Stories of survivors. What do people remember after clinical death?

Death is something that every person is guaranteed to face, so there is a special interest in it in society.

Many people who have been in a state of clinical death describe what happened to them, and scientists are trying to explain the phenomena that occur in this borderline state with people.

Our review contains 10 scientific explanations for human sensations during clinical death.

1. The feeling of leaving the body

When people describe their feelings during clinical death, they very often remember that they left their body in the form of a disembodied spirit. At the same time, they saw their body and the people around them from the side, as if floating above it in the air. Scientists believe this may be due to damage to the temporoparietal lobe of the brain. The temporal node is responsible for collecting data that comes from the senses, forming the perception of one’s own body. Damage to this part of the brain may well result in the "out-of-body" perceptions that have been reported by many who have had experiences beyond life.

2. Light at the end of the tunnel

Almost every person who has had a near-death experience reports being surrounded by a bright white light, or rushing through a tunnel with a light at the end. As people who have experienced similar experiences describe similar cases, the white light was completely otherworldly and was accompanied by an all-encompassing sense of calm. The study found that patients who experienced near-death experiences associated with a heart attack and had similar visions had elevated levels of CO2 in their blood. Researchers have suggested that excess CO2 in the blood may have a significant impact on vision. Hence the tunnel and the bright light.

3. Images of deceased relatives

Many people who were on the verge of death saw long-dead friends and relatives who wanted to guide them from the world of the living to the afterlife. Also, in a few seconds, memories of your entire life flash before your eyes. Scientists have suggested that there is a scientific explanation for this.
While excess CO2 affects the vision of people near death, lack of oxygen to the brain plays an equally important role. It is well known that oxygen deprivation can lead to hallucinations and can even contribute to feelings of euphoria. Research has shown that people have low levels of oxygen in the brain during cardiac arrest, which can cause hallucinations.

4. Euphoria

It has long been theorized that many of the sensations before death may be caused by a surge of endorphins and other chemicals in the brain due to extreme stress. Although this theory has not been confirmed, it can easily explain why so many people who are on the verge of death do not feel fear or anxiety.

5. Brain activity

Increased sensory perception is quite typical for the near-death state. The study also found that ESP feelings can be caused by a significant surge in brain activity in the moments before death. The study was conducted on rats, but researcher Jimo Borjigin believes that a similar situation is typical for humans.

6. Leaving the body and anesthesia

The sensation of leaving the body can be caused not only by damage to the temporoparietal lobe, but also by anesthesia. Although people rarely remember what happened while under anesthesia, about 1 in 1,000 people experience exactly the same thing as people near death. Sometimes patients say that they see themselves and doctors from the outside during surgery.

7. Distorted sense of time

Neurosurgeon Eben Alexander wrote a book detailing his personal near-death experience while in a coma due to meningitis. Alexander's own near-death experience lasted a week, during which his cerebral cortex, which controls thoughts and emotions, stopped functioning. At this time, the neurosurgeon experienced a journey into the afterlife. Dr. Oliver Sacks, professor of neurology, offered a very simple explanation - the hallucination actually happened in the 20-30 seconds during which he came out of the coma,

8. Hallucinations

Those who have once stood on the verge of death quite often recall that all the visions seemed to them more real than anything they had ever experienced before. According to Dr. Oliver Sacks, a person who has had similar experiences, “The main reason that hallucinations seem so real is that they use the same areas of the brain as normal perception.”

9. Death Visions

Although ecstatic seizures are quite rare, occurring in a very small percentage of people affected by temporal lobe epilepsy, a surge of epileptic activity in the temporal lobe will result in visions. During the study, EEG monitoring was carried out on patients who were experiencing religious ecstasy. It turned out that there was complete similarity of indicators from encephalograms with patients with convulsive activity in the temporal lobe (almost always on the right side).

10. Neuroscience and religion are not contradictory.

Dr. Tony Chicoria was struck by lightning in 1994. A few weeks after this incident, Chicoria, who had a doctorate in neuroscience, suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to learn to play and write music. He was amazed by this, and in his own words, “realized that there are no contradictions between religion and neurology - if God wants to change a person, he will do it with the help of the nervous system and the activation of areas of the brain responsible for certain actions.”

