Recalling their near-death experience
Psych 🧠- 258/300
Hello reader,
This is a very peculiar and intriuging research piece I came across in a while.
Let’s just dive into it!
What is it?
In a study led by NYU Grossman School of Medicine in collaboration with 25 hospitals, some people who survived cardiac arrest reported having clear experiences while they appeared to be unconscious.
Of the 567 patients who received CPR in the hospital, fewer than 10% were able to leave the hospital after receiving treatment.
However, 4 in 10 of those who survived mentioned having some level of consciousness during CPR, which wasn't detected by standard measurements.
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In some of these patients who had brain monitoring, nearly 40% showed brain activity returning to normal from a flatline state, even after an hour of CPR. This was observed through EEG, a technology that records brain activity.
Survivors often described heightened awareness, lucid experiences, and feeling separate from their bodies, free from pain and distress.
These experiences seem to be distinct from hallucinations, dreams, or the effects of CPR-induced consciousness.
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What do I need to know?
Researchers believe that the dying brain, in a "flatlined" state, may remove natural inhibitions, allowing access to different realities.
They suggest that this might enable the vivid recall of stored memories and provide moral evaluations.
While the evolutionary purpose of this phenomenon is unknown, it offers a unique insight into human consciousness at the moment of death and could lead to new ways to restart the heart or prevent brain injuries.
The study, called AWARE-II, involved 567 people who experienced cardiac arrest in hospitals from 2017 to 2020.
It aims to further investigate these experiences and their meaning, defining markers of clinical consciousness and examining the long-term psychological effects of resuscitation after cardiac arrest.
Sources:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/09/230914175140.htm