People who have experienced a state of coma or clinical death often talk about the "visions" who have visited them. Most often, they meet angels and other supernatural beings, see a bright light at the end of the tunnel, and sometimes observe their own body from the side. Is it possible to prove that these are not just hallucinations?
More recently, official science tried to explain such experiences exclusively by psychophysiological processes. At a conference of the International Association for the Study of Clinical Deaths (IANDs) held in Newport Beach, California, researcher Robert Mays listed some of them. The most common are hypoxia, or oxygen starvation, and paradoxical sleep (REM). However, these states do not record sensations identical to those reported by those who have experienced clinical death.
"The bright light at the end of the tunnel, which is described by many people on the brink of death, may be the result of an influx of serotonin into the brain," write the authors of a study conducted at the Charite University Hospital in Berlin. A team of specialists led by Professor Alexander Wutzler observed the processes taking place in the brains of rats after receiving a lethal dose of anesthetic. Experts have recorded a threefold increase in serotonin levels. According to Wutzler, the same is probably happening in the brain of a dying person, which leads to dying hallucinations.
Meanwhile, another scientist, Jacob Howie of Monash University in Melbourne, doubts the unambiguousness of this conclusion. “One thing cannot be said - whether rats have near-death experiences,” he commented on the conclusion of his German colleagues.
Staff at the University of Southampton have taken "testimonies" from cardiac arrest survivors for four years. In total, more than two thousand patients from 15 hospitals in Austria, Great Britain and the United States took part in the study. Forty percent of them reported "consciousness travels" during resuscitation. At the same time, one in five experienced a feeling of peace, almost a third noted the acceleration or deceleration of time, 13 percent said that their consciousness was separated from the body …
Retired US Army Lt. Col. Diane Corcoran found that at least about 15 percent of military personnel had near-death experience. But at the same time, almost no one dared to speak about it publicly, fearing that he would be perceived as a mentally inadequate person … So, most of Corcoran's interlocutors flatly refused to repeat their stories on camera.
One of the proofs of the withdrawal of consciousness from the body can be the stories of patients. For example, in 1991, 35-year-old Pamela Reynolds underwent brain surgery. During the operation, she could observe her body from the sidelines and heard the doctors' conversation, the content of which she could then repeat. Meanwhile, her brain was practically dead at that time.
The fifty-seven-year-old social worker from Britain was also able to describe in detail everything that happened in the operating room when his brain was turned off. “The activity of consciousness lasted all three minutes, when the heart was no longer beating - although the brain usually shuts down 20-30 seconds after the arrest of this organ, - says researcher Sam Parnia. “The patient heard two beeps from the device, which gave them at intervals of three minutes, thanks to which we determined the duration of the near-death experience.”
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But the most amazing story happened to Maria, a migrant from Latin America, who left her ward in a state of clinical death. One of the objects she saw outside the room was a tennis shoe, forgotten on the staircase. Waking up, Maria told the doctors about this. One of the nurses went to the place indicated by her and actually found a tennis shoe there.
What conclusions can be drawn from these examples? First, our consciousness can exist outside the physical body. Secondly, if this is really so, then it is unlikely that it dies with the body. Consequently, all stories about encounters with the afterlife and the "afterlife" may turn out to be true.
Margarita Troitsyna