Sam Parnia

Sam Parnia is a British cardiologist who studied in London and received his PhD from the University of Southampton in 2006 . He conducts research on near-death and out-of- body experiences at Weill Cornell Medical College , New York ; his focus is on near-death experiences of heart patients.

In transplant medicine, the definition of death is based on brain death . Parnia, on the other hand, regards death as a process that begins with cardiac arrest and then extends over a more or less long period of time. For example, German transplant law, with brain death defined in 1968, is based on the point in time of the irreversible total failure of all brain functions (“death determined”, Section 3 (2) No. 2 TPG). In contrast, according to Parnia, death is “a process that begins after cardiac arrest and that spreads at different speeds in the various tissues of the body”.

AWARE study

2014 were the results of the study he led AWARE (short for Awareness during Resuscitation to dt. Awareness during Resuscitation ) published. The study should provide information about the extent to which mental states such as perception, cognition and consciousness can occur without measurable brain activity .

15 hospitals in Great Britain, the USA and Austria took part in the study. For four and a half years, standardized surveys were carried out with patients who had been resuscitated using cardiopulmonary resuscitation after cardiac arrest .

A total of 330 patients were successfully resuscitated in the participating clinics. Some died shortly afterwards or could not be interviewed due to their general illness. 140 initial interviews were carried out, whereby, due to the time-consuming formalities of consent, the interviews in 90 patients only took place three to twelve months after hospital discharge and by telephone. 55 respondents reported memories during their unconsciousness (“Do you remember anything from the time during your unconsciousness?”), 9 of them of a near-death experience according to the Greyson-NDE scale .

Two study participants recalled in addition to the perception of audio- visual impressions ( auditory / visual recall of events ) in the treatment room and experiences, the similarities with off-corporeal experiences had (see original transcriptions). While the unfavorable course of the disease made further questioning impossible in one of the two patients, an in-depth interview was conducted with the other, a 57-year-old British man from Southampton. His statements about the doctor treating him and the course of the resuscitation could be checked and verified.

In general, it is assumed that the human brain has a maximum of 30 seconds of “remaining time” after the heartbeat has stopped. In the case of the British heart patient, however, the researchers were able to use his reported auditory perceptions to infer an external perceptual ability over a period of up to 3 minutes.

Hopes for a validation of perception with the help of special ceiling installations had not been fulfilled . For this purpose, picture boards were installed in the intensive care units of the clinics. The alignment of the boards was such that the images and symbols depicted were only visible to a viewer hovering on the ceiling, i.e. a position in the room that people with an out-of-body experience often report. Although around 1,000 boards were installed, 78% of the 2,060 patients resuscitated after cardiac arrest during the study period were in rooms without picture boards during resuscitation efforts. This also applied to the only two study participants with visual perceptual memories.

Fonts

• What Happens When We Die: A Ground-breaking Study into the Nature of Life and Death . January 2006

Web links

• zeit.de report including an interview with Sam Parnia

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sam Parnia. In: The Guardian
2. ↑ Death is reversible . In: Der Spiegel . No. 30 , 2013 ( online ).
3. ↑ Sam Parnia: AWARE - AWAreness during REsuscitation - A prospective study . October 8, 2014
4. ↑ Rense Lange, Bruce Greyson, James Houran: A Rasch scaling validation of a 'core' near-death experience . In: British Journal of Psychology . tape 95 , Pt 2, 1953, ISSN  0007-1269 , pp. 161-177 , doi : 10.1348 / 000712604773952403 , PMID 15142300 . NDE definition: "NDEs reflect peace, joy and harmony, followed by insight and mystical or religious experiences, while the most intense NDEs involve an awareness of things occurring in a different place or time."
5. ↑ AWARE study An original transcription in the study reads: “(…) I was on the ceiling looking down (…) I could see my body and saw everything at once. I saw my blood pressure being taken whilst the doctor was putting something down my throat. I saw a nurse pumping down my chest (...) "
6. ↑ AWARE study The original transcription in the study reads: “(…) and the next second, I was up there, looking down at me, the nurse, and another man who had a bald head… I couldn't see his face but I could see the back of his body. He was quite a chunky fella… He had blue scrubs on, and he had a blue hat, but I could tell he didn't have any hair, because of where the hat was. (...) "
7. ↑ On the trail of the end . N24 , October 8, 2014
8. ↑ Interview with Dr Parnia. The Independent , October 7, 2014: “We know the brain can't function when the heart has stopped beating. But in this case, conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes. The man described everything that had happened in the room, but importantly, he heard two bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three minute intervals. So we could time how long the experienced lasted for. "