First hint of 'life after death'

[Cheesus]

But scientists at the University of Southampton have spent four years examining more than 2,000 people who suffered cardiac arrests at 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Austria.

And they found that nearly 40 per cent of people who survived described some kind of ‘awareness’ during the time when they were clinically dead before their hearts were restarted.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...r-death-in-biggest-ever-scientific-study.html

I don't know if I like this.

 

[zzz]

From the article:

The largest ever medical study into near-death and out-of-body experiences has discovered that some awareness may continue even after the brain has shut down completely.

And the "some awareness" is pretty detailed. I strongly recommend reading the whole article.

This basically blows the widely held "consciousness as an epiphenomenon of brain activity" theory right out of the water.

Out-of-body experiences can't be attributed to the random firing of neurons in a dying brain if there aren't any neurons firing, can they?

 

[Esther12]

Looks like this is just media spin to me.

The researchers wikipedia could be of some interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Parnia

 

[barbc56]

It could be the experiences are remembered as occurring after the heart stops but didn't.

Some studies have shown that certain brain activity occurs when dying and this is why many report seeing a bright light.

This happened to my mother and in her case she reported a bright light right before she collapsed and her heart stopped. She was resuscitated but didn't remember making the comment.

Barb

 

[zzz]

Looks like this is just media spin to me.

The researchers wikipedia could be of some interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Parnia

The Wikipedia article and the newspaper article (which is in the Science section) are certainly in conflict. Wikipedia articles have been known to be biased and less than completely factual at times. And at the end of the newspaper article is the following quote:

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.”

Now why would he say this if the study reported nothing new?

It could be the experiences are remembered as occurring after the heart stops but didn't.

Some studies have shown that certain brain activity occurs when dying and this is why many report seeing a bright light.

This happened to my mother and in her case she reported a bright light right before she collapsed and her heart stopped. She was resuscitated but didn't remember making the comment.

While many experiences similar to your mother's have been documented, there are ways to test whether these experiences actually occurred when brain activity had ceased or not. The question of the timing of the experience has been raised many times in experiences like these, and the study would not have been notable if it did not address this very important question. From the article:

“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.”

 

[Esther12]

Now why would he say this if the study reported nothing new?

Because he's editor of the journal that's getting media attention, and he wants more funding for research in an area his journal is based? Also, he may truly think it's an important article.

The Wikipedia article and the newspaper article (which is in the Science section) are certainly in conflict.

I don't remember there being direct conflict. I agree that one should be wary about wikipedia though. It can be a handy source of links for further reading, but certainly isn't trustworthy.

 

[barbc56]

The common medical understanding is that cardiac arrest victims become unconscious within 20 seconds of the loss of blood flow (heart stops). That's not quite the same thing as losing "all brain activity." It just means the brain is incapable of keeping you awake


All brain activity is thought to be over by about 3-4 minutes from the moment the heart stops

http://firstaid.about.com/od/cpr/f/How-Long-Does-Brain-Activity-Last-After-Cardiac-Arrest.htm

How would the researchers know these patients had lost all brain activity since the study is retrospective so based on anecdotes.

Even if the study is true, does that prove an after life?

When I was searching this topic a book was mentioned titled "Hallucinations by Oliver Sachs. He wrote Awakinings. I haven't read Hallucinations, but he is one of my favorite authors. Even though some of his footnotes can be half a page long.

Interesting topic.
Barb

 

[Hip]

Dr Sam Parnia's study got a negative result, in that they were unable to demonstrate that people left their body during these short period in which they were considered dead (an out of body experience, OBE).

Anecdotally, during these short periods when a patient is dead, many patients have later reported apparently being out of their body, and looking down at the operating theatre room from a vantage point high above everybody, typically from the top corner of the room, as a disembodied consciousness, seeing themselves lying dead on the operating table, and seeing and hearing all the doctors and nurses around their dead body.

