Near death experience in other religions

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Whenever I hear about these near death experiences, I always hear it from christians, or from atheists who see some version of christian heaven. The atheists are always people from predominantly christian nations, where the prevailing idea of the after life involves white lights and clouds and angels (heaven) or a dark tunnel with fire and monsters and lava rivers (hell).

I'm interested what Buddhists and Muslims and see. As an Agnostic, I don't know if this is divine, or just a product of the brain, but it would be interesting to look into it. If one believes the brain produces images of what it conceptualizes the afterlife to be like, I'd like to conduct a study in which a control group of about 50 is raised to believe God is Ronald McDonald, or Satan is Bowser Koopa or something. If any of them are unfortunate enough to have a brush with death, I wonder if they'd say they journeyed to McDonald's land or were locked up in King Koopa's castle for not believing? Seriously that would be as hysterical as it would be fascinating.

My grandma's Hindu. She said she saw hell during her near death experience. I think in Hinduism they are taught that they go to hell first where their sins & good deeds are judged.

Many Muslims see the life of the grave, and the razor-thin bridge to Jannah, replete with people struggling and failing to cross it. They see billions of souls laid out on a plain awaiting their turn on the Day of Judgment as well. The strange thing is, I know of several cases where Christians saw the same thing, one where a Jew saw it, and a few where atheists or agnostics saw it as well. They are all Muslims now also, after having made sense of what they experienced. None of these people ever had been exposed to the tenets or beliefs of Islam or known any Muslims, with exception to the Jewish girl. I always found that interesting, but not believable, until I met another revert whom had come to Islam because of his own near-death experience. Some random brother from Oregon, here in the US.

The man I met was hit by a truck while riding his bicycle at the age of fourteen, died for 2 minutes, and was subsequently in a coma for four months. In the months after his ordeal, he said that he was plagued by nightmares of what he saw. This started with his spirit being pulled away from his body and overseeing the events unfolding (he was able to recall the words spoken by the driver and his appearance immediately following the accident, although his body had been knocked unconscious instantly.) This was followed with frightening presences interrogating him and overseeing him, that then became gentle in their dealings, then seeing millions of others looking abjectly scared in massive crowds. He said that particular image was burned into his mind forever. He began to study religions of all sorts along with other paranormal/esoteric materials, and visited different religious groups over the course of the next six years. Nothing he encountered matched his experience, until he was on a vacation in Kenya and heard the adhaan (call to prayer from a mosque.) He was drawn to it, then asked to sit in and attend. After he was let in he immediately recognized Arabic as the language being predominantly whispered amongst all the frightened people he recalled seeing in his vision, and so he began to study Islam. After only a month of research he found that the Islamic view of death and the aakhirah (afterlife) perfectly matched his near-death experience, and he became a Muslim.

He is of the most humble and sincere people I have ever met, btw. Absolutely no pretension or judgment on his behalf towards anyone, of any faith. Dude was definitely, permanently changed and convinced! He doesn't even make a big deal out of his story, which I find odd. In his view, it is simply another method in which Allah guided one of his servants, nothing special. God knows, but if I were in that position, subhan'Allah, I would be carrying on like I found the cure for cancer.

Of course, I have heard of folks having NDEs that matched the experiences laid out by other religions as well, but never in the same fashion as the above. That is to say, that I haven't heard of anyone else becoming convinced in an unfamiliar religion or belief due to a near death experience outside of the aforementioned examples.

While that would be an interesting study (although pretty twisted), it presupposes a compulsory adherence to the beliefs manufactured by the control group. Not likely a subject matter which can be accurately studied in a controlled experiment, even overlooking the ethical quandary it presents.

This chap came across several different religions before his near-death experience and his subsequent conversion to Christianity. If you go down the page and find "the book" it gives the full story. Don't be intimidated by the title, it's not that long.

http://www.aglimpseofeternity.org/ians-testimony/

"life after life" [raymond moody, MD] was the first metaphysically-themed book i'd read, back in the late 70s. then a few years later i read "you cannot die" [dr. ian stephenson] which seemed to pick up where life after life left off. a few more years later i read "return from tomorrow [dr. george ritchie, MD] which was dr. ritchie's story of dying and astrally travelling during WW2. then i found out about robert monroe through his series of 3 books on astral travel. after reading these books my fear of death left me for good, as did any chauvinism for any particular religion.

I heard that in New Guinea, where they have 'cargo cults', ie, they see Westerners as gods because we gave them supplies (cargo), their NDEs involve them being in what looks like an American city. Talk about a concept for a Twilight Zone episode!

I've known a couple nurses with stories about near death experiences and people that are slipping away and they are all Judeo-Christian...for better or worse, and I have a friend who once had an experience that's not exactly as described in the Bible but not incompatible with it either.

hospice nurses have many tales to tell about this. my father's hospice nurse and my older sister all witnessed a gray filmy mist float beneath the ceiling and evaporate, just as my father died on the bed below. a few minutes before he died, his eyes opened wide and his face lit up beatifically, as though he were seeing something of unearthly beauty just beyond mundane human comprehension.