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Bossy Boots.
I too have had a similar (NDE) experience which is probably what set me off thinking about life and "is this all there is?"
The first major breakthrough came at Rijnstate Hospital in Arnhem, Holland, where Dr Pym Vanlommel in the division of cardiology received a patient who had had a massive heart attack. He was apparently deeply unconscious on admittance but the electroencephalograph machine quickly discovered that he was brain dead. There was no electrical activity whatsoever in his brain which meant there was no brain function including memory. The team set about resuscitating the man although it seemed a forlorn hope – but the man did respond and he started breathing again indicating that brain function had revived to some extent although he did not regain consciousness. Later, when the man was fully conscious, in the intensive care ward, he was visited by Dr van Lommel and immediately recognised him, (although never having “physically” seen the doctor) as the person who had removed his false teeth and put them in a safe place – these while the man was brain dead. Moreover, the man described the staff, resuss. measures and the trolley into which his teeth had been placed.
This Out-of-Body Eperience (OBE), of course was an eye-opener for the medical staff as the facts could not be denied. It set Dr van Lommel off on an investigation in hospitals across Holland, the results of which he published as a paper duly reported in the prestigious medical journal “The Lancet”. http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm
Cardiac arrest patients provide ideal subjects for a study into NDEs because they provide a definite moment of when the process of dying begins and when the ECG machine indicates when death has actually occurred. A person (or animal) is brain dead when all electrical activity in the brain stops. As permanently dead people never relate their experiences, it is very difficult to assess the accounts of those who do survive as they may merely be reporting hallucinations. Cardiac arrests are happening all the time. Possibly Near Death Experiences are also happening to everyone who dies – but probably we shall never know. Anyway, Dr van Lommel’s scientific paper set the wheels in motion. Technology currently exists to monitor a patient’s mental activity - whether conscious or unconscious - and to register the precise moment of brain death.
NDEs are so common and have such an enormous impact on survivors that such experiences are life-changing. The weirdest thing is that a person having one, and this has been happening in all cultures world-wide since ancient times, is that the patient seems to float up out of the body, usually to a good vantage point, and watches the whole proceedings with a variety of emotions. I have had one myself which perhaps shows my interest in the scientific studies now being set in motion. NDEs are somewhat nebulous and descriptions of bright lights, tunnels etc cannot be investigated. The current studies being undertaken concern the more definite Out-of-Body experiences (OBEs) which may be checked and verified as in the case of Dr Lommels paper.
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Sorry about my spelling maistakes, I am tired and a hopeless creature re using a keyboard
Bridget
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Well Kaz and Len
Here is a person who has expeienced the following.
1 Dying, meaning my heart stopped, my brain showed no function and I most certainly was not breathing, even more scary the Doctors asked my husband should he try tio save me or our first child. Now the Consultant was RC and knew us so he said the child must come first. However we are both here alive and well some 38 years later on 20th September this year.
I recall knowing what was happening to me but being unable to talk, I even have a vague memory of the Resus trolley coming into the room, I wasn't afarid but curious and then blank..I "woke" about 30 hrs later and my first question was did they save Luke. Now Luke had not even been considered for his name n=but I knew I had a son and that my husband had quickly thought of the name so he could be baptsied...I was in a different ward by then! so how is this explained.....
I am glad that I was one of the 10 to 20 percent!!!
Also remember i am a nurse by profession so understood what all the equipment in my room was as soson as I saw it, and what the drug chart was showing.
I am not afarid of dying, it just wasn't my time to go.
Secondly I have seen the same son as referrred to above in an emergency ward because he had a severe allergic reaction to a drug commomly given to children,.
He also died no heart beat, no recordable breathing, no response to stimuli, I was terrified, and again the dr in charge started to talk to me and my husband asking if he should stop all treatnment, we agreed. once again down came the drip, of came all the wires etc and we sat with him fo a few moments and then there was blip on the cardiac recorder and he presto we re were fighting for his life again.
Call it prayers being answered call it anything you like but he had died right in front of us..this did not happen in seconds...
Same son grew up to be very bright ansd was awardeed a scholarship to a Public school, has been TV producer, a clothes designer and is always looking to see what next...He is also healthy apart from having Asthma.
Thank god we have never had anyother incidents, I don't think I could manage another.!!!
We simply have to have open minds.
And yes I am apracticing Catholic as well.
Bridget
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Kaz: Small scale projects? Is this so tiny?
The Human Consciousness ProjectSM
Active Researchers and Scientific Advisory Group
UNITED KINGDOM
University of Southampton: Dr Sam Parnia1 (Chairman, Respiratory); Professor Stephen Holgate (Respiratory Medicine); Dr Peter Fenwick (Psychiatry); Professor Robert Peveler2 (Psychiatry); Ms Niki Fallowfield (Resuscitation); University of Cardiff: Professor Douglas Chamberlain2 (Cardiology & Resuscitation); Hammersmith Hospital: London, Mr Ken Spearpoint (Resuscitation); University of Cambridge: Ms Susan Jones (Resuscitation); University of Oxford: Ms Sue Hampshire (Resuscitation); Northampton Hospital: Ms Celia Warlow (Resuscitation); St Georges Hospital: London, Ms Leanne Smythe (Resuscitation); St Peters Hospital: Mr Paul Wills (Resuscitation); Mayday Hospital: London, Mr Russell Metcalfe Smith (Resuscitation); Royal Bournemouth Hospital: Ms Hayley Killingback (Resuscitation); Morriston Hospital: Dr Penny Sartori (Critical Care Nursing); Stevenage Hospital: Ms Salli Lovett (Critical Care); Salisbury Hospital: Mr Iain Maclean (Resuscitation); Swindon Hospital: Mr Jon Taylor (Resuscitation); University of Birmingham: Dr Peter Doyle (Emergency Medicine); Ms Tina Millward (Resuscitation); James Paget Hospital: Ms Pam Cushing (Resuscitation); East Sussex Hospitals: Dr Harry Walmsley (Anaesthetics & Resuscitation).
