Two studies with the same patients · Liège (Belgium), published in 2023 and 2024

The Liège ICU study: 126 patients and 19 near-death experiences

A team at the university hospital in Liège spoke with 126 people who had spent more than a week in the ICU, for any illness. 19 described a near-death experience. Almost none had had a cardiac arrest. A year later, the team called them again to find out what they remembered and whether their lives had changed.

The studies’ question is: do ICU patients have NDEs even without a cardiac arrest? And also: what is left of those NDEs a year later? We tell it step by step. If you only want to know what they found, go straight to the results.

Step 1

Before the study · The question

Almost all hospital studies looked only at cardiac arrests

Hospital studies of NDEs almost always asked people who had survived a cardiac arrest. Some asked people with a serious head injury.

An intensive care unit, the ICU, has many more seriously ill patients. They come in with an infection, after an operation, an accident or a heart problem. Many spend days asleep on medication or breathing with a machine.

The Liège team wanted to study patients who had spent more than a week in the ICU, whatever their illness.

Step 2

Liège, Belgium · According to the studies

A hospital ICU and a group that studies consciousness

Anne-Françoise Rousseau works in the intensive care department of the university hospital in Liège. Charlotte Martial is a researcher in the Coma Science Group, a University of Liège group that studies consciousness and NDEs. They led the study with other doctors and psychologists from the hospital and the university.

The study was funded by the university, the hospital, the Belgian national scientific research fund and several foundations and European projects.

The team registered the study in a public registry in February 2020, when it had already been collecting data for seven months. Studies are usually registered before they begin. That way the study plan is fixed before any results are seen.

Step 3

July 2019 to March 2020 · According to the 2023 study

Everyone who spends more than a week in the ICU is included

The hospital has five ICUs. For nine months, the team looked for every adult leaving them after more than 7 days, for any illness.

Some did not take part in the study:

those who did not speak French;
those who did not want to take part;
those who went home or to another hospital before the interview;
and those who were confused or disoriented. They were seen again later, and included once they were well.

When patients left the ICU, the team did check whether they were confused. What it did not check was whether they had been confused earlier, during their days in the ICU. This matters because confusion can produce very vivid dreams. The authors acknowledge this as a limit of the study.

Step 4

5 days after leaving the ICU · According to the study

A face-to-face interview and three questionnaires

About 5 days after leaving the ICU, once on the ward, someone from the team interviewed each patient in person. They gave them three questionnaires:

The scale of Bruce Greyson, an American psychiatrist. It has 16 questions, and each thing experienced adds points, for example peace, a light, seeing a relative who had died or leaving the body. With 7 points or more, it counts as an NDE.
A questionnaire on dissociation. Dissociation is the tendency to feel disconnected from oneself or one’s surroundings. For example, not remembering how you got somewhere, or feeling that what is happening is not real.
A questionnaire on spirituality and each person’s beliefs.

The dissociation and spirituality questionnaires were given in the same interview, after the Greyson scale. So they were measured when the person had already had their NDE and had just described it. It is not known whether the person already had those traits before the experience or whether the experience changed them.

Step 5

At the first interview · According to the study

Of 126 people, 19 describe an NDE

126 people took part in the study. 19 scored 7 points or more on the Greyson scale. That is about 15 in 100.

In the drawing, each circle is one person in 100. The 15 filled circles are, roughly, the ones who described an NDE. In the study, it was 19 of 126.

Many others described something, though they did not reach 7 points. 89 of the 126 scored between 1 and 6 points. For example, they felt time differently or saw scenes from their life pass by.

Step 6

When they experienced it is unknown · According to the patients

What they describe: time feeling different, sharper senses, their life passing by

Illustration from The Liège ICU study: 126 patients and 19 near-death experiences: “What they describe: time feeling different, sharper senses, their life passing by”

This is what the 19 people with an NDE described on the scale:

15 people: felt time go faster or slower.
15: felt their senses were sharper than usual.
14: saw scenes from their life pass by.
12: were thinking faster.
10: were in a place that was not of this world.
10: sensed a being or a presence, or heard a voice.
9: reached a border that could not be crossed.
8: felt peace.
8: felt separated from their body.
7: saw a light or felt surrounded by light.
7: saw people who had died or spiritual beings.

