ABSTRACT
The experience of dying has been neglected in the scientific literature. Jaspers, in his comprehensive General Psychopathology (1963), noted that the phenomena experienced by individuals who narrowly escaped death were often discussed but rarely reported. The accounts of persons who have nearly died are limited almost entirely to autobiographical and fictional sources. Jung’s (1961) account of his experience immediately following a heart attack and Caresse Crosby’s (1953) description of nearly drowning at age seven are dramatic autobiographical examples. Poe’s “A Descent into the Maelstrom” (1938) and Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1920) are representative of fictional accounts.
