From
Fiction to Fact
A
team based in the UK spent the last four years seeking out cardiac arrest
patients to analyse their experiences during their cardiac arrest, after they
came back to life. The team's finding was: almost 40 per cent of the survivors
recalled having some form of "awareness" during the time that they
had been declared clinically dead. One man who had been clinically dead - then
brought back to life - accurately described what had been happening in the
room.
The
popular notion among experts is that the brain shuts down within 20 to 30
seconds of the heart stopping beating – and that it is not possible to be aware
of anything once that happens.
But
scientists who participated in the new study, said they had found compelling
evidence that patients experienced real events happening around them - for up
to three minutes - after death happened – and could even recall them accurately
once they had been resuscitated back to life.
Dr
Sam Parnia, Assistant Professor at the State University of New York and former
Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, who led the research, said he
had previously held the belief that patients who described near-death
experiences were only relating hallucinatory events.
However,
based on evidence provided by the 57-year-old social worker from Southampton,
Dr Parnia now admits: "We know the brain can’t function when the heart has
stopped beating. But in this case, conscious awareness appears to have
continued for up to three minutes."
The
man had given a "very credible" account of what had been going on
while doctors and nurses were trying to bring him back to life – and says that
he felt he was observing his resuscitation from the corner of the room.
On
being revived back to life, the man was able to describe everything that happened
in the room in the intermittent period, but more importantly, he heard two
bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three-minute intervals. That was
how doctors could time the experienced! Dr Parnia concludes, "He seemed
very credible and everything that he said had happened to him, had actually
happened."Dr Parnia’s study involved 2,060 patients from 15 hospitals in
the UK, US and Austria. It has also been published in the
"Resuscitation" journal.
About
46 per cent of those who survived had experienced a broad range of mental
recollections, nine per cent had experiences that were compatible with
traditional definitions of a near-death experience, and two per cent had
exhibited full awareness with explicit recall of "seeing" and "hearing"
events – or out-of-body experiences.
Dr
Parnia said that the findings of the study as a whole had suggested that
"the recalled experience surrounding death now merits further genuine
investigation without prejudice."Dr Jerry Nolan, editor-in-chief of the
journal which published the research, said: "The researchers are to be
congratulated on the completion of a fascinating study that will open the door
to more extensive research into what happens when we die."
As
Sarah Knapton, Science Correspondent of The Telegraph, put it: Death is a
depressingly inevitable consequence of life. But with scientists believing that
they may have found some light at the end of the tunnel, also sheds light on a
controversial subject which has, until recently, been treated with widespread skepticism.
Although many patients could not recall specific details later, some common
themes did emerge. One in five apparently recalled feeling an unusual sense of
peace...Another one-third of the patients recalled having a sense of time
slowing down or speeding up.
Yet
others recalled seeing a bright light - like a golden flash - or the sun
shining...
Others
recounted drowning or being dragged through deep water...13 per cent said they
felt a heightened sense of being...
The
same 13 per cent of course, stated the obvious: that they had felt separated
from their bodies...
