NDEs give much evidence that there is a choice but they only show those who choose not to go beyond a certain "barrier". The best two books on the subject are Life After Life by Raymond Moody and Imagine Heaven by John Burke and all those interested who have the time should invest in both. Some people go a long distance "toward the light" but many find a "barrier" and recognize that it's a point of no return, and those that came back tell us that; so going toward the light in itself isn't the final question.

Ranging from negative to positive, NDE experiences include (1) a choking, repulsive "pit", (2) a warring, painful "hell", (3) a distancing, dark "abyss", (4) observation of earth's happenings during the NDE, (5) an ascending, tubelike "passage", (6) a rewarding, fruitful "paradise", (7) an exciting, joyous "city". Almost all fall into these categories. The light can be experienced in any realm but has the effect of moving the soul toward more positive realms and, if pursued, almost always resolves into human form (not any other form). The entire narrative, combined across thousands of testimonies, indicates a presentation where the light is the most reasonable, loving being and resistance to the light is engaged by the most unreasonable, hateful beings.

We can infer from observing death that the experienced "barrier" is consistent with the fact that most people don't return from clinical death. We can infer from the aggregation of testimony that those who return often experience a straining point where they judge that to go further in the direction (either positive or negative) would be "permanent", i.e., it would separate sentience from body indefinitely via a breaking event. All reports indicate that choice exists in all realms (but is harder and more pressured in the negative than in the positive) and the barrier encounter evidences that a choice can be "locked in" for any realm (although the consistent impression is that positive and negative locks create separate, unmixed destinies).

Therefore OP is about (1) trusting the appearances to be accurate versus (2) distrusting the appearances in favor of some other explanation. Death is certainly a "birth" from the present realm to a realm without physical experience but with heightened sensation (reported by the supermajority of NDE experiences). I've pointed out that in reincarnation cultures the gilgul oversoul explanation fits better with evidence than the transmigration recycling explanation, but since OP is about the NDE and since there is no discussion in the NDE about observation of anyone engaging an experience of forgetfulness or return to a zygotic state then we simply cannot rule it in or out on the experienced evidence but only on contingent theory. Therefore my conclusion last time was that every day of life we are preparing to make the right judgments in the afterlife, and making the right decision when confronting the light will absolutely be guided by practicing right discernment in the present, every day. Prejudging the case is unnecessary and perhaps counterproductive as it hampers the ability to judge it when it happens. However, judging human presentation to find out the nature of truth and deception can be practiced at every moment and seems to be the best answer to your question.

u/NotACat