Pim van Lommel

Pim van Lommel (born 15 March 1943) is a Dutch cardiologist, author, and researcher associated with studies of near-death experiences.

Education and career Van Lommel studied medicine at Utrecht University and specialized in cardiology. He worked as a cardiologist at Rijnstate Hospital in Arnhem for 26 years (1977–2003).

In 1988, he initiated a prospective study of near-death experiences across ten Dutch hospitals, involving 344 survivors of cardiac arrest. In 2001, results from this study were published in The Lancet.

In 2007, the first (Dutch) edition of his book Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience was published; an English-language edition appeared subsequently.

Reception Neurobiologist Dick Swaab acknowledged van Lommel’s work for documenting patients’ reported experiences and bringing the topic of near-death experiences to wider medical attention, while criticizing Consciousness Beyond Life for what he described as a lack of engagement with established neurobiological explanations and for borrowing concepts from quantum mechanics without sufficient scientific basis.

Cognitive neuroscientist Jason Braithwaite published a detailed critique of van Lommel’s 2001 Lancet study, arguing that although it contributed useful observational data, it contained factual and logical errors, including misinterpretations of anoxia and overreliance on EEG findings as indicators of total brain inactivity.

Skeptical commentators have also questioned claims related to alleged psychic abilities reported by some individuals with near-death experiences, arguing that such interpretations rely on self-reported data and lack independent verification.

Publications Van Lommel, P.; van Wees, R.; Meyers, V.; Elfferich, I. (2001). “Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands.” The Lancet 358: 2039–2045. Van Lommel, P. (2004). “About the continuity of our consciousness.” Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 550: 115–132. Van Lommel, P. (2006). “Near-Death Experience, Consciousness and the Brain.” World Futures 62: 134–152. Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (2010; English ed. 2011). Van Lommel, P. (2011). “Near-death experiences: the experience of the self as real and not as an illusion.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1234: 19–28. Van Lommel, P. (2013). “Nonlocal Consciousness.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 20: 7–48.