Strongest-Ever Scientific Evidence.
A British scientist studying heart attack patients says he has
found evidence that consciousness may continue after the
brain has stopped functioning and a patient is clinically dead.
This means that science is now confronting the age-old
religious questions about the existence of a soul that survives
physical death.
During the study, 63 heart attack patients who were clinically
dead but were later revived were interviewed within a week
of their experiences. 56 said they had no recollection of the
time they were unconscious, but seven reported having
memories. Of those, four were said to have had near-death-
experiences, because they reported memories of thinking,
reasoning, moving around and communicating with others
after doctors had determined their brains were no longer
functioning.
?The studies are very significant in that we have a group of
people with no brain function ?who have well-structured,
lucid thought processes with reasoning and memory formation
at a time when their brains are shown not to function,? says
Sam Parnia, one of two doctors from Southampton General
Hospital in England who have been studying near-death
experiences.
?We need to do much larger-scale studies, but the possibility
is certainly there? to suggest that consciousness, or the soul,
keeps thinking and reasoning even if a person?s heart has
stopped, he is not breathing and his brain activity is flat,
Parnia says.
He and his colleagues conducted a yearlong study, the
results of which appeared in the February issue of the journal
Resuscitation. The results were so promising that the doctors
have formed a foundation to fund further research on NDEs.
The patients reported remembering feelings of peace, joy and
harmony. For some, time sped up, their senses became more
acute and they lost awareness of their bodies. They also
reported seeing a bright light, entering another realm and
communicating with dead relatives. One, who called himself a
lapsed Catholic and Pagan, reported a close encounter with a
mystical being.
Near-death experiences have been reported for centuries but
science has explained them away as a result of low oxygen
levels. But when the brain is deprived of oxygen people
become totally confused, thrash around and usually have no
memories at all, according to Parnia. Also, none of the
patients in his study were found to have received low oxygen
levels. ?Here you have a severe insult to the brain but
perfect memory,? he says.
Skeptics have also suggested that the memories occurred in
patients during the moments when they were leaving or
returning to consciousness. But Parnia notes that when a
brain is traumatized by a seizure or car wreck a patient
generally does not remember moments just before or after
losing consciousness.
Instead, there is usually a memory lapse of hours or
days. ?Talk to them. They?ll tell you something like: ?I just
remember seeing the car and the next thing I knew I was in
the hospital,?? he says. ?With cardiac arrest, the insult to the
brain is so severe it stops the brain completely. Therefore, I
would expect profound memory loss before and after the
incident.?
Since their initial experiment, Parnia and his team have found
more than 3,500 people with lucid memories that apparently
occurred at times they were thought to be clinically dead.
Many of the patients, he said, were reluctant to share their
experiences fearing they would be thought crazy.
One patient was 2-1/2 years old when he had a seizure and
his heart stopped. His parents contacted Parnia after the
boy ?drew a picture of himself as if out of his body looking
down at himself. It was drawn like there was a balloon stuck
to him. When they asked what the balloon was he
said, ?When you die you see a bright light and you are
connected to a cord.? He wasn't even 3 when had the
experience,? Parnia says. ?What his parents noticed was that
after he had been discharged from hospital, six months after
the incident, he kept drawing the same scene.?
Parnia speculates that human consciousness may work
independently of the brain. ?When you damage the brain or
lose some of the aspects of mind or personality, that doesn't
necessarily mean the mind is being produced by the brain. All
it shows is that the apparatus is damaged,? Parnia said,
adding that further research might reveal the existence of a
soul.
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