Past-Life Memories as After-Effects of Near-Death Experiences: A Pilot Study ‣ IANDS

From the Journal of Near-Death Studies, Volume 43-1
Alternative Link: https://doi.org/10.17514/JNDS-2025-43-1-p31-61

James G. Matlock, PhD
Parapsychology Foundation

ABSTRACT

Apparent reincarnation has been studied principally in connection with young children, whose veridical past-life memories (PLMs) often surface in the ordinary waking state. In contrast, when PLMs come to adults, they tend to appear in dreams or altered states of consciousness. In this mixed methods study, I examined 10 cases of PLMs or non-veridical past-life visions (PLVs) that arose following near-death experiences (NDES), mostly in adulthood. Respondents completed the revised NDE Scale and scored a Reincarnation Memory Strength Assessment (ReMSA) questionnaire regarding PLMs and PLVs before and after their NDEs. In all 10 cases, PLMs or PLVs either first surfaced or became stronger after NDEs. Also, after NDES, PLMs and PLVs were more likely to appear in the waking state than in dreams and to be clearer, more extensive, and more often veridical than those before the NDEs. The strongest before-versus-after effects on ReMSA were found when NDEs scored 5 or above on the NDE Scale’s Transcendental subscale, suggesting that the transcendent consciousness associated with deeper NDEs facilitates PLM retrieval in adulthood. Although the small sample cannot support firm conclusions, the patterns are robust enough to generate hypotheses that will be tested in an internet-based survey incorporating the same testing instruments.

KEYWORDS: near-death experience aftereffects, past-life memory retrieval, reincarnation, transcendental states of consciousness, transliminality

A good deal of attention has been paid to the aftereffects of near-death experiences (NDES), among them greater openness to subconscious processing and psychic activity (Álvarez et al., 2023; Noyes et al., 2009; Sutherland, 1989, 1992). An increase in the belief in reincarnation following NDEs has also been remarked (Wells, 1993), with occasional mention of apparent past-life memories (PLMs) arising during the episodes (e.g., Greyson, 2021; Krohn & Kripal, 2018; Moorjani, 2012), but little notice has been taken of PLMs that surface following NDEs. That PLMs should be retrieved more easily after NDEs should not be surprising; however, if NDEs confer a lasting transliminality that opens access to the subconscious over the long term, given that PLMs appear to be recorded in the subconscious mind (Matlock, 2019). Many PLM claims provide little to substantiate them as genuine memories, but some have been confirmed. I use “past-life vision” (PLV) for apparent memories of previous lives that have not been verified in any way, reserving “past-life memory” (PLM) for veridical memory claims. PLMs can be differentiated between those involving an identified deceased person—solved cases, and those for which a previous person has not been identified—unsolved cases.

This mixed methods study employed a convenience sample of 10 accounts of PLMs and PLVs that arose following NDEs. The study began with my informal collection of accounts of PLMs that surfaced following NDEs. I noticed a recurring pattern of PLMs and PLVs first appearing, or becoming stronger, after NDEs. This observation led me to search for more cases through appeals in several Facebook groups, strengthening my sense of an important yet heretofore unrecognized NDE aftereffect. Although my sample was too small to support firm conclusions, I decided the best way to enlarge it was to solicit accounts in an internet-based survey, still to be conducted. Thus, what began as an informal hunt for PLMs and PLVs following NDEs became a formal pilot study. The results of this pilot study led me to develop hypotheses to be tested through the planned survey.

Evolution of the Study

I became interested in PLMs as NDE aftereffects upon encountering two cases of veridical PLMs following NDEs in adulthood (Matlock, 2024, 2025). Because PLMs have been reported most often in childhood (Matlock, 2019; Stevenson, 2001), I viewed this phenomenon as potentially important and tried to determine how common it was to have PLMs in the wake of NDEs. A table from a 1983 study by Bruce Greyson, reprinted in the Handbook of Near-Death Experiences (Noyes et al., 2009, p. 50), showed that 14.5% (10) of 69 NDErs reported “memories of previous lives” before their NDEs and 29% (20) reported “memories of previous lives” after their NDEs. Hoping to follow up on these cases for more information, I wrote to Greyson for details. He referred me to John Palmer, who had conducted the survey (Palmer, 1979) on which the 1983 figures were based. Unfortunately, I learned from Palmer, the data had been collected anonymously, so respondents could not be contacted for interviews.

Greyson checked the large NDE database at the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, University of Virginia School of Medicine, for replies to the question, “Since your NDE, have you had what seemed to be a memory of a past lifetime?” Almost half of the respondents answered “yes” to this question, but the narrative descriptions given by most respondents did not bear out that affirmative response, Greyson told me. The few more interesting responses said nothing substantive that would enable a proper assessment or investigation of the past-life memory claims.

I found a few intriguing accounts on the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) website, which I searched in early November 2024. The NDERF reporting form included the question, “Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience?” Of 83 NDES or related experiences—probable NDEs, possible NDEs, or NDE-like experiences with references to reincarnation or past-life memory, 4 (5%) mentioned probable PLVs. Helen E (Helen E NDE, n.d.) related that she had experienced “past life recall.” Maria P (Maria P NDE, n.d.) wrote, “I can see past life or future events.” Beverly H (Beverly H NDE, n.d.) wrote, “My whole past life experience opened up, access that I never had or even thought of prior to that experience.” Lael (Lael NDE, n.d.) wrote, “Over the years I have become more and more aware of several of my past lives.” Unfortunately, none of these four contributors provided details of their seeming past-life recall, and again, there was no possibility of follow-up.

