Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) are often categorized based on emotional tone—most describe feelings of overwhelming peace and euphoria, while some recount fear, distress, or even nightmarish visions. This has led many to interpret NDEs in moral or religious terms, as either a foretaste of reward and punishment or as a reflection of the individual’s psychological state. However, such interpretations presuppose a structure of becoming, where one’s emotional response is taken as an indicator of movement toward or away from truth.
If Being is eternal, then the emotions experienced in an NDE do not signify progress, judgment, or separation. Instead, they reveal how the necessary unfolding of truth appears within the conditioned framework of the individual. Rather than indicating different “types” of NDEs with distinct meanings, these emotional variations show how finite consciousness encounters the appearing of what has always been.
Why Do Some NDEs Feel Blissful and Others Distressing?
Many accounts describe an immediate sense of expansion, love, and complete understanding, leading some to claim that NDEs reveal an ultimate state of peace. Yet others recount confusion, isolation, or terror, experiencing themselves as lost in darkness or encountering unsettling figures. These contrasts often lead to interpretations based on personal virtue, karma, or psychological readiness. But such explanations assume a cause-effect relationship within a framework of change—an assumption that contradicts the eternal necessity of Being.
Rather than being indicators of movement toward or away from truth, these emotional states reflect the way consciousness responds to the sudden shift in appearing. If one’s conditioned framework of reality is strongly tied to separation, individuality, and temporal progression, the collapse of those structures may be experienced as disorienting or frightening. Conversely, if one is predisposed to accept or embrace the infinite, the experience may be met with joy. However, in both cases, the underlying reality remains unchanged; it is not the experience itself that is positive or negative but the way it appears within a particular horizon of understanding.
Are “Positive” NDEs Closer to Truth?
It is tempting to assume that feelings of love, unity, and peace indicate a deeper alignment with truth, while fear and distress reveal resistance or illusion. But if Being is eternal and necessary, then truth is not a state to be reached through emotional experience. Rather, emotions are part of the conditioned way in which truth appears.
The presence of euphoria in many NDEs suggests that, in those moments, the individual perceives reality without the usual constraints of fear, doubt, or fragmentation. But this does not mean that truth itself is an experience of bliss—it means that the removal of limiting frameworks often results in an emotional response of freedom. However, emotions, by their nature, are transient and do not define the eternal. Even bliss, when taken as an end in itself, can become another form of attachment, just as fear can become a barrier when it is misunderstood as separation from Being.
Do Subjective States Shape the NDE Itself?
Because NDEs often reflect cultural and personal expectations, some argue that they are purely subjective psychological phenomena, shaped entirely by prior beliefs. Others claim they reveal an objective afterlife, with the diversity of experiences explained by different spiritual paths or moral conditions. But both perspectives remain within the framework of becoming, assuming either that NDEs are projections of the mind or that they are encounters with an external realm one may or may not be worthy to enter.
Instead, if Being is necessary, then NDEs do not indicate movement from one place to another, nor do they merely reflect the psyche’s expectations. Rather, they are moments in which the structure of experience itself is revealed, conditioned by—but not reducible to—individual perception. The emotions felt in an NDE are not separate from this appearing but are part of the way it is encountered.
Conclusion
The variations in NDEs—from blissful union to fear and confusion—do not reflect movement toward or away from truth. Instead, they reveal how finite consciousness encounters the appearing of the eternal within its conditioned framework. Neither euphoria nor fear is the ultimate indicator of truth, for truth is not a state to be reached but the necessary structure of Being itself. By recognizing this, we move beyond the assumption that NDEs reveal either judgment or mere psychological projection and instead see them as the unfolding of what has always been.
It Is What It Is 
Leave a comment