Either there is an immaterial / non-physical component to the human species or there is not.
If there is not, there can't be any such thing as an afterlife, near death experiences, out of the body experiences, death bed visions, reincarnations, past lives, etc. Yet these aspects part and parcel to the death and dying process have been postulated and recorded by nearly all societies / cultures over nearly all of recorded history (and probably well before that at least in terms of the afterlife concept - grave goods found in very ancient burial sites). How does that make any sense?
If there is an immaterial / non-physical component, even after your death (or the death of others), for there to be such things as an afterlife, death bed visions, reincarnations, past lives, etc. that immaterial / non-physical component has got to operate and navigate around in space and in time in the absence of any sensory apparatus (eyes, ears, etc.) and an organ (i.e. - the brain) that can perceive and interpret those sensory aspects we call vision / sight, hearing / sound, taste, touch and smell. How does that make any sense?
There seems to be another case here of "It can't be therefore it isn't" relative to one of "I know what I saw / experienced." No matter what side of the fence you're on, you're damned if you're on one side and you're damned if you are on the other side. That said, the obvious alternative explanations are 1) experiences are all in the mind and just mental delusions, or 2) people are deliberately perpetrating frauds and hoaxes. IMHO I don't think either one of these explanations are entirely credible.
Let's examine each of the death-related categories in turn and ask whether or not special effects might be in play here.
Death Bed Visions: It seems highly improbable that someone, especially a quite elderly someone just hours away from the finality of death is going to hoax death bed visions. Delusional mental states are far more probable an explanation except you'd think that death bed visions would cover or incorporate a very wide, wide, wide variety of visions, not just visions of already dead relatives and friends.
Near Death Experiences (NDEs): The eyes may be the visual organs but it's the brain that does the actual seeing. Neither eyes nor brains are present and accounted for in NDEs. Nor are any other sensory organs. So how can a person relate an NDE if that person in that immaterial state can't experience anything external relatity, being 100% deaf, blind, etc.?
Out of Body Experiences (OBEs): As with NDEs, and closely enough related to NDEs to include them here, OBEs suffer from the exact same sort of impossibilities that NDEs suffer from. In an OBE you are in a non-physical state and lack any and all of the sensory organs and sensory processing abilities that would give you the ability to actually relate your OBE to others after-the-fact.
Reincarnations: If you have been reincarnated, that implies that some sort of immaterial part of you survived death, wafted around the Cosmos for a spell, then got incorporated into another biological body. What would be the ultimate purpose I know not since it would seem logical to have the concept of just one immaterial part inhabiting one and only one material body. If the immaterial part of you survives your body's death, all fine well and good, but why not just enjoy the immaterial afterlife instead of coming back for another round(s) of enduring physical existence? But like all things immaterial, the best explanation is the Simulation Hypothesis explanation.
Past Lives: There is no possible way that you can go from a past life to your present life without going through an immaterial / non-physical stage. If you remember a past life then this immaterial "you" that went from past body to present body contained memories which suggests that memory is immaterial. Yet can you really conceive of having an immaterial basis for your memory since your memories can obviously be affected by physical mechanisms - disease, injury, drugs, lack of sleep, the ageing process, etc. So in this case the more obvious explanation or conclusion is that people recalling past lives; past memories are delusional or outright hoaxing. Special effects to the rescue?
Afterlife: To start things off, the concept of an afterlife is a nearly universal one, and when concepts cross nearly all cultures and societies, and all eras, then one has to sit up and take notice, for there's some explaining required. Since there is no solid or actual knowledge that people possess regarding an afterlife (belief / faith - yes; knowledge - no), we can neither conclude the afterlife is real or just wishful thinking and a self-imposed delusion reinforced by the collective wishful thinking by the rest of humanity. What probably can be said is this: if there is an afterlife you'd have to experience it in an immaterial / non-physical state without any sensory apparatus or the means to process any sensory data. That's a concept that makes no logical sense at all. But all is not lost in you invoke simulated special effects. If your life is just virtual reality then your afterlife can also be just virtual reality.