There are enough disparities for me to wonder if we 'forget' part of the experiences. One middle-aged lady told her mother of the experience, but a year later, said she no longer remembered a large part of it.
I'm more interested in the similarities.
And as far as cultural backgrounds, kinda makes sense to me. God is GOD to us, Buddha to a Bhuddist, even Allah to an Islamic (although I personally suspect Allah to be the devil). Other spiritual beings are Angels to Christians, Guides to the agnostics, and so on.
The experiences all have subtle differences. One lady was on a sloped plot of land with lovely trees and flowers, others in a void of black, and so on. However, I am looking at the similarities. That's what demonstrates God to me.
Furthermore, many people do not remember experiencing anything at all.
As an aside, the ever-increasing mountain of anecdotal evidence of NDEs and their differences makes me wonder if the people who have them aren't still tightly bound up in their human identities...hence the varieties of experiences that seem to be related to their "earthly" belief systems.
It would be nice to hear some NDE accounts of people who went very, very deeply into the "afterlife" and then returned. In fact, went so deeply into the "beyond" that their earthly identities began to dissolve. I keep looking for such accounts but haven't found any notable ones yet. Of course, such accounts might not exist or I might be looking in the wrong places or looking for the wrong kind of experiences altogether.;-)
Still, it is a fascinating subject. Thanks for posting this thread.