Stories after clinical death. Eyewitness accounts of life after life

CONSEQUENCES OF CLINICAL DEATH. WHAT ARE THEY? January 13th, 2015

Consequences of clinical death. What it is... We are aware of numerous cases of postponed clinical death by people from all over the world. From the stories of these people it becomes known that they happened to experience extraordinary states of "leaving" and subsequent "return". Some of the survivors of clinical death are not able to remember anything on their own at all, and it is possible to revive their memories only by immersion in a trance. In any case, death leaves an indelible imprint on the consciousness of every individual.
From the memoirs of people who survived clinical death, it is possible to draw very interesting information. Most often, people behave closed, having experienced such a difficult test in their lives. At the same time, someone falls into a prolonged depression, and someone even behaves aggressively when they try to ask him about the details of what he experienced. In a certain sense, each person experiences obvious discomfort, plunging into memories of what happened.

The girl I met suffered clinical death twice. What could immediately be ascertained from her mental state was a clear loss of cheerfulness, rigidity and coldness in communication with others could be traced. We were just separated by a certain black void, but this did not reflect her character. She simply represented, after the transferred, only some kind of bodily shell, tangible by sight.

The most striking thing lies in the fact that similar sensations from communicating with those who have undergone clinical death have a difficult and very strange, incomprehensible nature. The respondents themselves, who “have been to the other world,” are reluctant to talk about the fact that the experience they had had forever changed their attitude to the perception of life. And the change is likely to be for the worse.

One girl said that she remembers everything that happened and in almost all the smallest details, but what really happened, she still cannot fully comprehend. Only she admits that, something "broke" inside. Being in post-traumatic depression for eight years, she has to hide this condition from others. Left alone, she is overcome by such a depressing state that even thoughts of suicide visit.

The memory of the state in which she had to visit pulls to such an extent that she is overcome by regret that she was brought back to life. But, the realization comes that life goes on and tomorrow you go back to work, having slapped yourself in the face and driving away extraneous thoughts, you have to live with it ...

Trying to find compassion among her friends, she tried to share her impressions and experiences, but nothing happened, the people around did not understand or did not even try to understand ...

She tried to write about her experiences, but the verses she read shocked her parents, because they found only suicidal impulses in these creative impulses. The search in life for something pleasant and capable of keeping in this world turned out to be so small that she is overcome with regret for the mistake that the doctors made, bringing her back to life, contrary, perhaps, to her will and desire.

People who have undergone clinical death are truly transformed, and, after suffering, they relate to everything around them in a completely different way. People close to them become distant and alien. At home, you have to adapt again to the hitherto native and familiar environment. In the frank confessions of a girl who suffered a clinical death, the "matrix" was mentioned. In her view, the impression remained that “there” is not this, the former familiar reality. Only you and no sensations and thoughts, and you can easily choose and give preference to arbitrary reality.

It's as good as home, but here it turns out something, not at all that you want to return back, they just “hailed” here and how they forcibly returned it. A fivefold return, by the grace of the doctors and their efforts, when the first death was an artifact sufficient to overcome the “point of no return”. However, returning to a different world than the one that she left, that's what the reality of the former world turned into, which had to be mastered anew, as if reborn.

Someone returning to a completely different reality does not break to such an extent that there are forces left to fight to adapt to an alien world. As psychiatrist Vinogradov noted, many who have returned from oblivion begin to look at their essence in this world from the position of an outside observer, and continue to live like robots or zombies. They try to copy their behavior from others, because it is customary, but they do not experience those feelings either from laughter or from crying, both from those around them, and from their own, squeezed out through force or simulated emotions. Compassion completely leaves them.

Such critical transformations do not necessarily occur with those who have returned from clinical death, as R. Moody said in his own publication “Life after Life”. People re-evaluate their views on the world around them, strive to comprehend deeper truths and focus more on the spiritual perception of the world.

One thing can be said for sure that clinical death, as a transition to another reality, divides life into periods: “before” and “after”. It is very difficult, if possible, to assess this unambiguously, as a positive or negative impact that a person is exposed to after returning and what effect such an event has on the psyche. It requires comprehension and detailed study of what is happening to a person and what, as yet unexplored opportunities open up to him in comprehension. And yet, they say more about the fact that a person who has undergone brief near-death adventures returns in spiritual renewal and insight, with such consequences of clinical death that are not clear to others. This state for everyone who has not experienced this is a paranormal phenomenon and pure fantasy without any fiction.

Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences N.P. Bekhtereva notes about autoscopic perceptions that also arise in stressful situations: ” the soul that separated from the body. But the body does not react, it is clinically dead, it has lost contact with the person himself for some time! .. "

1975, April 12, morning - Martha became ill with her heart. When the ambulance took her to the hospital, Marta was no longer breathing, and the doctor accompanying her could not feel her pulse. She was in a state of clinical death. Later, Martha said that she witnessed the entire procedure of her resurrection, watching the actions of doctors from a certain point outside her body. However, Martha's story had another peculiarity. She was very worried about how her sick mother would take the news of her death. And just as Martha had time to think about her mother, she immediately saw her sitting in an armchair next to the bed in her house.

