Physicians, thinkers, and filmmakers tried to lift the veil over the mystery of being, especially at its most dramatic moment, when forces and life leave a person.
But the mystery is still a mystery. Some physiologists, based on experiments in morgues on the dead, argue that former people to one degree or another show "signs of life" even a few days after the officially registered death. This is indicated by sensors that take readings from the fingertips of the deceased. For this, special computer technologies are used.
Most of those who crossed this frightening line between life and death testify to the "meeting" them white light and a kaleidoscope of memories scrolling in the brain.
Now scientists, armed with the latest research tools, are preparing to conduct a series of experiments in hospitals in Europe and North America on patients whose lives hang in the balance, in order to try to determine what really happens to the brain of the dying person. According to the LiveScience website, the program was named AWARE after the initial letters of the English phrase "consciousness during the return to life."
Contrary to conventional wisdom, says team leader Sam Parnia of the University of Southampton in the UK, death is not "a specific moment, but a process that begins with the arrest of the heart, lungs and brain."
This condition is known as "cardiac arrest", which from the point of view of biology is consonant with the concept of "clinical death".
During cardiac arrest, all three of the above criteria are present. A patient is considered dead when he stops breathing, his heart stops beating and brain activity stops.
The stop is followed by a period of medical intervention, which can last from a few seconds to one hour or more. During this time, resuscitators may be able to re-"start" the work of the heart and thereby reverse the process of dying.
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It is during this period that researchers are given a unique opportunity to understand what the dying person is experiencing.
Previous studies have shown that approximately 10-20% of patients who went through the process of cardiac arrest reported a clear, well-organized flow of thoughts, the ability to reason and remember, including what happened to them at the time of meeting death …
In the course of one of these studies, scientists found that those of the dying who later testified to the advent of a feeling of peace, bright light, some kind of disembodied sensations in their daily life, most likely, found it difficult to separate sleep from wakefulness.
In particular, in the period before and after clinical death, they showed symptoms of the state of "rapid eye rotation" characteristic of sleep, but fixed during wakefulness.
In the course of the AWARE program, doctors intend to find out what happens in the dying person's brain when his body stops functioning, whether the dying can see and hear anything at all at the time of clinical death, and what happens when the dying person begins to experience disembodied sensations.
The start of the program was announced at an international scientific symposium held at the UN headquarters on September 11 this year.