8 of the 19 people said they learned of things happening somewhere else. The articles do not say what those things were or that anyone checked them.

In other studies, the most common feature is a feeling of peace. Here fewer than half felt it, as the authors point out.

Step 7

Comparing the medical records · According to the study

Almost none had a cardiac arrest, and they were just as ill

The team compared the medical records of the 19 people with an NDE with those of the other 107.

Only 1 of the 19 people with an NDE had had a cardiac arrest. Among the 107 without an NDE, 5 had had one. That is the same proportion in both groups, about 5 in 100.

Both groups were equally ill on arrival and spent almost the same number of days in the ICU. There were no differences either in the lowest blood pressure they had in the ICU, in blood oxygen or in temperature.

There were other differences, if each piece of data is looked at separately. The people with an NDE had more often been admitted for an operation. They had also more often been sedated, given painkillers or breathing with a machine:

Admitted for an operation: 11 of the 19 people with an NDE and 33 of the 107 without one.
Sedated: 17 of the 19 and 67 of the 107.
Given painkillers: 16 of the 19 and 65 of the 107.
Breathed with a machine: 16 of the 19 and 62 of the 107.

Step 8

Looking at all the data together · According to the study

With all the data together, only dissociation and spirituality remain

Illustration from The Liège ICU study: 126 patients and 19 near-death experiences: “With all the data together, only dissociation and spirituality remain”

Then the team looked at all the data together. That shows which differences really count. For example, someone breathing with a machine is usually sedated as well. Looking at the data together shows whether the NDE goes with the machine, with sedation or with neither. Sedation, painkillers and the breathing machine no longer stood out as a clear difference. Since there were only 19 people with an NDE, they may still have an influence even though they do not stand out as a clear difference. The analysis did not include the operation, and the article does not say why. So it is not known whether the operation would still make a difference.

Only two things remained. The people with an NDE scored higher on the dissociation questionnaire and on the spirituality questionnaire.

Even so, almost none had an unusual level of dissociation. Only 1 of the 19 passed the threshold at which it is considered a problem.

For the authors, a tendency to dissociate and spiritual beliefs make it more likely to describe an NDE when the body goes through certain physical situations. They do not say what those situations are.

Step 9

One month later · According to the 2024 study

After a month, a very visual memory they can’t place in time

A month after the first interview, the team interviewed 10 of the 19 people with an NDE again. It asked them to rate their memory from 1 to 7 on several things.

Most gave a 7 to the visual details of the memory, the place where it happened and the feeling that it really happened. They also gave it great personal importance. By contrast, they hardly felt they relived it when remembering it, and they remembered poorly when it had happened.

The team also asked them four direct questions:

Did you think you were dying in the ICU? 4 of the 10 said yes.
Was the experience real, and not a dream or a hallucination? 4 said yes and 6 said no. This answer doesn’t quite fit with the high rating they gave to the feeling that it really happened, and the article does not explain it.
Is it proof that there is life after death? 5 said yes and 5 said no.
How long did it last? 6 said a few minutes, 2 said hours, 1 said seconds and 1 said days.

Step 10

One year later · According to the 2024 study

After a year, their NDE still scored high and their quality of life was like the others’

Illustration from The Liège ICU study: 126 patients and 19 near-death experiences: “After a year, their NDE still scored high and their quality of life was like the others’”

A year later, the team phoned everyone. It was able to speak with 61 people. 11 were from the NDE group and 50 from the group without an NDE.

As a group, the 11 people with an NDE still scored higher on the Greyson scale than the others. Half scored 10 points or more. In the first interview, half of the 19 had also scored 10 or more. But the scores varied a lot from one person to another. At least 1 in 4 scored 1 point or less, when in the first interview all of them had 7 or more. The article does not give the exact number.