“I was in the intensive care unit, and at the same time I was with my mother in the bedroom. It was amazing to be in two places at the same time, and even in such a remote place from one another, but space seemed to be a meaningless concept ... I, being in my new body, sat on the edge of her bed and said: “ Mom, I had a heart attack, I could die, but I don't want you to worry. I don't mind dying."

However, she did not look at me. Apparently she didn't hear me. “Mom,” I kept whispering, “it's me, Martha. I need to talk to you." I tried to get her attention, but then the focus of my mind returned to the intensive care unit. And I was back in my body."

Later, when she came to herself, Martha saw her husband, daughter and brother, who had flown in from another city, by her bed. As it turned out, his mother called his brother. She had a strange feeling that something had happened to Martha, and she asked her son to find out what was the matter. Calling, he found out what happened, and the first plane flew to his sister.

Was Martha really able to travel without a physical body a distance equal to two-thirds of the length of America and communicate with her mother? The mother said that she felt something, i.e. something was wrong with her daughter, but she could not understand what it was, and she could not imagine how she knew about it.

Martov's story can be considered a rare, but not the only case. Martha, in a certain sense, managed to get in touch with her mother and convey to her a "feeling of anxiety." But most fail to do so. However, observations of the actions of doctors, relatives, including those who are at a certain distance from the operating room, are amazing.

Once a woman was operated on. In principle, she had no reason to die from the operation. She did not even warn her mother and daughter about the operation, deciding to inform them about everything later. However, during the operation came. The woman was brought back to life, and she did not know anything about her short-term death. And, having come to her senses, she told about the amazing “dream”.

She, Lyudmila, dreamed that she had left her body, was somewhere above, saw her body lying on the operating table, doctors around her and realized that she most likely died. It became scary for the mother and daughter. Thinking about her family, she suddenly found herself at home. She saw that her daughter was trying on a blue polka-dot dress in front of the mirror. A neighbor came in and said: "Lyusenka would have liked it." Lyusenka is she, who is here and invisible. Everything is calm, peaceful at home - and here she is again in the operating room.

The doctor, to whom she told about the amazing "dream", offered to go to her house, to calm the family. The surprise of the mother and daughter knew no bounds when she told about the neighbor and about the blue dress with polka dots, which they prepared as a surprise for Lyusenka.

In "Arguments and Facts" for 1998, a small note by Lugankov "Dying is not at all scary" was published. He wrote that in 1983 he was tested with a suit for astronauts. With the help of special equipment, blood was “sucked” from the head into the legs, thereby simulating the effect of weightlessness. The medics fastened his “space suit” on him and turned on the pump. And either they forgot about him, or the automation let him down - but the pumping continued more than necessary.

“At some point, I realized that I was losing consciousness. He tried to call for help - only a wheeze escaped from his throat. But then the pain stopped. Warmth spread through my body (which body?) and I felt extraordinary bliss. Scenes from childhood appeared before my eyes. I saw the village guys with whom I ran to the river to catch crayfish, my grandfather, a front-line soldier, the deceased neighbors ...

Then I noticed how the doctors with bewildered faces bent over me, someone began to massage the chest. Through the sweet veil, I suddenly felt the disgusting smell of ammonia and ... woke up. The doctor, of course, did not believe my story. But I don’t care if he didn’t believe me - now I know what cardiac arrest is and that dying is not so scary. ”

The story of the American Brinkley, who was in a state of clinical death twice, is very curious. Over the past few years, he has spoken about his two post-mortem experiences to millions of people around the world. At the invitation of Yeltsin, Brinkley (together with Dr. Moody) also appeared on Russian television and told millions of Russians about his experiences and visions.

1975 - he was struck by lightning. Doctors did everything possible to save him, but ... he died. Brinkley's first trip is amazing. He not only saw luminous Beings and crystal castles there. He saw the future of mankind there for several decades to come.

After he was saved and recovered, he discovered that he had the ability to read other people's thoughts, and touching a person with his hand, he immediately sees, as he himself says, "home cinema". If the person he touched was gloomy, then Brinkley saw "like in a movie" scenes that explained the reason for the gloomy mood of the person.

Many of their people, upon their return from the Subtle World, discovered in themselves parapsychological abilities. Scientists became interested in the parapsychological phenomena of the “returned from the other world”. 1992 - Dr. Melvin Morse published the results of his experiments with Brinkley in the book Transformed by Light. As a result of the study, he found that people who have been on the verge of death appear approximately four times more often than ordinary people.

Here is what, for example, happened to him during the second clinical death:

I burst out of the darkness into bright light into the operating room and saw two surgeons with two assistants who were betting whether I could survive or not. They looked at my chest x-ray while they prepared me for the operation. I saw myself from a position that seemed to be largely above the ceiling, and watched my arm being attached to a shiny steel brace.

