Virtual mortality and near-death experience after a prolonged exposure in a shared virtual reality may lead to positive life-attitude changes.

ABSTRACT: Mortality is an obvious if uncomfortable part of the human condition, yet it is impossible to study its impact on anyone who experiences it. Reports of phenomena associated with death such as out-of-the-body (OBE) and near death experiences (NDE) can only be studied post-hoc, since it is impossible to design a scientific study where an experimental group experiences death (and returns) and a control group does not. Yet NDEs seem to have a profound influence on the subsequent lives of people and are therefore worthy of study. Terror Management Theory, which argues that death anxiety contributes to in-group solidarity and hostility to out-groups, relies on studies that manipulate opinions and cannot be based on experiential evidence. Here we introduce a potential methodology that uses immers

SUBMITTER: Barberia I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6218023 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature