Near-Death Experiences

By Warwick Dunnett   ·  8 min read  ·  May 27, 2026

Extract from Dance with Angels

Dr. Peter Fenwick, an aging but clearly intelligent gentleman, sits comfortably in what one can imagine to be a warm and somewhat quaint English country cottage. His silver hair is too long and makes him look a little bit like a crackpot, but the clarity of his words lends additional credence to the already long list of credentials that follows his name.

He is a neuropsychiatrist who has studied near-death experiences (NDEs) for years and believes that consciousness is something that exists outside the brain. According to Fenwick, it seems that there is enough evidence to believe that consciousness can exist separate from the functionality of the brain, but the big question is whether the brain creates that consciousness or it is just a filter of sorts that interprets input from something outside itself such as a form of altered reality.

So what do we see and think when we die, and what is the experience like?

The near-death experience research that Dr. Fenwick carried out and mentions in his book, The Art of Dying, suggests that, in our culture, what people generally experience in a near-death episode is a journey along a tunnel of light where they meet a being of light, go into a transcendental reality of some sort, and meet dead relatives or people they have previously known. Many then come to a gate that they enter if they are going to die.

Dr. Fenwick carried out a lot of personal research and discovered that it is nurses who are present for the vast majority of NDEs as well as actual deaths, not doctors.

First, according to many reports, an individual may have a premonition that they will die soon. A few weeks before they die, they may experience visits from relatives who have previously died, such as parents, brothers or sisters, or, occasionally, someone they don’t know. A few people (around 3%) see spiritual beings at the door or outside a window.

Eventually, most people come to terms with the fact that they are going to die and will have to start giving everything up soon. If they can accept that and not resist, they have a much easier transition in the dying process. According to Dr. Fenwick, if one does not come to terms with the fact that they must give up everything, there is a lot more struggle and conflict.

(The Dalai Lama has said that we get the feeling that we will soon die as early as two years beforehand, and our behaviour changes as a result.)

Close to the time of departure, there are often episodes of sudden lucidity in which a person who has been bedridden or even unconscious sits up in bed and says goodbye to the people around them. Interestingly, even people who have lost their memory years before may do this and recognise their relatives.

Several intriguing experiences are recorded and mentioned in Dr. Fenwick’s book including:

• Death bed visions of people appearing who are not there.
• A bright light appearing to people in the room just after the moment of death. Thirty-five percent of nurses interviewed by Dr. Fenwick reported having seen this light. Sometimes, one or more people in the room at the time see it, and others do not.
• Shapes leaving the body, like smoke rising or a mirage.
• A clock and/or watches stopping.
• Cats or other animals howling at the time of death.
• Birds appearing at the windowsill.

A fascinating video of Dr. Fenwick’s interviews can be found on YouTube.^[1]

I was struck by the observation gleaned from the consciousness research of Dr. Fenwick and others that those approaching death who are able to come to terms with the process of giving up their attachment to self move through an awakening process of giving up the previous narrative of their life and are able to stay in the present moment rather than in the past or the future.

They become progressively happier approaching death and reach a transcendent state of non-duality. Non-duality is a term referred to in all the major religions and refers to a state of bliss in which one loses all sense of “I” as a separate being and develops a state of consciousness of being one with the world around them, not separate from it.

According to Dr. Fenwick, the more self-centred a person is during their life, the harder it is for them to give everything up and comfortably accept the dying process. (It seems possible that my ex-wife may have a few problems transitioning, unfortunately.)

He also points out the fascinating fact that NDEs in different cultures vary significantly. The journey of Japanese people generally involves coming to a dark river and having to find a boatman to cross the river. The NDEs of hunter-gatherers often involve a journey down a river to an island. In the West, NDEs frequently include tunnels and a bright light. Dr. Fenwick says these differences result from a combination of cultural upbringing and worldview.

But if there is a path that we all follow after we die, why would these people’s NDEs be so different from one another. Shouldn’t they all be the same?

At first, I thought this difference in experience supported the more scientific theory that most of the phenomena we experience during the dying process are generated by our brain. If our body and brain are wired to provide a version of reality that will make the journey comfortable, these differing experiences from different cultures would make sense and support that theory.

But having said that, if the white light that Westerners see is caused by biochemical influences on the brain as many scientists suggest—such as oxygen deprivation and/or disruptions in the visual cortex and optic nerve—shouldn’t that purely physical reaction take place in all humans, regardless of location and culture?

I initially went to Amazon to find books dealing with near-death experiences. My search produced well over 200 books on the subject, which was daunting. Fortunately, there is no shortage of people who have had these experiences and want to share them nor of authors who wish to summarise some of the thousands of accounts by people who have come back from death (or thought they had). There are plenty of books to read on the subject and my favorite is called "Proof of Heaven" which is available at WarwickDunnett.com in my list of best books.

Dr. Fenwicks interview is  fun to watch as well. The link is below.