My sister smeared my body with brown antiseptic and covered me with a clean sheet. Someone else injected some liquid into my tube. The surgeon then made an incision across my chest with a scalpel and pulled back the skin. The assistant handed him a tool that looked like a small saw, and he hooked it to my rib, and then opened the chest and inserted a spacer inside. Another surgeon cut the skin around my heart.

After that, I was able to directly observe my own heartbeat. I couldn't see anything else as I was in the dark again. I heard the ringing of bells, and then the tunnel opened... At the end of the tunnel I was met by the same Being from Light as the last time. It drew me to Itself, while expanding like an angel spreading its wings. The light of these radiations swallowed me up.”

What a cruel blow and unbearable pain relatives receive when they learn about the death of a loved one. Today, when husbands and sons are dying, it is impossible to find words to reassure wives, parents and children. But maybe the following cases will be at least some consolation for them.

The first case was with Thomas Dowding. His story: “Physical death is nothing!.. You really shouldn't be afraid of it. ... I remember very well how it all happened. I waited in the crook of the trench for my time to take over. It was a wonderful evening, I had no premonition of danger, but suddenly I heard the howl of a shell. There was an explosion somewhere behind. I involuntarily squatted down, but it was too late. Something hit so hard and hard - in the back of the head. I fell while I was falling, did not notice even for a moment any loss of consciousness, found myself outside of myself! You see how simply I tell it so that you can understand it better.

After 5 seconds, I stood next to my body and helped two of my comrades carry it along the trench to the dressing room. They thought that I was just unconscious, but alive… They put my body on a stretcher. I always wanted to know when I would be inside the body again.

I'll tell you what I felt. It was like I ran hard and for a long time until I got wet, lost my breath and took off my clothes. This clothing was my wounded body: it seemed that if I didn’t throw it off, then I could suffocate ... My body was taken first to the dressing room, and then to the morgue. I stood next to my body all night, but I didn’t think about anything, I just looked at it. Then I lost consciousness and fell fast asleep.

This incident happened to US Army officer Tommy Clack in 1969 in South Vietnam.

He stepped on a mine. First he was thrown into the air, then thrown to the ground. For a moment Tommy managed to sit up and saw that he was missing his left arm and left leg. Clack tipped over on his back and thought he was dying. The light faded, all sensations disappeared, there was no pain. Some time later, Tommy woke up. He hovered in the air and looked at his body. The soldiers put his mangled body on a stretcher, covered him up and carried him to the helicopter. Clack, watching from above, realized that he was believed to be dead. And at that moment he realized that he had actually died.

Accompanying his body to the field hospital, Tommy felt peaceful, even happy. He calmly watched as his bloody clothes were cut, and suddenly he was back on the battlefield. All 13 guys killed during the day were here. Clack did not see their thin bodies, but somehow felt that they were near, communicated with them, but also in an unknown way.

The soldiers were happy in the New World and tried to persuade him to stay. Tommy felt happy and at ease. He did not see himself, felt himself (in his words) just a form, felt almost one pure thought. Bright light poured from all sides. Suddenly, Tommy found himself back in the hospital, in the operating room. He was operated on. The doctors were talking to each other about something. Clack immediately returned to his body.

Not! Not everything is so simple in our material world! And a man killed in a war does not die! He's leaving! He leaves for a clean, bright world, where he is much better than his relatives and friends who remained on Earth.

Reflecting on his encounters with Beings from non-ordinary reality, Whitley Strieber wrote: “I get the impression that the material world is only a special case of a larger context, and reality unfolds mainly in a non-physical way ... I think that the Luminous Beings are, as it were, play the role of midwives when we appear in the Subtle World. The Beings we observe may be individuals of a higher evolutionary order…”.

But the journey into the Subtle World does not always seem to be a "beautiful walk" for a person. Physicians noted that before some people - hellish visions appear.

Vision of an American from Roy Island. Her doctor said: "When she came to, she said, 'I thought I was dead and ended up in hell.' After I was able to calm her down, she told me about her stay in hell, about how the devil wanted to take her away. The story was intertwined with listing her sins and outlining what people think of her. Her fear increased, and the nurses were having difficulty keeping her in a supine position. She became almost insane. She had a long-standing sense of guilt, perhaps due to extramarital affairs that ended in the birth of illegitimate children. The patient was oppressed by the fact that her sister died from the same disease. She believed that God was punishing her for her sins.”

Feelings of loneliness and fear were sometimes recalled from the moment when a person felt drawn into a region of darkness or vacuum during near-death experiences. Shortly after a nephrectomy (surgical removal of a kidney) at the University of Florida in 1976, a 23-year-old college student collapsed due to an unexpected postoperative complication. In the first parts of her near-death experiences: “There was total blackness around. If you move very fast, you can feel the walls coming towards you… I felt alone and a little scared.”