Quality of life was the same in both groups. Nor was there a clear difference between the two groups in how many believed their life had been in danger in the ICU. In both groups, fear of death had changed little. 2 of the 11 people with an NDE said they were less afraid. Among the 50 without an NDE, 12 said so.

The people with an NDE were also asked questions about their experience. Of the 11, 8 answered. All of them said they now accepted themselves more and that love mattered more to them. 2 said it was the most important experience of their life, and 1 said it was no more than any other day. 3 said the experience had also had something negative in their life, for example how hard it was to fit it in or the memories that kept coming back.

Step 11

2023 and 2024 · According to the studies

The authors draw four conclusions

The first article was published in 2023 in Critical Care, a journal of intensive care medicine. The second was published in 2024 in a clinical psychology journal. The authors draw four conclusions:

NDEs are not rare in the ICU. 15 in 100 patients described one. According to the authors, that is similar to cardiac arrest studies, where it ranged from 10 to 23 in 100.
Personal traits weigh more than medical data. According to the authors, dissociation and spirituality better explain who describes an NDE. Even so, they add that they do not think NDEs can be explained by psychological processes alone.
The memory does not change over a year. They say so because the Greyson scale score did not change clearly.
All ICU patients should be asked whether they remember anything, and those who need it should be helped to come to terms with what they went through.

The studies did not measure anyone’s brain activity. Nor do they know at what point during the ICU stay each person had their experience.

Let’s see what can and can’t be known from these data.

What is known?

What the Liège studies found

What they found

15 in 100 patients who spend more than a week in the ICU describe an NDE. It was 19 of 126.
A cardiac arrest is not needed. Only 1 of the 19 people with an NDE had had a cardiac arrest.
They were not more ill than the others. Severity, days in the ICU, oxygen and blood pressure were the same in both groups.
Those who described an NDE scored higher on dissociation and spirituality. With all the data together, these were the only differences that remained.
After a year, quality of life was the same in those who had an NDE and those who didn’t. In both groups, fear of death had changed little.

What they couldn’t find out

When each experience happened. It may have been on arrival, during sedation or on waking. The authors acknowledge they had no way of knowing.
What state the brain was in. No one’s brain activity was measured.
Whether dissociation and spirituality come before or after. They were measured after the NDE, in the same interview. These traits may help someone have an NDE, or the NDE may raise those scores.
Whether patients were confused in the ICU. It was not checked while they were there. Sedation and confusion can produce very vivid dreams.
Whether the memory really does not change. After a year, the team could speak with only 11 of the 19 people with an NDE. And at least 1 in 4 scored 1 point or less on the scale, when at the start all of them had 7 or more.
Whether what they perceived somewhere else was real. 8 people said they learned of things happening somewhere else. The articles do not say what, or that it was checked.

How each side reads it

What the authors propose

Anne-Françoise Rousseau, Charlotte Martial and their team, in 2023 and 2024. They believe some people more often describe an NDE when their body goes through certain conditions. Those people are the ones with a greater tendency to dissociate and more spiritual beliefs. They also write that they do not think NDEs can be explained by psychological processes alone. They add that their data show no physical cause, but that there could be one.

What another researcher adds

Bruce Greyson, the psychiatrist who created the NDE scale, in a letter to Critical Care in 2023. He writes that an NDE was expected to improve quality of life, and that in this study it had not done so after a year. He points out that other studies, his own and others’, did not find that improvement either. So he considers it a solid result. He suggests an explanation. Perhaps the good changes these people describe are offset by how hard it is for them to adjust after the experience.

What can be said from the data

About 15 in 100 people who spend more than a week in an ICU describe an NDE. Almost none have had a cardiac arrest. People with an NDE had been sedated or on a ventilator more often than the others. They had also been admitted for surgery more often. When everything was analyzed together, only dissociation and spirituality still made a clear difference. That analysis did not take into account whether they had been admitted for surgery. Also, dissociation and spirituality were measured after the NDE. A year later, their quality of life was no different from that of the other patients.

The study did not measure the brain and does not know when each experience happened. So it does not show that the mind works without the brain, nor that the brain creates the experience.