UNITED STATES
Weill Cornell Medical Center: Dr Sam Parnia1 (Pulmonary & Critical Care); Indiana State University: Dr Mark Feber (Pulmonary & Critical Care); University of Chicago: Dr Edward Gluck (Pulmonary & Critical Care); Drexel University: Dr Richard Hamilton (Emergency Medicine); Brooklyn Medical Center: Dr Juan Acosta (Emergency Medicine); University of Virginia: Professor Bruce Greyson (Psychiatry); Wayne State University: Detroit, Dr Christopher Green and Dr Richard Genik (Neuroimaging); University of Texas: Professor Jan Holden2 (Counseling); Albert Einstein Medical College: Dr Gabriele Devos (Research Methodology & Immunology); New York University: Dr Nonkulie Dladla (Research Methodology & Internal Medicine); University of Berkeley: Dr Henry Stapp2 (Quantum Physics).
HOLLAND
University Hospital Rijnstate: Dr Pim Vanlommel2 (Cardiology)
CANADA
University of Montreal: Dr Mario Beauregard2 (Neuroscience)
AUSTRIA
University of Vienna: Professor Roland Beisteiner (Neurology), Dr Fritz Sterz (Emergency Medicine), Dr Michael Berger (Neuroscience)
1 - Dr Parnia is currently at Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York and the University of Southampton, UK
2 - Collaborating on an advisory basis only.
3 - Investigators marked "resuscitation" are representatives of each hospital’s "Resuscitation Committee" who have agreed to participate in the study
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Well I think it is nigh time we realised we are part of the animal kingdom and we are mammals that are born, live, breed and die. I am presuming that the evidence you give is from people who have been resuscitated. Perhaps we have just got the precise moment of clinical death wrong.
Am sorry Len for being so sceptical but I cannot except this premise. I do believe our brain is full of potential but "small scale studies" smacks of anecdotal and the Human concsiousness Project well !! will need to read more but c'mon this is all so airy fairy for me. 10-20% is very low
Kaz
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The Human Consciousness Project is an international consortium of multidisciplinary scientists and physicians who have joined forces to research the nature of consciousness and its relationship with the brain, as well as the neuronal processes that mediate and correspond to different facets of consciousness.
The Human Consciousness Project will conduct the world’s first large-scale scientific study of what happens when we die and the relationship between mind and brain during clinical death. The diverse expertise of the team ranges from cardiac arrest, near-death experiences, and neuroscience to neuroimaging, critical care, emergency medicine, immunology, molecular biology, mental health, and psychiatry.
The mystery of what happens when we die and the nature of the human mind has fascinated humankind from antiquity to the present day. Although traditionally considered a matter for philosophical debate, advancements in modern science and in particular the science of resuscitation have now enabled an objective, scientific approach to seek answers to these compelling questions, which bear widespread implications not only for science, but also for all of humanity.
Since the 1950s and 60s, marked improvements in resuscitation techniques have led to higher survival rates for patients experiencing cardiac arrest. Although many studies have focused on prevention and acute medical treatment of cardiac arrest, relatively few have sought to examine cognitive functioning and the state of the human mind both during and subsequent to cardiac arrest. The in-depth study of such patients, however, could serve as the most intriguing facet of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and may lead to significant progress in improving medical care while effectively addressing the mind-brain problem.
Today, most scientists have adopted a traditionally monist view of the mind-brain problem, arguing that the human mind, consciousness, and self are no more than by-products of electrochemical activity within the brain, notwithstanding the lack of any scientific evidence or even a plausible biological explanation as to how the brain would lead to the development of mind and consciousness. This has led some prominent researchers, such as the late Nobel-winning neuroscientist Sir John Eccles, to propose a dualist view of the problem, arguing that the human mind and consciousness may in fact constitute a separate, undiscovered entity apart from the brain.
Contrary to popular perception, death is not a specific moment, but a well-defined process. From a biological viewpoint, cardiac arrest is synonymous with clinical death. During a cardiac arrest, all three criteria of clinical death are present: the heart stops beating, the lungs stop working, and the brain ceases functioning. Subsequently, there is a period of time—which may last from a few seconds up to an hour or longer—in which emergency medical efforts may succeed in resuscitating the heart and reversing the dying process. The experiences that individuals undergo during this period of cardiac arrest provide a unique window of understanding into what we are all likely to experience during the dying process.
In recent years, a number of scientific studies conducted by independent researchers have found that as many as 10-20 percent of individuals who undergo cardiac arrest report lucid, well-structured thought processes, reasoning, memories, and sometimes detailed recall of their cardiac arrest. What makes these experiences remarkable is that while studies of the brain during cardiac arrest have consistently that there is no brain activity during this period, these individuals have reported detailed perceptions that appear to indicate the presence of a high-level of consciousness in the absence of measurable brain activity. These studies appear to suggest that the human mind and consciousness may in fact function at a time when the clinical criteria of death are fully present and the brain has ceased functioning. If these smaller studies can be replicated and verified through the definitive, large-scale studies of the Human Consciousness Project, they may not only revolutionize the medical care of critically ill patients and the scientific study of the mind and brain, but may also bear profound universal implications for our social understanding of death and the dying process.
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