In 1926, Sir William Barrett, a member of the Royal Geographical Society, published a published work on the visions of the dying. According to the information collected in it, the general public learned that before death, people observe other worlds, hear music and often see deceased relatives.
But only in the early 70s of the twentieth century, American professor of philosophy and psychology, Doctor of Medicine Raymond Moody, became one of the first medical professionals to study a little-known phenomenon, which he called "near-death experience." According to the research results, the scientist published the book "Life After Life" in 1975. Immediately after its publication, it became a bestseller. Suffice it to say that by the end of 1999 more than three million copies of this edition were sold. The facts set out in it radically change all previous ideas about the death of a person.
The book analyzes the feelings of 150 unfortunate people who were in a state of clinical death, but then returned to life. Let us remind the reader that clinical death is a reversible stage of dying, which occurs within a few minutes after the cessation of blood circulation and respiration. The duration of a person's stay in this state at normal body temperature usually does not exceed 8 minutes; under cooling conditions, it can somewhat lengthen. When carrying out resuscitation (Latin re - again + animatio - revitalization), a person can be brought out of the state of clinical death and brought back to life.
Raymond Moody found that in a near-death state, a person feels pacification, feels out of the body, flying inside the "tunnel", approaching a light source and much more. The published work of the American gave impetus to further followers in this direction.
Of course, scientists tried to give a scientific explanation for the phenomenon. As it turned out, not only dying people experience this range of experiences. Similar visions are characteristic, for example, of drug addicts after taking LSD, people engaged in meditation, patients with epilepsy. They were not in the arms of death, but saw the tunnel and at the end of its light.
The well-known American researcher, chairman of the International Association for Transpersonal Psychology, Stanislav Grof, MD, and Jonna Halifax put forward a hypothesis: the flight of a dying person through a tunnel is nothing more than a "memory" of the first moments of birth. In other words, it is the movement of an infant through the birth canal at birth. The bright light at the end is the light of the world into which the little man falls.
Another suggestion was made by neuroscientist Jack Cowan. According to the researcher, visions of a tunnel in dying people cause areas of the cerebral cortex that are responsible for processing visual information. The effect of a dizzying flight through a pipe occurs when brain cells die from oxygen deficiency. At this time, excitation waves appear in the so-called visual cortex of the brain. They are concentric circles and are perceived by humans as flying through a tunnel.
In the late 90s, researchers from the University of Bristol were able to simulate the process of dying of visual brain cells on a computer. It was found that at this moment a picture of a moving tunnel appears in the mind of a person every time. Thus, Susan Blackmore and Tom Prosyanko confirmed the correctness of D. Cowan's hypothesis.
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There are also theories that "posthumous" visions are caused by fear of impending death or the action of drugs administered to the patient.
And yet, despite the persistent attempts of scientists to understand the phenomenon, a number of phenomena have no answer. Indeed, how, for example, can one explain the fact that a person, being in an unconscious state, is able to see what is happening around him? According to the testimony of a number of resuscitation doctors, often patients who returned from "the other world" told in detail what actions the doctors performed with their lifeless bodies and even what took place at that time in the neighboring wards. How are these incredible visions explained? Science could not give an answer to this question.
Posthumous consciousness is not fiction
And finally a sensation. In early 2001, a study was published by Peter Fenwick of the London Institute of Psychiatry and Sam Parina of Southampton Central Hospital. Scientists have obtained irrefutable evidence that human consciousness does not depend on the activity of the brain and continues to live when all processes in the brain have already stopped.
As part of the scientific work, the experimenters studied the medical history and personally interviewed 63 cardiac patients who survived clinical death.
It turned out that 56 of those who returned from the other world do not remember anything. They lost consciousness and came to their senses in a hospital bed. However, seven have vivid memories of what they experienced during the period of clinical death. Four argue that they were possessed by a feeling of peace and joy, time ran faster, the feeling of their body disappeared, the mood became elevated, even elevated. Then a bright light arose, indicating the transition to another world. A little later, mythical creatures appeared, similar to angels or saints. All respondents were for some time in another world, and then returned to reality.