A similar darkness enveloped a 56-year-old man and “frightened” him: “The next thing I remember was how I ended up in complete, total darkness ... It was a very gloomy place, and I did not know where I was, what I was doing there or what going on and I was scared."

True, such cases are rare. But even if a few had a vision of hell, this suggests that death is not a deliverance for everyone. It is the way of life of a person, his thoughts, desires, actions that determine where a person will end up after death.

There are a lot of facts about the exit of the soul from the body in stressful situations and in clinical death! .. But for a long time there was a lack of objective scientific verification.

Does this, as scientists say, phenomenon of continuation of life after the death of the physical body really exist?

Such a check was carried out by carefully comparing the facts indicated by patients with real events, and empirically, using the necessary equipment.

One of the first such evidence was received by the American doctor Michael Sabom, who began research as an opponent of his compatriot Dr. Moody, and completed them as a like-minded person and assistant.

In order to refute the "crazy" idea, Seibom organized verification observations and confirmed, and in fact proved, that a person does not cease to exist after death, retaining the ability to see, hear and feel.

Dr. Michael Sabom is Professor of Medicine at Emory University (America). He has vast practical experience in resuscitation. His book Memories of Death was published in 1981. Dr. Sabom confirmed what other researchers have written about. But the main thing is not this. He conducted a series of studies, comparing the stories of his patients who experienced temporary death with what actually happened at the time when they were in a state of clinical death with what was available for objective verification.

Dr. Sabom checked whether the stories of the patients coincided with what was actually happening in the material world at that time. Were the medical devices and methods of resuscitation used, which were described by people who were at that time? Did the things that the dead saw and described actually happen in other rooms?

Sabom collected and published 116 cases. All of them were carefully checked by him personally. He drew up accurate protocols, taking into account the place, time, participants, spoken words, etc. For his observations, he selected only mentally healthy and balanced people.

Here are some examples from Dr. Sabom's posts.

Dr. Sabom's patient was clinically dead during the operation. He was covered with surgical sheets and physically could not see or hear anything. He later described his experiences. He saw in detail the operation on his own heart, and what he told was completely consistent with what actually happened.

“I must have fallen asleep. I don't remember how they moved me from this room to the operating room. And then suddenly I saw that the room was lit, but not as brightly as I expected. My consciousness returned… but they had already done something to me… My head and whole body were covered with sheets… and then I suddenly began to see what was happening…

I was a couple of feet above my head… I saw two doctors… they were sawing my breastbone… I could draw you a saw and a thing they were using to open the ribs… It was wrapped all around and was of good steel… a lot of tools… the doctors were called with their clamps… I was surprised, I thought there would be a lot of blood, but there was very little of it… and the heart is not what I thought. It is large, larger at the top and narrower at the bottom, like the continent of Africa. The top is pink and yellow. Even creepy. And one part was darker than the rest, instead of everything being the same color...

The doctor was on the left side, he cut off pieces from my heart and twirled them this way and that and looked at them for a long time ... and they had a big argument whether to do a bypass or not.

And they decided not to do it ... All the doctors, except for one, had green covers on their shoes, and this weirdo was in white shoes covered in blood ... It was strange and, in my opinion, unhygienic ... "

The course of the operation described by the patient coincided with the entries in the operating log made by a different style.

And here is the feeling of sadness in the descriptions of near-death experiences when they “saw” the efforts of others to resurrect their lifeless physical body. A 37-year-old Florida housewife recalled an episode of encephalitis, or a brain infection, when she was 4 years old, during which she was unconscious and lifeless. She remembered "looking down" at her mother from a point near the ceiling with these feelings:

The greatest thing I remember was that I felt so sad that there was no way I could let her know that I was okay. Somehow I knew I was fine, but I didn't know how to tell her. I was just looking… And there was a very quiet, peaceful feeling… In fact, it was a good feeling.”

Similar sentiments were expressed by a 46-year-old north Georgia man as he recounted his vision during a cardiac arrest in January 1978: “I felt bad because my wife was crying and seemed helpless, and I couldn’t help . You know. But it was nice. It doesn't hurt."

Sadness is mentioned by a 73-year-old French teacher from Florida when she talked about her near-death experience (NDE) during a serious infectious disease and grand mal seizures at the age of 15:

I split up and sat much higher up there, watching my own convulsions, and my mother and my maid were screaming and yelling because they thought I was dead. I felt so sorry for both them and my body… Only deep, deep sadness. I could still feel sadness. But I felt that I was free there, and there was no reason to suffer. I had no pain and I was completely free."

Another happy experience, one woman was cut short by feelings of remorse over having to leave her children during a post-operative complication that left her on the verge of death and physical unconsciousness: “Yes, yes, I was happy until the time I remembered the children . Until then, I was happy that I was dying. I was really, really happy. It was just a jubilant, cheerful feeling.”

Perhaps the greatest interest among readers and anyone interested in this topic is Raymond Moody's book Life After Life (1976). He did a great job and was one of the pioneers in a new branch of medicine that studied this phenomenon.