What would settle it

The authors called for studies with more patients, including those who spend less than a week in the ICU. These studies leave several questions open. Answering them would take, for example:

measuring dissociation and beliefs before the person describes their experience;
checking every day whether the patient is confused while in the ICU;
recording sedation, oxygen and brain activity with the time of each;
and following many more people for years, without losing more than half along the way.

If ICU NDEs coincided with periods of sedation or confusion, that would support the idea that the brain creates them. If they also appeared in patients with no sedation or confusion, those two causes could not explain every NDE. That would only rule out sedation and confusion as causes, not the other possible causes in the brain.

From 126 patients to 11 people with an NDE a year later

The study started with many people, but NDEs were few.

And after a year, the team could speak with 11 of the 19 people who had described an NDE at the start.

The figures of the Liège ICU studies
Group	People
Spent more than 7 days in the ICU and entered the study	126
Described an NDE	19
… of whom had a cardiac arrest	1
Described something short of an NDE	89
People with an NDE interviewed after a month	10
People with an NDE reached after a year	11
People without an NDE reached after a year	50

What these figures don’t tell you

The dissociation and spirituality questionnaires were given after the NDE. It is not known whether those traits were there before.
After a year, more than half the patients were missing. It is not known what those who weren’t reached would have answered.
Only those who could do an interview were included. The most seriously ill don’t appear, nor do those who were still confused when the team saw them again. More in How many people have an NDE?

Frequently asked questions

How many ICU patients have a near-death experience?

In the 2023 Liège study, 19 of 126 patients who spent more than a week in the ICU described an NDE. That is about 15 in 100. It’s all in “What the Liège studies found.”

Do you need a cardiac arrest to have a near-death experience?

No. In the Liège ICU study, only 1 of the 19 people who described an NDE had had a cardiac arrest. The rest were in the ICU for other serious illnesses.

Does a near-death experience in the ICU change your life?

In the Liège study, quality of life a year later was the same in those who had an NDE and those who didn’t. In both groups, fear of death had changed little. 8 people with an NDE answered questions about their experience. All said they accepted themselves more and that love mattered more to them. 3 said the experience had also had something negative in their life, for example how hard it was to fit it in or the memories that kept coming back.

Is a near-death experience forgotten over time?

In the Liège study, 19 people described an NDE. A year later, their score had not changed clearly. It was measured with the Greyson scale, where 7 points or more counts as an NDE. Half still scored 10 points or more, as at the start. But the team could speak with only 11 of those 19 people. And at least 1 in 4 scored 1 point or less on the scale, when at the start all of them had 7 or more. The article does not give the exact number.

Where this page comes from

The studies

Anne-Françoise Rousseau, Charlotte Martial et al. (2023), “Incidence of near-death experiences in patients surviving a prolonged critical illness and their long-term impact: a prospective observational study,” Critical Care 27:76Read for free
Charlotte Martial, Anne-Françoise Rousseau et al. (2024), “Phenomenological memory characteristics and impact of near-death experience in critically ill survivors: Observations at discharge and after a 1-year follow-up,” International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology 24:100478Read for free

Assessments

Bruce Greyson (2023), “Near-death experience and quality of life: additional research,” Critical Care 27:185Read for free

To understand more

Greyson’s study: the same near-death experience, told twice 19 years apartRead
The Greyson study: 1,595 heart patients and 27 near-death experiencesRead
How many people have an NDE?Read
How does life change after an NDE?Read

Our archive

Our full reading of both articles and the 2023 supplementary material, checked on October 22, 2026

More studies

AWARE: the pictures hidden on the shelves
Fifteen hospitals put up pictures that could only be seen from the ceiling, to check whether anyone saw them during a cardiac arrest.
AWARE II: a random picture and the brain on the screen
Above the patient was a tablet with a random picture. Headphones said the names of three fruits. And the doctors measured the brain during resuscitation.
Van Lommel: 344 cardiac arrest survivors in ten hospitals
Ten hospitals asked every cardiac arrest survivor what they remembered. They saw them again after 2 and 8 years.