Ispectrum Magazine Ispectrum Magazine #11 | Page 30

PSYCHOlOGICAl THEORIES
AND EvIDENCES
One of the earliest
psychological
theories for the NDE was
put forward by Grof
and Halifax in 1977.
They were looking for
a psychological explanation as to why NDE
reports are so universal. Their birth - memory - activation model
postulated that a close
shave with death triggered repressed memories of the process of
birth. After all, everyone is born in generally the same way, so

that would explain why
there is such consistency in NDE reports. The
peace and transcendent feelings alongside
the advancing through
a tunnel is in fact a
subjective recountance
of being born and travelling through the birth
canal, with the peace
and light at the end
representing the feeling
of being born into the
world. However, there
are obviously major
issues with this, not
least that being born
is a painful experience for the
baby. Also,
the infant
does
not
have
the
capacity to
remember
this experience so it
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Photo : ©Piku
is highly unlikely that
it can remain buried
and be activated by
the moment of death.
No empirical evidence
supports this theory,
and scientific evidence
strongly indicates that
infants simply do not
have the mental pro-