In November 1976, his book in English, Life After Life, was published with the subtitle An Investigation into the Phenomenon of Life After the Death of the Body, and in 1977 his second book, Reflections on Life After Life, was published.

Raymond Moody collected a lot of material - more than 150 stories. He also cites several case histories describing diseases, the nature of death and methods of resuscitation.

In all the stories he collected, you can catch a common thought. Beyond the threshold of death, a new existence does not begin, but the former one continues. There is no break in life. The stories about the experiences are very similar, differing from each other only in details. Surprisingly, people of different ages, different professions, nationalities, talk about the same thing. This amazed all the scientists involved in this issue.

Usually a person who left the body saw his body from the side, often from above. He also saw doctors and nurses trying to revive him, and everything that was going on around him.

Although truthful and sincere, these reports were still not conclusive, as they were largely based on the stories of people who went through temporary death. There was a lack of objective scientific verification - whether this, as scientists call it, the phenomenon of the continuation of life after life really exists.

Mikhail Sabom's research

The next step was taken by Dr. Mikhail Sabom, professor of medicine at Emory University in the USA. He is a cardiologist, a member of the American Society of Cardiology and has extensive experience in resuscitation. His book in English "Memories of Death" with the subtitle "Medical Research" was published in 1981. He scientifically proved that reports of life after life are not fiction, and that the person after the death of the body really continues to exist, retaining the ability to see, hear , think and feel.

Basically, Dr. Sabom confirmed what others have written about. However, he collected not only the stories of people who survived clinical death, but also documented the events that took place at the moment when the patient was in a state of clinical death.

Dr. Sabom has collected and published over 150 cases that he personally verified. He checked the stories of patients with case histories, asked those people who were seen and heard by his patients, brought back to life, again comparing the testimony of both.

So, for example, he checked whether the indicated people were really in a certain room and at what time. He made accurate protocols, taking into account the place, time, participants, spoken words, etc. For his observations, he selected only mentally healthy and balanced people.

Much to his surprise, such a test fully confirmed the existence of the phenomenon of life after life. After the death of the body, the existence of the personality continues. Some part of the person continues to live. She sees, hears, thinks and feels as before.

A 44-year-old man suffered a severe heart attack with cardiac arrest. Several electric shocks had to be applied to revive them. The patient observed what was happening, being outside his physical body. This is what he said after he regained consciousness.

“I was somehow separate, standing aside. I did not participate, but looked indifferently, I was not very interested in it ... First of all, they injected something through the gum, which is there for infusions ... Then they lifted me up and laid me on the board. And then one of the doctors began to beat on my chest. They used to give me oxygen - a rubber tube for the nose, and now they took it out and put a mask on my face. It covers the mouth and nose. It's for pressure... Light green... I remember they rolled in a table that had something like paddles on it. And it had a pressure gauge, square, with two needles. One stood, and the other moved ... She moved slowly, did not jump immediately, as on a voltmeter or other devices. The first time she got to…between a third and a half of the scale. And they repeated it, and she went more than half, and on the third time almost three-quarters. The fixed arrow twitched every time they pushed the thing and someone fiddled with it. And I think they fixed it, and it stopped, and the other one moved ... And there were two blades with wires from them, it's like two round disks with handles. They held a disc in each hand and placed it on my chest. There were small buttons on the handle… I saw how I was twitching…”.

The doctors who were involved in his resuscitation later confirmed this story in full detail.

Here is another example from his book. A 60-year-old worker who survived cardiac arrest talks about his experience.

“Dying, I saw my body there, and I was sorry to leave it. I saw everything that was done. I watched from above and quietly rose higher and higher.

I understood everything. I saw my relatives in the emergency room of the hospital. They were standing there - my wife, my eldest son, my daughter, and also the doctor. There was no possibility that I was somewhere there, I was being operated on at that time. But I saw them, and I know damn well that I was there. I didn't know what was going on and why they were crying. And then I went further, I ended up in another world.

Later, Dr. Sabom questioned his patient's wife and daughter. The wife fully confirmed her husband's story. The daughter remembered that at that time the three of them were in the waiting room and talked with the father's doctor.

The state of clinical death can occur in a person and during a surgical operation. Dr. Sabom describes a case from his practice. His patient was in a state of clinical death, under deep anesthesia, his heart stopped. He was covered with sheets and could not see or hear anything. This patient later described his experiences. He saw in every detail the operation on his own heart, and his story corresponded to what really happened.

“The anesthesiologist numbed that part and put this thing in there (intravenously). I obviously fell asleep, I don't remember anything, how they moved me from this room to the one where they operate. And then suddenly I saw that the room was lit, but not as brightly as I expected. My consciousness returned. But they already did something to me. My head and whole body were covered with sheets. And then I suddenly began to see what was being done. It was like I was a couple of feet above my head, like I was just another person in the room. I saw two doctors stitching me up. They sawed the breast bone. I could draw you a saw and a thing with which they parted the ribs. It was wrapped all around and was of good steel, no rust.

