Anastasia Klepneva
Israeli researchers found out from people who had a near-death experience whether they saw it all their lives, as it is described in literature and cinema. As part of the experiment, scientists asked patients of one of the largest medical centers in Israel about their visions in a state of clinical death. The scientists included their answers in a questionnaire, which they then distributed among volunteers online to check the similarity of the answers. Participants of the experiment shared their experience of seeing their past, and some of them saw their future. About the order in which a dying person sees the events of his life and which part of the brain is responsible for this - in the RT material.
- Gaetan Charbonneau/Getty Images
Life on the big screen
Scientists questioned 7 patients of the Hadassah Medical Center in detail about what they saw in a state of clinical death. Based on their responses, the researchers compiled a questionnaire, which they then administered to 264 volunteers in the network to confirm the similarity of their experience with the testimonies of the interviewed patients. The findings showed that the near-death experience was indeed accompanied for them by a series of memories of the past.
In the work, the researchers of the institute based on the medical center cite a number of testimonies that they received from patients and similar to those given by volunteers. Thus, all respondents in the hospital noted the vividness of their memories and increased attention to detail. Five of them watched their lives from the side: “It’s like someone is showing the past on big screen". Five more people admitted that they watched the "movie" as if through someone else's eyes or were in several places at the same time.
This experience is similar to the feeling of seeming out of one's own body, which scientists attribute to a lack of oxygen in the temporoparietal ganglion, which occurs with clinical death.
A series of memories different people were organized differently. Some of the respondents noted that they saw everything important events your life at the same time. A “film” of separate significant scenes unfolded before others. Also, being close to death, some respondents saw incidents similar to each other from the past, that is, they recalled them by association with each other. In general, it is noted that most often everyone sees significant people for themselves and could, as it were, focus on more important memories. As it turned out, the chronological order of events is rarely observed in such circumstances - this case occurred twice. According to the researchers, this suggests that time is only one of the options for organizing the connection between memories, and it is not at all obligatory.
love yourself
The experience, according to all volunteers, caused them a strong emotional response. The range of feelings was quite wide. Respondents named peace, love, gratitude and bitter regrets.
Experienced memories forced the subjects to reconsider their lives, in some cases they made a promise to be more attentive to loved ones and love themselves more.
Interestingly, people who had a near-death experience were able to re-evaluate the events of their lives. At the same time, they noted that they did not feel regrets, but were able to consider those options for actions that might have been worth doing in a given situation, and analyze all the opportunities that arose before them. One of the survey participants said that he saw his possible future.
The paper notes that healthy people do not experience many of the effects listed by those who have experienced clinical death. So, they are much less likely to change their assessment of their own actions or decide to correct their usual behavior.
Clinical death as a key to healthy memory
According to scientists, the detected effects can be observed in the brain due to damage to areas of the cortex, to which, in the event of clinical death, blood and oxygen are not supplied for some time. However, such conclusions are in the nature of an assumption - the authors emphasize that the study was conducted only from the point of view of psychology and its methods.
The study is important not only because it studies a special condition experienced by a person in a life-threatening situation. Scientists emphasize that the mechanism of storing memories and the way they are organized in healthy people who have not had a near-death experience is still poorly understood. Their research, using detailed interviews, shows that, probably, in the brain of a healthy person, memories are also associated with each other by associations, chronological order, or organized according to some other feature that allows them to be classified.
Death visions are a topic of interest to many people. It was studied by serious researchers - William Barrett, Carl Osis, Raymond Moody, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Their writings say that visual hallucinations most often occur in terminally ill or mortally wounded people.
According to scientists, this is due to the subconscious of a dying person, so it is easier for him to perceive his own departure. Someone writes about senile dementia or about "exiting the matrix", fever or the effects of drugs.
One of the popular theories says that with age, the bones of the skull become thinner and become like a small child. And for this reason, people become more susceptible to phenomena subtle world. But the fact is that visions come to the dying of different ages. Moreover, ghosts are seen by future suicides and people who are destined to die soon from an accident.
Be that as it may, next to us is constantly a different reality. And someone from THE OTHER side helps people to leave, alleviating suffering and seeing the soul beyond the brink of life. Unfortunately, sometimes dying visions take on the character of nightmares. Angels of death, guides, reapers - these ghosts are invisible to others, and a dying person always remains alone with them. These creatures can take the form of relatives or any animals, angels and gods.
