Scores of patients have come forward with astonishing claims of being aware of their surroundings and hearing conversations after being declared dead by medics. Their accounts of the moment they ‘died’ have been verified by medical staff, who have been left stunned by the phenomenon.
A groundbreaking new study has collected numerous examples of people recalling full conversations and events that took place around them after their time of death had been recorded.According to Dr Sam Parnia, death is typically defined as the moment the heart stops beating and blood flow to the brain ceases.
He explained: “Technically, that’s how you get the time of death – it’s all based on the moment when the heart stops.”At this point, brain function is thought to halt almost instantly, with the loss of all brain stem reflexes.However, research has suggested that the brain may release a brief burst of energy just before dying.
A 2013 University of Michigan study found that the brains of anaesthetised rats experiencing an induced heart attack displayed activity patterns associated with a “hyper-alerted state” shortly after clinical death.
Dr Parnia said: “In the same way that a group of researchers might be studying the qualitative nature of the human experience of ‘love’, for instance, we’re trying to understand the exact features that people experience when they go through death, because we understand that this is going to reflect the universal experience we’re all going to have when we die.”