The online database of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) does not have a question about NDE aftereffects, and I found no mentions of PLMs following NDEs in their archive. However, I learned about some cases through appeals on Facebook, which is where I first heard about the two cases I have studied closely (Matlock, 2024, 2025). Four respondents—later study participants—have written about their experiences in books (Feinstein, 2023; Heath, 2023; Love, 2018; Shahar, 2018). I was unable to get in touch with another book author, Rand Jamison Shields, who, at 6 years old, came close to drowning in a community swimming pool (Shields, 2013). During an NDE, he encountered angelic spirit guides who sent him back to his body. He had had no inkling of a previous life before his NDE, and none during the experience. A month after it, he began to have out-of-body experiences (OBEs) triggered by stroking his eyebrow in a certain way during classroom lectures he found boring. The OBEs were somehow linked to the angels he saw during his NDE, and they led to visions of bygone times. Over the remainder of the school year, Shields experienced 68 past-life visions, 34 of them pertaining to what seemed to be the same life. Eventually, he was able to identify the latter with a resident of Steubenville, Ohio, who had died 28 months before his birth, “solving” his own case.

The OBE element in Shields’s experience may be significant. I have heard about—although am not including in the present study—an instance of apparent PLMs arising after an OBE. At 54, Noemi Adamo (pseudonym) experienced the sudden sensation of her consciousness leaving her body. She vividly perceived all that surrounded her—the fresh air, the trees, her house—and met an uncle who had died years before. He told her how proud he was of her and that he loved her very much. The experience lasted about five minutes. Two days later, for the first time, Adamo had a waking vision of being a young girl in a Nazi concentration camp, sexually abused by the guards. Visions of additional lives followed, some in the waking state and others in dreams, although none with sufficient detail for her to verify any details, much less to identify any of the people she recalled having been.

I collected the 10 accounts analyzed in this study over a period of about two years. Because I did not anticipate a formal analysis until after I began to perceive interesting patterns in the experiences, I did not recruit my study participants in a systematic way, using a standard protocol. Four of the 10 accounts came to my attention through books, three through unsolicited posts on Facebook, and three through appeals in reincarnation and NDE groups on that platform. Although my appeals elicited other accounts, the respondents failed to follow through with details of their experiences and were dropped from this study. As I began to conceive a formal study utilizing a web-based questionnaire, I pulled back on the informal solicitation of accounts and turned attention to this pilot study utilizing testing instruments. These instruments are embedded in the survey questionnaire I have developed in association with Marieta Pehlivanova and Bruce Greyson of DOPS, so that the analytical procedures described here will be applied to the survey results as well. In the discussion below, I consider the theoretical implications of my findings and draw out hypotheses to be tested with the future survey.

Method

Participants

At the time of my interviews with participants, all 10 were adult females. Six were American, one was Canadian, one French, one Norwegian, and one an American-born Israeli. One of the NDEs transpired in childhood, at age 4 years; one in adolescence, at age 15 years; and eight in adulthood, at ages ranging from 18 to 63 years. The median age at NDE was 23.5 years. No further demographic data were collected.

I interviewed all participants in English. All gave permission in writing to have their narrative accounts presented in this study, although I did not request signed consent forms. Except for the four cases in which participants had written books under their own names, I assigned pseudonyms to protect identities.

Measures

When I decided to formalize this study, I asked each of my participants to complete two questionnaires. The first was the revised version (International Association for Near-Death Studies, 2025) of the Near-Death Experience Scale (NDE Scale; Greyson, 1983; Lange et al., 2004). Although the revised version has been published only online, other versions of the NDE Scale have been published in print. Because internet links may change, for clarity and posterity, the version used in this study appears below in Appendix A.

The NDE Scale comprises 16 questions with numerical values from 0 to 2, which are summed to give a composite score ranging from 0 to 32. Greyson (1983) decided on a composite score threshold of 7 for an experience to qualify as an NDE because 7 was about one standard deviation below the mean score of 15.01 obtained from 74 criterion test respondents to the then-final iteration of his scale. The scale’s reliability was established through a Rasch scaling exercise conducted by Lange et al. (2004). The revised version of the NDE Scale includes the same 16 questions and response categories as the original, with some minor changes in item wording and the order of the response categories reversed—listed from 0 to 2 rather than from 2 to 0—but the total-score cut-off of 7 is retained. The scale includes four subscales, each comprising four items: items 1-4 Cognitive, 5-8 Affective, 9-12 Paranormal, and 13-16 Transcendental; in each case, a score of 5 or higher for the four items qualifies the NDE to be categorized as that “type.”

The second questionnaire was a modified version of an instrument designed to evaluate past-life memory claims: the Reincarnation Memory Strength Assessment (ReMSA) questionnaire (Appendix B). Although I had considered using Tucker’s (2000) Strength-of-Case Scale (SOCS) to compare past-life memory strength before and after the NDEs, I came to realize that, perhaps because SOCS was standardized on relatively well-developed children’s cases, it was ill-suited to assess the nature and strength of adults’ PLMs. By contrast, the ReMSA is a self-report questionnaire intended for subjects 8 years or older. It is restricted to apparent PLMs that arise spontaneously, in waking life, in dreams, and in other naturally occurring states of consciousness, explicitly eschewing putative memories elicited through past life regression, guided meditation, or other facilitated means, or under the influence of psychoactive drugs.

The modified ReMSA version employed here asks respondents to characterize their putative PLMs before and after their NDEs. Specifically, Part 1 comprises nine questions about a respondent’s PLMs before their NDE—or, if they had had multiple NDEs, before their first NDE—responding from one’s current perspective, even if one did not realize they were recalling a previous life at the time; and Part 2 comprises nine questions about a respondent’s PLMs after their (first) NDE, with the same response parameters. This abbreviated version of the scale focuses on declarative memories and emphasizes items that contrast experiences before and after NDEs. The full ReMSA asks about implicit (emotional and behavioral) and psychogenic (physically expressed) memories as well as a more extensive array of declarative memory features. Neither the full nor the modified version of the scale has been validated or published; this is its first application.

Procedures

I collected the data for this study through interviews, conducted mostly through Facebook Messenger but some via email or on Zoom. The Zoom interviews were transcribed so that I had written records of all testimony to refer to in writing my narrative summaries of the experiences. In the earlier, informal phase of this study, I asked respondents to describe their NDEs and apparent past-life memories or, if they had related them in books, to answer questions about features I found unclear or incomplete there.

