Do Children Hold the Key to Understanding Death?

Research into human consciousness and near-death experiences (NDEs) has historically focused on adults, often leaving children on the margins of scientific inquiry. A new literature review suggests that including children in these studies could provide critical insights into the nature of consciousness, as their accounts may be less influenced by external biases.

The review, published in the journal Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, examined NDE research conducted between 1983 and 2020. The analysis found that only eight of the studies specifically explored NDEs in children, indicating a significant gap in the available data compared to the extensive research conducted with adult populations.

The Gap in Consciousness Research

The study was led by Graeme O’Connor, a pediatric dietician from Great Ormand Street Children’s Hospital in London, and Donna Thomas, a research fellow from the University of Lancashire. The authors argue that children who survive close calls with death—whether due to injury, illness, or other maladies—offer a unique perspective that is currently underutilized by experts exploring consciousness.

Most claims made about NDEs are based on extensive research with adults, with children left on the margins of the field, despite the value of children’s involvement

Donna Thomas and Graeme O’Connor

By excluding this age group, researchers may be missing a more fundamental understanding of how near-death experiences function across different stages of human development.

Reducing Cultural and Religious Bias

One of the primary arguments for increasing the study of children’s NDEs is the potential for more objective reporting. Evidence suggests that a child’s description of a near-death event is often free from the cultural, religious, or experiential biases that typically shape the narratives of adults.

Adults often interpret their experiences through the lens of their established belief systems or societal expectations. In contrast, children may provide descriptions that are more raw and less filtered by these external frameworks, potentially offering a clearer view of the phenomenon of consciousness during a clinical or near-death event.

Proposed Research Methodologies

Because children may struggle to articulate complex experiences through traditional interviews, Thomas and O’Connor suggest that researchers adopt different methodologies. They argue that more children’s NDEs should be studied using approaches based on arts and play.

These methods are intended to help children express their experiences in a way that is natural to their developmental stage, allowing researchers to better determine how similar or different children’s NDEs are when compared to those of adults.

The authors emphasize that children need to be lifted out of the footnotes of the field to ensure that the study of consciousness is comprehensive and inclusive of all age groups.