NYU Grossman School of Medicine shared a new report where revived patients shared their startling “after-death experiences.”
These 53 patients had experienced cardiac arrests and had been revived after cardiopulmonary resuscitation at 25 hospitals located in the US and UK. Out of these 53, 40% reported having memories or conscious thoughts.
“I remember seeing my dad,” said a patient who had flatlined earlier.
“I do remember a being of light … standing near me. It was looming over me like a great tower of strength, yet radiating only warmth and love,” shared another survivor.
While earlier, doctors assumed that there was little to no brain activity after about 10 minutes of cardiac arrest, this new research gives a new angle to this theory.
Dr. Sam Parnia, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health, told the Post, “There are signs of normal and near normal brain activity found up to an hour into resuscitation.”
“We were not only able to show the markers of lucid consciousness — we were also able to show that these experiences are unique and universal. They’re different from dreams, illusions and delusions.”
While patients asked for their identities to not be revealed, these were some of the experiences they shared.
‘I was shown the consequences of my life, thousands of people that I’d interacted with and felt what they felt about me, saw their life and how I had impacted them. Next I saw the consequences of my life and the influence of my actions,’ recollected one patient.
‘I was asked if I wanted to come home … or wanted to come back here. I told them that my two sons needed me and I had to go back. I was suddenly in my body again feeling my achy joints flaring in pain,’ shared another anonymous patient.
According to Dr. Sam, “Normally there are braking systems that prevent us from accessing all the parts of our brain, but as the brain shuts down in order to preserve itself the brakes are off.”
That is when people “get activation of other parts of the brain that have been dormant. You get access to your entire consciousness and things that you normally can’t access, all of your emotions, feelings, thoughts and memories.”
“These are not hallucinations. These are very real experiences that occur in death,” he added.
