---
id: sfoc-states-near-death-experience
title: "Near-Death Experience"
primary_class: states
primary_domain: mind-consciousness
secondary_domains: [memory-identity, body-evolution]
material_modes: [experiential-report, original-synthesis]
version: 1.0.0
---

# Near-Death Experience

> **the returning witness.** A reported cluster of experiences occurring near death or perceived death, interpreted through neurological, psychological, and spiritual models.

## Origin

The origin file for Near-Death Experience begins where a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together first becomes legible in lived and reported experience. It does not backdate later language into earlier sources. Because a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation, provenance work must describe the experience before choosing among neurological, psychological, social, or metaphysical causes.

## What It Is

A reported cluster of experiences occurring near death or perceived death, interpreted through neurological, psychological, and spiritual models. In the Oracle it is classified as States & Experiences, while its evidence layers determine how literal, historical, fictional, experiential, or symbolic a particular interpretation may be.

## Cultural History

The cultural archive treats Near-Death Experience as a changing relation rather than a fixed object. Custody, platform, genre, and power all shape the version now encountered. At collective scale, a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together affects testimony, belonging, stigma, care, and the ability to coordinate reality; this matters because an intense experience can deepen agency or become captive to one total explanation.

## Claim and Evidence Layers

  ### literal-and-empirical

- **Claim layer:** literal-and-empirical
- **Material context:** experiential-report
- **Evidence state:** experiential-only
- **Summary:** Near-Death Experience has an experiential-only literal or empirical layer. That designation applies only to the bounded claims supported by the listed sources.
- **Sources:** nih-nde, nih-nde-scoping

### cultural-and-historical

- **Claim layer:** cultural-and-historical
- **Material context:** experiential-report, original-synthesis
- **Evidence state:** documented-historical
- **Summary:** The cited cultural record documents at least one lineage, use, or reception context for Near-Death Experience; it does not certify every later claim.
- **Sources:** nih-nde, nih-nde-scoping

### symbolic-and-divinatory

- **Claim layer:** symbolic-and-divinatory
- **Material context:** original-synthesis
- **Evidence state:** symbolic
- **Summary:** The Oracle uses Near-Death Experience as a reflective symbol, never as proof that its literal or causal claims are true.
- **Sources:** original-synthesis

## Oracle

- **Essence:** A reported cluster of experiences occurring near death or perceived death, interpreted through neurological, psychological, and spiritual models.
- **Archetype:** the returning witness
- **Gift:** renewed meaning and reduced fear.
- **Shadow:** one account universalized into certainty about the afterlife.
- **Guidance:** Compare the story of Near-Death Experience with the system carrying it. Trace one dependency from a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together to consequence. Use this guidance where a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation; keep visible that an intense experience can deepen agency or become captive to one total explanation.
- **Healing / integration:** Create a failure rehearsal for Near-Death Experience. Name the earliest warning, a safe stop, a repair keeper, and evidence that recovery has begun. Review a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together through attention, perception, interior experience, and the models used to explain awareness, remembering that the card changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation.
- **Question:** What changed in the life that continued?

## Meanings

### Psychological

Near-Death Experience may function inwardly as a lens for a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together. Its gift supports renewed meaning and reduced fear; its shadow begins when that lens excludes disconfirming experience. A grounded check for a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together is to describe the experience before choosing among neurological, psychological, social, or metaphysical causes, especially where the pattern changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation.

### Social

The social life of Near-Death Experience appears in how communities share evidence, status, obligation, and belonging. An intense experience can deepen agency or become captive to one total explanation. In shared life, a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together affects testimony, belonging, stigma, care, and the ability to coordinate reality. Test that specific a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together pattern by asking people to describe the experience before choosing among neurological, psychological, social, or metaphysical causes.

### Spiritual

Near-Death Experience can become a threshold symbol: something is released, encountered, remembered, or promised. Integration returns the threshold to ordinary responsibility. In symbolic practice, a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together can be interpreted as opening, ordeal, initiation, illusion, or integration; keep in view that an intense experience can deepen agency or become captive to one total explanation.

