Do you think sleep and death are closely related? I did notice in sleep once when I was sleeping sitting up in bed that I "heard" rushing wind past my ears and I felt as if I was going so fast I thought I was going to hit something. All the while my eyes were close and I thought I was asleep.
At any rate, maybe it is not meant for us to know all this info. about death and whatever. A NDE and death are very different indeed. NDE's people actually come back so they must have never died. Some of this "stuff" can be created by a person's mind too but I think you did try and make a corroboration with the mind and NDE. There's just no way to be sure this will happen to us after death. No one has really died for any length of time and come back to tell us about it.