An encounter with death

We talked with a doctor, a psychiatrist, who, in a state of clinical death, saw the Creator, and he is sure that he was given the opportunity to see the afterlife. Dr. George Ritchie is a psychiatrist in Charlottesville, Virginia. What he says is impressive. This happened in 1943 and he wrote everything down in detail.

However, Dr. Ritchie's story contains virtually all the significant elements of the near-death experience recorded by various scientists, and it was Dr. Ritchie's experience that prompted the research. Dr. Ritchie is attested in the archives of the military hospital. His experience had a deeply religious overtone, which affected his life and the lives of the people to whom he lectured.

1943, early December - in a military hospital at Camp Barkley, Texas, George Ritchie was recovering from a serious pulmonary illness. He was eager to get out of the hospital as soon as possible so that he could attend medical school in Richmond as a military medical trainee. In the early morning of December 20, his temperature suddenly rose, he began to become delirious and lost consciousness.

“Opening my eyes, I saw that I was lying in a small room where I had never been before. A dim light was on. I lay there for a while, trying to figure out where I was. Suddenly I just jumped. Train! I missed the train to Richmond!

I jumped out of bed and looked around, looking for clothes. The headboard was empty. I stopped and looked around. There was someone lying on the bed I had just gotten up from. In the dim light I moved closer. It was a dead man. Slack jaw, terrible gray skin. And then I saw the ring, the ring of the Phi Gama Delta Society, which I had been wearing for two years.”

Frightened, but not fully aware that the lying body was his body, Ritchie ran out into the corridor, hoping to call the orderly, but found that his voice was not heard. “The orderly did not pay any attention to my words, and a second later walked right where I was, as if I was not there.” Ritchie walked through the closed door - “like a ghost” - and found himself “flying” towards Richmond, driven by the desire to be at the Faculty of Medicine.

“Suddenly it became clear to me: in some incomprehensible way my body had lost its density. I also began to understand that the body on the bed belonged to me, incredibly separate from me, that I needed to return and unite with it as quickly as possible. Finding the base and the hospital turned out to be not difficult. I think I came back almost the moment I thought about it.”

Rushing from room to room, peering at the sleeping soldiers, Ritchie feverishly searched for his body along the familiar ring.

“Eventually I reached a small room, lit by one dim light bulb. The person lying on his back was completely covered with a sheet, but his hands remained outside. There was a ring on the left one. I tried to pull back the sheet, but I couldn't grab it. Suddenly the thought came to me: “This is death.”

At that moment, Ritchie finally realized that he was dead. This struck him - his dreams of entering the medical faculty collapsed. Suddenly something caught Ritchie's attention.

“The room began to fill with light. I say “light,” but there are no words in our language to describe this amazing radiance. I have to try to find words, but since it was an incomprehensible phenomenon, like everything that happens, I have been under its constant influence ever since.

The light that appeared in the room was Christ: I realized this because the thought arose in me: “You are before the Son of God.” I called it light because the room was filled, permeated, illuminated with the most complete compassion I had ever felt. There was such peace and joy that I wanted to stay forever and watch without stopping.”

Ritchie's entire childhood passed before him, and the light asked: “What have you done during your stay on Earth?” Ritchie stammered and stammered, trying to explain that he was too young to do anything meaningful, and the world gently retorted: “You can’t be too young.” And then Ritchie’s sense of guilt receded, eclipsed by a new vision that opened up to him, so extraordinary that when reading its description, one should remember that this is said by an intelligent, experienced psychiatrist who has spent his entire life analyzing the differences between illusion and reality.

“A new wave of light flooded the room, and we suddenly found ourselves in another world. Or, rather, I felt a completely different world, which was located in the same space. I followed Christ along ordinary streets in the countryside, where people crowded. There were people there with the saddest faces I have ever seen. I saw officials walking along the corridors of the institutions where they had previously worked, trying in vain to gain someone's attention. I saw a mother walking behind her 6-year-old son, teaching and warning him. He didn't seem to hear her.