It should be noted that these patients were not at all pious. For example, three admitted that they do not attend church at all. Thus, it is impossible to explain such stories by religious fanaticism.
But what was sensational in the research of British scientists was something quite different. Having scrupulously studied the medical documentation of the resurrected, the doctors delivered a verdict - the traditional idea of stopping the work of the brain due to oxygen deficiency is wrong. None of those who had been in a state of clinical death had a significant decrease in the content of life-giving gas in the tissues of the central nervous system.
Another hypothesis was rejected - that visions could be caused by an irrational combination of medications used in resuscitation. Everything was done strictly according to the standard.
Sam Parina claims to have embarked on the research as a skeptic, but is now convinced one hundred percent: "there is something." "Our patients experienced their amazing states at a time when the brain could no longer function, and therefore was unable to reproduce any memories." According to the researcher, human consciousness is not a function of the brain. And if this is so, says Peter Fenwick, "consciousness may well continue to exist after the physical death of the body."
“When we examine the brain,” writes Sam Parina, “we clearly see that the cells of the gray matter in their structure, in principle, do not differ from other cells of the body. They also produce protein and other chemicals, but they cannot create the subjective thoughts and images that we define as human consciousness. After all, we only need our brain as a receiver-transformer. It works as a kind of “live TV”: first it perceives the waves that enter it, and then transforms them into an image and sound, from which complete pictures are formed."
Later, in December 2001, three Dutch scientists from Rijenstate Hospital, led by Pim Van Lommel, conducted the largest study of clinical deaths to date. The results were published in the article “Near-fatal experiences of survivors after cardiac arrest: a targeted study of a specially formed group in the Netherlands” in the British medical journal Lancet. The Dutch scientists came to conclusions similar to those of their English colleagues from Southampton.
Based on statistical data obtained over a ten-year period, scientists have established that not every person who has experienced clinical death visits visions. Only 62 people (18%) out of 344 who underwent 509 resuscitation, retained clear memories of what they experienced in the period between temporary death and "resurrection".
During the period of clinical death, more than half of the surveyed experienced positive emotions. Awareness of the fact of their own death was noted in 50% of cases. In 32% of the so-called "near-death experiences" there were meetings with dead people. A third of the dying told about the flight through the tunnel. Almost the same number of respondents saw pictures of the alien landscape. The phenomenon of out-of-body experience (when a person sees himself from the outside) was experienced by 24% of those returned to life. A dazzling flash of light was recorded by the same number of respondents. In 13% of cases, people observed a series of pictures of the past life rushing along. Less than 10% of people said that they saw the border between the world of the living and the dead. None of those who visited the next world reported frightening or unpleasant sensations. It is especially impressive that people who were blind from birth told about visual impressions,they literally repeated the narratives of the sighted literally.
It is interesting to note that earlier the American researcher Dr. Ring made an attempt to find out the content of the dying visions of the blind. Together with his colleague Sharon Cooper, he recorded the testimonies of 18 people who were blind from birth, who, for whatever reason, ended up in conditions close to death.
According to the testimony of the respondents, the dying visions became for them the only opportunity to understand what it means to see. One of those who were in a state of clinical death, Vicki Yumipeg, experienced an "out of body" in the hospital. Vicki from somewhere above looked at herself, lying on the operating table, and at the team of doctors performing intensive care. This is how she first saw and understood what light is.
Blind from birth Martin Marsh, who experienced similar near-death visions, remembered most of all the variety of colors in the world around him. Martin is convinced that his near-death experience helped him understand how sighted people see the world.
But back to the study of Dutch scientists. They set themselves the goal - to accurately determine when a person is visited by visions, during clinical death or during the period of brain work. Van Lammel and his colleagues claim that they managed to do this. The conclusion of scientists is this: visions are observed precisely at the moment of "shutdown" of the central nervous system. Thus, it was shown that consciousness exists independently of the functioning of the brain.
