The image of Jesus then transformed into a ball of light. This ball of light communicated to the man that it initially appeared as Jesus because the man had a Christian upbringing and was familiar with the character of Jesus. It was essentially to make him feel more at ease.
I'd like to think that young children who pass away aren't trapped in an adolescent mindset after death. Growing up in heaven is equally unbelievable.
Instead I think it's highly probably that these near death experiences are more similar to deep meditation where we explore our innermost selves.
Instead of our mind saying plainly, "we're soon to be fertilizer," its perspective on the world is one of obsessive self-importance--such an inconvenient reminder that we will recycle our carbon is manipulated into a motivational and awe-inspiring event to help us pass on our DNA in a time when we are clearly likely to die. Maybe it is both comforting, and absurd, in the same way as our other daily experiences? We're not the most important thing in the universe, but our mind can sometimes treat us as such, and it seems this leads to entirely strange experiences all the time, they just don't seem particularly absurd, compared to meeting Jesus, because they're so common.
Think about all of the injustice in the world. One's mind typically isn't going to get worked up about "I really should do something about getting off this planet, or what about that Gulf of Tonkin incident, if I don't do something that kind of awful thing could happen again in the universe (like maybe in Iraq)." But when your time comes, yes of course, the Universe and God have concern about You.
You could argue that "existential crisis" is the fundamental bedrock on which we all stand. From eating to sex/procreating to jobs to addictions to sports to escapisms to you know name it, existential crisis lingers over it all.
And it's been posited that this all derives from a fluke of the brain/consciousness. The consciousness's mistaken assumption that the "I" exists ( aka Illusion of the self ).
One of my relatives had a near-death experience quite a long time ago. While he was unconscious, he says he met Jesus, who offered him the choice to rise to Heaven then and there, or stay behind with his children. He chose the latter and (somewhat miraculously, actually) recovered and is still alive today. It probably goes without saying that he's a devout Christian. Now, I don't believe he actually met Jesus, but I do believe that's what he experienced. It's interesting, and somewhat comforting, that the brain can have these intensely emotional and personally meaningful experiences in the moments before death. Maybe his "choice" even had some bearing on his recovery.