You're thinking along the same lines as I. I believe that in a near death experience, one lives on the island, but in real time only lasts for that split second before death or coming back to life. So, Charlie choked on the bag of heroin and in that instant, he experienced everything from the island.
So during the turbulence, everyone had a similar near death experience and that's what we're watching on the island. When someone "dies" on the island, it means they either lived or died from that near death experience.
So Desmond is having a near death experience every time he goes to his alternate life scenes? I believe he fainted again once he asked for the oceanic 815 manifest at the end when going with Sayid. That's near death?