Suddenly I remembered that I had been trying to get to Richmond all night. Perhaps it was the same as with these people? Perhaps their minds and hearts are filled with earthly problems, and now, having left earthly life, they just can’t get rid of them? I wondered if this was hell. Worrying when you are absolutely powerless can actually be hell.

I was allowed to look into two more worlds that night; I can’t say “spiritual worlds,” they were very real, too strong. The second world, like the first, fit in the same space, but was completely different. Everyone in it was not absorbed in earthly problems, but—I can’t find a better word—in truth.

I saw sculptors and philosophers, composers and inventors. There were libraries and laboratories storing all kinds of achievements of scientific thought.

I only glanced at the last world. I saw a city, but the city, if such a thing can be assumed, was created from light. At that time I had not read either the Book of Revelation or publications. It was as if the houses, walls, and streets of the city were emitting light, and the creatures walking along it were shining as brightly as the One who stood next to me.”

The next moment, Ritchie found himself back in the military hospital, on the bed, in his body. It was several weeks before he could walk around the hospital, and while he lay there he kept wanting to look at his medical history. When he was able to sneak in unnoticed and look, he saw a note in it: Private George Ritchie, death occurred on December 20, 1943, double pneumonia. Dr. Ritchie told us:

“I later spoke with the doctor who signed the death certificate. He said that he was absolutely sure that I was dead when he examined me. However, after 9 minutes. the soldier who had to transport me to the morgue ran up to him and said that I seemed to be alive. The doctor gave me an injection of adrenaline directly into the heart muscle. “My return to life, he said, without brain damage or any other damage, is the most incomprehensible event in his life.”

The incident had a profound impact on Ritchie. He not only graduated from medical school and became a psychiatrist, but also a priest of his church. Some time ago, Dr. Ritchie was asked to speak about his experience to a group of doctors at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

To find out if any details remained hidden in Dr. Ritchie's subconscious, another psychiatrist hypnotized him, taking him back to the moment when he met death. Suddenly the veins in Dr. Ritchie's neck swelled, blood rushed to his face, his blood pressure jumped, he experienced heart failure as he experienced his death again. The psychiatrist immediately brought him out of hypnosis.

It became clear that Dr. Ritchie's death was so deeply imprinted in his brain that under hypnosis he was able to completely repeat it - psychologically and physically. This fact has forced many doctors in the future to be wary of experimenting with the brains of people who have experienced clinical death.

Prolonged clinical death

One can imagine that people who have experienced the longest clinical death, that which occurs as a result of hypothermia, and those who have drowned in cold water, harbor stories that never come to light.

With hypothermia, hypothermia, there are the most dramatic returns “from the other side.” When freezing, the body temperature drops by 8-12°C and a person can remain in a state of clinical death for hours and return to life without disturbances in brain activity. The two longest recorded deaths were that of Jean Jobone of Canada, 21, who was dead for four hours, and Edward Ted Milligan, also of Canada, 16, who was dead for about 2 hours.

Each of these cases is a medical miracle.

Early on the morning of January 8 in Winnipeg, Jean Jobone was returning home from a party in the snow. Still feeling a little giddy from the pleasant evening, she walked along the narrow street towards William Avenue. At 7 a.m., Nestor Raznak, taking out the trash before heading to work, came across Jean's body. Due to an incorrect message, the police arrived only at 8.15. To keep Jean warm, Raznak wrapped her in a carpet. The police discovered that Jean was alive and moaning.

But when she was taken to the Central Hospital, her heart was no longer beating. Body temperature was lower than usual by almost 11 degrees 26.3°C. Jean had no heartbeat, no pulse, no breathing, and her pupils were dilated to the limit. The wine she drank at the party helped cool her body, as the alcohol dilated her blood vessels.

For four hours without rest, 7 doctors, 10 nurses and several orderlies worked to bring her back to life. At first, the team tried superficial cardiac massage, pressing on the chest and squeezing the heart. A tube was inserted into Jean's windpipe for manual ventilation using bellows. For 2 hours they tried unsuccessfully to raise her body temperature - this is a necessary procedure before the possible onset of heartbeat.

They covered her with hot towels and heated blankets, inserted a tube into her stomach and pumped warm saline solution through it. Gradually, the girl’s body temperature rose by 5°C. It took over an hour to get my heart beating. Once the body temperature had risen sufficiently, a defibrillator was used to shock the heart into beating.