In order to try to prove that these patients had really left their bodies, what Parnia did was place large symbols printed on paper in high up places (like on the top of cupboards) in the operating theatres of all the hospitals participating in the study. These large symbols were not visible to anyone walking into the room, but were visible from above. The idea was that if you genuinely were a disembodied consciousness floating near the top of the operating theatre having an OBE, you will see these symbols, and be able to report them later when you were resuscitated.

Unfortunately, none of the patients said they saw these symbols during their OBE, so this is why the Parnia study had a negative result in terms of proving that these OBEs are real.

There is the argument that people that are temporarily dead on the operating table and having an OBE would not pay much attention to large symbols on top of cupboards. Nevertheless, the study could only report a negative result.

 

[JalapenoLuv]

Good, it's about time science threw out the mechanistic consciousness in brain theory. What a bunch of cynical snobs. Verified past life recall of children? Remote viewing experiments? Heisenberg uncertainty principle? Time to change the bathwater, challenge religion and start accepting people as spiritual beings.

 

[Gingergrrl]

@Hip, I saw a show on TV once where the people in the operating room DID see the symbols on top of the cupboards and reported them correctly. It was many years ago and I don't remember the name of the show or if this was a different but similar study? It stood out in my mind but I can't remember the details!

 

[Hip]

@Gingergrrl
Well hopefully there will be more of these sort of studies.

 

[brenda]

I have a memory of looking towards the hospital cot from the corner of the room in which l had apparently died and obviously returned to life when l was under nine months of age and had been admitted with mercury poisoning. I described the scene to my mother , even working out whether the room was to the left or right (not in a ward) and she confirmed what l said was exactly how the room was with the cot placed besides the window (open window, light coloured curtains moving in the breeze, a common practice during treatment) but was unfazed as her mental powers were fading by then and she believed in that sort of thing anyway. But the image is firmly entrenched. There were no hospital staff in the room so l guess l returned to life spontaneously of which l attribute to an act of divine mercy.

 

[Countrygirl]

Thank you for posting this interesting topic. I have friends who have experienced this, although not all of their descriptions have been happy ones. For those of you who are interested in the topic I found the book called Return From Tomorrow by Dr George Ritchie one of the more persuasive for me.

 

[Cheesus]

Something I would be really interested in is a psychological profile of those who had negative experiences versus those who had positive experiences. My suspicion would be that those with negative experiences have a history of trauma, whereas those with positive experiences were the luckier ones in life.

If this were so, there could be a number of explanations, both scientific and spiritual - though I do not suppose the two are necessarily mutually exclusive - for the variations of experience.

EDIT: Did any of that make sense? I am honestly struggling to hash out a sentence today and it took me ages to write that.

 

[free at last]

This takes some reading. Just wondering whats peoples take on this study. And or its results and conclusions
http://www.horizonresearch.org/main_page.php?cat_id=293
They seemed to have one case. who accurately described events while there shouldn't have been any brain activity. During a cardiac arrest. for at least three minuets ?

 

[CFS_for_19_years]

Interesting reading. I've read many accounts of near-death experiences and it's good to see a published study.

Here are links to the study itself:
http://www.horizonresearch.org/Uploads/Journal_Resuscitation__2_.pdf
http://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572(14)00739-4/fulltext

Here's a link to a news story:
Results of world's largest Near Death Experiences study published
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/mediacentre/news/2014/oct/14_181.shtml#.VFGu5Ba0vch

Recollections in relation to death, so-called out-of-body experiences (OBEs) or near-death experiences (NDEs), are an often spoken about phenomenon which have frequently been considered hallucinatory or illusory in nature; however, objective studies on these experiences are limited.

In 2008, a large-scale study involving 2060 patients from 15 hospitals in the United Kingdom, United States and Austria was launched. The AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) study, sponsored by the University of Southampton in the UK, examined the broad range of mental experiences in relation to death. Researchers also tested the validity of conscious experiences using objective markers for the first time in a large study to determine whether claims of awareness compatible with out-of-body experiences correspond with real or hallucinatory events.

