Neardeath experiences go under the French microscope: "More than 1,500 delegates including people who claim to have had NDEs are attending the one-day conference, which aims to take stock of the disputed phenomenon in the most scientific way possible.

Among them is anaesthetist and intensive care doctor Jean-Jacques Charbonnier, who has taken evidence from several people who claim to have had an NDE.

'People who were brain-dead could see what was going on in a waiting room, or around them, in precise detail. We are not talking about an hallucination here because it was quite real,' he said.

Sonia Barkallah, organiser of the conference, being held in Martigues near Marseille, added: 'These are people who have come close to death, whether through an accident or during an operation, and who have brought back from their unconscious state accounts that are quite out of the ordinary.

'They are floating above their bodies, they can hear what the doctors are saying about them, they feel themselves getting sucked into a dark tunnel with a bright but not blinding light at the end of it,' she continued. "