At 11 o'clock at night, Jean regained consciousness, and when the weakness passed, she was able to speak. One of the team's doctors, who had an idea of ​​the afterlife that people in a state of clinical death see, asked Jean questions, but she probably experienced regressive memory loss, covering the period before getting ready for the party. Dr. Gerald Bristow, from the resuscitation team, told us that Jean's brain was completely without oxygen for half an hour, but she had no brain problems; Low body temperature slowed down metabolism and the brain needed less oxygen. This is probably what led to the amnesia.

The doctors we spoke with believe that somewhere in the back of Jean's memory lies the events of the party and the recollection of her memory. They think that if these events could be identified, the longest duration of clinical death could be recreated. For some reason, Jean did not show any inclination to cooperate; she did not want to discuss what happened with the doctors.

Some doctors believe that hypnotic influence can be dangerous for Jean, because her death was so traumatic emotionally and psychologically. Others adhere to the point of view that a gradual immersion in the past under the guidance of a doctor could be more effective. Jean herself did not want to remember and finally came to terms with her amnesia. Maybe the reason is that she doesn’t want to remember something?

Ted Milligan, another victim of hypothermia, on the other hand, wanted to be hypnotized. 1976, January 31, morning - Ted and other students from St. John's Cathedral School in Selkirk took part in a mandatory 5-hour, 25-mile hike. It was a warm day and the young people were dressed lightly. At about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, 3 hours after the start of the hike, the temperature suddenly dropped to -15°C and a strong wind blew. The guys walked in groups of 4; Ted became lethargic and stumbled. His comrades thought that he was simply tired, but about a mile and a half from the school he lost consciousness.

One of the young men remained near him, the other two ran forward to find the snowmobile and call an ambulance. Meanwhile, 4 people from the group following them carried him half a mile. A snowmobile appeared, and Dr. Gerald Bristow, the doctor who brought Ted back to life, claimed that it took them an hour and a half to get to school.

At school, Ted was undressed and put under blankets, two young men lay down next to him, trying to warm him up. He was unconscious. The school nurse was the first to check Ted's pulse and knew he was dead. She began to apply mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration, and the others began to massage his heart. This lasted until the ambulance arrived.

Selkirk Hospital recorded Ted's body temperature on admission as 25°C (77°F). Normal body temperature is 37°C or 98.6°F. 5 doctors and 10 nurses worked for 2 hours before Ted's heart started beating again. He was covered in hot towels, causing minor burns on his thighs, warm enemas were given to him, and drugs were injected directly into his heart. Oxygen was supplied to him through a tube inserted into his windpipe.

Gradually, his body temperature returned to normal, and although his heart did not beat for more than an hour and a half, and his brain received absolutely no oxygen for 15 minutes, he has no disturbances in higher nervous activity. However, Ted experienced memory loss: he could not remember what happened after their group went on a hike, or what happened several hours after he regained consciousness.

Memory is gradually returning to Ted. When we spoke with him in the spring of 1977, he spoke about the beginning of his campaign and about some of the details of his stay in intensive care after being “revived.” Dr. Bristow believes that deep within the subconscious lies a vivid story of an encounter with death. Ted told us that he wanted to be hypnotized to make the story accessible, and his parents gave their consent, but before exposing Ted to such a risk, the doctors decided to wait to see if the young man's memory would recover itself over time. Here's what Ted had to say.

“When I woke up, I found out that my heart had not been beating for a record long time, that I had frozen to death. I decided that this was a lie. When they convinced me, I was shocked. Why me? - I asked a question. I was already somewhat religious then. We all attend Anglican Sunday evening sermons at our school. Meeting death in a state of clinical death made me more religious. If I had to die again, I'd rather freeze. I felt no pain, no agony, nothing at all.”

As long as humanity has existed, it has been asking the question: is there life after death? And if it exists, then what is the human soul? The answers to this question have varied at different times. For example, the Greek philosopher Democritus believed that the soul is a lump of a substance that is hot and soft to the touch, which can be touched. Plato, on the contrary, believed that the soul is incorporeal and lives wherever it wants.

