Visual memories of living loved ones during life-threatening incidents

ABSTRACT

During real or presumed life-threatening incidents and/or near-death circumstances, some people experience a visual life relations reminder (VLRR), which consists primarily of imagery portraying and focused on living loved ones that visually appear in an uncontrollable and/or rapid manner. This phenomenon differs from the more recognised life review that also sometimes occurs under similar conditions, which is instead a visual memory revival of past self-inclusive events or activities. This exploratory paper is the first to specifically discuss VLRRs and provides relevant insight from a reflexive thematic analysis of 57 VLRRs, generating some important qualitative themes based on meaningful patterns identified in narrative data. Relevant data excerpts to support the generated themes are provided and then those themes are discussed in more detail. This paper closes with a hypothesis that the VLRR is a purposeful and beneficial psychological phenomenon with an effect that often boosts the experient’s will to live and survive by reminding them of important relationships in their current life.

KEYWORDS:

• Near-death experiences
• death
• threat
• memories
• life reviews
• reflexive thematic analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical considerations

In regards to ethical considerations, this study does not include any contact with actual participants or patients, but is instead based entirely on information from self-published narratives on the Internet that are widely available and accessible worldwide to the general public.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert A. King

Robert A. King is currently the founder and project manager of the NDE OBE Research Project and an adjunct psychology instructor. His academic research over the years has focused on altered states of consciousness, psychology, and theology. This has consisted primarily on near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, visual life reviews, and other types of associated phenomena.