Neurologist Kevin Nelson explains how the brain slips into a strange state of hybrid consciousness during a near-death experience

How common are near-death experiences (NDEs)?

A 1997 survey reported that 18 million Americans had had one. When my team surveyed people who have had them, we found that some occurred during cardiac arrest but the vast majority were during fainting. Thirty-seven per cent of all Americans will have fainted at one point in their life, so I suspect NDEs are common.

In your book The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain you talk about borderlands of consciousness. What are they …