Near-death experiences, including out-of-body experiences, are introduced as personally perceived phenomena which are now open to informed scientific explanations. Recent progress in monitoring brain activity in altered states of consciousness and during the process of dying provide the bases for the explanations. Consciousness is introduced as a key factor for the understanding of NDEs. Also discussed are the history, phenomenology, incidences, scientific models, and examples of personal near-death experiences. These aspects will be combined in the book to show how personal truth against the background of belief and credo can change to the understanding of NDEs as a window on the amazing complexity of our brain and mind.

This chapter introduces the relevance of corpus linguistics to applied linguistics and comments on some of the major changes in the field since the first edition of the book. The most essential terminology used in the rest of the book is explained, and some commonly used resources are described. The chapter ends on a personal note and provides an introduction to the interpretation of concordance lines.

The introduction defines rakugo and explains key performance conventions. It also points out that there are two distinct rakugo traditions, provides a literature review, and presents an outline of the book.

Chapter 1 is the framing chapter. It identifies the central puzzle that drives this book. It provides an overview of the theoretical approach and methodology, as well as the book structure and chapter outline.