Perhaps the most striking thing Van Lammel considers was the case that one of his colleagues recorded. The patient, who was in a coma, was taken to the intensive care unit of the clinic. The revitalization activities were unsuccessful. The brain died, the encephalogram was a straight line. We decided to use intubation (insertion of a tube into the larynx and trachea for artificial ventilation and restoration of airway patency). The victim had a denture in his mouth. The doctor took it out and put it on the table. An hour and a half later, the patient's heart began to beat and his blood pressure returned to normal. And a week later, when the same employee was delivering medicines to patients, a man who returned from the other world told her: “You know where my prosthesis is! You took my teeth out and stuck them in a drawer of a table on wheels! Upon careful questioning, it turned outthat the victim watched himself from above, lying on the bed. He described in detail the ward and the actions of the doctors at the time of his death. The man was very afraid that the doctors would stop reviving, and with all his might he wanted to make it clear to them that he was alive …
Dutch researchers confirm their belief that consciousness can exist separately from the brain by the purity of experiments. In order to exclude the possibility of the appearance of so-called false memories (situations when a person, having heard stories of posthumous visions from others, suddenly "recalls" something that he himself has never experienced), religious fanaticism and other similar cases, the researchers scrupulously studied all the factors that can affect to the reports of the victims.
All examined were mentally healthy. These were men and women from 26 to 92 years old, having different levels of education, believing and not believing in God. Some have heard of the "near-death experience" before, others have not.
The general conclusions of the Dutch are as follows: posthumous visions in people occur during the period of suspension of the brain; they cannot be explained by the lack of oxygen in the cells of the central nervous system; the depth of the "near-death experience" is greatly influenced by the sex and age of a person. Women tend to feel more intense than men; the majority of patients who have had the deepest experience of "death" die within a month after resuscitation; posthumous visions of the blind from birth do not differ from the impressions of the sighted.
All of the above gives reason to say that at present scientists have come close to the scientific substantiation of the immortality of the soul.
It remains for us to do just a little to realize that death is just a transfer station on the border of two worlds, and to overcome the fear of its inevitability.
Heaven and Hell
The question arises: where does the soul go after the death of a person?
If you died after living an unrighteous life, then you will not go to hell, but you will forever be on Earth in the worst period of humanity. If your life was flawless, then in this case you will find yourself on Earth, but in a century where there is no place for violence and cruelty.
This is the opinion of the French psychotherapist Michel Lerrier, the author of the book "Eternity in a Past Life". He was convinced of this by numerous interviews and hypnotic sessions with people who have experienced a state of clinical death. The researcher concludes that the deceased go mainly into the past centuries.
“During my hypnosis sessions, all of my 208 objects of observation (with the exception of three), describing the departure from this life, pointed to the past periods in history. They recalled how they walked along a long tunnel to where there is light and peace. They were greeted by familiar people, and then they again found themselves on Earth, though in previous centuries."
At first, Lerrier assumed that he was receiving information about the previous incarnation (the next birth of the soul on the physical plane) of the subjects. However, as the facts accumulated, the scientist came to the conclusion: the objects of his research are those who died and found themselves in pleasant circumstances for themselves, and those who found themselves in a terrible historical period.
“For example, one prisoner I interviewed turned out to be a tired and hungry slave in Roman galleys. Under hypnosis, he described the terrible beatings and recalled the pangs of thirst and cold. A loving mother, who devoted herself to the poor, was destined for a life worthy only of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. She was given wealth, power and hundreds of servants to fulfill her every desire. Coming out of a hypnotic dream, she said that she had always dreamed of living in the time of the pharaohs.
According to Lerrier, it all boils down to the fact that you need to live on our sinful planet with dignity, respecting yourself and others.
And yet there are people who go to hell. These are suicides. Those who have passed away by their own will are very severely punished in the afterlife. Dr. Bruce Grayson, a psychiatrist at the Emergency Department of the University of Connecticut, who has studied this issue deeply and comprehensively, testifies: “None of the suicide survivors of temporary death will want to hasten the end of their life in the future. Acquaintance with the other world gives an understanding that earthly life has a very important preparatory meaning. Only God decides when a person is mature enough for eternity."
From the book: "Evidence for the existence of life after death"