A major scientific study appeared to verify "awareness" among patients for at least several minutes after they were clinically dead, lending credence to claims that there is life after death,
according to the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph.
In the international study of over 2,000 people who suffered heart attacks, 40 percent of people who survived detailed some level of awareness after the time their hearts were stopped and brains had shut down.
"Estimates have suggested that millions of people have had vivid experiences in relation to death but the scientific evidence has been ambiguous at best," Dr. Sam Parnia who led the Southampton University, told the Telegraph.
"Many people have assumed that these were hallucinations or illusions but they do seem to correspond to actual events."
Parnia explained that the brain shuts down within 20 to 30 seconds after the heart has stopped beating. The research found that there were cases of conscious awareness for minutes afterward.
In one case, a 57-year-old social worker who had been "dead" for three minutes was able to describe in detail the actions of the medical staff during that time which he said he was watching from the corner of the room.
Many of the patients could not recall specific details, but one in five said they felt an unusual sense of peacefulness, while one-third reported feeling time slow down or speed up, the Telegraph reported.
Some recalled seeing a bright light, a gold flash, or the sun shining. Others experienced fear or the sensation of drowning. And 13 percent either said they felt separate from their bodies or felt their senses were heightened.
Parnia believes there may be many more people who may have near-death experiences but don't remember.
"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," Parnia said, according to the Telegraph. "These experiences warrant further investigation."
In separate research, Dr. David Wilde of Nottingham Trent University has been collating data about out-of-body experiences to examine whether there is a common link across the episodes. He said the research published by Southampton was significant in its findings.
"Most studies look retrospectively, 10 or 20 years ago, but the researchers went out looking for examples and used a really large sample size, so this gives the work a lot of validity," he said, according to the Telegraph.
"There is some very good evidence here that these experiences are actually happening after people have medically died," he added. "We just don't know what is going on. We are still very much in the dark about what happens when you die and hopefully this study will help shine a scientific lens onto that."
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