Being conscious after death is now within the realm of possibility, according to a team of scientists from the University of Southampton, UK.

During four years, they carried out a study on 2,060 patients having undergone cardiac arrest.

A study whose surprising results reveal that nearly 40% of survivors described a strange sensation of consciousness while in a state of clinical death, before their heart started beating again.

According to experts, even when the brain has stopped working and the body is clinically dead, consciousness can continue.

40% of those who survived their cardiac arrest also evoke a strange sensation of consciousness.

Aware even in a state of clinical death

“Evidence suggests that, in the first few minutes after death, consciousness is not annihilated.

We don't know if it then fades, but immediately after death consciousness is not lost, ”

Dr. Sam Parnia, who conducted the study

, told the

Daily Mail

.

In particular, the scientists gathered the testimony of a Briton, a 57-year-old social worker who, while in cardiac arrest, explained that he left his body and witnessed his resurrection from the corner of the room.

The man, in a state of clinical death for three minutes, was then able to recount in some detail the treatment he received and the noise of the machines around him.

Real memories

Yet "we know that the brain cannot function when the heart has stopped beating," recalls Dr Parnia. "But in this case, the state of consciousness seems to have continued for the three minutes that the patient's heart stopped beating, while the brain usually 'turns off' within 20 to 30 seconds after the heart has stopped beating. has stopped beating, ”he explains. The results of the study are therefore "important", knowing that until now doctors "assumed that the reported afterlife experiences were in fact hallucinations occurring either before the heart stopped or after the heart stopped. the heart was restarted successfully ”, he continues, but not an experience corresponding to“ real events when the patient's heart stopped beating ”. Especially since in the present case,"The recollected memories were compatible with the facts," says the scientist.

39% of patients interviewed for the study recall being aware of what was happening to them, without remembering the smallest details. “Death is not a precise moment but a potentially reversible process, which occurs after a serious illness or an accident and which causes the heart, lungs and brain to stop functioning. When we try to reverse this process, we talk about "cardiac arrest." But if we do not succeed, we speak of death, ”concludes Dr. Parnia, who recalls that with this study, the scientists wanted to analyze“ objectively ”what happens after death.

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