1. “I asked my grandmother if I could sit next to her. She replied: "Sit on another chair, Misha is sitting on this one." Misha was the name of my late grandfather, who died of a stroke 8 years ago.
2. “Grandma, who was dying of cancer and had been unconscious for several hours, suddenly opened her eyes. She looked up at the ceiling and smiled. The look was so bright and joyful, as many years ago, when she was a healthy and full of strength person. She looked like a child in anticipation of a big holiday - all glowing with happiness. She was gone in a few minutes."
3. “My aunt is 84 years old. When the doctor arrives, she says that several more people appear in the room with him and stand around the bed. She tries to talk to them all the time, but invisible people do not answer her.
4. “Grandma died a week ago from heart attack. She was only 60. On that day, she and my mother went to the market, and nothing foreshadowed trouble. When the bus pulled up to the stop, the grandmother began to grumble: “Why did we get out so late! Look how many people are here, don't overcrowd! Not a single empty seat! Mom looked at her with surprise, because there were 5 people on the bus and there were plenty of seats.”
5. “Mom did not get out of bed for six long and painful months. We had no other relatives, and I looked after her alone. I realized that she was not a tenant long before the doctors told us about it. One night she called me and said: “Don't be afraid. Your dad is sitting on the floor here.” Later, when she was in the hospital, she imagined a roommate who was not there in reality.
6. “Before he died, my grandfather told me that he flew around the hospital and talked to many people there. When I asked if he was scared, my grandfather replied with a smile: “What are you doing! It's so cool!" He was not injected with painkillers, so it was impossible to explain what happened with a drug hallucination, the influence of narcotic substances.
7. “I lost my job that year and broke up with my boyfriend. And at some point I didn't want to live. In the afternoon I went for a walk with my dog, and then I sat at home, looked at one point and thought about my plan. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed some movement nearby. There was a big black dog sitting next to the sofa. My dog didn't see it. A few minutes later, the dog vanished into thin air. That night I tried to poison myself with pills, but I threw up, and the attempt failed.
8. “I work in a hospice. Sometimes I heard from patients about a "dog" - black or white. And one of the patients once said: “What pretty dogs run around here! Who let them in?" Some see snakes. Often, shortly before leaving, people say that they are “coming home” or that their dead relatives are calling them.
9. “My grandmother is dying, every day she gets worse and worse, irreversible processes are already going on in her body, and doctors are powerless to do anything. So, from the moment when she became almost like a plant, she began to say that someone was always present in the room with her; she does not know whether it is a man or a woman: they talk to her, ask her for money, and then - they promise - everything will be fine with her. Either they move her on the bed, or something else. She's out of her mind! What do you think it might be?"
10. “Father, he is 72 years old, underwent a six-hour operation. There were no complications and he recovered quickly. But after being discharged from home, he sees dark silhouettes of people everywhere. I told him that this is normal and after anesthesia it happens.”
11. “When my father was dying, I also saw the dead. Whether I slept or didn’t sleep, I don’t know, but I started screaming and thrashing about on the bed, I came up and asked what he wanted. He asks me: "Drive him away." I ask: "Who? There is no one else besides us." “Don’t you see why he came here?” - and mat covers. And he saw a neighbor who died 15 years ago - dad sometimes drank with him. The day before his death, two dead neighbors already came, it was hard for dad to talk, but he drove them to the last. They didn’t drive away, they took away ... "
12. “My grandmother, too, when she was dying, pointed somewhere to the ceiling and said that “birds are flying” there, and asked them to drive away, although there was no one there.
13. “My father, before his death, often looked into the corner of the room and nodded. He could no longer speak. He raised his hand and showed three fingers. Three days later he was gone. I believe that someone comes for the soul of the dying to show the way to the abode of souls.
Each of these stories once again confirms that death as such does not exist. There is only an inevitable natural process, a transition between worlds, which should not be feared. This path awaits each of us - in due time.
P.S.:
Everything is ghostly in this raging world,
There is only a moment - and hold on to it.
There is only a moment between the past and the future,
That is what is called life. (with)
Elena Muravyova for neveroyatno.info
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All over the world there is only one thing that people know almost nothing about - death. No one has yet been able to return from there. Unless, of course, we do not count those people who survived clinical death and were able to return back. Many do not believe their stories about what they saw THERE. But no one can refute anything. Moreover, many of the details are strikingly similar.
