NDE

Some say that "near death experiences" may provide some insight as to what happens after death, while might think that "near death" is not "death" so the "near death" experiences are of little relevance to what actually happens upon "death".

Previously I tended to be of the latter camp, but recently I realized that because death is by definition an irreversible process (if anything, religious dogma stipulates this), it follows from the definition that anyone who is alive must not have gone through true death.

Now, this is just a quirk of semantics, and should not actually inform us of whether NDEs can be viewed as DEs. In particular, if we posit that people can actually return to the living after going through death, at least some NDEs can actually be considered true DEs.

Can people return from death? 

Well. Once you drop the axiom that "one cannot return from death", then "death" is rather hard to define. But it seems quite possible if you read enough stories.  The thing is I'm not sure whether all returns are to the same universe...