Analysis of 1,096 NDE accounts scraped from iands.org. This study identifies common themes, patterns, and sentiment across first-hand NDE reports.
- Total Accounts Analyzed: 1,096
- Total Words: 1,085,848
- Average Account Length: 990.7 words
- Median Account Length: 589.0 words
- Range: 1 to 69,615 words
Distribution shows most accounts are under 2,000 words, with a right-skewed pattern. The median (589 words) is lower than the mean (991 words) due to a small number of very long accounts that extend the tail.
| Rank | Theme | Accounts | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peace/Love | 579 | 52.8% |
| 2 | Divine Being | 579 | 52.8% |
| 3 | Out of Body | 440 | 40.1% |
| 4 | Tunnel | 336 | 30.7% |
| 5 | Light | 325 | 29.7% |
| 6 | Celestial Realm | 317 | 28.9% |
| 7 | Knowledge | 314 | 28.6% |
| 8 | Border/Barrier | 313 | 28.6% |
| 9 | Transformation | 250 | 22.8% |
| 10 | Decision/Choice | 234 | 21.4% |
| 11 | Deceased Relatives | 205 | 18.7% |
| 12 | Life Review | 114 | 10.4% |
| 13 | Pain Cessation | 110 | 10.0% |
| 14 | Telepathy | 101 | 9.2% |
| 15 | Timelessness | 71 | 6.5% |
Peace/Love and Divine Being are the most prevalent themes, each appearing in over half of all accounts. Eight themes appear in more than 25% of accounts, while less common themes like Timelessness and Telepathy appear in under 10%.
Peace/Love (52.8% of accounts)
"When I first felt the presence that surrounded me, there was a feeling of pure unconditional love from another thing."
Divine Being (52.8% of accounts)
"I thought perhaps God sent something comforting so I wouldn't be afraid as I left my body through the top of my head."
Out of Body (40.1% of accounts)
"I felt as though I was floating alone at incredible speed, passing through a dark tunnel whose light gradually intensified as I moved forward."
Tunnel (30.7% of accounts)
"I traveled through a tunnel with colorful lights at lightning speed to abruptly stop near the end of the tunnel."
Light (29.7% of accounts)
"I said, 'What's wrong?' one more time before I saw a huge flash of white light that quickly captured my whole being."
Correlation matrix shows which themes tend to appear together in accounts. Notable correlations include Border/Barrier with Knowledge (0.53) and Celestial Realm (0.22), and Celestial Realm with Divine Being (0.27) and Knowledge (0.25). Most correlations are weak to moderate, indicating themes occur relatively independently.
- "felt like"
- "don't know"
- "near death"
- "years old"
- "white light"
- "didn't know"
- "didn't want"
- "years later"
- "bright light"
- "looked like"
TF-IDF (Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency) identifies phrases that are both common and distinctive to the corpus, filtering out generic language.
Visual representation of word frequency across all accounts. Prominent words include "body," "time," "felt," "light," "told," "life," and "experience," reflecting the core elements of NDE narratives.
- Average Compound Sentiment Score: 0.336
- Median Compound Sentiment Score: 0.912
- Standard Deviation: 0.835
- Positive: 0.110
- Neutral: 0.803
- Negative: 0.086
| Category | Accounts | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Very Positive (≥0.5) | 693 | 63.2% |
| Positive (0.05-0.5) | 41 | 3.7% |
| Neutral (-0.05-0.05) | 7 | 0.6% |
| Negative (-0.5--0.05) | 45 | 4.1% |
| Very Negative (≤-0.5) | 310 | 28.3% |
Overall Breakdown
- Positive: 734 accounts (67.0%)
- Neutral: 7 accounts (0.6%)
- Negative: 355 accounts (32.4%)
Four-panel visualization showing: (1) bimodal distribution of sentiment scores with peaks at very positive and very negative extremes, (2) categorical breakdown with 63.2% very positive accounts, (3) sentiment components averaging 0.803 neutral, 0.110 positive, and 0.086 negative, and (4) scatter plot showing no strong correlation between account length and sentiment.
The bimodal pattern indicates NDEs are polarized experiences—most are either strongly positive or strongly negative, with few neutral accounts. The high neutral component score (0.803) reflects factual narrative language, while the positive skew (67% positive vs 32.4% negative) suggests most experiencers report their NDE as beneficial. Account length does not predict sentiment, indicating both brief and detailed accounts can be equally positive or negative.
Average sentiment scores for accounts containing each theme, with error bars showing standard deviation. Celestial Realm has the highest average sentiment (0.632), followed by Knowledge (0.599) and Light (0.500). Pain Cessation has the lowest sentiment (0.180), though still positive. All themes show positive average sentiment, but large error bars indicate high variability within each theme.
This reveals that certain NDE elements are associated with more positive experiences. Themes involving transcendent elements (Celestial Realm, Knowledge, Light) correlate with higher sentiment scores, while themes tied to physical distress (Pain Cessation) or separation (Out of Body) show lower scores. The wide error bars across all themes reflect the bimodal nature of NDEs, where individual experiences can be profoundly positive or negative regardless of specific themes present.
- Most common theme is Peace/Love, appearing in 52.8% of accounts
- Two themes appear in more than 50% of accounts
- Eight themes appear in more than 25% of accounts
- Common theme clusters:
- Experiential: out-of-body, light, tunnel
- Emotional: peace/love, transformation
- Entities: deceased relatives, divine beings
- Phenomena: telepathy, timelessness, life review
- Accounts show consistency across common elements, suggesting shared core features
- NDE accounts are predominantly positive with an average sentiment score of 0.336, suggesting most experiences are perceived as beneficial or transformative
First-hand NDE accounts scraped from iands.org using iands_scraper.py
- Python 3.8+
- Natural Language Processing (NLTK)
- Sentiment Analysis (VADER)
- TF-IDF Analysis
- Statistical Analysis (pandas, numpy)
- Visualizations (matplotlib, seaborn, wordcloud)
Install dependencies:
pip install matplotlib seaborn pandas numpy wordcloud nltk scikit-learnRun analysis:
python nde_analysis.py- The AWARE Study - University of Southampton's prospective study of cardiac arrest survivors
- Near-Death Experiences: The Evidence - Bruce Greyson's comprehensive review
- NDE Scale - Greyson's standardized measurement tool for NDEs
- IANDS Research - International Association for Near-Death Studies research publications
- IANDS - International Association for Near-Death Studies
- NDERF - Near Death Experience Research Foundation
- Division of Perceptual Studies - University of Virginia research center
- "Life After Life" by Raymond Moody (1975) - Pioneering work that coined the term "near-death experience"
- "After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal" by Bruce Greyson (2021)
- "The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences" edited by Janice Holden et al. (2009)
AI was used to accelerate and automate this project. However, a human designed it, reviewed it, and modified it (when needed).