I had largely finished the interviews when I asked participants to complete the revised NDE Scale and the modified ReMSA. Their replies helped to refine the latter questionnaire, which led in some instances to returning to my respondents for additional information. I assessed all questionnaire responses for consistency with what respondents had told me in the interviews, which led to them occasionally correcting responses they had given me previously. I am confident that, in the end, this back-and-forth process produced a reliable and consistent set of responses. All respondents approved their final test scores as well as my narrative summaries of their cases. I will be including the same scale items in my survey questionnaire, without further changes to them. The present study thus may be regarded as exploratory as well as a pilot for the forthcoming survey-based study.

Results

Qualitative Results: PLVs and PLMs Following NDES

The narrative case summaries are ordered chronologically according to age at NDE, or first NDE, if the participant had more than one.

Debora Christy Love, age 4 years at NDE

Debora Christy Love (2018) described her NDE at age 4, the result of complications from a tonsillectomy. The following account is based both on her book, There is Love, and what she told me about her experiences in Facebook private messaging and in a Zoom session. Love was living in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, at the time of her NDE. Before then, she had some vague visions of what seemed to be previous lives, but many clearer ones came to her after the NDE. She began to feel in contact with a spirit guide who introduced himself as Many Tail Feathers and informed her about events in her life. Shortly after Many Feathers as she came to think of him—appeared, Love was watching a television show about Native Americans, in which a character called them “heathens.” I felt anger rise up in me. I was so exasperated that I ran straight through the kitchen and out the side door, down the porch stairs and did not stop until I was on the grass of the yard. I then stopped and gasped to the air around me, out loud and in an almost teary fashion, “We weren’t heathens, were we?” (Love, 2018, pp. 42-43)

Many Feathers advised her to look within, and when she insisted to herself indignantly that they most certainly were not heathens, heard him say, “There you go then.” A little while later, Love was playing in her yard when she was overcome with the sense that a plant she was holding had medicinal properties. She later recognized it as a plantain plant (Plantago sp.), an herb brought to North America by European settlers and adopted by Native American groups for its healing effects. In adulthood, Love had a dream in which Many Feathers took her to Montana. Then, during a psychic development workshop, she began to work more closely with Many Feathers and asked him what he looked like. She heard him say, “Open your eyes,” and when she did, she saw what appeared to be a rather large orb that had a slightly green haze to it; but what was most remarkable was that in that orb I saw Many Feathers’s face. I noticed his tanned skin and his rather wide nose. (Love, 2018, p. 79)

Love asked what connection she had to Many Feathers, and he told her that she had been his wife, Wind Whisperer. After her instructor encouraged her to look for Many Feathers online, Love discovered a photograph of Blackfoot Chief Many Tail Feathers, taken around 1915 at Glacier National Park, Montana. She recognized him as matching the image she had had of him in the orb. She has not been able to confirm that Chief Many Tail Feathers had a wife named Wind Whisperer, however. Love recalled other lives in waking visions, meditations, and regressions after her NDE, coming to appreciate how people in her present life figured also in her past lives, but none except the Blackfoot life have been verified in any way.

Alicja Heath, age 15 years at NDE

I learned about Alicja Heath’s NDE from her book (Heath, 2023) and followed up on Facebook instant messaging. Before age 6, Heath had an inexplicable fascination with the French language, with which her family had no association. Then, when she was 15, while climbing Poland’s tallest mountain, Rysy, in the High Tatras, she fell 200 meters—about 650 feet—into the snow. On the way down, she experienced an NDE life review, reliving her decade-and-a-half in a few seconds. Not long thereafter, she began to dream about a succession of past lives. Except for one on Easter Island in the era before its European discovery, all had European settings: Switzerland, England, Italy, Spain, and France. In a dream related to what apparently was her most recent previous life, Heath visualized herself as a French woman killed by her husband in retaliation for an affair she was having. Some of the dreams had elements she was able to confirm as realistic, and in one instance, she made a probable identification of the woman involved. Interestingly, in early childhood, Heath had often drawn roses, which turned out to be a favorite subject in the drawings of this woman.

Heath’s dreams went on intermittently for 35 years before she encountered the concept of Universal Knowledge, which is said to be stored in and retrieved from the Akashic Records. Through the Akashic Records, one is purportedly able to explore one’s previous existences. Heath began to access the Akashic Records meditatively, visualizing new information for some of the lives she had recalled in dreams. She also learned about additional, ancient lives that had not transpired in Europe. The title of her book, Accessing Past Lives with the Help of Technology, is used as an analogy for this mode of information retrieval: “Just as we access data on our computers or phones without knowing exactly where it is coming from, we can access the Akashic Records without knowing its exact location” (pp. 20-21).

E.C., age 18 years at NDE

E.C.’s was the first NDE-related reincarnation case to come to my attention, through a post in the Signs of Reincarnation Facebook group. It was the first case I investigated extensively and wrote about (Matlock, 2024). E.C.’s experience is unique in this sample in that it involves apparent memories of seven previous lives that arose following a second serious accident many years after the accident that led to her NDE.

In her childhood in France, E.C. responded to the sound of helicopters approaching her apartment by going out on the balcony to look for them, disappointed when they did not fly her way. At the time, there was nothing to connect this to past-life experience. Her odd behaviors intensified after she was thrown from a two-wheeled sulky when the horse she was training to pull it was spooked by a fighter jet flying directly above them. E.C. hit her head when she fell, resulting in a classic core NDE (Zingrone & Alvarado, 2009), following which she became obsessed with the Vietnam War and began to wear surplus military camouflage clothing. She returned from a period in the United States, joking that she had been an American soldier killed in Vietnam, but it was not until another horse spooked and dragged her some distance, dislocating her shoulder, that E.C. began to remember having been an American Marine fatally shot there. After determining the man’s name with the help of a pendulum, she confirmed his identity through online searches. It turned out that he had had to lie wounded on the battlefield in heavy rain before helicopters were able to evacuate him, perhaps the source of her childhood preoccupation with the aircraft. Many additional memories and apparent although as yet unverified—impressions about the Marine then came to E.C. in regressions, in guided meditations, in dreams, and in the waking state. She recalled a few events from other lives, but the Marine life is the only one she was able to confirm, so her recollection of it alone constitutes PLMs.

