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Analysis of eight Kongo near-death experiences (NDEs) from Central Africa supports the argument that universal features exist within this experiential form. Respondents described leaving their bodies and journeying to afterlife realms, encountering boundaries, and communicating with spiritual beings. Some accounts reveal culturally specific elements, implying that expectations shape perceptions. NDEs seem related to shamanism, humankind's first religious form, since NDEs contain the same elements as waking visions unrelated to the threat of death. Comparisons of Kongo accounts with two Basuto narratives from Southern Africa extend this argument. The theory that NDEs have a shamanic basis has evolutionary implications since shamanism provides greater survival advantages to those with genes allowing dissociation, hypnotic capacity, and religiosity. Shamanic healing, practiced over many millennia, would have increased the frequency of those genes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]