Scientist Says Mind Continues After Brain Dies

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Friday June 29 10:07 AM ET

Scientist Says Mind Continues After Brain Dies

By Sarah Tippit

 

 

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A British scientist studying heart attack patients

says he is finding evidence that suggests that consciousness may continue

after the brain has stopped functioning and a patient is clinically dead.

 

The research, presented to scientists last week at the California Institute

of Technology (Caltech), resurrects the debate over whether there is life

after death and whether there is such a thing as the human soul.

 

``The studies are very significant in that we have a group of people with no

brain function ... who have well-structured, lucid thought processes with

reasoning and memory formation at a time when their brains are shown not to

function,'' Sam Parnia, one of two doctors from Southampton General Hospital

in England who have been studying so-called near-death experiences (NDEs),

told Reuters in an interview.

 

``We need to do much larger-scale studies, but the possibility is certainly

there'' to suggest that consciousness, or the soul, keeps thinking and

reasoning even if a person's heart has stopped, he is not breathing and his

brain activity is nil, Parnia said.

 

He said he and colleagues conducted an initial yearlong study, the results

of which appeared in the February issue of the journal Resuscitation. The

study was so promising the doctors formed a foundation to fund further

research and continue collecting data.

 

During the initial study, Parnia said, 63 heart attack patients who were

deemed clinically dead but were later revived were interviewed within a week

of their experiences.

 

Of those, 56 said they had no recollection of the time they were unconscious

and seven reported having memories. Of those, four were labeled NDEs in that

they reported lucid memories of thinking, reasoning, moving about and

communicating with others after doctors determined their brains were not

functioning.

 

FEELINGS OF PEACE

 

Among other things, the patients reported remembering feelings of peace, joy

and harmony. For some, time sped up, senses heightened and they lost

awareness of their bodies.

 

The patients also reported seeing a bright light, entering another realm and

communicating with dead relatives. One, who called himself a lapsed Catholic

and Pagan, reported a close encounter with a mystical being.

 

Near-death experiences have been reported for centuries but in Parnia's

study none of the patients were found to have received low oxygen levels,

which some skeptics believe may contribute to the phenomenon.

 

When the brain is deprived of oxygen people become totally confused, thrash

around and usually have no memories at all, Parnia said. ``Here you have a

severe insult to the brain but perfect memory.''

 

Skeptics have also suggested that patients' memories occurred in the moments

they were leaving or returning to consciousness. But Parnia said when a brain

is traumatized by a seizure or car wreck a patient generally does not

remember moments just before or after losing consciousness.

 

Rather, there is usually a memory lapse of hours or days. ''Talk to them.

They'll tell you something like: 'I just remember seeing the car and the next

thing I knew I was in the hospital,''' he said.

 

``With cardiac arrest, the insult to the brain is so severe it stops the

brain completely. Therefore, I would expect profound memory loss before and

after the incident,'' he added.

 

Since the initial experiment, Parnia and his colleagues have found more than

3,500 people with lucid memories that apparently occurred at times they were

thought to be clinically dead. Many of the patients, he said, were reluctant

to share their experiences fearing they would be thought crazy.

 

A TODDLER'S TALE

 

One patient was 2-1/2 years old when he had a seizure and his heart stopped.

His parents contacted Parnia after the boy ''drew a picture of himself as if

out of his body looking down at himself. It was drawn like there was a

balloon stuck to him. When they asked what the balloon was he said, 'When you

die you see a bright light and you are connected to a cord.' He wasn't even 3

when had the experience,'' Parnia said.

 

``What his parents noticed was that after he had been discharged from

hospital, six months after the incident, he kept drawing the same scene.''

 

The brain function these patients were found to have while unconscious is

commonly believed to be incapable of sustaining lucid thought processes or

allowing lasting memories to form, Parnia said -- pointing to the fact that

nobody fully grasps how the brain generates thoughts.

 

The brain itself is made up of cells, like all the body's organs, and is not

really capable of producing the subjective phenomenon of thought that people

have, he said.

 

He speculated that human consciousness may work independently of the brain,

using the gray matter as a mechanism to manifest the thoughts, just as a

television set translates waves in the air into picture and sound.

 

``When you damage the brain or lose some of the aspects of mind or

personality, that doesn't necessarily mean the mind is being produced by the

brain. All it shows is that the apparatus is damaged,'' Parnia said, adding

that further research might reveal the existence of a soul.

 

``When these people are having experiences they say, 'I had this intense

pain in my chest and suddenly I was drifting in the corner of my room and I

was so happy, so comfortable. I looked down and realized I was seeing my body

and doctors all around me trying to save me and I didn't want to go back.

 

``The point is they are describing seeing this thing in the room, which is

their body. Nobody ever says, 'I had this pain and the next thing I knew my

soul left me.'''