Yael Shahar, age 18 years at NDE

I learned about Yael Shahar’s NDE and past-life memories from her book, A Damaged Mirror (Ben Malka & Shahar, 2014), revised and updated as Returning (Shahar, 2018). Because these books present Shahar’s story in a nonlinear and slightly fictionalized format—the timeline of events is greatly condensed—this summary relies not on them but, instead, on communications directly from Shahar.

During her childhood, Shahar had a series of apparent past-life memories of an adult male Greek Jew caught up in the Holocaust. In addition to numerous waking visions and dreams, she remembered his name, a number tattooed on his arm, and the date of his transport to Birkenau—the sister camp to Auschwitz. Some of her earliest recollections seemed to be triggered by scenes, weather, and smells. When she was 18, Shahar was stung by a wasp, sending her into anaphylactic shock. She briefly lost consciousness, during which she had an NDE that included a scene from the Holocaust life. A friend with her at the time was able to bring her back to awareness. After her NDE, Shahar’s memories of the earlier life came to her more strongly and clearly, and she was able to retrieve additional images by focusing on her flashbacks, treating them as one would a present-life traumatic memory with which one was trying to come to terms. She determined that the tattooed number she remembered before her NDE matched the transfer date to Birkenau she recalled, but the card that would have confirmed the man’s name was part of a group missing from the preserved files, so her case, although veridical to a considerable extent, remains unsolved.

Grace Anderson, age 21 years at NDE

Grace Anderson is one of the respondents to my Facebook appeals. When she was 21 years old, she had two NDEs in three days as a result of childbirth complications—a severe onset of eclampsia in labor. On the first occasion, she had a cardiac arrest and coded for eight minutes before being revived.

As a child of 3-4 years old, Anderson had had nocturnal dreams of living in poverty in what appeared to be the Louisiana bayou, with the aroma of turtle soup her mother prepared. The dreams receded, but after her NDEs, when she smelled turtle soup, she was transported in her waking state back to that lifetime. Subsequently, several related images came to her, both in her waking state and in dreams that were much clearer and more precise than those she had experienced when younger. She also began to have vague recollections of an earlier life as a man, seemingly in another country, and impressions of what she thought might be a future life. Olfactory and gustatory cues figured in these latter visions as well as in her apparent memories of the Louisiana life. However, she has not been able to identify the people in any of the lives she has visualized, nor to verify any of the details of her apparent memories, which therefore remain classified as PLVs.

Sonya McCallum, age 26 years at NDE

Sonya McCallum is another experiencer I heard from on Facebook. When she was 26 years old, a pulmonary embolism provoked an NDE. Before the NDE, McCallum had had no past-life recollections, but shortly afterward, she began to have a recurrent dream of walking in a forest, wearing a long brown dress, stepping over fallen logs, and looking up at the sky, feeling that she must hurry because it was growing late and she had to get out of the woods and safely home before night fell. From her clothing, she surmised it was the late 1700s or early 1800s. The dream repeated intermittently, without change, for about two years.

At age 80, in August 2022, while undergoing hip replacement surgery, McCallum felt her consciousness leave her body. She was at the top of the room, looking down, bumping her back on the ceiling and upper walls. She saw many people gathered around an operating table, all dressed in green. The people were treating someone lying on the table, but she thought to herself, “That can’t be me; I am on the ceiling!” Within a few months of this OBE—following an additional uneventful surgery, a Stevens-Johnson syndrome diagnosis, and a bout with COVID-19—McCallum had a series of dreams related to another past life. Unlike her earlier dream, each of these new dreams came only once for a short period of time, but all were very detailed and realistic. They told the story of a young man from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who labored at a cotton mill in Pittsburgh. He worked alongside a Puerto Rican girl named Rosa, in whose mother’s run-down boarding house he rented a room. At the end of the large hall in which he and Rosa smoothed long strips of white cotton cloth on a wooden table, McCallum could make out a calendar showing the month of August, 1939, two and a half years before McCallum’s birth into this current lifetime. The cotton mill dreams followed a sequence, more or less nightly for four or so nights, then ceased, and have not resumed. Intrigued, through internet searches, McCallum was able to determine that there were cotton mills in Pittsburgh in the 1930s, around the time that there had been a large influx of Puerto Ricans into the city. In the 1930s, Pittsburgh had trolley cars, as appeared in one of her dreams.

Moreover, if she had been employed in a cotton mill in a previous life, she might have identified the source of her lifelong asthma. After doing tests, the first allergist McCallum consulted asked if she had ever been around cotton, as she was severely allergic to cotton fibers. Curiously, she has never had skin reactions to cotton, only upper respiratory problems related to it, although she is allergic to manufactured fibers, soaps, and other products. One must wonder if the young man died from byssinosis, brown lung disease, a type of pneumoconiosis caused by inhaling dust from cotton fibers, which then precipitated McCallum’s upper respiratory issues, a type of physical carryover well known in reincarnation cases (Matlock, 2018, 2019).

Astrid Hansen, age 28 years at NDE

Astrid Hansen is the name I gave to a woman whose case I described in a recent journal paper (Matlock, 2025). I learned about her case from her post in the Signs of Reincarnation Facebook group. Hansen, a Norwegian woman, appeared to recall incidents from several past lives in dreams and waking visions, all following an NDE in childbirth at age 28. Before her NDE, Hansen had had a recurrent déjà vu feeling related to one of the lives but no imaged recall of it. Immediately after her NDE, she began to have waking flashbacks and dreams about this life, which seemingly transpired in the region of southern Norway where she now lives, but toward the end of the pre-Christian Viking era, in the 900s AD. Although many elements of her PLVs of this life are historically accurate or plausible, consistent with archaeological investigations and ancient sagas, it has not been possible to identify who she was at the time. The apparent memories of her other lives are much less detailed and have no veridical elements, although in some of them, Hansen felt that she was acquainted with people she knew in her present life.

