Religious experiences come in many different forms from personal contact with a divine being, visions, near death experiences (NDEs), and more. The most vivid and life-changing religious awakenings often come from a close brush with death. Why is this? I would argue that it is because most people come to the conclusion that someone or something must have saved them from death, otherwise how would they have survived? Surely one isn’t that lucky, especially if the incident was extreme and should have been fatal or if someone experiences more than one encounter with death. Another reason people have near death experiences and believe that it is a religious experience is because they feel as though they were saved for a reason or have found a new purpose. So how do you have a near death …show more content…
Obviously you have to have come close to death or some kind of extreme distress, but how close exactly? The International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) defines a near death experience as “a profound psychological event that may occur to a person close to death or, if not near death, in a situation of physical or emotional crisis” (“Key Facts about Near-Death Experiences”). In many cases, people have death visions while in a coma, during a car accident, or during a life threatening situation. In instances where people have not been near to death or clinically dead, people have experienced an intense vision while meditating, praying, or during everyday activities - these experiences are referred to as ‘near death-like experiences’. Ok so, do you have to be a religious person to have a vision while near death? The short answer is no. In fact, there is no statistical correlation to experiencing a near-death experience and being religious; anyone can experience it (Long, "Near-Death Experience, Religion, and