Of all the strange trappings associated with the near-death experience, none is so familiar as the tunnel into the light.
People who have skirted perilously close to the brink of death – or even beyond it for a few moments – sometimes describe moving through darkness, like a tunnel, towards a dazzling luminous portal – like a passage into elsewhere.
It's an image so deeply embedded in popular culture that it has become a powerful symbol of the end of life.
But not everyone who reports a near-death experience sees a tunnel. Some describe vast, luminous spaces, curved horizons, or an overwhelming sense of being surrounded by light.
Even in spite of these differences, though, a new study has found that otherwise varying experiences of death's waiting room may have something peculiar in common.
To read more, click here.