Terri Snyder, age 37 years at NDE

I learned about Terri Snyder’s NDE and PLVs when she posted about them on Facebook and followed them up in private messaging. Her NDE was associated with a domestic assault when she was 37 years old. Before her NDE—when she was 15 and 21—Snyder had images of what seemed to be past lives come to her during guided meditations. After her NDE, she started to perceive spontaneous waking images of a different life. In one vision, she was running barefoot up some stairs carved into a mountainside. Two years later, she watched a documentary about Machu Picchu that included a view of the complex from one of its staircases and felt an electric bolt course through her: The sight was exactly that of her apparent memory. More recently, she has had additional impressions of what is seemingly the same life, triggered by the sound of ancient instruments, the odor of certain smells, or other stimuli.

Since her NDE, images of two other lives have come repeatedly to Snyder, less intensely than the Machu Picchu impressions, but more frequently. In one image, she was a woman in her 20s in a Japanese fishing village; in another, she was living in what appeared to be 18th-century Canada. As with the lives she recalled before her NDE, in addition to seeing images, Snyder experienced emotions and intuitive appreciations of relationships, especially with her husbands in each life. Although most of her visions have come to her in the waking state, Snyder also has had dreams related to the lives she saw in the guided meditations prior to her NDE, although in these dreams, it was as if she were reliving or rewatching the same events unfold from different vantages, yet with no new details.

Catherine Woolsey, age 38 years at NDE

In response to one of my appeals on Facebook, Catherine Woolsey told me about a shallow autoscopic NDE she experienced when she was 38. She needed a blood transfusion and was dehydrated, but because she also had pneumonia, the fluids she was given in the hospital emergency room filled her lungs and resulted in a cardiac arrest. Her excruciating pain ceased, and she was overcome by a warm relaxation—until she noticed that the people around her were panicking. She felt paralyzed and unable to communicate with them, whereupon she, too, panicked. Then she saw a physician with big, curly hair enter the room and take charge. Afterward, in the intensive care unit, she was informed that she had flatlined and should not have been aware of any of this activity, especially not the curly-haired surgeon who attended to her only while she was unconscious during her cardiac arrest and resuscitation.

As a young child, before her NDE, Woolsey experienced flashes of what were seemingly past lives. She had images of a life in ancient Egypt and of an Irish man who wore a wig full of lice, which he felt made him look important. In what she believes was her most recent life, she was a mistress for a wealthy man in Liverpool, England. After her NDE, Woolsey’s memories became more vivid, and she felt that she understood them better, but she recalled no new lives or events, so far as she can reconstruct now, 25 years later.

Tikvah Feinstein, age 63 years at NDE

I learned about Tikvah Feinstein’s experiences through her book (Feinstein, 2023) and followed up with her on Facebook Messenger and in emails for more information and clarification. Feinstein’s past-life memories began in infancy, with recurring nightmares and phobias. Her behavior led her mother to make the connection with a teenager named Elsagene, her cousin by marriage, who had been found dead in a boardinghouse bathroom six years before Feinstein’s birth. Feinstein’s nightmares and phobic reactions continued into her adult life. She occasionally sketched drawings of memories that had surfaced during meditations as well, but it was not until after her NDE following a cardiac arrest at age 63 that she came to have clearer memories in her normal waking state. Feinstein then drew on her journalistic skills to piece together Elsagene’s story, eventually identifying Elsagene’s murderer and his motives. As she came to accept that, indeed, she had been Elsagene, she began to understand how what she had been dealing with her whole life was a product of Elsagene’s experience, and this understanding had a profound healing effect on her.

Quantitative Results

Tables 1 and 2 present component and composite scores from the revised NDE Scale and the modified ReMSA scale, respectively, both ordered by participants’ ages at NDE. Table 3 presents summary data for the 10 cases of my sample, arranged according to participants’ scores on the revised NDE Scale, from lowest to highest. Scores on the Scale’s Transcendental subscale appear to the right of the total score in Table 3. Before- and after-NDE REMSA scores are shown in the two right-hand columns of Table 3.

Despite the small sample, the essential pattern appears to be regular and striking: Past-life memories become stronger following NDES, sometimes appearing for the first time after them, confirming the impression given by the two cases—those of E.C. and Astrid Hansen—I investigated at length (Matlock, 2024, 2025). The weakest relationship was with Catherine Woolsey, whose NDE scored 3 on the revised NDE Scale, falling short of the 7 required to qualify as an NDE for research purposes. Further, data in Table 3 suggest that PLMs are more likely to arise in the waking state following NDEs. PLMs are more likely to be veridical and “solved” following NDEs; in fact, in all cases in which the apparent memories were verified or the cases solved, the verifications came after the NDEs. In two cases—those of E.C. and Sonya McCallum—past-life influences or memories manifested shortly after the NDEs but became much stronger after a second incident years later.

Also, unexpectedly, age at NDE may play a role in the manifestation of PLMs. When NDEs occur in adulthood, the data suggest a possible association with NDE depth. The effects are strongest when NDES score 5 or above on the NDE Scale’s Transcendental subscale and are less likely to be veridical or solved when NDEs lack a Transcendental component. Alicja Heath and E.C. reported strong past-life memories while scoring 0 on the Transcendental subscale, but they were ages 15 and 18, respectively, at the time of their NDEs.

