I had a near death experience when I was a kid while drowning. I know I wasn't just passing-out because it felt very different. Obviously, it was due to suffocating because I filled myself with water while trying to get air. My limbs went numb and stopped moving, I stopped feeling alarmed and I remember thinking "I could really use a nap. It's so warm and comfortable here," which at that point I think I forget where I was. I heard once there's a hormone your body makes when you're dying to officially start shutting things down - well, it definitely felt like that and that was what stood out from the experience. Very different feeling. Everything felt extremely comfortable, I stopped hearing, thinking, ect. and my vision was just white - I suppose maybe that is the "light at the end of the tunnel" effect? I kind of choose to not worry about where we end up - because we just don't know. I got that close, and I didn't find out. That experience really disturbed me, especially as someone with depression. Imagine having suicidal thoughts paired with that memory - it just makes it that much harder. "Where do we go in the afterlife?" is kind of paired with "Why are we here in the first place?"
But what is beyond that white light? We have lot's of near death accounts that share many of the characteristics you mention but it could be that actual death is quite different. I'm glad you came back from "the light."
It's one of those things you just have to experience to know what it's like, but I guess what I'm saying is that you might not even be aware of what's happening at that point. You'd make the transition without knowing, just like you don't remember being born. Even if there's an afterlife, or past life, or heaven, would you be aware of where you came from? I don't think so. I feel like you'd lose that footprint of being a human. It just makes me lose concern for it.
I experience it someday.... hopefully a long, long time from now.