NDE and Its Rich and Vivid Memory
It is now widely accepted that declarative memory is not crucial for consciousness. Many authors have shown the coexistence of profound deficits in long-term memory formation and conscious states (e.g., patients with advanced Alzheimer’s disease; [
80.
]), or the possibility to be conscious and responsive but under the influence of alcohol causing lapses of declarative memory for example. Similarly, some episodes of connected consciousness such as assessed by the IFT appear to rarely be followed by explicit recall postoperatively [
32.
]. By contrast, episodes of disconnected consciousness inherently rely on memory. Classical NDEs are thought to occur in near death states where brain processes are severely diminished; however, NDEs are subsequently described in great detail and firmly anchored in experiencers’ memory [
81.
]. Importantly, current research shows that the NDE memory can hardly be considered as typically invented because it contains a high amount of qualitative phenomenological characteristics such as contextual and sensorial details (e.g., remembering what one felt or thought during the event; [
15.
,
17.
,
81.
,
82.
]). It is this subjective experience when remembering that gives one the impression that a memory belongs to one’s own past [
83.
,
84.
,
85.
] – and is not invented. Using electroencephalography, Palmieri and colleagues [
15.
] further showed the presence of theta activity associated with the recall of NDE memories, as being suggestive of episodic memories of real experienced events. Although memory theories have difficulties explaining NDEs and their resulting rich memory [
17.
], an answer can be provided by theories demonstrating the importance of the medial temporal lobe for memory encoding and retrieval [
86.
,
87.
].