Table 1 Participants’ Revised NDE Scale Component and Total Scores, Ordered by Age at NDE

Name (Age at NDE)	Cognitive	Affective	Paranormal	Transcendental	Total Score
Debora Christy Love (4)	8	7	7	8	30
Alicja Heath (15)	8	5	0	5	18
E.C. (18)	6	2	5	3	16
Yael Shahar (18)	5	6	0	4	15
Grace Anderson (21)	5	2	5	8	20
Sonya McCallum (26)	4	3	3	7	21
Astrid Hansen (28)	8	6	6	6	26
Terri Snyder (37)	6	6	5	4	21
Catherine Woolsey (38)	0	2	0	1	3
Tikvah Feinstein (63)	3	6	8	4	21

Table 2 Participants’ Modified ReMSA Scale Item Responses and Total Scores Before and After NDE, Ordered by Age at NDE

Time	Name (Age at NDE)	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.	7.	8.	9.	Total Score
Before (first) NDE	Debora Christy Love (4)	2	2	1	1	2	00	0	0	0	8
	Alicja Heath (15)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	E.C. (18)	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	6
	Yael Shahar (18)	1	2	1	2	1	1	1	1	1	13
	Grace Anderson (21)	1	1	1	1	0	2	0	0	0	6
	Sonya McCallum (26)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Astrid Hansen (28)	1	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	3
	Terri Snyder (37)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Catherine Woolsey (38)	2	2	1	2	0	2	2	0	0	11
	Tikvah Feinstein	2	2	2	1	2	2	2	2	2	17
After (first) NDE	Debora Christy Love (4)	3	3	2	2	2	2	2	1	0	17
	Alicja Heath (15)	3	3	2	1	2	2	2	2	2	19
	E.C. (18)	3	3	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	20
	Yael Shahar (18)	1	3	2	2	2	2	2	2	1	17
	Grace Anderson (21)	2	2	2	2	2	2	0	0	0	12
	Sonya McCallum (26)	2	2	2	1	0	0	1	2	0	10
	Astrid Hansen (28)	3	3	2	2	2	2	1	2	1	18
	Terri Snyder (37)	2	2	2	2	2	0	0	2	0	14
	Catherine Woolsey (38)	2	2	2	2	0	2	1	1	1	13
	Tikvah Feinstein	2	1	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	19

McCallum—past-life influences or memories manifested shortly after the NDEs but became much stronger after a second incident years later.

Also, unexpectedly, age at NDE may play a role in the manifestation of PLMs. When NDEs occur in adulthood, the data suggest a possible association with NDE depth. The effects are strongest when NDEs score 5 or above on the NDE Scale’s Transcendental subscale and are less likely to be veridical or solved when NDEs lack a Transcendental component. Alicja Heath and E.C. reported strong past-life memories while scoring 0 on the Transcendental subscale, but they were ages 15 and 18, respectively, at the time of their NDEs.

Table 3 Summary of Revised NDE Scale and Transcendental Component Total Scores and Modified ReMSA Total Scores Before and After NDE, Ordered by Revised NDE Scale Total Scores

Name (Age at NDE)	Revised NDE Scale Total	Transcendental	Modified ReMSA Score Before NDE	Modified ReMSA Score After NDE
Catherine Woolsey (38)	3	0	11	13
Yael Shahar (18)	15	0	13	17V
E.C. (18)	16	5	6	20S
Alicja Heath (15)	18	0	0	19S
Grace Anderson (21)	20	5	6	12
Terri Snyder (37)	21	5	0	14V
Sonya McCallum (26)	21	7	0	10V
Tikvah Feinstein (63)	21	8	17	19S
Astrid Hansen (28)	28	6	4	18V
Debora Christy Love (4)	30	8	8	17V

Note. Includes past-life identification (solved case). Includes veridical memory claims, short of past-life identification (unsolved case).

All 10 accounts came from women. This demographic may be a sampling error, although interestingly, in one study (Greyson & Stevenson, 1980), female NDErs reported experiencing non-earthly realms significantly more often than male NDErs did ($\chi^2=7.58$, $df=1$, $p<$ .05). In Stevenson’s child cases, past-life memories are claimed more frequently by boys than girls (Stevenson, 2001), but no comparable data are available for adult case subjects. From Table 3, it appears as if age at NDE is not a predictor of PLMs following NDES.

Questions might be raised about the time elapsed between NDES and PLMs and reports of them, especially considering that I asked respondents to reflect on events that, in some instances, occurred decades in the past. I did not ask about participants’ present ages, so I do not know how long before talking to me the NDEs occurred, although lapse of time since the NDEs would likely provide little data of consequence, inasmuch as the critical issue is that the PLMs intensified—and/or became more frequent—following the NDEs. In four cases, the PLMs ceased before my interviews, whereas in six cases—Debra Christy Love, Alicja Heath, E.C., Yael Shahar, Astrid Hansen, and Tikvah Feinstein—they remained active at the time of my interviews.

Discussion

Theoretical Foundation of Pilot Study

The NDE Scale (Greyson, 1983; Lange et al., 2004) was developed from a list of 80 features recurrently reported in NDEs. These features included passing through a tunnel, which was a key part of Raymond Moody’s (1975) seminal characterization of the NDE. With the elimination of several features—the tunnel among them that proved to be weakly correlated with the rest, the list was reduced to 33 items. These “purified” items were then grouped into the 16 questions of the published scale, classified into psychologically meaningful Cognitive, Affective, Paranormal, and Transcendental “components” of four questions each (Greyson, 1983).

The individual questions and four component subscales of the NDE Scale measure progressively deeper NDEs, at least for “true NDErs” with scores of 7 or above. Greyson, Rense Lange, and James Houran determined in a Rasch scaling evaluation:

For those with true near-death experiences (NDES), Greyson’s (1983, 1990) NDE Scale satisfactorily fits the Rasch rating scale model, thus yielding a unidimensional measure with interval-level scaling properties. With increasing intensity, NDEs reflect peace, joy and harmony, followed by insight and mystical or religious experiences, while the most intense NDEs involve an awareness of things occurring in a different place or time. (Lange et al., 2004, p. 161)

The last four items on the Scale, the Transcendental ones, address entering some unearthly realm; encountering a mystical being or presence, or hearing an unidentifiable voice; seeing deceased or religious spirits; and coming to a border or point of no return. It is striking that so many of my respondents with improved PLVs and PLMs after NDEs scored 5 or higher out of a possible 8 on this fourth subscale (see Table 3), meeting the criterion for their NDEs to be categorized as a Transcendental type and indicating that they experienced the deepest type of NDE. This result suggests that a transcendent consciousness is associated with past-life memory retrieval in adulthood, although, of course, the concern here is not the NDE itself but, rather, its aftermath. PLVs and PLMs appear to be an aftereffect of the deepest and most intense NDEs.

