11-14-2008, 09:43 AM
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?The worst thing is coming back from the dead,? says Patrick Tierney, who had a near-death experience following a cardiac arrest in 1991. ?If dying is anything like the experience I had then it?s not a problem.
Patrick was rushed to hospital in July 1991 following a heart attack. He survived the initial attack and within hours was chatting with his family at the bedside.
?I was talking to my wife and eldest boy when I felt a little pinch in my chest,? says Patrick. ?The next thing I knew I was travelling down a corridor in a medieval looking house. I was astounded. It was very real and lucid. I thought to myself ?what the hell?s going on??.
?I came to a fork in the corridor and I knew that I had to make a decision. One branch was a dark and sinister looking hole. The other was brightly lit and appeared friendly in some way, so I floated down that one.?
Patrick then found himself in a form of ?heaven?. He was in front of a beautifully lit landscape bordered with a waist-high white picket fence. He was instantly calmed and soothed by a beautiful translucent light.
He then became aware of his parents, who were behind the white fence, smiling broadly at him. Strangely, they were in their thirties despite the fact that they had both died in their seventies.
?I moved towards a gate in the fence but my father gave me a look that I knew meant ?don?t come through the gate?, so I didn?t. No words passed between us. I then found myself moving backwards through the corridor but this time it was very disturbing.
?Greeny-grey gargoyle-like figures were staring at me from the roof,? says Patrick. ?One, with a face like an evil goat, began to move towards me. All of the warmth and cosiness left and I was terrified. A moment later I saw the face of an angel - it was a nurse from the hospital. It turned out I?d had a cardiac arrest.?
Cardiac arrest survivors like Patrick are tailor-made for Dr Parnia?s study. Scientists know that within seconds of the heart stopping the brain has shut down completely. The patient is effectively dead and there is no chance of dreams or hallucinations mimicking a near-death experience.
As soon as a patient slips into a cardiac arrest, Dr Parnia?s team will swing into action. The first priority will be to get the patient?s heart beating again. Equipment used during the resuscitation will have symbols placed on top of it in such a way that they can only be seen from above. Other symbols will be placed around the patient?s body.
Surviving patients will then be gently quizzed about their experiences when they regain consciousness. Those that claim to have left their bodies will be questioned in more detail to see if they can identify the symbols.
Dr Parnia has designed the experiments to be bullet-proof. He is only too keenly aware that critics will tear his work apart if he leaves even the slightest doubt about the rigour of his team?s efforts. It will also destroy his career as a scientist. Even the exact experimental details are shrouded in secrecy.
?We can?t run the risk of prejudicing the experiment,? says Dr Parnia. ?I won?t even know some of the details. We have a researcher who will be hiding the symbols on the equipment. Somebody else will be doing the interviews with the patients. It?s what?s known as a double-blind trial. It prevents scientists from unconsciously altering the results of their experiments.?
Other scientists acknowledge Dr Parnia?s formidable reputation and the care he takes over his experiments but are still sceptical about his aims.
Dr Susan Blackmore, who has herself had a near-death experience but since written it off as a delusion, says such experiences ?probably result from random firings in the brain.?
?I think that people have near-death experiences not when they are flatlining but when they are drifting into or out of consciousness,? she says. ?Having said that, I?m curious to know the results. If they are positive then they could change the world.?
Because of the implications of his work ? and the potential for ridicule from his fellow scientists - Dr Parnia is being very cautious in the claims he is making for the study. He is not trying to prove that we all die and go to heaven. He is instead trying to find out whether the mind continues to function after the brain has effectively died, or at least ceased to function.
If the mind does continue after the brain has died then this will prove, by default, that the ?soul? is independent of the body. Dr Parnia will have proved that the mind ? in essence, the soul ? continues to live after the body has died.
?It comes back to the question of whether the mind or consciousness is produced by the brain,? says Dr Parnia. ?If we can prove that the mind is produced by the brain then I don't think that there is anything after we die. If the brain dies then we die. It?s final and irreversible.?
?If, on the contrary, the brain is like an intermediary which manifests the mind, like a television will act as an intermediary to manifest radio waves into a picture or a sound, then we should be able to show that the mind is still there after the brain is clinically dead. That will be a significant discovery.?
But all of the theories and questions posed by scientists are academic to those who have had a near-death experience. They know the answers.
?There is no doubt in my mind that there?s life after death because I?ve seen the other side,? says Jeanette. ?I don?t believe in a benevolent God. I?ve seen too much suffering for that but I?m very spiritual.
?I saw my daughter suffer for four years with cancer. She died when she was only 17. I know she has gone to a better place.?
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