I've never experienced a NDE myself, but my mother claims to have had one back when she gave birth and her heart stopped. She saw the white light in a tunnel type, with a voice talking to her. My mother has a strong aversion to lying (whether it's her or others) so I don't believe she was making up what she experienced. Whether or not it was just her brain hallucinating though, I wouldn't have a clue.

For most of my life I haven't believed in any kind of afterlife at all. My view was once you're dead that's it, you cease to exist. However, lately I've had some experiences that have forced to re-evaluate that position (which was why I sought out and registered for this site). I no longer know what to think about it.

There's a study that has been going on for 5 years now (AWARE study). In it, they've put images near the ceilings (face up) in rooms where patients are commonly being resuscitated. The thinking is that if these patients are floating above their bodies, they might see the image and be able to recall it - thus proving that they were, in fact, floating up there by the ceiling. There should be some results coming out for that soon, since early findings are supposed to be released fall 2013.

Whatever they are, I think they are absolutely real to the people experiencing them. Interesting to me is that NDE's aren't uniform across the board, and that people of different faiths (or even just who were exposed to a belief) can have different NDE's that reflect those beliefs.