X-Message-Number: 16953
From: "Nord" <>
Subject: Mind Continues 
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 03:15:44 +0200

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.    

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