A study of more than 2,000 near-death experiences has found that awareness lingers after the body and brain have shut down completely.
"We know the brain can't function when the heart has stopped beating," said the study's lead researcher, Dr. Sam Parnia, a former Southampton University research fellow now based at the State University of New York. The study was published in the most recent issue of the
journal Resuscitation, according to
The Telegraph U.K.
"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 study examined 2,060 patients at 15 hospitals across the U.S., U.K., and Austria who had suffered cardiac arrest.
The big finding? Nearly 40 percent of the 330 who survived described some sort of awareness during the time they were clinically dead before their hearts were resuscitated.
More specifically, nearly one-third of respondents said time seemed to speed up or slow down during their clinical death experience; roughly 20 percent said they felt a sense of peacefulness; 13 percent said they felt separated from their bodies.
In the study's conclusion, the researchers stated that "[Cardiac arrest] survivors commonly experience a broad range of cognitive themes, with 2 percent exhibiting full awareness."
"Many people have assumed that these were hallucinations or illusions but they do seem to corresponded to actual events," said Parnia, who noted that a small number of patients accurately reported events that occurred in the room after they were declared clinically deceased.
"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."
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