Greyson and Bush published the landmark classification in Psychiatry in 1992, sorting distressing cases into inverse, void, and hellish types, citing 341 later studies. Lindley and colleagues found 20 percent of 55 cases partially negative or hellish in 1981, Garfield reported 22 percent with demonic or nightmarish content in 1979, and a 2019 systematic analysis found 14 percent of 123 narratives distressing. Barbara Rommer's Blessing in Disguise (2000) collected such cases in book form.
Rommer argued frightening NDEs often end up blessing their experiencers, while cardiologist Maurice Rawlings claimed in his books that hellish cases were underreported because patients repressed them fast. Skeptics like Rogo countered that hellish content clustered around violent resuscitation procedures and might reflect the ordeal, not the destination.
Some experiencers describe entities that mock, deceive, or herd them, including figures posing as guides. A minority interpretive tradition reads such encounters as evidence that whatever waits at death is not uniformly benevolent.
If distressing NDEs feel as real as blissful ones and leave deeper scars, on what grounds does anyone decide which version of the other side is the authentic one?