With some seeing bright lights and one even having an out-of-body experience, the findings of a major new scientific study into cardiac arrest patients who were momentarily 'dead' are daunting but potentially ground-breaking.
A team at the University of Southampton has been examining 2,000 people who suffered cardiac arrests; using patients in the UK, the US and down in Australia. It took four years, and now they’ve announced that nearly 40% of those who survived described some kind of state of awareness during the time they were, technically, dead.
A 57-year-old man from Southampton even said he watched his own resuscitation from the corner of the room; describing in vivid detail the actions of the nurses and the sounds of the machines.
Dr Sam Parnia told The Telegraph: “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 into the period when the heart wasn’t beating, even though the brain typically shuts down within 20-30 seconds after the heart has stopped."
“The man described everything that had happened in the room, but importantly, he heard two bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three minute intervals. So we could time how long the experienced lasted for.
“He seemed very credible and everything that he said had happened to him had actually happened.”
As for the other patients, responses varied. 330 of the 2060 survived; of which some said they saw a bright light, some said they had the sensation of drowning, some felt separated from their bodies and others said their senses actually heightened. A third said they felt as if time had either slowed down or sped up.
“Estimates have suggested that millions of people have had vivid experiences in relation to death but the scientific evidence has been ambiguous at best,” said Dr Parnia. “Many people have assumed that these were hallucinations or illusions but they do seem to corresponded to actual events.
“And a higher proportion of people may have vivid death experiences, but do not recall them due to the effects of brain injury or sedative drugs on memory circuits. These experiences warrant further investigation.”