Some people may have a premonition of their death. Someone, as it were, warns a person, gives him signs that speak of an imminent death, so that you, a person, have time to prepare, manage to at least fix something, ask for forgiveness, complete some things, repent of your sins.
And sometimes there are cases when a higher power warns a person, trying to make him understand that he has not yet time, but the path along which he is walking is false and it leads him precisely to death.
In the legends of many peoples of the world there are stories of strange, inexplicable heralds of death. ghosts, mysterious sounds, unusual animals.
Also, one should not discard the fact that any fact of the manifestation of the world of the dead leads people into a state of horror, which operates at the subconscious level. Bizarre visions of otherworldly messengers are accompanied by the breath of death, and their messages are always perceived with frightening misunderstanding. A person in the lead of his pampered, distorted consciousness, atheistic and perverted beliefs cannot always recognize all those signs that he sees. And he accepts them as some kind of event inexplicable by science, without betraying any significance to this. But in vain.
Let's understand a little The messengers of death, how to understand them, how to understand that the events that occurred on the eve of death warned a person about an imminent death and tragedy.
Many people have hallucinations before they die. In fact, these visions are reality. They most often see a woman in white clothes, who has a wreath on her head and a staff in her hand.
There is such a belief - if the bride kisses in a dream, it means that death itself kissed you. This goddess of death controls the process of transmigration of souls. Vanga often said that she saw the goddess of death moving along the tops of the trees. And when Vanga was asked how she defines life and death, she said that this goddess looks beautiful, in light clothes, and not in a black hood with a scythe, which they used to portray. A black woman with a scythe is the goddess of illness, for which Death almost always comes.
A portent of imminent death can come through dreams.
The symbol of death is a falling tree, a tree uprooted, or a falling ceiling in a house where there will be a funeral soon, or a dream in which you leave the house naked. If you go home naked - this is a disease. Loss of teeth - to the illness of relatives, and if teeth rot, or meat - to a serious illness. You need to understand what dreams are connected with. For example, water is life, clothing on the body is protection, and if there is no clothing, then the body is not protected.
Very often, the messengers of imminent death are the arrival of deceased relatives who call with them, holding out their hand, or lead them along. Under no circumstances should you follow them. I dreamed that you were sweeping rubbish from the hut - to the dead man in the house. As you know, rubbish, garbage (that is, everything obsolete)
I dreamed of a log taken out of the wall - to the dead man. The roots of signs go back to those times when the dead were taken out of the house not through the door, but through the window or even through a specially cut hole in the wall.
I saw freshly dug earth or a hole in the ground and fresh boards in a dream - you will soon bury someone. This sign is based on the law of similarities: a pit is a grave dug in the ground; boards - a coffin knocked together from fresh boards.
Also, deceased relatives or friends who came in a dream can warn a person that he will die soon or that there will be a tragedy. They can also be sent to prevent this tragedy, to prevent a person from committing this or that act.
Physical signs of imminent death.
For example, if a bird knocks on the window, a sparrow, a swallow will fly into the house, a crow will hit the window, or if the tree that you planted fell or broke, the dog howls before the death of a person - it has been proven that a dog can see a certain substance that provokes the death of a person.
Cat - hold dead soul and protect the living. The value of a cat in communication between worlds remains very significant. She is able to prevent evil spirits from entering the life of a living person, and to cure, if necessary. True, not every cat is capable of this. It is necessary that she love her master, and want him to always be there. But she will not lead anyone to the afterlife. It does, and that's it. But, if a certain entity tries to enter your life, then the cat will be able to protect you from such an impact. Very often, in the fight against wickedness, a cat can give its life for its owner.
The coffin is larger than the deceased - to another deceased. Since the coffin is considered a home for the deceased, the extra space in it from ancient times suggested that it was intended for another person.
Burial in New Year- a very bad omen: in the coming year, at least once a month they will be buried.
If there are 3 knocks in a row in the room where the patient lies, he will not survive. The same - if a white-breasted bird appears near the room
The icon fell or cracked - expect misfortune and a dead person in the house
Insect invasion - it is not known where insects appear in a well-groomed house, a harbinger of trouble or death.
It is also a rather bright harbinger of the fact that this year there will be a funeral given to a person at Christmas - for example, the appearance of a butterfly in a house at Christmas indicates that there will soon be a dead person in the house.
