Some people describe dark and terrifying NDEs — what causes those, and could that happen to anyone?

I want to start with something that doesn't get said enough in NDE discussions: the fear of a dark experience is often more paralyzing than the experience itself. People worry that if they've lived imperfectly (which is to say, if they've lived at all), they'll be met with terror, punishment, or some cosmic reckoning that mirrors their worst religious nightmares. That fear keeps people from looking at the evidence, and it keeps them trapped in a worldview where death is something to dread rather than understand.

But when you actually sit with the accounts, when you read what people report and what researchers have documented over decades, a different picture emerges. Distressing NDEs are real. They happen. And they're not what you think.

What the Research Actually Shows

Bruce Greyson, who's spent more than 40 years studying NDEs at the University of Virginia, published a comprehensive review in 2023 examining the darker side of near-death experiences put it bluntly: "Now, the only thing I can say also is that a person who does horrible things and tragic things, they will feel something, but it's not a punishment. It's more of because of their life review."

The life review is experiential, not judicial. You don't watch your life from a distance. You feel it. You feel what you made others feel. If you caused pain, you experience that pain from the other person's perspective. If you brought joy, you feel that too. It's not retribution. It's empathy at a level most of us can't access in physical form. And yes, for someone who lived a life marked by cruelty, selfishness, or harm, that review is going to be excruciating. But it's not imposed from the outside. It's the natural consequence of seeing yourself clearly, maybe for the first time.

This is restorative, not punitive. The point isn't to suffer. The point is to understand. And understanding, even when it's painful, is the first step toward healing.

Why Some People Experience Darkness or a Void

Not all distressing NDEs involve hellish imagery or life reviews. Some people report entering a void, a place of profound emptiness, isolation, or nonexistence. It's terrifying in a different way: not because something is happening, but because nothing is. You're alone. You're nowhere. You're cut off from everything.

A 2024 study on the phenomenology of distressing NDEs reflects this uncertainty: "And I think that with most challenges in life, we can look at them and say, did I manifest that? Is that retribution? Is that punishment? Is that reward?"

That's the question, isn't it? Are we creating our own experience, or is something being done to us? The evidence leans heavily toward the former. The NDE responds to consciousness. It's interactive. And if your consciousness is locked in fear, shame, or denial, that's what you'll experience until something breaks through.

I've seen this pattern in accounts where people describe being in a dark place and then suddenly encountering a figure, often described as Jesus, a deceased relative, or a being of light, who says something like, "You don't have to stay here. Come with me." And they do. And everything changes. The darkness was never locked. They were.

Could This Happen to Anyone?

Yes. And no.

If you're asking whether a distressing NDE is possible for anyone, the answer is yes. The research doesn't show that distressing NDEs are reserved for people who lived particularly harmful lives. They happen to people across the moral spectrum. They happen to children. They happen to people who, by any reasonable measure, were kind, loving, and decent.

But if you're asking whether you're doomed to have one, the answer is no. The majority of NDEs, even among people who've done things they deeply regret, are overwhelmingly positive. The presence of unconditional love is the most commonly reported element across thousands of accounts. The life review, even when it's painful, is almost always described as being held within a context of total acceptance and compassion.

What seems to matter most isn't your moral résumé. It's your psychological and spiritual state at the moment of transition. Are you open? Are you willing to let go? Have you done the work, however imperfectly, to face yourself while you're still alive? Those questions matter more than whether you were a saint.

The Hellish NDE That Transforms

I want to talk about something that doesn't fit neatly into the categories researchers use. There are accounts, not many but enough to notice, where someone has a genuinely hellish NDE, full of torment, demonic figures, flames, the whole archetypal nightmare, and then it shifts. They call out for help. They pray. They surrender. And suddenly they're somewhere else entirely. The hell was real, but it wasn't permanent.

Another experiencer on Project Profound described it this way: "growth and expansion and evolution of all. It's restorative, not retributive. And I do think that some people have hellish experiences in the afterlife. I've interviewed multiple people who have. And I do think that sometimes it's the result of the way people live their lives or the state of mind that they're in when they pass on or it could be an experience that they chose to have. There's a variety of reasons why people may have that experience. But do I think that somebody who causes pain and..."

That last part is crucial: "or it could be an experience that they chose to have." This is speculative, but it's worth sitting with. What if some distressing NDEs are chosen? Not in the sense that you consciously decide to have a nightmare, but in the sense that your soul, or whatever you want to call the deeper aspect of yourself, knows that you need to confront something, and the only way to do that is through an experience that shakes you to your core.

I don't know if that's true. But it's consistent with the broader pattern in NDE research: the experience is tailored to the person. It meets you where you are. And sometimes where you are is a place that requires a hard, uncomfortable reckoning before you can move forward.

What About People Who Die in States of Addiction, Trauma, or Mental Illness?

