An exploratory study of alternative life experiences in comparison to transcendental near‐death experiences

Abstract The term near‐death experience (NDE) generally refers to a state of altered consciousness that can occur during real or presumed near‐death circumstances and/or life‐threatening incidents. The NDE usually includes the impression of being conscious while out of and/or away from the physical body, often accompanied by other specific features. Furthermore, when the experient has the impression of being in a perceived locality that transcends the observable physical Earth, it is referred to by researchers as a transcendental NDE. Whereas transcendental NDEs have been widely studied, there is also another type of experience that can occur under similar life‐threatening conditions that I refer to as an alternative life experience (ALE), which consists of a perception of living another alternative life where the experient is aware of the self, but does not believe at the time of occurrence that they are either out of or away from their physical body. After providing a total of 15 examples, I note some similarities and differences between ALEs and transcendental NDEs while providing some qualitative and quantitative results, suggesting that ALEs might be similar to some aspects of transcendental NDEs despite their neglect in the study of altered states of consciousness during near‐death circumstances. I further postulate that ALEs might be subjective psychological experiences of dissociation and/or absorption. It is then pointed out that symptoms of derealization are a common ALE aftereffect and so an awareness of that association is stressed as having therapeutic importance.