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But from a medical point of view- It has long been noticed that the signs of death cover not only the very moment of a person’s death, but also a few days before. A person’s appearance changes - the shine in the eyes is lost, the skin becomes dull and dark, the eyes fall in, the nose becomes sharp, the person’s face becomes symmetrical before death - in medicine this is a confirmed fact and has the name “Hippocrates mask”, the bridge of the nose itches to the death of a loved one - Indeed, a change in the biofield of a person was recorded, which in the region of the bridge of the nose receives signals about an impending disaster.
If the doctor came to the patient and stumbled, it means that the doctor will not help him. If you ask the patient how he feels, and he will answer - “terrible”, this is to recovery, and if he says that it is good, it means death, it has been noticed that before death, an incurably ill person becomes well. He can get out of bed, he can walk, be happy, even go to work, but all this is temporary. Why and why is it so difficult to answer this question, but it is true.
Premonition of death
Also, do not miss the fact that a person feels his death - it really is: any person guesses about his imminent death. For example, if a couple of days or a couple of hours before death, a person himself, without realizing it, met with everyone, talked to everyone, asked everyone for forgiveness and, as it were, said goodbye to everyone. Not typical human behavior Everyday life. And after a while, an accident can happen - an accident or any other accidental death (I'm not talking about deliberate suicide, but about an accidental, sudden death of a person). A person always does not realize his end.
The same confirmed facts are the harbingers of death in the Doubles that a person sees. They can also be seen by nearby people. as a rule, already such harbingers are not lapel events and always a quick death. Such examples can be cited from the life of the two empresses Catherine 2 and Anna Ioannovna Romanov, as well as Elizabeth 1 of England, twin harbingers came to Lenin and Stalin.
I can say that the sinister role of double ghosts has always attracted the attention of scientists who were interested in mystical phenomena. Among the hypotheses put forward by them, one is interesting, based on the fact that a person is a creature consisting of several bodies. In addition to the physical, or, as it was also called, the gross body, there are several more. One of them - ethereal - is, as it were, an energy double physical body. The second - the astral - the abode of sensitivity, imagination. The astral body can leave the physical and etheric shells and travel on its own. As a person approaches the last line, his astral double takes on more and more distinct outlines and sometimes becomes visible to people nearby.
The separation of the double occurs in a dream, during an illness, during stressful situation, that is, when a person's consciousness does not function in a completely normal mode - muffled or, conversely, extremely sharpened.
But you can read about double harbingers in the article below "Twins - harbingers of death" ....
Signs of death can neither be denied nor confirmed. In order to say something concrete, you need to visit There yourself. So what to do? Live, believe, love and follow the rules.
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Death visions were rarely mentioned in the scientific literature until the late 1920s, when they began to be studied by William Barrett, professor of physics at the Royal College of Science, Dublin.
Barrett became seriously interested in the subject of visions before death, after his wife, an obstetric surgeon, once told him about a woman who died that day in the hospital from blood loss after childbirth.
Before this woman, Doris, died, she suddenly sat up in bed, incredibly excited to see some magnificent landscape, and then suddenly announced that her dead father had come for her to accompany her to the "other side." Barretta was very shocked by the fact that the woman was suddenly surprised to see her sister Vida, who had died only three weeks ago, along with her father: because Doris was very sick, the death of her beloved sister was hidden from her.
This incident so inspired Barrett that he began a systematic study of dying visions. This was the first scientific experience that established that the consciousness of a dying person often remains clear and rational. Barrett also recounted the many occasions when William Barrett medical staff or relatives present saw visions of a dying person.
Barrett's book, published in 1926, is titled "Deathbed Visions". On its pages, he writes that:
Many times at the time of their death, people saw the ghost of a friend or relative at the bedside, believing that this was a living person;
in all cases, it was established that the person (or rather, his ghost), whom these people observed, had already died, but they did not know this;
dying children were often surprised that the angels they saw waiting for them did not have wings.
In the 60s of the XX century, Dr. Karlis Osis from the American OPI conducted pilot study visions of the dying, which fully confirmed Barrett's data and was subsequently tested in various national cultures.
Osis found that:
The most common type of visions are - the ghosts of already dead people;
usually lasted no more than 5 minutes;
dying people unequivocally stated that the ghosts had come to take them with them;
faith in does not affect the frequency of appearance or appearance of the seen ghost;
most of observed patients did not receive drugs that can cause hallucinations.