This is the question that keeps me up at night. What happens to someone who dies while in the grip of addiction, severe mental illness, or unhealed trauma? Are they more likely to have a distressing NDE? And if so, is that fair?

The research doesn't give us a definitive answer, but the accounts suggest something hopeful. People who die in states of deep suffering, whether from addiction, mental illness, or trauma, often report being met with extraordinary compassion on the other side. They describe being healed, being freed from the mental and emotional prisons they inhabited in life. That doesn't mean the transition is always smooth. Someone who dies in a state of profound confusion or fear might experience that confusion initially. But the evidence suggests that help arrives. Guides, deceased loved ones, or beings of light show up. The person isn't left alone in their suffering.

The Counterargument I Can't Fully Dismiss

Here's the thing that troubles me, and I'm going to be honest about it because I don't have a clean answer. If distressing NDEs are reflections of psychological state, and if they're ultimately restorative, why do some people come back from them traumatized? Why do some experiencers spend years, even decades, trying to integrate a hellish NDE that left them feeling abandoned, judged, or terrified?

Nancy Evans Bush, who's written extensively on distressing NDEs, has documented cases where people never fully recover from the experience. They don't interpret it as a learning opportunity. They interpret it as evidence that they're damned, that they're unworthy, that the universe is hostile. And no amount of reframing seems to help.

I don't know what to do with that. The optimistic reading is that these people are still in the middle of their process, that the integration takes longer for some than others, and that eventually they'll come to see the experience differently. The less optimistic reading is that not all distressing NDEs resolve into something positive, at least not in this lifetime.

I lean toward the first interpretation, but I can't prove it. And I think it's important to acknowledge that the evidence doesn't support a simplistic "everything happens for a reason and it all works out in the end" narrative. Some people suffer, and the meaning of that suffering isn't always clear.

Why This Matters for the Living

The existence of distressing NDEs doesn't undermine the larger body of evidence that consciousness survives death and that the afterlife is fundamentally oriented toward love, growth, and healing. What it does is complicate the picture. It reminds us that the transition isn't automatic, that our inner work matters, and that death doesn't erase the psychological and spiritual patterns we've built over a lifetime.

That's actually good news. It means we're not passive recipients of some predetermined fate. We have agency. The work we do now, the healing we pursue, the honesty we bring to our own shadows, all of it matters. Not because we're trying to earn a pleasant afterlife, but because we're preparing ourselves to meet whatever comes with openness rather than resistance.

If you're afraid of having a distressing NDE, the best thing you can do is face your fears now. Not by white-knuckling your way through life trying to be perfect, but by doing the messy, uncomfortable work of becoming honest with yourself. Therapy, meditation, grief work, forgiveness (of yourself and others" class="text-blue-600 dark:text-blue-400 hover:underline">If someone dies from addiction or overdose, do they find clarity on the other side?, whatever it takes to loosen the grip of fear and shame. That's the real preparation.

And if someone you love had a distressing NDE, or if you're worried about someone who died in a state of suffering, the evidence suggests they're being cared for. [Can someone who died in terrible suffering still find complete peace and healing?](/questions Yes. The distressing experience isn't the end. It's a stage in a process that ultimately bends toward healing.

The Pattern That Keeps Showing Up

I keep coming back to this: in account after account, even the most terrifying NDEs contain a moment where help arrives. A presence. A voice. A light. Something breaks through the darkness and offers a way out. And the person who accepts that help moves into a completely different experience.

That pattern matters. It suggests that the distressing NDE isn't a trap. It's a test of willingness. Are you willing to accept help? Are you willing to let go of the story you've been telling yourself about who you are and what you deserve? Are you willing to trust that you're loved even when you don't feel lovable?

Those are hard questions. And for some people, the answer is no, at least not immediately. But the help doesn't leave. It waits. And eventually, in every account I've read where someone stayed in a dark place for any length of time, they describe a moment when they finally said yes. And everything shifted.

I don't think anyone is condemned to darkness forever. I think some people take longer to find the door. But the door is always there.

What This Means for You

If you're reading this because you're afraid, here's what I want you to know: the fear of a distressing NDE is almost always worse than the reality. The vast majority of people who come close to death report experiences of profound peace, love, and connection. Even those who have distressing experiences almost always report that something shifted, that help arrived, that they weren't left alone.

You're not doomed. You're not being judged by some cosmic scorekeeper. You're a conscious being learning to love yourself and others, and that process doesn't end at death. It continues. And the universe, or God, or whatever you want to call the ground of being, is on your side.

If you've hurt people, if you've made mistakes, if you carry shame or regret, you'll face that. But you'll face it in the presence of unconditional love. And that changes everything. The life review isn't about punishment. It's about understanding. And understanding, even when it's painful, is always in service of healing.

The distressing NDE isn't a destination. It's a doorway. And on the other side of that doorway is the same thing that's on the other side of every NDE: love, clarity, and the recognition that you are, and always have been, far more than you imagined.