Discovery: Consciousness Persists After Heart and Brain Flatline
Study Finds Brain Signals Corroborate Near-Death Experiences During Cardiac Arrest
During attempts to revive the “technically dead” patients who had no heartbeat or brain activity, some of them remained conscious. One recalled the shock from the electrodes, while another described doctors’ actions.
Dr. Sam Parnia and his team held a new study on near-death experiences. The study was conducted in 25 hospitals across the US, UK, and Bulgaria, attached devices to measure oxygen and brain activity to dying patients’ heads while performing CPR for up to an hour.
“We’ve never seen this done before, but our independent research teams successfully conducted these procedures without disrupting patient care,” said Dr. Parnia, the senior author of the study published Thursday in the journal Resuscitation. Interestingly, even during resuscitation, it lasted up to an hour. We observed spikes in gamma, delta, theta, alpha, and beta waves—equivalent to typical brain electrical activity during talking or deep concentration, according to Parnia.
He suggests these are indicators of “lucid, recalled experiences of death,” often including experiences like separation from the body, recognition of death, continued consciousness, life review, and a sensation of “going home,” followed by a return to the body, as reported by Scientific American. However, critics remain skeptical.
Of 567 patients, only 53 survived and were discharged from the hospital, with just 28 available for interviews, as reported by the Post. Of those interviewed, 11 reported awareness during CPR, while six mentioned near-death experiences. Interestingly, none of these six showed brain activity during resuscitation, which critics view as a failure to connect brain activity with consciousness.
Dr. Parnia argues that the absence of recorded brain activity doesn’t necessarily mean an absence of consciousness. Among survivors with readable brain scans, 40 percent exhibited a transition from a flatline to normal brain wave patterns, suggesting genuine consciousness. In a separate survey of 126 cardiac arrest survivors, 40 percent were aware of the event, and 20 percent had a recalled experience of death.