There were many tools. Doctors called them clamps. I was surprised, I thought that there would be a lot of blood everywhere, but there was very little of it. And the heart is not what I thought. It is big. Large at the top and narrow at the bottom, like the continent of Africa. The top is pink and yellow. Even creepy. And one part was darker than the rest, instead of everything being the same color. Dr. S. stood on the left side, he cut off pieces from my heart, and twirled them this way and that and looked at them for a long time. And they had a big argument about whether to make a bypass or not. And we decided not to. All but one of the doctors had green boots, and this weirdo had white boots covered in blood. It was weird and, in my opinion, unhygienic.”

The entries in the operating log completely coincided with the facts given by the patient.

Of course, stories like the ones above may seem like fiction. However, the fact remains. Raymond Moody and Mikhail Sabom, who worked on the problem of studying life after life, did not know each other and conducted research separately, but the results of their observations turned out to be similar. They all started their work as skeptics. They expected that their research would likely show the fallacy of belief in an afterlife. But, to their credit, they were objective scientists and were not afraid to admit the existence of the phenomenon of life after life.

The most daring hypotheses of specialists in various fields claim that the human consciousness is completely unrelated to the brain, but only uses the gray matter as a signal transceiver, transmitting and projecting thoughts into actions.

Another argument in favor of the existence of reincarnation and life after life.

This material is taken from the book. Polina Sukhova "Your choice in the big game". Any use of the text on third-party resources is prohibited and punishable by law.

Those who have been with one foot in another world talk about the light, the tunnel, the faces of dead relatives. What could be the explanation for such visions?

Visions at clinical death

In many films of various genres, mystical (fantastic, detective stories, comedies), you can see what a person contemplates in a state of clinical death. This is especially impressively told in the movie Flatliners (one of the roles was played by Julia Roberts). Medical students, for fun, experienced what it is like to experience a state of coma. In another world, they met people offended by themselves.

What happens to a person in those few minutes during which resuscitators bring him back to life has long been a heated debate. Their essence boils down to two main theories:

1. Entering the underworld.
2. "Special effects" of a slowly dying brain.

Serious scientific research began to be carried out only in the seventies of the last century. One of their results was the work of psychologist Raymond Moody "Life after life", which made a lot of noise in society. Almost half a century has passed since then, and many discoveries have been made. And just recently, doctors, psychologists, philosophers, spiritualists gathered to talk about this phenomenon in Melbourne, the topic of the conference was called Clinical Death: Modern Research.

Raymond Moody identified several stages of clinical death following one after another:

1. Stopping the vital activity of all body systems, but the dying still hears sounds from our world.
2. An increase in annoying noises.
3. The entity leaves the organism and quickly moves along the dark corridor to the light visible in the distance.
4. The whole life passes before the dying.
5. Meeting with deceased relatives and friends.

Those who managed to reanimate talk about one feature: they see everything that is happening around them from the outside, but they cannot influence it in any way. And one more disturbing fact, confirmed by a survey conducted by the American doctor Kennett Ring of two hundred "comatoses" who were blind from birth, they all saw a bright light, in this case for the first time, one would like to say, in life. (Relevant question: How could they know that it was light if they had never seen it? For example, describe the sensations of an electric shock if you have never experienced such a thing. Or what a severed head feels, because it is alive for a couple of seconds - blinks its eyes) .

Version: when dying, the brain turns off vision or remembers birth

Scientists have put forward several hypotheses regarding the visions of a dying person:

1. Fantastic (because it is not based on the laws proven by conventional science). An adherent of this theory is psychologist Pyall Watson, who believes that with gradual dying, the brain remembers birth, and birth is a state close to death, felt by everyone when passing through the birth canal about ten centimeters long. We are not destined to know this, but it is quite likely that when born naturally, the child experiences various stages of clinical death, and when he dies already at a conscious age, the brain remembers its first state of coma.
2. Utilitarian. This theory was put forward by the Russian resuscitator Nikolai Gubin. Calling the state of clinical death - toxic psychosis, a bit like a dream and a bit like a hallucination (this is about that part of the visions associated with looking at oneself from the side). And he explained the effect of the dark corridor like this. When dying, the part of the cerebral cortex responsible for vision is deficient in oxygen, and the occipital part is still fully functional, as it has a dual blood supply, and this is why “tube” vision is obtained - only a narrow strip of light is visible. And regarding the pictures of life, Nikolai Gubin substantiated this. The new brain structures die first, and then the old ones. When resuscitating, the opposite is true (the old ones are restored first, then the new ones).

The feeling of transition to another world - in the words of writers

Arseny Tarkovsky described his visions in the story. During the war, his leg was amputated, but he continued to die of gas gangrene in a tiny low room in a front-line hospital, which was lit by a light bulb without a switch. To put out the light, he got up and began to unscrew the light bulb, but his soul also twisted out of his body. He looked at himself lifeless and began to penetrate into the next room through the wall to look at what was happening there. But suddenly Arseny Tarkovsky felt that just a little more and the way back would be impossible. Therefore, with an incredible effort, he squeezed himself into his body.