In the twentieth century, in the age of total scientific domination, the soul was completely denied existence. They believed that the soul was invented by the priests in order to lure people to temples, and that there was no life after death. This was the customary belief until one day, a resuscitator from America, Raymond Moody, became interested in the stories of people who had experienced clinical death, and wanted to somehow systematize them. Then incredible things became clear.

Instead of meeting the requirements of science and admitting that life ends after cardiac arrest, all patients seem to have conspired to talk about amazing events. Moreover, what is curious is that everyone tells about the same thing, as if they had actually been somewhere in the same place.

So, it means that something happens to the soul after death that official science has no idea about? It was after Dr. Moody’s sensational report that the scientific world became concerned with the problem of the human soul and set out to search for it. For example, from the achievements of a group of scientists from St. Petersburg, it was even possible to invent a special apparatus capable of photographing the soul, or rather the energy that lives in us along with the physical body...

Alexander Shein, resuscitator:

“There was such a patient, I remember her very well. She, unfortunately, died - she had diabetes and many related complications. This woman survived several massive heart attacks, she simply died before my eyes, and she literally died with a smile on her face. And always, when she was still in full memory, conscious, she made it clear that everything that was happening to her, although it was sad and bitter, was not a final departure from life for her. This is a simple transition somewhere, into some other existence, which happened to her during clinical death.”

Buddhists have a special instruction, the Bardo Thodol, known in the West as the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It describes in detail everything that awaits a person after the death of the physical body. An ancient manuscript written several thousand years ago contains detailed descriptions of what is now commonly called clinical death.

One of the key points is bright light. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a set of recommendations that describe what happens to consciousness after physical death. The first thing the soul sees is a tunnel of white light:

“Soon you will exhale your last breath, and it will stop. Here you will see the eternal Pure Light. An incredible Space will open before you, boundless, like an Ocean without waves, under a cloudless sky. You will float like a feather, freely, alone.

Don't get distracted, don't rejoice! Don't be afraid! This is the moment of your death! Use death, for this is a great opportunity. Keep your thoughts clear, without clouding them even with compassion. Let your love become passionless. After the exhalation has completely stopped, it is good if someone clearly reads the following words directly into your ear: “You are now in the Eternal Light, try to remain in this state that you are experiencing.”

Modern science can explain the phenomena described in the ancient book. Clinical death is the first stage of the dying of a biological organism. The beginning of the transition from life to death. During clinical death, the heart and breathing stop, all signs of vital activity disappear. During the first 10–15 minutes. A person can still be brought back to life, but this does not always happen. Only 5% of people who have been on the verge of death come back.

Andrei Yurkovsky was lucky - he was able to survive clinical death. At the age of 12, Andrei was admitted to intensive care with anaphylactic shock. For several hours, doctors fought for the teenager’s life, but medicine was powerless. Doctors pronounced him dead.

Andrey Yurkovsky, naval officer:

“The first thing I remembered was the doctors in white coats, the bustle around, then I began to seem to be moving away somewhere... I can’t say what happened next, but I remember that childhood memories began to scroll through my brain, I saw relatives...”

While the boy's body was in the intensive care unit, his soul traveled in the Subtle World. Andrey remembers how he watched what was happening from the side. I saw doctors and relatives who could not find a place for themselves from excitement. I remembered how the doctors uttered the fateful words: “Cardiac arrest” - and how the mother began to cry when she was told that her son had died. Andrei was considered dead for two days, but the doctors were mistaken. The boy returned from the other world. He woke up unexpectedly, and the return was painful.

The doctors couldn’t believe their eyes; they couldn’t explain what happened. Andrey was examined for a long time before he was discharged from the hospital. For the boy, the journey to the Subtle World became a real revelation. Thanks to clinical death, he realized that in addition to the physical body, there is some substance that continues to live when the body dies.

Rushel Blavo, Doctor of Medical Sciences, psychotherapist: “A person is not only a physical state, it is also the presence of mental, astral, etheric and other bodies and, of course, the soul itself.”

