Researchers at the University of Haifa asked 50 people to map their near-death memories using geometric pictograms, revealing a link between the shapes of their visions and the colors they recalled.
While researchers have identified recurring features, such as tunnels and out-of-body sensations, France Lerner and colleagues sought a visual approach to understand these intense experiences as reported by ScienceAlert.
All 50 study participants were recruited through the International Association for Near-Death Studies, as detailed in Knowridge Science Report. Drawings might aid in outlining elements of these recollections that elude verbal description, offering investigators an alternative tool to examine extraordinary phenomena and assist individuals in sharing their memories.
Participants reconstructed their memories during guided online sessions using a catalog of geometric pictograms. Circles represented the self, squares indicated other figures, and arrows marked movement across 112 compiled scenes. The sessions were individual and the sample was not a random selection of everyone who has experienced a medical emergency.
To ensure participants could share their personal memories without bias, the study’s organizers purposely refrained from suggesting typical visuals such as light sources or tunnels. From the artwork submitted, the investigators categorized 112 total scenes, grouping 108 into four primary spatial configurations: spherical environments surrounding the individual, flatter horizons, expansive arcs, and tunnel-like or cone-shaped regions.
“And despite the intensely personal nature of the experiences, certain shapes kept cropping up,” the researchers noted of the four main spatial categories identified in the data. Visual art is capable of illustrating spatial layouts, perspectives, and movement trajectories that standard verbal interviews might struggle to fully document.
The classification categorized visions into conical spaces like tunnels, broad curved archways, flatter curving horizons, and spherical environments that completely enveloped the observer. Because many of the events took place quite some time ago—sometimes over a decade and a half prior to the research—and the testimonies lacked concurrent brain scans or independently confirmed medical records, the conclusions that can be drawn remain severely constrained.
Because memories evolve and categories relied on the authors’ analysis of the artwork, future investigations utilizing fresher recollections, better medical records, and independently evaluated grouping techniques will be necessary to verify how consistently these patterns appear.
The study found a relationship between the spatial geometry and the specific chromatic qualities recalled by participants. Out of 28 conical spaces mapped by the group, 22 appeared achromatic in black, white, gray, or light without discernible color. Conversely, 27 out of 31 broad, curved spaces displayed color. Within cone-like designs, 79 percent of the instances lacked distinct hues because individuals primarily reported total blackness, comparable to a night sky or a dark abyss.
MARCA notes that open arches showed chromatic richness, with 87% of those accounts featuring intense lavender and pink tones. Spherical spaces were predominantly white or golden, while flat horizons fell into intermediate levels of color presence, with the presence of color falling between 59% and 65% of the cases.
Dim illumination causes human vision to lose color sensitivity because specialized cells designed for low-light environments take over visual processing. At the same time, certain broader, all-encompassing settings described by subjects share traits with the Ganzfeld effect—a condition where a uniform, featureless visual stimulus triggers perceptual anomalies like hallucinations.
These similarities do not establish what caused the participants’ experiences, however, and the researchers are presently concerned with documenting patterns rather than offering a simple physiological explanation.
