Professor Sam Parnia of NYU Langone Medical Center has been studying near-death experiences (NDEs) for years, including strange visions, out-of-body experiences and other “alterations of reality.”
In the last major study, which ran from 2017 to 2020, Parnia and his collaborators followed 567 patients across 25 hospitals in the US and UK. All of these patients suffered cardiac arrest and subsequently received cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
CPR couldn’t help most of them and people died, but 53 people were revived. A third of them reported unusual sensations and visions during resuscitation.
Patient 1: “I heard my name repeated over and over again. And around me there were beings – demons and monsters. It seemed to me that they were trying to tear pieces out of my body. In the upper right corner of where I was, I saw a man.
“His face was not visible, but it was a male figure. He called my name and grabbed my hand. I reached out to him and then I felt someone pulling me towards them. And I heard: “Is she breathing? Is she breathing?” (voices of doctors from the resuscitation group).
Patient 2: “I remember standing in a huge field with gray tents scattered everywhere. There were faceless figures. I remember walking through the canyon. On both sides of the gorge stood people in white robes with hoods that hid their faces. The last thing I remember is them all pointing their hands at me. Then everything turned gray.”
Patient 3: “A man came into my field of vision and walked about 200 feet in front of me at a 30 degree angle, from a starting point about 10 feet away. He looked like a gangster from the forties. He had a long, pointed nose and a haircut.” a white wall” and a face that only his mother could love… He looked scared, angry and hostile.”
Patient 4: “I went into a house where I wasn’t supposed to be. The police caught me and I wondered how to explain to them what I was doing in the house. Then I stepped in a puddle. When I came out of the puddle, I was not wet and almost disappeared into the asphalt. The fisherman sang a sea song above me, and it rained.
Patient 5: “I felt someone holding my hand. But it was very dark and I couldn’t see anything.”
Patient 6: “I remember a being of light standing next to me. It towered over me like a huge tower of power, but it radiated only warmth and love. I saw moments from my life flash before me and felt pride, love, joy and sadness wash over me.
“Every frame was mine, but from the perspective of a being standing next to me or watching me. I got to see the consequences of my life, the thousands of people I interacted with, and I felt what they felt about me, saw their lives and how I affected them. Then I saw the consequences of my life and the impact of my actions.”
Patient 7: “I went straight to a bright spot. It happened calmly and immediately. I saw the place where I was as some kind of entrance somewhere. There was one main being of love and many other beings of love… There was nothing there except love, goodness, truth and everything that had to do with love.
“There was no place for fear, or evil, or anything else except this love. It was more beautiful than any of my best hopes or experiences in the real world. It went beyond perfection and love as we know it in our human condition. There are no words to describe it. I was so happy there.”
Patient 8: “I remember going into something like a tunnel. The feelings I experienced there were much more intense than normal. The first feeling was one of deep peace. It was so calm and serene, with an incredible amount of calm.
“All my worries, thoughts, fears and opinions disappeared. The intensity of the calm was so incredible and overwhelming that there was no fear in what I experienced. I wasn’t afraid of where I was going or what to expect when I got there. Then I felt warmth. Then the desire to return home arose.”
Patient 9: “I could see what was happening around me. I was standing next to my bed and it was very strange.”
Patient 10: “I was no longer in my body. I floated without weight or sense of physicality. I was floating above my body, right under the ceiling of the intensive care room. I looked at the scene unfolding below me.
“I, who was no longer the body that had just belonged to me, found myself in a position more sublime. It was a place that had nothing to do with any material experience.”
Patient 11: “They asked me if I wanted to go home [stay alive] or stay here. I told them that my two sons needed me and that I had to go back. And suddenly I was back in my body and I felt my aching joints flaring up.” “I don’t really remember what was happening around me at that moment, just that I was in pain.”
Patient 12: “I remember seeing my father.”
Patient 13: “I thought I heard my grandmother [who passed away] say, ‘You have to come back.’
The researchers also found that the brains of 40% of patients showed activity up to 1 hour after cardiac arrest.
“Although doctors have long believed that the brain suffers irreversible damage about ten minutes after the heart stops supplying oxygen, our research has shown that signs of recovery of electrical activity in the brain can occur long after CPR has been performed,” says Dr. Sam Parnia.
The new study “represents a monumental effort to understand as objectively as possible the nature of brain function as it may apply to consciousness and near-death experiences during cardiac arrest,” said Lakhmir Chawla, an intensive care physician at Jennifer Moreno Department of Veterans. Affairs Medical Center in San Diego, California, which was not involved in the study but has published papers on spikes in EEG activity at the time of death in some patients.
While the results Parnia and his colleagues report are “striking” from a scientific perspective, “I believe we should also let these data inform our humanity,” he adds.
