According to the largest study ever conducted treating near-death experiences, evidence suggests that there is consciousness after clinical death.
A University of Southampton team spent four years examining 2,060 cardiac arrest patients at 15 different hospitals on three continents.
The report, “AWAREness during CPR: Be careful with what you say!” was authored by Drs Edgardo Olvera-Lopez and Joseph Varon, and was published in Resuscitation magazine.
Overall, the team found that 40 percent of people who survived cardiac arrest–140 of 330 people–described some kind of awareness during the time they were clinically dead.
The kinds of experiences reported by the survivors included an unusual sense of peacefulness and alterations in time perception. Some said time slowed down while other said it speeded up.
Some survivors reported seeing a bright light. Some described it as a golden flash or like the Sun shining.
Others, however, reported feelings of fear, of drowning or being pulled down through deep water.
Of the survivors, 13 percent reported experiences commonly referred to as out-of-body. Another 13 percent reported that their senses had been heightened.
“We know the brain can’t function when the heart has stopped beating,” said Dr Sam Parnia, a former research fellow at Southampton University, now at the State University of New York. However, Parnia went on to describe specific instances of patients who reported things that suggested that after death consciousness was possible, including accounts of out-of-body like experiences.
Dr Jerry Nolan, Editor-in-Chief at Resuscitation said: “Dr Parnia and his colleagues 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.”
By Cheryl Bretton
Certainly looking forward to more extensive research being a firm believer that consciousness continues after death.