Ancient people believed that after death the soul does not die along with the body, but passes to another world. There she continues to live. That is why they tried to provide the dead with everything they needed. Archaeologists find weapons and household items in ancient burials. The ancient Egyptians built majestic tombs - pyramids - for the pharaohs. They believed that these gigantic structures would become a reliable refuge in the afterlife.

The famous athlete Eduard Serebryakov, champion of the USSR and Russia in Greco-Roman wrestling, experienced clinical death. He still considers this the most important event in his life.

E. Serebryakov, former athlete, champion of the USSR and the Russian Federation in Greco-Roman wrestling:

“What did clinical death give me? She changes lives. I know it exists, but others don't. When people find themselves in some extreme situations, some catastrophes happen to them, at this time certain forces intervene that change a person ... "

The tragedy occurred on May 14, 1997. Edward, as usual, went to work in a car. Approaching a railway crossing, he felt that the car had lost control. He pressed the brake, and the pedal sank, went to the floor. As they later found out, an attempt was made on the athlete’s life, the brake hoses were cut, and he was unable to slow down. In the end, he did slow down, but stopped right in the middle of the crossing.

And at that moment his alarm went off and the doors locked. Everything happened in a matter of seconds. The athlete's car was parked at a railway crossing, and he could not get out. A moment later he saw a train rushing straight towards him. The man understood: a collision was inevitable and there was practically no chance of survival. Time seemed to stand still for him at that moment.

Eduard Serebryakov:

“Immediately a thought arose in my head: is this really my last day? How is this possible, there must be some sign from above?! It turns out that there is no sign, everything happens unexpectedly. These 2-3 seconds. lasted for hours or whole days. Then such an unpleasant thought appeared: I’m going to be completely crippled... I jumped into the back seat so that at least my face would remain intact, covered my head, and intuitively turned around with my back to the window in the hope that I would recover from the blow.

Then came the blow... I see that I am lying in a coffin, I see my relatives. They mourn me. Some say that after death they went up and saw doctors. I didn't have that. I simply saw my funeral, felt like I was lying in a coffin, saw that people were saying goodbye to me... I can’t say how long it lasted.”

Edward watched his own funeral, realizing at the same time that he continued to exist. He felt such peace and serenity that to this day he cannot find words to describe these feelings. Edward says that he understood why people who at the moment of death have the opportunity to return prefer to stay there. The point is that bliss occurs there.

The return was sudden. He heard sharp, loud, unpleasant sounds, and then he heard the driver’s voice: “Man, are you alive?” Edward replied: “I don’t know.” At first he was incomprehensibly where, then suddenly there was another sharp transition, and then the driver with his question...

Serebryakov was able to survive miraculously. During the collision, the train did not crush the car, but, hooking it onto the track clearer like a pitchfork, dragged it several tens of meters until the train came to a complete stop. The guy received severe injuries. There is a large scar on his head. He had broken ribs and a leg, and his whole body was covered in cuts and bruises. The athlete was in the hospital for almost six months. There he realized that after traveling to the next world, something had changed in him.

Eduard Serebryakov:

“Why I came back here, I don’t know. Higher powers know this. So it's needed for something. I can only guess, guess. Perhaps I returned in order to move the old lady across the road tomorrow so that she would not die under a car. Perhaps in order to talk to you, so that someone can hear my story...”

After returning from the other world, Eduard Serebryakov completely changed his life. He left sports and began writing poetry. But not just poems, but rhyming prophecies.

The girl was holding a bell
The wind ruffled her hair
Only life sadly died
And sadness was its ending
I see reflections on the moon
In this mirror of bottomless emptiness
Like a madman seeks pleasure
In the murder of one's own soul
The sound either cuts or jumps fervently
Sticky sweat does not confirm fear
The stone wears away the water in this fairy tale
Because he's softer now

Eduard Serebryakov:

“I wrote these lines a few hours before Beslan. It somehow wrote itself. I understand that it was a higher power that guided me. On the first of September, I suddenly learned on the news about the seizure of the school. Remember how the children suffered there? You see, the stone wears away water, and not vice versa, and sticky sweat..."

It has been noticed that, after clinical death, a person changes radically. He seems to be rethinking his life, and there is a scientific explanation for this. Psychologists, for example, compare post-mortem experiences to shock therapy. They consider awareness of the unexpected finitude of existence to be one of the most powerful incentives for unlocking human potential.