1977 - Dr. Osis and his colleague Dr. Erländer Haraldsson published the book At the Hour of Death. This book expanded on the original research and contained reports from about a thousand doctors and nurses in India and America. The book provides information on the deaths of more than 100,000 people. All of these studies are in full agreement with the first studies carried out over 30 years and reflected in several works of Dr. Robert Crookall in England.
According to the information he received from the medical staff:
Only 10% of people were conscious shortly before death;
in this group of those observed, from one half to two thirds had similar near-death visions;
these visions took the form of ghosts of loved ones, fleeting visions of the other world and caused a state of euphoria inexplicable from a medical point of view.
Dr. Melvin Morse assures that the French historian Philippe Arie has documented that before 1000 AD, the dying spoke of the vision of God and that they saw those who had already passed into. Morse laments that today, patients who have these kinds of visions are being treated for "anxiety" with drugs and Valium that erase short-term memory and prevent patients from remembering any visions they may have had. He also assures that approximately 90% of people who die in hospitals are "reanimated and drugged multiple times" and that doctors consider dying visions to be a disease that must be treated without fail.
In his book Closer to the Light. A study of NDE () in children" Morse hypothesized that dying visions are "a forgotten aspect of the mysterious process of life" and that they can have a strong calming and healing effect for both the dying person and his relatives. He listed several cases in which dying children saw visions of the other world during the last few days of their lives. Children described amazing colors, beautiful places, and their long-dead relatives whom they could not have known in life.
These are not hallucinations
Dr. Osis himself suggested that such sensations were simply hallucinations caused by the biochemical effects of a dying brain. But, after careful research, the scientist realized that these sensations were so unusual and convincing that they could not be explained by any physical condition the patient, nor the consequences of treatment.
The report of the PSI (Society for Psychical Research) cites cases where a ghost was seen by one or more people who were at the bedside of a dying person.
In one case, which has been described in detail, a ghost was seen by a dying woman, Harriet Pearson, and three relatives caring for her.
In another case, at the bedside of a dying little boy, two witnesses independently saw his recently deceased mother.
Death visions corroborate other evidence. Of those who die in consciousness, 50-60% see visions of the other world.
The important role of dying visions
In his book Parting Visions, 1994, Melvin Morse states that:
Carla Wills-Brandon, M.A., Ph.D., psychologist, lawyer, and author of six published books, became seriously interested in dying visions when it happened to her three-year-old son. The child was visited by a ghost who informed him that he was there to take him and his grandfather with him; the boy was sure that it was actually his dad. In her book One Last Embrace Before I'm Gone: The Mystery and Meaning of Death Visions, Carla Wills-Brandon not only revisits the research of Barrett and Osis, but analyzes many recent studies. And here is her conclusion.
Science is unable to explain these phenomena.
Death visions have existed since time immemorial.
These events point to the existence of life after death.
Our destiny is to study them.
One of my friends experienced a state of clinical death. The only thing she managed to see was a crowd of relatives who stood on the other side of the river and waved their hands at her, shouting: “Zhenya!” When she woke up in the intensive care unit and opened her eyes, she saw that her mother was standing in front of her and loudly repeating: “Zhenya, breathe!”
The vision before death almost coincided with reality and rather resembled an episode of a dream. However, sometimes a person in a similar state sees something more bizarre. Moreover, the storyline of posthumous visions in general terms is repeated in different people.
For the first time, the American psychiatrist Raymond Moody, who published the book Life After Life, drew attention to this in 1975. The book caused a great resonance, and for more than a quarter of a century, disputes have been going on around it: what are visions in a state of clinical death - a “journey of the soul” or peculiar hallucinations somehow related to the structural features of the human brain? (Moody himself leans towards the former.)
Psychologists and clergy take part in disputes mainly. The only pathophysiologist who paid attention to “life after life” was Academician V.A. Negovsky. His resume was short, like a shot from a tank gun. "These are the hallucinations of a dying brain." However, the arguments that are sufficient in a militantly atheistic state, as the USSR was at that time, are unconvincing in a country loyal to four religious denominations. Therefore, we will try to give a more detailed pathophysiological argumentation.
