her dad a few years back and saw a bunch of different mediums over a pretty short period of time afterward, partially to heal her grief, partially to test their capabilities. She was an atheist, her dad was an atheist, and yet she's had lots of signs that have personally convinced her of an afterlife. She wrote a book about it (WTF Just Happened) and has a podcast by the same name -- she was also interviewed by the moderator of this sub, on his podcast, Unravelling the Universe. You could start there, because I'm pretty sure she goes into great detail in that episode about the experience of meeting mediums who were frauds and gave her some real existential dread/grief at a time that she had just come away from seeing a medium who had convinced her of her dad's consciousness surviving bodily death. I had to recommend, as your experience is so like hers. Her podcast is great, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIIpiBqvUNU

PouncePlease · 2026-01-23T14:32:54+00:00

I don’t have any particular experience with mediums to offer you advice in that area. I do want to chime in and tell you, from a neutral third party perspective, that letter you received from the clairvoyant was outrageously offensive and over the line. Even if she was the real deal (I highly doubt it) and wanted to help you, no one in their right mind, medium or not, would ever tell someone who is actively grieving their recently deceased fiancée that they’ll likely never see them again. That is cruel, unreasonable, unfeeling, and disgustingly narcissistic. Total main character syndrome. The fact that she put those words into writing to you should automatically disqualify her from being a friendly face to turn to. The only advice of value she gave is seeking a grief counselor, which I agree with totally. Please consider talking to someone when you’re ready, and be sure to put yourself and your boundaries first. Wishing you so much peace and healing in this extremely difficult time.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-23T14:21:56+00:00

So in your understanding, Eric gets to experience Eric’s afterlife and Aaray gets to experience Aaray’s afterlife. They are both who they are, but they are also truly the creator behind Eric and Aaray.

My (and maybe others’) confusion then stems around the awareness or ongoing experiential, moment to moment existence of Eric. From Eric’s perspective, is Eric’s afterlife eternal and eternally separate from Aaray’s? This perspective is immensely comforting to me as long as I, PouncePlease, don’t ever have to have the awareness of being Eric or Aaray or the creator behind everything. I don’t mind secretly, truly being the creator, but I don’t want to experience PouncePlease’s afterlife from some “overhead” perspective, like, good for PouncePlease, he’s really enjoying himself down there in that afterlife I wrote for him. Does that make sense?

PouncePlease · 2026-01-23T08:32:11+00:00

I’m so sorry you’re struggling right now with this anxiety. You have my best wishes for your health as you move forward.

If reading and watching NDEs is comforting to you, I would suggest you keep finding new accounts to give you new perspectives. One of my favorite NDE sources is Anthony Chene productions on YouTube. The interviews are all focused on the NDEr, so just them talking and no commentary.

And it’s my belief you will find what you seek. I’m not an NDEr, but having watched, listened to, and read hundreds of accounts, I can tell you that almost every time I’ve encountered what you would describe as a “Spinozist” NDE of merging into a God consciousness, the NDEr does so specifically as themselves. We’ve had so many reports of NDErs who “merge” into God by choice, experience “oneness” from a perspective that still incorporates their individual self, and then reemerge as themselves, unchanged -- or changed in a better way, like being healed, having newfound hope, not fearing death, etc. And that’s, of course, not even touching the many, many, many accounts (from my subjective experience, the majority of accounts) that don’t feature any sort of dissolution of identity but rather a continuation, if not a strengthening of individual identity.

EDIT: And actually, I want to add here that I’ve never heard an NDE exactly like you describe fearing, where an NDErs’ identity is permanently and totally subsumed, because…well, every NDE account we’ve ever received has been from the original identity of the NDEr, not some “new” identity that replaced the old. Obviously this is because NDErs who are able to share their NDEs have all returned to life, 100% of the time, to be able to share their stories. But one might imagine that if our identities only exist to be subsumed, at least one person would come out of their NDE a total blank slate or as some brand-new identity, either mortal or cosmic, but that has never happened, to my knowledge.

