Remember Joel Schumacher's 1990 movie Flatliners? Basically, Kiefer Sutherland and his fellow medical students are curious about the afterlife, so they stop their own hearts, take a look around and then resuscitate each other. Smart, right? Well, The Human Consciousness Project thinks so, and is starting the world's first large-scale scientific study of what happens when we die. This time, however, they won't be using overeager medical students, but rather hospital patients in cardiac arrest.
Explains Dr. Sam Parnia, director of the Project and leader of the AWARE (Awareness during Resuscitation) study, "During a cardiac arrest, there follows a period of time which may last from a few seconds to an hour or more in which emergency medical efforts may succeed in restarting the heart and reversing the dying process. What people experience during this period provides a unique window of understanding into what we are all likely to experience."
While studies show there is no brain activity during this time, 10-20% of those who go through clinical death report lucid, well-structured thought processes, reasoning, memories, and sometimes even detailed recollections of their cardiac arrest. How can they report this high-level of consciousness in the absence of measurable brain activity? Dr. Parnia hopes to find out.
Twenty-five medical centers throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe will be looking at 1,500 resuscitated patients. Doctors will use state of the art technology to study the brain during cardiac arrest, and then discuss the experience with those who are willing.
One area the team will be examining are reports of so-called "out-of-body experiences." To test if they are real, pictures that are visible only from above will be placed around the areas of the hospital where heart attacks occur most frequently (emergency and intensive care units). Patients floating above their body should notice these images. If they do, it will prove their mind traveled outside of their body. If they don't, the study will conclude that the floating effect is a trick of the mind.
"The study aims to settle this debate once and for all," says Dr. Parnia. "It may be that out-of-body experiences are false memories, but until that has been scientifically tested we can't say for sure." Over the next three years he and his team hope to turn such philosophical discussions into scientific ones.
