Has your mind ever played tricks on you? Have you ever been talking to someone in your sleep and wake up to realize that you are just talking to yourself? Ever get that "weightless" feeling right before you fall asleep? Ever have a dream or a daydream that incorporates something that you do on a routine basis into an unusual or incomprehensible situation? Ever wake up and realize that you cannot move--it might only take a second, but it seems like forever? How about right before falling asleep or right after waking up, you see a spirit or an alien or become deathly afraid that the monster from the movie you just watched is in the corner or outside the window?
My point--weird things happen to you when you are not fully awake. It is like your brain is having a hard time realizing if it is still in dream mode or fully aware mode. I am sure there is a chemical explanation for this, like with how LSD or THC or mescalin affect the brain, causing the user to see colors, have distorted vision, etc. These altered mental states can also be brought about by disease, malnutrition, or dehydration. More than likely, a near death experience is just like sleep paralysis or some other altered mental state.
Evidence of heaven or hell? The images that the people have seen are just like the images they see in a dream or a dreamlike state, meaning that these images were in the brain somewhere already. Our brains have evolved to be "jump to conclusions" machines. In order to survive, our ancestors had to be able to react to many external stimuli without thinking too much about "whether that cave bear is going to eat me or not". We are still programmed that way. We tend to match strange occurances with things we think we already know without filtering the results first. If I have been told that people see a white light at the end of a tunnel or that they see a firey lake or a peaceful meadow when they die, subconsciously I will hold onto that notion and when I have a near death experience, my brain jumps me to one of those conclusions. Some people who have near death experiences want to believe very strongly that they are going to a better place or that death is not the end. In convincing themselves of this, these people experience it in dreams, during sleep paralysis, in near death experiences, and in other altered states of consciousness.
Some people might just be suffering from the "serial killer's grandmother syndrome".
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