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Complex Visual Imagery and Cognition During Near-Death Experiences Alexander Batthyany, PhD University of Vienna & International Academy of Philosophy, Liechtenstein ABSTRACT: Near-death experiences (NDEs) entail complex and structured conscious experience during conditions known to coincide with rapid loss of con- sciousness often associated with decline or disruption of the neurological cor- relates currently held to be causative factors of visual imagery and cognition. In this study, 653 NDE reports of cardiac and/or respiratory arrest patients were analyzed for unprompted, spontaneous references to quality of conscious visual imagery and mentation during an NDE. Results indicate that in a majority of NDEs, both figurative and abstract mentation are either preserved or mark- edly improved during unconsciousness and unresponsiveness in the context of respiratory and cardiac arrests. These findings underscore the call to further study the mechanisms behind the 'outliving' of a conscious sense of selfhood and complex, structured visual imagery and cognition during severely deteriorating physiological function-and perhaps especially during clinical death. KEY WORDS: near-death experience, terminal lucidity, visual imagery; menta- tion; cognition; mind-body problem Near-death experiences (NDEs) are phenomenologically complex ex- periences reported by 9-18% of patients who survived health crises Alexander Batthyiny, PhD, is a professor who holds The Endowed Viktor Frankl Chair of Philosophy and Psychology at the International Academy of Philosophy in Bendern, Principality of Liechtenstein and who teaches theoretical foundations of cog- nitive science in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna in Vienna, Austria. He would like to thank Barbora Gensorova, David Mandel, Petra Schmidt, and Johannes Berger for their assistance with handling the databases and scoring the reports. Special thanks go to Jeffrey Long of the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (www.nderf.org) both for allowing use of NDERF experience repository data and for providing helpful remarks on earlier versions of this article. Warm thanks go also to Bruce Greyson for his kind support and his very helpful comments on an earlier draft and to Janice Holden for her support and editorial assistance. Correspon- dence regarding this article should be sent to Dr. Batthyany at Prinz Eugenstr. 18/12, 1040 Vienna, Austria, or email: alexander.batthyany@univie.ac.at. Journal of Near-Death Studies, 34(2), Winter 2015 2015 IANDS 65 DOI: 10.17514/JNDS-2015-34-2-p65-83.