First of all, it is necessary to distinguish two variants of post-mortem visions, different in duration. The first is visions directly in the course of clinical death against the background of resuscitation. As a rule, the time interval in this situation rarely exceeds one hour. And the second option is when those around, on the basis of external signs, ascertain the death of the patient, and after a few days, often already on the way to the cemetery, he suddenly comes to life.
Let's start with the last case. In medicine, there is the concept of a torpid phase of shock. She received a classic description from N.I. Pirogov. “With an arm or leg torn off, such a stiff one lies motionless at the dressing station. He does not scream, does not complain ... his body is cold, his face is pale, like that of a corpse, his gaze is motionless, his breathing is also barely noticeable. This phase, with a further decrease in pressure, passes into the next - cerebral, when the patient loses consciousness. Now it is simply impossible to distinguish him from the deceased by external signs. But he is alive, because his body falls into a state of suspended animation, akin to hibernation in animals. It is dangerous to abruptly remove him from this state: artificial heating of the body to normal temperature will be perceived by the organs as overheating, and an increase in pressure by pumping blood will lead to an overload of the heart. However, the body of the victim, following some currently unknown algorithm, climbs out on its own, restores functions, horrifying others who are witnessing the resurrection from the dead.
As a rule, victims in this phase of shock imagine that they are hovering over a dead body in the air and invisibly participate in their own funeral.
A young woman, as a result of a criminal abortion, received an infection and died a few days later. At the moment of death, she felt that her soul was separated from the body and stopped nearby, watching how the body was washed, dressed and laid in a coffin. In the morning she followed the procession to the church where the funeral took place, and saw how the coffin was placed on a hearse and taken to the cemetery. Her soul seemed to be flying over her body at a low altitude. Suddenly, two priests appeared to the soul, who began to sort out her past sins, and the car that was carrying the coffin stalled. Eventually the priests decided to send her soul back so that she could confess and repent, after which she felt herself being dragged back into a body that now seemed disgusting to her. A moment later, she woke up and began to knock on the coffin lid.
Such cases are well described in the literature. Most of the "resurrections" took place a hundred years ago or earlier, when there were no resuscitators or cardiographers, and whether the patient was alive or dead was judged by external signs. According to modern ideas, these people were not dead, and what they saw was a special kind of hallucination, and not pure, but with an admixture of a real reflection of the events taking place around.
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By what mechanism can such visions develop? A person in a state of deep shock does not experience pain, since the body releases its own analgesics in large quantities - enkephalins, and the victim is in a state of autonarcosis. As a result, the sensorimotor part of the cortex (the homunculus, see about it in the article “Routes on the Brain Map”, “Chemistry and Life”, 2004, No. 9) is completely turned off, which during wakefulness works in tandem with the neighboring parietal region. Thanks to the sensorimotor cortex, a person automatically “fits” his own body into the surrounding space. Left without a homunculus, the parietal region continues to function, giving rise to vestibular hallucinations of the “flight of the soul”.
But since this is so, then ordinary patients who are artificially anesthetized before surgical interventions should experience similar hallucinations. Indeed, narcotic substances with a similar effect exist and are called dissociative. These include, in particular, the same ketamine, around which in recent times there was so much noise in the press. This is how Olga A-na describes her feelings.
“When they injected me with ketamine anesthesia and said: “Close your eyes and sleep,” at first I really seemed to forget, but at some point I felt like I was on top. I saw how the doctors in the operating room bent over the body, and I knew that this body was mine. However, it did not arouse any interest in me, since I was completely absorbed in my current state. I didn't see it, but I felt like a light ball. A feeling of great joy and lightness overwhelmed me. All earthly worries left me. It was not a dream, because in a dream, everyday little things often do not let you go and spoil your mood. I just hung from the ceiling and rejoiced. And then I heard a strong male voice: “Well, now you believe that that light exists?” And I answered without hesitation: "I believe." Then pink screens appeared, and I saw a ceiling with large cracks right in front of me and a huge fly in all its details. Then the ceiling and the fly began to move away, and I woke up lying in the ward. Looking closer at the ceiling, I was convinced that the fly was really sitting there, but it was of real size and seemed to be a dot from afar.
Thus, it can be argued with a high degree of probability that when the revival took place several hours or more after the death, those around him erroneously ascertained death. By eye. And all the post-mortem visions in this case were the result of the action of anesthesia produced by the body of the victim himself.
