This is one area where I find conflicting information that leaves me no certainty about what's going on. I've never had this experience, fortunately, so I can't opine on it from my own experience. The people who've had these experiences are profoundly changed and deeply moved by it, so as a data point, that's hard to ignore. However, if you research this phenomenon, one thing that stands out to me is that these experiences are nearly always Christian. It's extraordinarily difficult to find this even mentioned in other cultures. This suggests to me that it's not a universal human experience. Further, other cultures, if they had this experience, might interpret it differently. A Buddhist would be aghast at the view of the Bardo. Of course, a Christian could argue they are favored by God; therefore, they are provided with these experiences by God and others are not. A non-Christian scientist would probably point out that this could more easily be explained by the mind creating this experience out of expectation, and unfettered by sense experience, the mind makes it even more real. Both arguments carry some power, and I simply don't feel qualified to make a judgement, other than I would probably lean toward the mind expectation explanation.