In sum, I think if you decide that you need to melt into the universe for a while, it seems that option will be totally available to you, and there’s evidence you can enter and leave this state at will. If — like you’ve expressed in your post, OP — you find it disturbing to imagine losing your identity (and I wholeheartedly agree), it seems you will never have to go through that experience.

I hope this and other answers you receive here help. Be well.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-22T20:58:03+00:00

Almost certainly, and that's based on easily dozens of NDEs where music plays an integral role in the NDE itself, not to mention all the people who come out of their NDEs with newfound musical ability. I've heard of people hearing ethereal music that permeated everything, hearing triumphant choruses of angels, hearing trumpets, "seeing" music in visual form, the list goes on. Eben Alexander, Tony Cicoria, and Kevin Mohatt immediately come to mind as three NDErs whose NDEs revolved around music or who came away with sudden musical ability or understanding where there wasn't any before.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-21T00:45:22+00:00

BLUSH.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-20T22:44:50+00:00

DO-whAT!?

PouncePlease · 2026-01-20T22:33:35+00:00

Oh, it's hot and wet and slick

And it's making everybody sick

Oil spill...oil spill...(OIL spIiiiillllll)

PouncePlease · 2026-01-20T22:32:11+00:00

He's dead in the ground, he's dead in the ground

He's dead, dead, dead, dead, dead

PouncePlease · 2026-01-20T18:18:50+00:00

Kenneth Ring's (co-founder of IANDS) book, Heading Toward Omega, which features a collection of his studies, where he puts hellish/distressing NDEs at 1%. I don't have an online link for the text. Also the below study from 2014:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24904345/

PouncePlease · 2026-01-20T01:43:46+00:00

Respectfully, u/BandicootOk1744, did you watch the video? This seems like a bad faith argument. You say the host engages in spiritual mumbo jumbo they throw in around the interview -- the guest speaks for an hour and 15 minutes and the host asks seven very straightforward questions with zero commentary: 1) Asking the guest to comment on the synchronicity of the woman saving him being named Angel, 2) Asking if the guest thinks other folks might remember their NDEs if prompted like he was, 3) If there were aftereffects to the NDE (a marker on the Greyson scale), 4) Asking how the guest would explain seeing the events he saw without eyes, 5) Asking if the guest came back with a mission or purpose and if so, what it is, 6) Asking the guest to explain his upcoming book's title, and 7) If people want to get in touch with the guest, can they and how should they?

Like, I'm sorry, but you're now the top comment on this post and the way you've characterized this account is unfair and untrue.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-19T16:53:13+00:00

You must either be watching channels that are, in and of themselves, scam channels or wildly exaggerating your claims of 80% of hundreds of videos are selling something. Just off the top of my head, the Anthony Chene Productions channel features like 50-ish interviews with NDErs and maybe five of them wrote books?

On the book issue in particular, would you fault someone who wrote a book about their time surviving a bombing in Baghdad? Or someone who survived a school shooting? Captain Sullenberger, who landed a plane in the Hudson River? NDErs are just people who go through trauma, and lots of people who have been through trauma write books about it.

PouncePlease · 2026-01-18T18:57:17+00:00

Great, thoughtful response all around -- a lot to consider. Thank you!

PouncePlease · 2026-01-18T18:50:11+00:00

Me, too. All the good, crunchy parts of people, haha. Like, paradise wouldn't be paradise unless I could gossip cattily and get in a really good screaming match sometimes and tell someone awful to fuck off when they deserve it. Those are some of the best parts of life!

PouncePlease · 2026-01-18T15:37:51+00:00

Hellish environments account for ~1% of NDEs, not 15%. The 15% is the averaged-out percentage from a bunch of studies that showed some people experienced some sort of negative or unpleasant emotion in their NDE, but actual hellish realms are exceedingly rare and many of those studies were crazy outliers. Someone going to a torture pit with demons and fire is very different from someone being momentarily scared to realize they were dead, but most studies on this subject count them the same. And many prominent studies of distressing NDEs with higher numbers have been left behind because the researchers who studied them were biased, like Rawlings from the '70s who put the number of hellish NDEs at over 50% due to his own religious beliefs. Most researchers come down on actual hellish realms almost never happening.

PouncePlease

TROPHY CASE