Results of the study have been published in the journal Resuscitation and are now available online. The study concludes:

• The themes relating to the experience of death appear far broader than what has been understood so far, or what has been described as so called near-death experiences.

• In some cases of cardiac arrest, memories of visual awareness compatible with so called out-of-body experiences may correspond with actual events.

• 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.

 

[free at last]

Hi CFS, Thanks for the extra links.

I saw this study some time ago. But it wasn't completed then. I remember thinking. How ground breaking and important to the human species such a study actually was. I remember seeing the idea of placing images high up where Cardiac arrest patients couldn't see them. My thoughts back then were, my god if they get any hits, this could change our worldview overnight.

So I was disappointed by the results initially. But then again. when you look at the data, and you realize how complicated answering this question seems to have become.

The fact that 78% of CA patients were not in areas where the images where placed. The small sample size of interviews (140 surviving patients ). The percentage of those patients that had Near death experiences only 9% of those 140 patients

The percentage of those patients that were in areas where the images were placed. How many NDE patients did that leave where images were actually placed ? Not a lot.

The fact that it is entirely possible that more NDEs where happening but the patients were forgetting the experience, once resuscitated.

Possibly like one forgets our dreams most nights. Night after night.

The drugs these patients are on. The traumatic effect on the body and brain itself from the cardiac arrest.

Maybe its not surprising the figures are not higher than 9% For near death experience memories (its memories we are talking about here NOT experiences )
But then we have that one case where the memories seemed to have been verified by the researchers to there satisfaction. That the patient accurately recalled he's resuscitation attempt. And who was doing it. ( one person he hadn't seen before That he identified )
All for at least 3 minuets while he's heart was not even beating. And according to the researchers. it should not have been physically possible to recall these events with no heart beat ? (Unfortunately he also was not in a image area )
I think all these points mean further studies are needed. And should be undertaken.
And just might have gave us a glimpse that the mind can be separate from the body ?
I am going to look at the study more. Another thing I find interesting is DR parnel believes that resuscitation on CA patients might be possible with advancing technology for up to 12, or even 24 hours of the heart not beating.

 

[xrunner]

If they want to find out what really happens after death i.e. whether there's life ("to determine whether claims of awareness compatible with out-of-body experiences correspond with real or hallucinatory events") then they're wasting their time.
If there's life after death then it's not going to happen in the space-time bubble we live in. If it did, we would have already been able to find out in a lab.

 

[free at last]

If they want to find out what really happens after death i.e. whether there's life ("to determine whether claims of awareness compatible with out-of-body experiences correspond with real or hallucinatory events") then they're wasting their time.
If there's life after death then it's not going to happen in the space-time bubble we live in. If it did, we would have already been able to find out in a lab.

Hi X runner.If no hits ever happen on the hidden images. And recall of cardiac events do not corroborate what was happening in very intricate detail.

Then yes I tend to agree with you. I think it could be proven indirectly though. As they attempted.

So I am not convinced yet, that the lack of hits on the hidden images are because Out of body experiences are not somehow real.

As I've stated over two thirds of the patients had cardiac arrests in areas where the images were not placed.
There wasn't a high enough number of recalled NDEs that were in rooms with hidden images to answer this question properly. (there could be multiple reasons for this other than it just doesn't happen) From what I can see of the data.

I do think the researchers should have gave more in depth comparisons of the one patient who had recalled accurately he's own resuscitation. So we could make up our own minds.

I will check to see if they did. I didn't see it when I browsed through the study.As It is quite long

 

[barbc56]

Was there another thread about this study? I swear I remember replying. It may have been a long time ago. Add to that my fuzzy memory. memor, and it could be a figment of my imagination.

However, it would be interestingI to know just what types of questions were asked and if they were in any way leading the patient responses.

I guess my big gripe about this study is that the money wasted could have been put to a better used for, oh I don't know, mayby me/cfs?

I do have to admit there are certain aspects of this that are fascinating.

Apologies for being off topic.

Barb