The loss of a loved one is one of the worst events that can happen to us in life. This is why death is often demonized when it is only a natural phenomenon, marking the end of life. But what do people feel when they die? Do they feel what is going on around them or are they wrapped in total black? To answer these questions, here is what the largest scientific study on this subject reveals.
Death is often represented by a long and obscure tunnel to which there is no way out. Like all things unknown in life, we all want to unravel its mystery and discover what it hides behind it. To find out what an individual feels in the face of imminent death, researchers at the University of Southampton conducted a large-scale study of cases of cardiac arrest Hospitals in the United States, England and Australia. Here's what they found.
What happens in our bodies at the moment of death?
This study, the results of which were published in the journal Ressuscitation in 2014, analyzed over 4 years, more than 2,000 cases of people suffering from cardiac arrest. Of the 330 survivors, 140 were interviewed as part of the study and nearly 40% of them reported being conscious during their "clinical death" before being resuscitated (resuscitated).
Among them, a 57-year-old social worker from Southampton, even postponed being completely detached from his body to attend his resuscitation, from the corner of his room. His speech was credible, as he reported in detail the different actions and gestures of the medical staff and even described the sound emitted by the machines during the 3 minutes of "death" that lasted his cardiac arrest.
According to Dr. Sam Parnia, author of the study, a former researcher at the University of Southampton and currently a researcher at New York University, the brain can not function when the heart stops beating and goes out 20 to 30 seconds after stopping. But in this case, it turned out that consciousness lasted up to three minutes after cardiac arrest.
What made it possible to determine the duration of the patient's vigilance or consciousness is the fact that he was able to hear two beeps from a machine which emits a sound signal at a regular interval of 3 minutes. Moreover, everything that man could describe represented exactly what happened to him during the intervention of the nursing staff.
A little more light ...
Remembering events with such precision is not given to everyone, but there are nevertheless some elements that cling to the memory of patients. Thus, 1 in 5 people reveals a deep sense of peace and serenity, while one in three feels that time has become too slow or, on the contrary, faster. Some people describe bright light, a golden flash or a sunrise, while others are overwhelmed by a sense of fear, a sense of drowning, or being dragged into deep waters.
13% of the individuals questioned felt detached from their bodies and a similar percentage said they had the impression to rise in the air.
Dr. Parnia believes that many more people have similar experiences when they come close to death, but brain damage and the drugs and sedatives used during resuscitation prevent them from remembering them, or cause them to consider them Hallucinations or illusions despite their similarity to reality.
According to Dr. David Wilde, researcher psychologist at the University of Nottingham Trent, the interest of this study stems from the fact that, unlike other retrospective studies that take into account data that is 10 or 20 years old, Conducted on a large sample of cases and provided evidence from experiences where people were actually considered "clinically deceased". He adds that this study has helped to open doors to new studies on the same topic and is itself compiling data on "out-of-body" experiences to try to find out how And why they take place.