Everything that does not kill us makes us stronger. The experience of dying helps a person to develop further. Another question: is he able to accept this negative experience and use it for some kind of movement forward?

People who have experienced clinical death sometimes acquire the abilities of telepathy and clairvoyance.

The famous neurophysiologist Natalya Bekhtereva believed that these phenomena actually exist. For a long time she worked in intensive care, observing dozens of returns from the other world. Those who were reanimated described a black tunnel, at the end of which a light was visible, talked about the feeling of flying, and described a bright light that was at the end of the tunnel. Natalya Bekhtereva tried to understand what happens to the human brain at this time, and to answer the question of whether during clinical death the soul of the dying person actually leaves the body.

The result of almost half a century of scientific work by neurophysiologist N. Bekhtereva was a sensational conclusion. The human brain is a kind of receiving and transmitting mechanism in which human consciousness is formed. But consciousness is not directly connected to the brain; it only uses the brain to receive signals. The brain receives information, processes it, and only then makes logical decisions. But who dictates these signals? After all, sometimes people receive a ready-made formulation as if out of nowhere. According to Bekhtereva, this “someone” is our soul. It is she who, during clinical death, leaves the body and receives information, which, after returning to the body, is processed by the brain.

Moreover, during clinical death, a kind of “reboot” of the brain occurs. Our thinking machine begins to work in a different mode. The most ancient areas that were not previously used are activated. They are the ones who endow a person with unusual abilities. During evolution, these capabilities of the human brain were blocked.

Leningrad region, 2008. The house is on fire. The second floor is on fire. Thick clouds of smoke pour out of the windows. A strange body rushes across the roof, and then merges with a column of smoke and rushes upward. People died in the fire, and the camera was able to record their souls. Thin bodies often end up in the camera lens. These are translucent balls with a heterogeneous structure. More often they appear in places where human emotions are shown in abundance, for example in cemeteries.

1828, May 18, Crete. A battle took place between the Greeks and the Turks at the Franco Castello castle. For 7 days there were bloody battles under the walls of the fortress.

Tatyana Syrchenko, editor of the newspaper “Anomaly”:

“The history of human lives leaves its mark. And what people call ghosts are essentially traces. These can be called phantoms or manifestations of some substances still unknown to us.”

Since then, every year on May 18, the battle is repeated again and again. With the first rays of the sun, ghost warriors appear above the horizon. They head towards the coast. Casual witnesses say that at the same time the clatter of horses, the screams of soldiers and even the groans of the wounded are heard. Researchers call these rare phenomena chronomirages. They reproduce real historical events. You can often observe this kind of phenomenon in places where tragic events took place. The souls of dead people, ghosts of the past, can remain indefinitely at the place of their death.

It is generally accepted that a person has 7 bodies: physical, etheric, astral, karmic, and so on. Scientists call them projections of man in the multidimensional Universe. After all, it has been scientifically proven that before the Big Bang, the Universe existed in 10 dimensions. Thus, the physical body of a person lives in the three-dimensional world, the etheric body in the four-dimensional world, and the astral body in the fifth dimension. And after the death of a person, these essences begin to rapidly disintegrate. First, the physical body dies, on the 9th day - the etheric, on the 40th - the astral. And only then does what religions around the world call the soul go free.

A ghost is nothing more than an etheric body. The etheric body is the same as our physical body, but only having a four-dimensional nature; it seems to be a little slowed down in time. Such a ghost may be right here, but we will not see it, because it does not refract sunlight.

Often, in the event of a violent or unexpected death, the human consciousness cannot recognize the fact of its own death and tries to continue its usual existence. And sometimes it simply does not understand what happened to it.

According to people who call themselves mediums, most people simply did not realize that they had died. They do not know that they are already dead, just as many do not know that they are alive while alive. People do things mechanically throughout their lives, and when death occurs, they simply continue to do the same things after death. Thus, even after death a person can go to work, meet someone there, and dream about something. Especially if he died unexpectedly. Those who commit suicide and people who die suddenly become ghosts. Their etheric bodies are doomed to eternal wanderings.

Eduard Gulyaev, