Life review

A life review is a phenomenon widely reported as occurring during near-death experiences, in which a person rapidly sees much or the totality of their life history in chronological sequence and in extreme detail. It is often referred to by people having experienced this phenomenon as having their life "flash before their eyes". The life review is discussed in some detail by near-death experience scholars such as Raymond Moody, Kenneth Ring, and Barbara Rommer. A reformatory purpose seems commonly implicit in accounts, though not necessarily for earthly purpose, since return from a near-death experience may reportedly entail individual choice.

While experiencers, who number up to eight million in the United States, sometimes report that reviews took place in the company of otherworldly beings who shared the observation, they also say they felt unjudged during the process, leaving themselves their own strongest critics. Although rare, there are also a few accounts of life reviews or similar experiences without a near-death experience, such as during the simpler out-of-body experience or when under circumstances of intense threat or duress. Many scientists discount near-death experiences themselves and criticize their credibility. Furthermore, there is evidence suggesting cultural differences in the near-death experience,which is why some believe NDEs are hallucinatory.

The perception of time appears to be subjective and has been described as from lasting less than a few seconds to instantaneous. Accounts differ as to what phase of a near-death experience a review might take place in.

Subjects frequently describe their experience as panoramic, 3-D or holographic. During a life review, the subject's perception is reported to include not only their own perspective in increased vividness, as if they were reliving a given episode itself, but that of all other parties they interact with at each point being reviewed. Betty Eadie's widely read account, in which she described the life review as her best conception of hell, also described the life review as extending to ripples of one's life and acts out into further degrees of separation. Some believe this extension to have limitations.

The term 3D is employed to approximate the inclusion of different physical perspectives onto a scene; the intensity of a life review was described by one individual as enabling him to count every nearby mosquito; but equally common is the description of feeling the emotional experience of the other parties, including in one case virtually everyone in a room. While some accounts appear to describe scenes as selected, others more commonly narrate the experience as including things they had, probably naturally, long ago entirely forgotten, with "nothing left out." Experiencers commonly describe the intense vividness and detail as making them feel more alive than when normally conscious:

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