Near-death experiences: Perception is reality

Abstract

The authors propose three etiologies responsible for the near- death experience, which they refer to as an altered state of consciousness: physiologic, pharmacologic, and psychologic. They recommend research to determine what developmental factors influence the emotionality of the expe- rience and how in-depth understanding can be used to provide better patient care. Perception is reality. There are no different Wpes of realities, only that which is perceived by the perceiver. The near-death, or, rather, "deathlike" experience is, like religion, politics, beauty, and sex, in the eye of the beholder. Harry Stack Sullivan used the term ~'consensual validation" in refer- ring to the efforts of psychiatrists to find "factors that will prove to be of real moment (italics added) in understanding our intuition of psycho- pathological situations-and living generally-and in understanding our ubiquitous errors in both of these" (Sullivan, 1962, pp. 258-259). Lewis B. Hill used the term "consensual validation" to mean a shared reality. He suggested that schizophrenics attempt consensual valida- tion in an effort to experience reality (Hill, personal communication,