### Technological

Near-Death Experience changes more than efficiency when it makes a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together repeatable. It also changes expertise, access, liability, and refusal wherever attention, perception, interior experience, and the models used to explain awareness are at stake. When a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together becomes a capability, it may be measured, induced, mediated, recorded, or misclassified by tools. Verify the implementation of a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together by asking participants to describe the experience before choosing among neurological, psychological, social, or metaphysical causes.

### Political

A political reading of Near-Death Experience asks which material interest is hidden by cosmic, technical, therapeutic, or mythic language. When a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together becomes governance, it raises questions about credibility, autonomy, accommodation, and coercive interpretation. Make authority over a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together answerable by requiring decision-makers to describe the experience before choosing among neurological, psychological, social, or metaphysical causes.

## Divination

- **Gift state:** Upright, Near-Death Experience asks you to practice renewed meaning and reduced fear. Begin with record observation, felt meaning, interpretation, and confidence in four separate columns. The capacity within a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together is strongest when the experience is honored while causal certainty remains proportionate to evidence, even as the pattern changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation.
- **Shadow state:** Watch for one account universalized into certainty about the afterlife. The remedy is not ridicule, but a safer distinction among observation, interpretation, need, and story. To keep a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together from escalating, describe the experience before choosing among neurological, psychological, social, or metaphysical causes, because the pattern changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation.
- **Threshold state:** Near-Death Experience signals that an intense experience can deepen agency or become captive to one total explanation. Look for the practical site where that tension changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation and produces consequence. Operationally, a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation; the reader should describe the experience before choosing among neurological, psychological, social, or metaphysical causes.
- **Practical move:** Create a failure rehearsal for Near-Death Experience. Name the earliest warning, a safe stop, a repair keeper, and evidence that recovery has begun. Review a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together through attention, perception, interior experience, and the models used to explain awareness, remembering that the card changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation.

## Game and Story Function

- condition
- perception-filter
- consequence

**Story seed:** The promised liberation within Near-Death Experience works, but only for those able to leave. Make access, obligation, and return the center of the plot. The world of the story must show how a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together changes perception and choice without necessarily proving an external explanation and why an intense experience can deepen agency or become captive to one total explanation.

## Relationships

- edge--assessed-through-shared-source-lens--sfoc-states-amnesia--sfoc-states-near-death-experience
- edge--develops-into--sfoc-events-life-review--sfoc-states-near-death-experience
- edge--reported-motif-of--sfoc-events-life-review--sfoc-states-near-death-experience
- edge--same-class-as--sfoc-states-memory-wipe--sfoc-states-near-death-experience
- edge--same-class-as--sfoc-states-near-death-experience--sfoc-states-noospheric-awareness
- edge--shares-inquiry-domain-with--sfoc-beings-artificial-general-intelligence--sfoc-states-near-death-experience
- edge--shares-inquiry-domain-with--sfoc-forces-evolution--sfoc-states-near-death-experience
- edge--shares-inquiry-domain-with--sfoc-hypotheses-ancient-astronaut-hypothesis--sfoc-states-near-death-experience

## Visual Direction

Near-Death Experience visualized as a threshold approached but not completed, the end of embodied continuity, and lived perception before causal settlement acting together: a layered interior halo expressing a condition without diagnosing or literalizing a person. The art must be original, text-free, square, rounded-corner enamel with one immediately legible silhouette.

## Safety and Integration

Flags: lived-experience-without-causal-certification. Invite reflection and source comparison; do not diagnose, recruit, threaten, harass, or certify extraordinary claims.

## Sources and Research Notes

- Source IDs: nih-nde, nih-nde-scoping, iep-jung, original-synthesis
- Research note: Which earliest reliable source fixes the modern meaning of Near-Death Experience? Which communities use Near-Death Experience differently, and what changes across those contexts? What evidence would distinguish the leading literal explanations associated with Near-Death Experience?