Given that NDEs are known to foster psychic activity (Álvarez et al., 2023; Sutherland, 1989, 1992), this finding is not particularly surprising—but a legitimate question is whether the data indicate past-life memory or, instead, psychic information acquisition, perhaps from a celestial Akashic Records store—as Alicja Heath presumed; a subquantum Akashic realm (Laszlo, 2007, 2009); or otherwise via super-psi (Braude, 2016). For several reasons, however, psychic information acquisition does not account adequately for PLMs. Past-life memory retrieval in general resembles present-life memory retrieval much more closely than it resembles psychic information acquisition (Matlock, 2019, pp. 135-136). Moreover, a great deal more is involved in PLMs than facts about previous lives; emotions, behaviors, and psychogenic physical carryovers imply a greatly more extensive identification with a deceased person than is conveyed by psi in either spontaneous cases or experimental tests. These dynamics are especially evident in the cases of Debora Christy Love, Yael Shahar, E.C., Grace Anderson, Sonya McCallum, Terri Snyder, and Tikvah Feinstein, all of whom—except Yael Shahar, whose PLMs surfaced first in childhood—scored 5 or above on the Transcendental subscale.

John Gibbs (2017, 2025) drew attention to the transcendent implications of past-life memory, but the question arises why identification with a deceased individual should be furthered by a transcendent consciousness. I believe the answer lies in the transliminal nature of transcendental states. Transliminality refers to the permeable boundary between conscious awareness and the subconscious—the supraliminal and subliminal mind. The transliminality construct has been extensively studied (e.g., by Evans et al., 2019; Lange et al., 2000; Thalbourne et al., 1997). It is said to pertain to NDEs and other transcendental states (Evans et al., 2019) and to constitute a valid psychological metric (Evans et al., 2019).

The importance of transliminality in past-life memory retrieval becomes clear when my processual soul theory is considered. This theory is grounded in reincarnation research data (Matlock, 2019). Similar to van Lommel’s conceptualization (2010; Gibbs, 2010), the theory includes a hypothesized continuity of consciousness from death to reincarnation. Furthermore, it addresses the duplex nature of consciousness, with a subconscious alongside a supraliminal conscious awareness. Its propositions hold that memories, emotions, personality traits, behavioral dispositions, and other aspects of personal identity were recorded in the subconscious. When consciousness reincarnated, there was a reset of awareness at the supraliminal level, but information about the past was preserved at the subliminal level, whence it affected the new person from within. In certain circumstances, information held in the subconscious made its way into conscious awareness in the form of PLMs. This process occurred most readily in early childhood but, when conditions were favorable, also occurred in later in life. The transcendental states that accompany and follow NDEs are among the conditions that facilitate the movement of information from the subconscious into conscious awareness, due to their transliminal qualities. For adults, NDE depth evidently plays a role as well.

Hypotheses for Future Investigation

This study’s findings suggest hypotheses I intend to test through a web-based survey, which hopefully will produce a sample large enough for statistical evaluation.

Hypothesis 1: Adults’ past-life memories present more strongly after NDEs than before them. As measured by my modified ReMSA scale, past-life memories after NDEs tend to surface in the waking state more often than in dreams and to be clearer, more developed, and more veridical than past-life memories reported before NDEs.

Hypothesis 2: These effects are most pronounced with NDEs that have a Transcendental component of 5 or above on the revised NDE Scale (International Association for Near-Death Studies, 2025), when the NDEr was an adult (18 years or older).

Hypothesis 3: When NDEs occur in childhood or adolescence (below age 18), the same effects appear regardless of the score on the Transcendental component.

Hypothesis 4: The effects appear independently of the NDEr’s sex.

Hypothesis 5: The effects appear independently of the NDEr’s culture

Hypothesis 6: The effects are independent of time elapsed between NDEs and PLMs and their reporting.

Hypotheses 4 to 6 are concerned with showing the universality of the experience and ruling out the possibility that vagaries of memory account for the findings. Although Hypotheses 1 to 3 are suggested by this pilot study, they have a theoretical foundation, as I will explain in conclusion.

Conclusion

There is reason to think that deep NDEs have abiding aftereffects that promote the retrieval of memories of past-life experiences from the subconscious mind. The planned survey is concerned with PLMs and PLVS in relation to NDEs in order to test hypotheses suggested by this pilot study, but that survey could be followed by a more extended examination of factors that encourage PLM retrieval in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. There are indications that variables—manner of death, age at death, state of consciousness at death—on the previous-life side are involved with what is recalled and how likely it is to be recalled (Matlock, 2019). Cues to recall become increasingly apparent as experiencers age (Matlock, 1989). Research on adults’ past-life memories is in its early stages, but already it is clear that the essential differences in the way PLMs are expressed in childhood and adulthood are rooted in developmental psychological and neurophysiological changes (Matlock, 1989, 2019). The varying contributions of elements at different life stages might profitably be explored in a multifactorial statistical analysis.

Also, if I am right about the link between transliminality and transcendent consciousness, transcendental states other than NDEs can be expected to have impacts on past-life memory retrieval in adulthood. Noemi Adamo’s PLVs following her OBE are a case in point, especially given the role OBEs played in the cases of Rand Jameson Shields (2013) and Sonya McCallum. Another direction for future research would be to investigate the neurophysiology of transcendent consciousness with an eye to influences on past-life recall. Jean-Pierre Jourdan (1994) emphasized the common underpinnings of NDEs and mystical states, and, more recently, Marina Weiler et al. (2024) took on the brain mechanisms connecting OBEs and personal transformation. Sam Parnia (2024, p. 65) drew attention to the appearance of gamma waves in after-death states, noteworthy given the link between gamma waves and transcendent consciousness in meditative states (e.g., Braboszcz et al., 2017)

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Appendix A. NDE Scale (Revised)

This revised version of the NDE Scale is presented on the IANDS website (International Association for Near-Death Studies, 2025). It includes the same 16 questions and response categories as the original (Greyson, 1983; Lange et al., 2004), with some minor changes in wording and the order of the response categories reversed—listed from 0 to 2 rather than from 2 to 0.

