Here's the abstract to Lancet's near-death-experience study:
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Background: Some people report a near-death experience (NDE) after
a life-threatening crisis. We aimed to establish the cause of this
experience and assess factors that affected its frequency, depth,
and content.
Methods: In a prospective study, we included 344 consecutive cardiac
patients who were successfully resuscitated after cardiac arrest in
ten Dutch hospitals. We compared demographic, medical,
pharmacological, and psychological data between patients who reported
NDE and patients who did not (controls) after resuscitation. In a
longitudinal study of life changes after NDE, we compared the groups
2 and 8 years later.
Findings: 62 patients (18%) reported NDE, of whom 41 (12%) described
a core experience. Occurrence of the experience was not associated
with duration of cardiac arrest or unconsciousness, medication, or
fear of death before cardiac arrest. Frequency of NDE was affected
by how we defined NDE, the prospective nature of the research in
older cardiac patients, age, surviving cardiac arrest in first
myocardial infarction, more than one cardiopulmonary resuscitation
(CPR) during stay in hospital, previous NDE, and memory problems
after prolonged CPR. Depth of the experience was affected by sex,
surviving CPR outside hospital, and fear before cardiac arrest.
Significantly more patients who had an NDE, especially a deep
experience, died within 30 days of CPR (p<0·0001). The process of
transformation after NDE took several years, and differed from those
of patients who survived cardiac arrest without NDE.
Interpretation: We do not know why so few cardiac patients report
NDE after CPR, although age plays a part. With a purely physiological
explanation such as cerebral anoxia for the experience, most patients
who have been clinically dead should report one.
****
The full study is free, you just have to sign up:
http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol358/iss9298/full/llan.358.9298.original_research.18751.1
My critique is that if the experience was recorded by the
brain, manifesting as a memory, then it occurred while the
brain was active (recording); thus the easiest explanation
is that the phenomena experienced occurred within the brain.
http://IanGoddard.net
"To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals." Benjamin Franklin
