The “near-death experience” during comas: Psychotraumatic suffering or the taming of reality?

An near death experience (NDE) is the experience of an atypical state of consciousness that is induced by the neuropsychological consequences of a passage near death. Far from being a psychologically traumatic event, these experiences never cause flashbacks and can even eliminate the fear of death. Listening to patients who have shared their near death sensations has encouraged the reevaluation of the medical standards associated with NDEs. Over several decades, the patient has been positioned at the center of management decisions, with his or her will taken into account. Certain patients can be revived following neurological events, but their resuscitation is performed with the possibility of serious neurological sequelae, which might prevent a return to normal life. The patient may also remain unconscious, either transiently or in a more long term coma or persistent vegetative state. Nonetheless, several works have demonstrated the presence of neuronal activity, however little, in patients suffering from prolonged comas. The medical team then does not act as if the patient were not there but, on the contrary, considers the patient to be the subject, although unable to speak directly, to whom one speaks and of whom one speaks between caregivers.