You may have heard stories of people who, after recovering from a life-threatening injury or condition, have experienced extra-corporeal experiences (leaving owns body), seen a tunnel of light, dead family members and even angels. These kind of events have been reported for years all around the world.
According to a recent study these may just be mind tricks triggered by an excess of Carbon Dioxide in our bloodstream. The sample consisted in 52 people from Slovenia who had suffered heart attacks and have been re-animated. 11 of them reported experiencing this type of sensations.
During heart attack and re-animation, CO2 levels in the bloodstream increase or decrease due to the absence of circulation and breathing. Curiously, all 11 patients that reported having these near-death experiences had significantly higher CO2 levels compared to those who didn’t visit “the other side”.
Other factors such as gender, age, religious beliefs and time required to re-animate the patient did not influence the occurrence of these phenomena.
Unfortunately, the study does not explain how CO2 interacts with the brain to provoke these sensations. Its purpose was to identify the agent that caused them. In fact, people that has inhaled an excess of CO2 or have remained at high altitudes have reported feeling similar symptoms.
Still, not all scientists are convinced: “The one difficulty in arguing that CO2 is the cause is that in cardiac arrests, everybody has high CO2 but only 10 percent have NDEs,” said neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick.
How near death experiences are generated remains to be explained because when circulation stops, coherent cerebral activity also ceases. That’s where the mystery resides: if the brain is inactive, then how do this people “remember” anything?
In heart attack patients, Dr. Fenwick said, “there is no coherent cerebral activity which could support consciousness, let alone an experience with the clarity of an NDE.”
The CO2 lead may be on the right track, but those who support a metaphysical basis for this near death experiences still have something to cling on. The mystery hasn’t been solved yet.
Sources: NatGeo News, Critical Care and Maikelnai’s Blog
Image credit: The Global Intelligencer
Article by Fernando
The guy in charge of this blog - husband, Psychologist, former Manager, Blogger, Job Coach, Recruiter and Information Junkie. Yes, I am all that.
Fernando has written 237 awesome articles for us at FT Careers Blog
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