IANDS

IANDS stands for the International Association for Near-Death Studies, Inc, is an organization for studying and disseminating information on the phenomena of Near-death experience. IANDS was founded in Connecticut (United States) in 1978 in order to meet the needs of early researchers and experiencers within this field of research. Today the association includes researchers, health care professionals, NDE-experiencers and people close to experiencers, as well as other interested people. One of its main goals is to promote responsible and multi-disciplinary investigation of near-death and similar experiences. The organization is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (IANDS, printable brochure).

Subjects of research
The NDE is an experience reported by people who have come close to dying in a medical or non-medical setting. The phenomenon is considered to be a fairly common occurrence in modern clinical settings (Lukoff, Lu & Turner, 1998) and according to a Gallup poll aproxiomately eight million Americans claim to have had a near-death experience (Mauro, 1992). An NDE may include such factors as: an out-of-body-experience, visions of deceased relatives, visions of religious figures or beings of light, transcendence of ego and spatiotemporal boundaries, the sense of moving up or through a narrow passageway ("Tunnel experience"), life review, and other transcendental experiences (Lukoff, Lu & Turner, 1998; Greyson, 2003; Mauro, 1992). The phenomenology of a NDE usually includes physiological, psychological and transcendental factors that come together to form an overall pattern when numerous NDE reports are considered together. It is this pattern that is one of the main objects of interest for Near-Death studies. NDE-researchers have also found that the NDE is not a uniquely western experience. The core experience seems to be similar across cultures, but the details of the experience (figures, beings, scenery), and the interpretation of the experience, varies a lot from culture to culture (Mauro, 1992).

Interest in this field of study was originally spurred by the research of such pioneers as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, George Ritchie, and Raymond Moody Jr. Moody's book Life after Life, which was released in 1975, brought a lot of attention to the topic of NDEs (Mauro, 1992). This was soon led to the establishment of IANDS.

IANDS is also responsible for the publishing of the Journal of Near-Death Studies, the only scholarly journal in the field. It is cross-disciplinary and published quarterly. Between the years of 1997-2003 the journal was published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, but this arrangement was discontinued upon completion of Volume 21. Since 2003 the Journal is published by The International Association for Near-Death Studies, printed and distributed by Allen Press. IANDS also publishes the newsletter Vital Signs and maintains an archive of near-death case histories for research and study.