Another mechanism of the "journey of the soul" operates in the case of real clinical death - it can be associated with the sequence of exsanguination of various areas of the cerebral cortex.
First of all, let us consider some structural elements of the brain itself and their blood supply. Conventionally, the brain can be divided into basic and superstructural structures. The basic structures (they are, in particular, responsible for breathing) form its foundation and are supplied with blood through a special basilar artery, into which blood is pumped almost from the aortic arch. Therefore, they are reliably insured against drops in blood pressure: breathing can be maintained even with the loss of 40% of blood, when electrical activity in the cerebral cortex is completely absent. Further, it is conditionally possible to single out the first floor, on which the visual and auditory systems of the cerebral cortex are located, and a little higher - the second floor, where the motor and tactile systems are located (the already mentioned homunculus). Blood also comes to them from their own arteries - the internal carotid ones, however, along the way, the arteries loop around each other with the formation of an additional vascular reservoir, the circle of Willis. This vascular ring also supplies blood to the third floor of the brain - the frontal cortex, which controls behavior. As a result of such a multi-stage blood supply, the loss of blood pressure (due to the weakening of cardiac activity) will lead, first of all, to bleeding of the third floor. This will lead to loss of control over the body, then deafness and blindness, and only last will stop breathing. (Everyone who is prone to hypotonic states has experienced similar sensations with a sharp drop in pressure, their legs give way, the faces of those around them are obscured by a veil of fog, but fainting can sometimes be prevented if you follow the advice to breathe deeper). Perhaps nature was right when she placed the management structures at the very top, and not in the basement, because it is always safer to hear and see, but lie down, than not to see and not hear, but to walk.
And now, having understood a little about the plumbing features of the cerebral vascular system, let's see how these principles affect during clinical death.
The victim lies lifeless, the pulse is not palpable, the pupils slowly dilate. "Died!" - Surrounding people are horrified. However, the doctor begins to rhythmically press the patient on the sternum, massaging the heart, and makes artificial respiration. And while resuscitation continues, the patient is alive. He is alive by force, because only the doctor's palms make the frozen heart push out the next milliliters of blood into the aorta. Such manual pumping deliberately puts different floors of the brain in unequal conditions for blood supply. The largest portion of blood is received by the basic structure of the brain - the medulla oblongata, where the respiratory center is located. In general, the efforts of the resuscitator are aimed at restarting the work of the center and the patient began to breathe on his own. And the most meager rations are received by the two upper floors of the cortex - the motor-sensitive and control areas. Therefore, all forms of voluntary control of the limbs and pain sensitivity are guaranteed to be lost for the entire time of resuscitation. A more significant portion of oxygen goes to the first floor: the visual and auditory zones. Therefore, in the first tens of moments there is enough oxygen here even for the deceased to remember the actions of those around him and some fragments of their conversation (usually a phrase about his death).
For example, a patient had a cardiac arrest before surgery. Surgeons began to attempt to bring her back to life, talking along the way, how much to inject adrenaline and other cardiac stimulants. The heart was able to start, and later the patient told her doctors what they were talking about during her clinical death.
However, no matter how much the resuscitator works, until the victim himself breathes, the concentration of oxygen in his blood will fall all the time. Upon reaching a certain hypoxic threshold, the nerve cell responds with the last short-term paroxysmal burst of activity: neurons, as it were, desperately scream “SOS!” As the blood pressure drops and hypoxia deepens, atonal activation will proceed along the large vessels in the reverse order to the blood flow. Knowing which areas of the brain are located along the vascular trunk, it is possible to predict the sequence of their pre-death activation, as shown in the diagram. Surgeons tried to irritate many of these areas with a weak electric current during operations to remove epileptogenic foci (patients were awake at the same time). Therefore, we have the opportunity to compare the sensations of those operated on and those who came to life after clinical death.
First of all, site A is activated - the primary visual cortex. The task of this part of the brain is to quickly divide the object that is in the focus of attention into its constituent colors and segments of different orientations: neurons work like cubist artists. The information received in the primary visual area should be divided into component lines, vectors and shades. When it was irritated by the current, the operated ones saw luminous balls, disks with red rings, a flame, light at the end of the tunnel. Simultaneously with zone A, zone B is activated - the primary auditory cortex. When it was irritated by the current, the operated ones “heard” the noise of the drum, ringing, chirping, roaring, buzzing.
