Evidence map›Paper›PMID 23544039›Full record

ArticlePloS one2013

Characteristics of near-death experiences memories as compared to real and imagined events memories.

Marie Thonnard, Vanessa Charland-Verville, Serge Brédart, Hedwige Dehon, Didier Ledoux, Steven Laureys, Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse

Open access · goldAbstract readComparative Study
In one paragraph

Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
29citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
6.8field-weighted citation impact, top 4% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

29 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 138 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2026
    Article
  3. Near-death experiences.CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2026
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  19. DMT Models the Near-Death Experience.Frontiers in psychology · 2018
    Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Marie ThonnardComa Science Group, Cyclotron Research Centre and Neurology Department, University and University Hospital of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
Vanessa Charland-Verville
Serge Brédart
Hedwige Dehon
Didier Ledoux
Steven Laureys
Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse
University of Liège · BE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Since the dawn of time, Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have intrigued and, nowadays, are still not fully explained. Since reports of NDEs are proposed to be imagined events, and since memories of imagined events have, on average, fewer phenomenological characteristics than real events memories, we here compared phenomenological characteristics of NDEs reports with memories of imagined and real events. We included three groups of coma survivors (8 patients with NDE as defined by the Greyson NDE scale, 6 patients without NDE but with memories of their coma, 7 patients without memories of their coma) and a group of 18 age-matched healthy volunteers. Five types of memories were assessed using Memory Characteristics Questionnaire (MCQ--Johnson et al., 1988): target memories (NDE for NDE memory group, coma memory for coma memory group, and first childhood memory for no memory and control groups), old and recent real event memories and old and recent imagined event memories. Since NDEs are known to have high emotional content, participants were requested to choose the most emotionally salient memories for both real and imagined recent and old event memories. Results showed that, in NDE memories group, NDE memories have more characteristics than memories of imagined and real events (p<0.02). NDE memories contain more self-referential and emotional information and have better clarity than memories of coma (all ps<0.02). The present study showed that NDE memories contained more characteristics than real event memories and coma memories. Thus, this suggests that they cannot be considered as imagined event memories. On the contrary, their physiological origins could lead them to be really perceived although not lived in the reality. Further work is needed to better understand this phenomenon.

Indexed as

DeathImaginationMemoryHumansMiddle AgedSurveys and QuestionnairesTime Factors

Identifiers

PMID23544039
PMCPMC3609762
OpenAlexW2038206873

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.