Leo Tolstoy in his work "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" wrote about the state of clinical death. As if something pushed in the chest, then in the side, then cut off the breath of the character of the work, and he fell into a hole, with something glowing at the end. Ivan Ilyich began to think about his failed life, which could still be corrected, then about his relatives, how sorry they were, how they would manage without him. Then he began to think that dying was scary, but he did not feel fear.

Version: It's all lies

Rant Bagdasarov, head of the resuscitation department of hospital No. 29 in Moscow, has thirty years of experience in resuscitating people. And he claims that none of all his rescued saw either a dark corridor or any light.

Psychiatrist Chris Freeman from the Royal Hospital of Edinburgh agrees with him. He says that it has not yet been proven when exactly those who returned from the other world saw pictures of a past life. It is likely that these pictures appeared just before the cardiac arrest and immediately after resuscitation, and not during the coma.

The National Institute of Neurology, based on the results of nine large clinics participating in the study, also agreed with a similar opinion. Of the five hundred patients resuscitated and interviewed, only one percent could remember anything during the period of their resuscitation. And of the total number of those who picturesquely talk about the other world, 30-40% have, to put it mildly, an unstable psyche.

The embrace of death, for very few a unique experience. For thousands of those whom he touched - a mystical fateful sensation. But is it really a brief visit to the afterlife, or a chemical reaction in the brain...

The sensational recognition by researchers from Southampton of the reality of near-death visions, which do not depend on the activity of the brain, excited physicians around the world. What happens to a person when the heart stops? What signs should be used to determine the death of a person? What is brain death? It is impossible to answer unambiguously.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, author of Interviews with the Dying, was the first physician to publish back in 1969 the stories of the “returned from the dead”. She then noticed that they have many similarities: leaving their own body, flying through a tunnel, joyfully approaching the light. He described the same impressions in his book Life After Life, which was published in 1975 and became a bestseller. Both of these researchers are unanimous in assessing the impressions of dying: death is always beautiful.

Other conclusions were made by the German sociologist Hubert Knoblauch, who outlined his observations and research in the book “News from the Other World. Myths and Reality of Clinical Death” (1999). For several years, he interviewed more than 2,000 people who had a sad experience of near-death experience. Just over 4% were able to recall any visions or sensations they experienced after they passed out. But with all his desire, Knoblauch did not find in these stories anything resembling a "beautiful death." The experiences of people were so different and individual that, according to the sociologist, they cannot even be generalized. And at the same time, they were far from always pleasant: 60% of East Germans and 30% of their western compatriots suffered greatly -!

Bill Wyss - 23 min. in hell... We were on our way to a meeting. A sudden blow, a bright light. I remember how I ended up in a cell with stone walls and bars on the doors. That's if you can imagine a prison cell, that's where I ended up. And in this cell I was not alone, there were four other creatures with me. At first I did not understand who these creatures were, after I realized - they were demons. When I got there, I had no physical strength at all, I was powerless. There was such weakness and impotence, as if I had no muscles at all. There was a terrible heat in this cell.

The body looked like my real ones, but a little different. The demons tore at my flesh, but when they did, no blood came out of my body, there was no liquid, but I felt pain. I remember that they picked me up and threw me against the wall, and after that all my bones kind of broke. And when I was going through this, I thought that I should now die after all these injuries and from this heat. I wondered how it was that I was still alive.

There was a smell of sulfur and burning flesh. At that time, I had not yet seen anyone who would burn in my presence, but I knew this smell, it was the familiar smell of burning flesh and sulfur.

The demons that tormented me were about 4 meters tall, and in their appearance they looked like reptiles.

I know, because I saw what came from them, the level of reason, their considerations were zero, they were, as it were, programmed to hate God and His creations. I also realized that they had no mercy at the time they hurt me and I was in pain. But their physical strength exceeded about a thousand times the strength of an ordinary person, so the person who was there could not fight with them and resist them.

It was a very humiliating feeling that man is the crowning achievement of God's creation, to be dominated by beings of the lowest status. And when the demons continued to torment me, I tried to get rid of them, I tried to crawl out of this cell of mine.

I looked in one direction, but there was impenetrable darkness, and I heard millions of human screams there. These were very loud screams. And I also had this knowledge that there are so many prison cells like mine and there were like pits in a burning fire. And when I looked in the other direction, I saw tongues of fire emanating from the earth, which, as it were, even illuminated the sky. And there I saw such a pit, or lake of fire, that was maybe three miles wide. And when these fiery tongues rose, they illuminated, so that I could see what was happening around me. The air was full of stench and smoke. The landscape of this area, the landscape was all brown and dark, there was no greenery. There was not a drop of moisture or water anywhere around me, and I was so thirsty that I wanted even a drop of water. It would have been precious to me to receive even a drop of water from anyone, but there was no such thing.

