appears like death has 2 stages.
bodily followed by 'mind driven brain'

let's say body dies, heart / lungs & all those autonomous
functions - all those associated with the brain-stem, dies..

but the mature brain, the neo-cortex is an evolved creature
it has all the experiences and memories....
& ego to the point that it commanded attention while
'all the while the body aged, it managed
as teeth fell out, vision blurred, memory became unreliable

IT with age, started losing trust on it's body,
and what is deemed as our lower brain, the reptilian brain

So when the reptilian gives up, dies..

the neo-cortex, the higher up, the boss, says hell!
"the ship got torpedoed;
the engine room is on fire, the control room got shorted,
abandon ship.."

IT experiences loss of sensory inputs,
feels pain allover, 'agony of death'
but IT won't give in; a whisper says 'i am too young to die'
IT resists death - naturally

or the whisper says, 'my job is done'
IT accepts death - naturally
--xx--

taking the first case, 'too young..'
the brain 'misinterprets the death signal as it had not
expected / experienced sufficiently to catalogued it in memory
and so interprets the death signal as "abandon ship"

now here is where the mind takes over & says:
'abandon the neuron base we know as home
lets swiftly move outside of this sinking skull..'

i.e. assuming that we have a mind
then such a projection; a demand to the computer not to 'crash'
is plausible.

So when the Mind 'knowing' that it is superior to all that bodily / brain universe;
and yet not in denial that it needs this 'soil' to exist
but for a moment resists its 'death'.
(whatsoever the state the body may be in)

now the Mind prompts the only soil it really controls
it prompts all of the neo-cortex to battle stations - keep firing
(explains the brain arousal reported at NDE)

and by this process of extreme arousal
the mind 'periscopes' out
(let's keep in mind this is a death upheaval)

and what does the Mind necessarily do?
if it could periscope outside of the body?
yes, using it's ethereal mirror (for seconds) it to looks down
and asks - "am i really dead?"

--xx--
this is a fairy tale

yet, after going through the links provided by MM
there does seem to be a time lapse between the death by cessation of heart beat and 'brain death' or cessation of NDE!!

In fact it is possible that this time lapse could be in hours..

which brings us to the point that
we may all experience some form of NDE before final brain death.

A tad off topic but honestly has anyone ever woke up with unexplained wounds? Such as bleeding cuts, scratches etc..?

Go see a real good healer.
Could be that in your past you attracted some negative spirits for whatever reason. They could even be the cause of your drug abuse. Drug abuse is often an escapism. If you subconsciously knew you couldn't get rid of the nasties, but you could if you used drugs ... then you had good reason to go there.

Negative spirits/entities can get attached to our auras, become part of them almost, and continue to scr*w up your life.
There's plenty of healers who can help you with this. You just need to find one who's got experience with this and can help rid you of it.
Then all the BS you experience will stop and you can live a nice, happy life.

My demons have their claws dug in deep Where I live, I honestly doubt I'd find such a person to get rid them...besides, they're kinda growing on me ...slowly becoming friends I think