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For 30 years, research has been done on near death experiences. Are they real? Are they part of drug-induced state?

M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Wednesday became the first medical institute to host a conference for the International Assocation for Near Death Studies.

Not all memories of near death experiences are the same, but they are similar. A bright white light, a feeling of peacefulness.

"I felt totally loved. Very safe and very happy," said Linda Jacquin.

Linda Jacquin is an experiencer. She tells us she died the first time when she was four.

"My foot went into a hole and it sucked me into a ledge," said Jacuin.

"I took all this water into my lungs and I popped out of my body and I was looking down and I saw blonde hair floating," she said.

Forty years later, after surgery, it happened again.

"When I died, I was immediately in the light," she remembered.

This time she told a nurse, who told her it was a near death experience.

"When she said that I was able to get on with healing my body. It was like she validated it without judgment," said Jacquin.

"These things do happen," said Raymond Moody, a speaker at the conference.

A conference on near death experiences hosted by M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is an attempt to bring science and a belief in soul together.

"It's an aspect of good patient care knowing how to deal with these topics and its part of compassionate healthcare," said Dr. Michael Fisch with M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

In Britain, doctors interviewed patients who flatlined, then were brought back from cardiac arrest.

Researchers found six to 10 percent of people have a well-structured thought process with reason and memory at a time when the brain is no longer functioning. they concluded it could mean the mind and the brain are separate entitites.

Near death experiencers hope by exposing more people to the subject they'll be able to shed more light light on the phenomenon.