What is the experience of the deceased? He feels that he is moving at high speed through a long black tunnel and at the same time hears an unpleasant noise, a loud ringing or buzzing. But this is a general scheme, but specific cases.
“I was moving through a long dark space that looked like a sewer pipe, and all the time I heard a ringing noise.”
“At that moment, I heard something similar to a bell ringing somewhere in the distance, as if carried by the wind, and I was pulled into a kind of funnel.”
“An indistinct noise was heard, and then a crowd of ugly creatures began to approach with a cry and a cackle. Demons! I thought. Surrounding me on all sides, the demons, shouting and clamoring, demanded that I be handed over to them.”
“I felt that I was somewhere in the middle of the dark tunnels, and tried my best to get over the pipes in deep ditches, where it was terribly cold.”
In general, some own visions can be superimposed on the standard canvas, connected with the ideas that a person already has about the afterlife. (How can one not recall the well-known psychological test Rorschach, when in bizarre blots everyone distinguishes something of their own, inspired by personal life experience).
After the primary visual and auditory areas of the cortex, the secondary visual cortex is activated (B). Its neurons are carriers of memory traces of specific images. Electrical stimulation of the secondary visual cortex evoked the sensation of seeing familiar faces, figures of people, and animals.
Accordingly, the dead "see" something similar.
“And then I saw a deep cliff in front of me, under which there were many men and women.”
“At that moment, when I was almost falling into some kind of dark hole, an old woman appeared in a man's attire.”
“Suddenly, a fiery mountain appeared in front of me, from which fiery sparks rushed in all directions, and I saw a lot of people.”
The next zone of activation will be G - the temporal cortex. All information from the perceiving zones of the brain - visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory - flows into this area, and here individual images are synthesized into complete everyday scenes. Her irritation during operations was felt by patients as “flashes of experience”, they had vivid and extremely detailed memories of episodes of the past. And this is what the dead experience.
“When we approached the gates of heaven, we came to the ordeal of fornication, the guards detained me there and began to show all my fornication, carnal deeds, committed by me from childhood to death.” (A warrior's story.)
“I heard how my sins, starting from my youth, cry out against me, each with their own voice, and accuse me with sorrow.” (A monk's story.)
It has long been known that before death, with amazing clarity and incredible speed, his whole life can flash through the mind of the dying person. These facts were summarized in the 19th century by the French psychologist Théodule Ribot and the German physiologist Gustav Fechner. In everyday life, the storehouse of memory in the temporal cortex is under reliable constipation of inhibitory impulses that come from the control (frontal) sections of the cortex. However, in a state of clinical death, it is turned off, and nothing prevents the tangle of life impressions from unwinding in one or two minutes.
"In this state, one thought drove another with indescribable speed."
However, for immersion in one's past, a person does not have to experience clinical death. Hashish smokers make these excursions in more comfortable surroundings. According to them, one session can mentally live 60 years. True, we should not forget that the physical exhaustion of drug addicts proceeds ten times faster than normal.
The last zone D is activated - the orbital cortex and the subcortical formation lying in the depths of the brain, the striatum.
In a healthy brain, neurons in the orbital cortex receive information already processed in the temporal region. It is like chewed food, there is no cucumber or sausage here, but there are faceless cubes with tags “sausage”, “cucumber”, “house”, “car”, etc. Thanks to the orbital cortex, thinking can be carried out schematically, without involving images and even words (although in the normal brain both images and words are activated a second time, through feedback). Therefore, a separate activation of this area can be accompanied by communication without words, directly with blocks of thoughts, with invisible interlocutors. Activation of the striatum, in turn, leads to the release of happiness mediators - endorphins, which is experienced as bliss. No wonder the physiologists who studied this structure called it the "entrance to paradise."
“I ended up in a place where everything was flooded with light, fragrance and grace emanated from everywhere. I felt that there were people around me, although I did not see anyone. When I wanted to know what was going on, I always got a mental answer from one of them. After I acquired new knowledge, my soul was returned to the body.”
So, the circle is closed: the last vision is also the last moments of being in the "other world", followed by a return to worldly life.
I would like to end the article on this optimistic note. Moreover, all the people I quoted really came back to life. And they weren't dead either. After all, clinical death is still life.
Candidate biological sciences Aleksandrin V.V.
"Chemistry and Life - XXI century"
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