1 in 5 people recall 'lucid dying' after being revived by CPR - New York Post

A clearer representation of beingness aft decease — albeit short-lived — is coming into focus

A caller survey has shown that 20% of radical connected the brink of decease person experienced “lucid dying.” The improvement is said to hap successful the moments betwixt undergoing cardiac arrest, erstwhile they are unconscious oregon dying, and receiving lifesaving cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

One successful 5 survivors reported feeling separated from their assemblage and observing events without symptom oregon distress — which researchers person differentiated from hallucinations, delusions, dreams oregon surviving consciousness.

“These lucid experiences cannot beryllium considered a instrumentality of a disordered oregon dying brain, but alternatively a unsocial quality acquisition that emerges connected the brink of death,” said lead researcher Dr. Sam Parnia. His squad astatine the NYU Grossman School of Medicine successful New York City presented their findings Sunday astatine a symposium arsenic portion of the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions successful Chicago.

Parnia said the results bespeak grounds that immoderate radical person a “unique interior conscious experience, including consciousness without distress,” aft carnal death. These bonzer experiences, arsenic good arsenic heightened encephalon enactment astatine clip of death, suggests that consciousness whitethorn transportation connected successful immoderate capableness aft death.

The survey suggests consciousness whitethorn not halt wholly astir the clip of death.Getty Images

Researchers analyzed information from 567 infirmary patients who had gone into cardiac apprehension and received CPR betwixt May 2017 and March 2020, successful some US and UK hospitals. They moreover included self-reported testimonies from 126 non-hospital survivors of cardiac arrest.

Patients were besides tested for hidden encephalon enactment during this time, revealing spikes up to an hr into CPR, including gamma, delta, theta, alpha and beta waves — the aforesaid that whitethorn hap successful the surviving portion performing high-level thought processes.

Upon death, the encephalon is known to occurrence disconnected a bid of “disinhibition” signals, that unfastened caller pathways to representation and imagination. Scientists don’t recognize the evolutionary intent of this process, but it does rise “intriguing questions astir quality consciousness, adjacent astatine death,” said Parnia.

Scientists person lone begun to reckon with the conception of consciousness arsenic much than conscionable a broadside effect of having a functional brain. In a statement, Parnia urged for further survey into the circumstantial biomarkers of “clinical” consciousness.