Instructions to respondents: Please let me know how you would score each of the 16 items in relation to your NDE. If you had more than one NDE, please score according to your most powerful NFE. Do not merge the NDEs in the following responses. Thank you!

1. Did time seem to speed up or slow down? 0 = No 1 = Time seemed to go faster or slower than usual 2 = Everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning

2. Were your thoughts speeded up? 0 = No 1 = Faster than usual 2 = Incredibly fast

3. Did scenes from your past come back to you? 0 = No 1 = I remembered many past events 2 = My past flashed before me, out of my control

4. Did you suddenly seem to understand everything? 0 = No 1 = Everything about myself or others 2 = Everything about the universe

5. Did you have a feeling of peace or pleasantness? 0 = No 1 = Relief or calmness 2 = Incredible peace or pleasantness

6. Did you have a feeling of joy? 0 = No 1 = Happiness 2 = Incredible joy

7. Did you feel a sense of harmony or unity with the universe? 0 = No 1 = I felt no longer in conflict with nature 2 = I felt united or one with the world

8. Did you see, or feel surrounded by, a brilliant light? 0 = No 1 = An unusually bright light 2 = A light clearly of mystical or other-worldly origin

9. Were your senses more vivid than usual? 0 = No 1 = More vivid than usual 2 = Incredibly more vivid

10. Did you seem to be aware of things going on elsewhere, as if by extrasensory perception (ESP)? 0 = No 1 = Yes, but the facts have not been checked out 2 = Yes, and the facts have been checked out

11. Did scenes from the future come to you? 0 = No 1 = Scenes from my personal future 2 = Scenes from the world’s future

12. Did you feel separated from your body? 0 = No 1 = I lost awareness of my body 2 = I clearly left my body and existed outside it

13. Did you seem to enter some other, unearthly world? 0 = No 1 = Some unfamiliar and strange place 2 = A clearly mystical or unearthly realm

14. Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence, or hear an unidentifiable voice? 0 = No 1 = I heard a voice I could not identify 2 = I encountered a definite being, or a voice clearly of mystical or unearthly origin

15. Did you see deceased or religious spirits? 0 = No 1 = I sensed their presence 2 = I actually saw them

16. Did you come to a border or point of no return? 0 = No 1 = I came to a definite conscious decision to “return” to life 2 = I came to a barrier that I was not permitted to cross; or was “sent back” against my will.

Appendix B. Modified Reincarnation Memory Strength Assessment (ReMSA) Scale

Instructions to respondents: This questionnaire is concerned with apparent past-life memories that arose spontaneously, while awake, in altered states of consciousness, in dreams, during NDEs, etc. It is not concerned with apparent memories that came in response to attempts to induce them, in past life regression, in guided meditation, or in other ways. Please limit your responses to spontaneous memories, even if you’ve also had induced ones. Thank you!

Part 1: Before your first NDE, if you had at least one NDE

1. How many lives did you recall or seem to recall before your (first) NDE?
Answer from your present perspective, even if you did not realize you were recalling a previous life then.
0 = none
1 = 1
2 = 2 or 3
3 = 4 or more

2. How many incidents or scenes did you recall in total, in all lives combined, if you remembered more than one previous life?
Answer from your present perspective, even if you did not realize you were recalling a previous life then.
0 = I recalled none distinctly
1 = 1 – 4
2 = 5 – 19
3 = 20 or more

3. How clear would you say your memories were, on average?
0 = Very indistinct, or no conscious memories
1 = Not so clear
2 = Very clear

4. Did any of your memories come to you in your waking state?
0 = No, I had no memories at all
1 = No, only in dreams, as mere impressions, or in other ways
2 = Yes

5. Did you have the sense that your memories were triggered by something (for instance, seeing, hearing, smelling or tasting something)?
0 = No, I don’t think so
1 = I think so, but I’m not sure
2 = Yes

6. Did any of your memories come to you recurrently, with little or no change from one time to the next?
0 = No, I don’t think so
1 = I think so, but I’m not sure
2 = Yes

7. Do you remember your past-life name or the names of places or people you think you must have known before?
0 = No, I don’t think so
1 = I think so, but I’m not sure
2 = Yes

8. Were you able to confirm any of your memories from a past life, short of being able identify the person you were before?
Answer from your perspective before your (first) NDE.
0 = No, I don’t think so
1 = I think so, but I’m not sure
2 = Yes

9. Have you been able to verify the existence of the people you recall having been before in any of the lives you recall?
Answer from your perspective before your (first) NDE.
0 = No, I don’t think so
1 = I think so, but I’m not sure
2 = Yes

Part 2: After your NDE or first NDE, if you had more than one NDE

1. How many lives have you recalled or seemed to recall since your (first) NDE?
Include the life or lives recalled before your (first) NDE, if you have recalled it or them afterwards as well.
0 = none
1 = 1
2 = 2 or 3
3 = 4 or more

2. How many incidents or scenes have you recalled in total, in all lives combined (if you have remembered more than one life) since your (first) NDE?
0 = I recalled none distinctly
1 = 1 – 4
2 = 5 – 19
3 = 20 or more

3. How clear would you say your memories have been since your NDE(s), on average?
0 = Very indistinct, or no conscious memories
1 = Not so clear
2 = Very clear

4. Did any of your memories since your NDE(s) come to you in your waking state?
0 = No, I had no memories at all
1 = No, only in dreams, as mere impressions, or in other ways
2 = Yes

5. Do you have the sense that your memories since your first NDE were triggered by something (for instance, seeing, hearing, smelling or tasting something)?
0 = No, I don’t think so
1 = I think so, but I’m not sure
2 = Yes

6. Have any of your memories since your NDE come to you recurrently, with little or no change from one time to the next?
0 = No, I don’t think so
1 = I think so, but I’m not sure
2 = Yes