Lights out on an afterlife

November 1, 2011, 12:31 pmmenshealth

UNITED KINGDOM Lord knows we'd hate for you to be in a situation where you "see the light", but if you do, hear this: it's not the Pearly Gates lit up for your arrival.

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In a reason-over-religion finding, researchers at Edinburgh University and the Medical Research Council in Cambridge have declared near-death experiences simply “manifestations of normal brain functions gone awry”.

After reviewing existing research, they concluded that rather than a glimpse of the afterlife, the visual disturbances, out-of-body experiences or encounters with dead relatives often reported by people who have experienced a trauma are simply tricks of the mind as the brain tries to make sense of the situation.