What's it like to have a near-death experience?

THIS is what happens when people have 'out of body' experiences in real life. Is there really a light at the end of the tunnel?

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Picture: ThinkStock

YOU leave your body behind, memories flash before your eyes and you're being swallowed by a tunnel of golden light.

No doubt you've seen near-death experiences in hospital TV dramas or heard about them from friends or relatives who came close to spending their last moments on Earth.

But what really happens when you have a near-death experience? Are we sure they even exist?

Not everyone who comes close to the end reports experiencing one - far from it - although when they do they are "profound".

University of Virginia psychiatry Professor Bruce Greyson is regarded as the world's leading researcher in 'near death studies' and he has designed a "scale" that shows the telltale signs of an experience.

You can read them below but the general rule is the more of the criteria you experience the more likely it is a near-death experience.

The International Association for Near Death Experiences (yes, it's a thing), says your typical "NDE" is "often powerful and may be life-altering".

"Whether happening 'truly near death' or under benign circumstances, the near-death experience contains powerful images and emotions, usually of peace and love though sometimes terror, despair, guilt."

If you're not sold on them, don't worry - as Pacific Standard magazine notes, you have reason to be sceptical.

Some believe they are caused be drugs administered during surgery or oxygen depletion to the brain.

And no study has proven how they happen or whether reported 'out of body' experiences are legitimate.

THE TELLTALE SIGNS

1. Time speeds up, slows down, or loses all meaning

2. Your thoughts move rapidly

3. Flashbacks of past memories

4. You 'suddenly seem to understand everything'

5. Experience a feeling of pleasantness

6. Joy

7. Harmony or unity with the universe

8. Surrounded by a bright light

9. More vivid senses

10. Extrasensory perceptions

11. Scenes from the future

12. Feeling separated from your body

13. Seem to enter an unearthly world

14. Encounters with a mystical presence

15. See deceased or religious spirits

16. Come to a barrier or a border, a point of no return

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