There have been accounts of unusual experiences reported by those who have come close to death since the earliest times in many cultures. It wasn't really until the 1970s that this subject entered the realms of science. This interest started after Raymond Moody, an American medical student with a background in philosophy, published his best selling book "Life after life", in which he had collected the accounts given by 150 survivors of near death encounters. Remarkably, he found that the survivors had all described similar unusual experiences. These included feeling peace, having a life review, seeing a tunnel, seeing a bright light, seeing deceased relatives, having a perception of separation from the body (out of body experience) and entering a heavenly domain. The experiences were usually described from a time when the individual had been unconscious and had often left the person with a positive life effect making the individual more pious, religious and less afraid of death. Moody termed these experiences 'near death experiences' (NDE). Since then they have become a subject of global interest and as a result have become the source of many debates, controversies and headlines all over the world.

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