The Science Behind the Law of Attraction Magazine August, 2015 | Page 54

Resul t s of Worl d's Largest Near Deat h
Experiences St udy Publ ished By Dr. Jerry Nol an
In 2008, a large-scale study involving 2060 patients from
15 hospitals in the United Kingdom, United States and
Austria was launched. The AWARE (AWAreness during
REsuscitation) study, sponsored by the University of
Southampton in the UK, examined the broad range of
mental experiences in relation to death. Researchers also
tested the validity of conscious experiences using
objective markers for the first time in a large study to
determine whether claims of awareness compatible with
out-of-body experiences correspond with real or
hallucinatory events.

Future studies should focus on cardiac arrest, which is
biologically synonymous with death, rather than ill-defined
medical states sometimes referred to as ?near-death?.
- The recalled experience surrounding death merits a genuine
investigation without prejudice.

Results of the study have been published in the journal
Resuscitation and are now available online. The study
concludes:
- The themes relating to the experience of death appear far
broader than what has been understood so far, or what has
been described as so called near-death experiences.
- In some cases of cardiac arrest, memories of visual
awareness compatible with so called out-of-body
experiences may correspond with actual events.
- A higher proportion of people may have vivid death
experiences, but do not recall them due to the effects of
brain injury or sedative drugs on memory circuits.
- Widely used yet scientifically imprecise terms such as
near-death and out-of-body experiences may not be
sufficient to describe the actual experience of death.
Page 54 - August , 2015

Dr Sam Parnia, Assistant Professor of Critical Care Medicine
and Director of Resuscitation Research at The State University
of New York at Stony Brook, USA, and the study?s lead author,
explained: ?Contrary to perception, death is not a specific
moment but a potentially reversible process that occurs after
any severe illness or accident causes the heart, lungs and
brain to cease functioning. If attempts are made to reverse
this process, it is referred to as ?cardiac arrest?; however, if
these attempts do not succeed it is called ?death?. In this study
we wanted to go beyond the emotionally charged yet poorly