Life after Life

Raymond Moody M.D. published a book called "Life After Life." In it he studies individuals who have had near death experiences. In the introduction he says that he is not religious (although he hinted that the research has changed him) and that he is not trying to prove that there is life after death but simply to study the cases. In his study he found that, while there are no two cases that are identical, there are many common elements in the different cases and no element that happened to only one person. The things that people experience when they have "died" and then been resuscitated are: an uncomfortable noise close to the moment of death, travelling through a dark tunnel, being able to see and hear what is happening in the room from somewhere out of their body, meeting other beings, meeting a being of light, having your life reviewed before you, coming to a border or limit when they somehow know that if they cross it, they would not be able to return, coming back to their own bodies, often after communication with the being of light.
While this is a case study and not a scientific experiment, it is food for thought. If the reporting is accurate (Moody says that his findings were nearly duplicated independently and without his knowledge in a similar study by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross M.D.), how is it possible for over a hundred individuals in scattered parts of the country who had no contact with each other to have such similar experiences? It would suggest that there is more to the universe than just the physical.