The world's largest study of the mystical phenomena accompanying clinical death began in the United States and England
The dead man saw everything
About a quarter of the reanimated deceased claim: they saw themselves from the side when they were unconscious. It was as if something came out of the body and looked at it from the ceiling. And doctors confirm that people who talked about such amazing experiences temporarily did not show any signs of life.
The fact that the phenomenon really exists, at least at the level of sensations, scientists have little doubt - there are too many similar stories. And all of them can hardly be attributed to fantasy.
As early as the beginning of this century, Dutch researchers led by Dr. Pim van Lommel interviewed 344 people in ten hospitals who survived cardiac arrest. Many reported leaving the body. And in confirmation they described the actions of the doctors. When they woke up, they showed the drawers and pockets in which they hid objects confiscated during the resuscitation period: false jaws, body crosses, documents, watches.
All those who left the body returned in the same way: a funnel appeared, which seemed to suck the separated substance back into the lifeless corpse.
Proof of the existence of the soul
Available in abundance, frankly speaking, supernatural evidence does not give rest to scientists. The purpose of the research now begun is to test them. And in fact, to finally answer the question: does the soul exist?
In the case of a positive decision, another question - about the presence of an afterlife - will be resolved by itself.
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“A brain deprived of oxygen,” says Dr. Sam PARNIA, head of the work ahead, “cannot remember anything. And if this really happens, then the consciousness, or soul, is able to exist outside the brain.
Van LOMMEL and his colleague Christopher FRENCH from the London Center for the Study of Abnormal Psychic Phenomena also cautiously hint: they say, it may happen that consciousness is not only a product of higher nervous activity, but also something else.
Hide and seek with comatose people
Sam Parnia from Cornell Medical Center has already made independent attempts to figure it out, relying mainly on the stories of doctors and resurrected people. I listened to a lot, even wrote the book "What Happens When We Die". But I didn’t figure it out enough for everyone to believe.
The current research will be put on a rigorous scientific basis. 25 hospitals in England, USA and Canada will take part in them. With the assistance of resuscitators, scientists from several universities are examining 1,500 patients who survived clinical death. And they will record whether any of them really left the body. For this, shelves will be installed in the wards - under the very ceiling. And they will put special test pictures on them so that they are not visible from the beds. The resurrected will be asked what they saw. If people soar, as it should, to the ceiling, then they will answer.
For me personally, in order to believe in the existence of both the soul and the other world, one correct answer will be enough. Scientists will probably need more. However, they have three years - that is how long the research will take - to collect information.
Just one gyrus
The out-of-body phenomenon is the last stronghold of mysticism. All other phenomena accompanying the journey to the next world and back are explained to one degree or another. It seems that there are physiological reasons associated with the quirks of the brain at the moments of switching on and off: the tunnel through which the dying rush, and the bright light, and life spun in a split second, and meetings with ancestors.
There is only one hypothesis about the ability to look at yourself from the outside. But it doesn't look very convincing.
Dr. Olaf BLANQUE, from the University Hospital in Geneva, in an article published in the most respected scientific journal Nature, described an experiment with a 43-year-old patient suffering from epilepsy. To investigate her ailment, the scientist implanted electrodes into the woman's brain that stimulate the right temporal lobe. And he accidentally excited the angular gyrus located there - a structure that is associated with the organs of sight, touch and balance. As a result, a completely alive patient left the body - she saw herself from the side.
Blanquet suggested that perhaps the dying brain, but still retaining neural connections with the body, also somehow excites this gyrus. And with her participation it sends information about the position of the body in space to the visual cortex. She perceives it in her own way, mixes it with the pictures obtained before the consciousness has already turned off, and projects it onto the retina. And to a person deprived of all normal sensory signals and habitual sensations, it seems as if he sees himself from the outside.
“We do not yet fully understand the processes in the brain that shape the near-death experience,” admits Dr. Blanke. “But we have no doubt that it is connected not with the soul, but with the brain.
last try
Several years ago, experiments similar to the newly started ones were carried out by doctors from English Wales. Clinical death of 39 patients was observed. At the same time, they placed leaves with large symbols painted on them near the temporarily deceased. And none of those who left their body "saw" the symbols.
Sam Parnia is familiar with a negative result. But he expects that larger studies will nevertheless give a convincing answer. And he is not afraid of another failure.
“If no one sees these pictures, it means that near-death sensations are just illusions or errors of memory,” the scientist says calmly.
QUOTE IN THE TOPIC
“… We know perfectly well that a violation of the organ of vision, the organ of hearing, their paths to the brain, their main brain link necessarily leads to impairment of vision and hearing, respectively. How does the soul see and hear when leaving the body?"
(Natalia BEKHTEREVA - from the book "The Magic of the Brain and the Labyrinths of Life".)
BTW
Don't fly far
For some reason, the brightest dying visions arise in women. In second place are men under 60.
The blind, surprisingly, "see" the same as the sighted. And those who looked into the next world farther than others, as a rule, die for good within 30 days after the previous resurrection.
AT THIS TIME
Belief in an afterlife is increasing
A survey conducted by Russian sociologists (Bashkirova and Partners) in 2008 showed that about 34 percent of the people surveyed, regardless of their level of education, believe in life after death. Three years ago, a VTsIOM poll revealed only 11 percent of those who admit the existence of the other world.
Among Americans, 55 percent believe in an afterlife. Moreover, they believe that there are guardian angels. And it is they, and not resuscitators, who are assigned the main role in returning to earthly life. These results were obtained by the Institute for the Study of Religion at Baylor University (Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion).
67 percent of Americans surveyed believe in heaven, and another 17 admit it with some probability. 73 percent believe in the existence of hell.