I know that I was in hell for a very short time, but it seemed to me then that I had been there for an eternity. And there I especially realized the meaning of the word "eternity."

Information about this phenomenon can be found in the book "Acts of Thomas". In it, the sinner also talks about her impressions of hell, where she once had to visit. Suddenly she found herself on the ground, the surface of which was dotted with depressions exuding poison. But the woman was not herself, next to her was a terrible creature. In each of the depressions she saw flames that strongly resembled a hurricane. Inside it, uttering chilling screams, many souls were spinning, which could not get out of this hurricane. There were the souls of those people who, during their lifetime, entered into a secret relationship with each other. In the other hollow, in the mud, were those who parted from their husbands and wives for the sake of others. In the third place were souls whose body parts were suspended. The person accompanying the woman said that the severity of the punishment directly depends on the sin. People who in earthly life lied and insulted others are hung up by the tongue. Those who stole and did not help anyone, but lived only for their own good, were hung by the hands. Those who achieved their goals in dishonest ways were hung up by their legs ...

After all that had been seen, the woman was led into a cave, the smell of which was saturated with stench. There were people trying to get out of this place and breathe air, but all their attempts were in vain. The creatures guarding the cave wanted the woman to experience this punishment, but her guide did not allow this, saying that the sinner is in hell temporarily ...

... Knoblauch believes that visions at the moment of cardiac arrest depend on the mentality of a person, on all his previous life experience and, ultimately, on the culture of the society in which he lived: “The whole structure of the “other world” that a person meets at the moment dying, this is undoubtedly a reflection of "this light" known to him.

Scientists still cannot understand how visions and sensations arise after a cardiac arrest and a cessation of the blood supply to the brain. None of the hypotheses provides a satisfactory explanation for these enigmatic stories. In the early 1990s, scientists focused on trying to prove that "post-mortem experiences" are the result of residual brain activity, that is, its reaction to abnormal concentrations of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

So, for example, in the Virchow clinic in 1994, experiments were conducted with healthy volunteers who were asked to breathe quickly and deeply in order to lose consciousness. Voluntary "martyrs of science" experienced approximately the same thing as the sick. They "parted" with their mortal body and saw, as in the frames of a movie, the events of their past life.

But, according to Dr. Sam Parnia, director of research at Southampton, a lack of oxygen to the brain could not be the cause of his patients' visions. In seven examined patients, who spoke about typical experiences at the moment of clinical death, the oxygen concentration was even higher than in those who did not feel or see anything.

It would also be wrong to call an incomprehensible phenomenon a hallucination. “All of these patients were able to recall and recount their experiences very accurately,” said Dr. Parnia. “That doesn’t happen with hallucinations.” It also eliminates the side effects of certain medications and elevated carbon dioxide levels.

Perhaps such a striking effect is exerted by some narcotic substances produced by the human body itself. Many dying people have reported an all-consuming feeling of happiness and peace. In people who happened to experience situations associated with extreme stress of all the forces of the body (for example, sinking and swimming with all their might), as well as extreme athletes, a special hormone is released in the brain that causes a feeling of pleasure and helps to fight and survive in a deadly dangerous situations.

American scientist Bruce Grayson of the University of Virginia found out for sure that people who have experienced "post-mortem experiences" are not mentally ill. Observing his patients, he became convinced that a change in consciousness associated with such a difficult event as does not lead to morbid states of the psyche.

Can the stories of people who have returned from the other world serve as proof that life after death exists? Modern science answers: perhaps yes. We must continue to observe and experiment, although we may not know the exact answer until our death.

The range of problems associated with clinical death also includes the question of when, should a person be considered dead? After the heart has stopped, and the biocurrents of the brain are not recorded? If this is a sign of brain death, then such a person can be harvested for transplantation.

In the old days, the bodies were kept for three days, until outward signs of death of the organism appeared. The so-called cadaveric spots appear about half an hour or an hour after the cessation of blood circulation. Rigor mortis occurs in 4-12 hours.

Such a concept as “brain death” did not exist before, it appeared relatively recently. After the world's first human heart transplant performed by surgeon Christian Barnard, many media, expressing the point of view of a significant part of society, demanded that he be put on trial on charges of murder. When such operations also began to be performed in America, a special commission at Harvard Medical School in 1968 renamed the near-death coma to "brain death."

This definition is now under sharp criticism. “Transplant surgeons are always sure (although in fact they cannot know this) that a patient diagnosed with brain death is really dead, because his brain has stopped working and he no longer feels anything,” writes Richard Fuchs in his book “Business with death. In Defense of a Dignified Death (2001). Even doctors who specialize in organ transplants admit that people who have been diagnosed with brain death may feel pain and may perceive reality in some way. After all, no one can guarantee that donors whose organs are cut out for transplantation do not feel anything. But on the other hand, there are cases when people regained consciousness after a long-term coma and talked about various visions and sounds that reached them while they were unconscious.