They may or may not be real. Suppose you meet a dead relative during a near-death experience, or even in a dream. It might be your dead relative, but it might also be a deity, a ghost, or your own imagination. How can you be sure? One thing is clear: experiences like this are powerful. They fall under the category of religious experience. But if you put too much faith in such things, you might spend all your time waiting for it to happen again; you might grow attached to it; you might interpret the world through this experience. Yes, the phenomenon might be as you experienced it, but it might also be something that arose from your own consciousness.

When one dies, the first five sense consiousnesses stop working, so the person loses sensation and perception, but the sixth consciousness still exists and works, so the mind's eye might experience something. But it's all illusion. The experience may be blissful, light, pleasant. Well, the person no longer has the burden of a body and its pains. From the consciousness might rise beautiful scenery, sounds, paradise. On the other hand, the person may still cling to the suffering and pain the body experienced. Then one may experience something terrible or nightmarish ─ a hell. The explanation I have just given describes these phenomena as products of the sixth consciousness. I am not saying that this is the explanation for all near-death experiences, but it is one possible explanation. The fact that there are numerous interpretations makes the experience unreliable.

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