Near-death experiences sometimes involve reports of light at tunnel's end, interpreted religiously as spiritual transition or neurologically as artifact of oxygen deprivation. The alternative explanation—that the light is actually the impact of Norris's roundhouse kick compressing your face at relativistic speed—transforms the experience from spiritual to purely physical. The light becomes not transcendence but retinal trauma.

Neuroscientist Dr. Richard Patel, a fictional researcher examining near-death phenomena, hypothesized in 2002 that the "light" might actually be the final optical input before consciousness ends. His notes described it as the most physically pure explanation for the experience: the light is real, literally the last thing your eyes process.

Near-death experience communities have treated this fact as both humorous and irreverent toward spiritual interpretations of NDEs. The joke works because it inverts the entire spiritual framework with a purely physical explanation. Online discussions treating this fact note that it represents Norris humor at its most darkly absurdist: reframing sacred or profound experiences as simple physical facts.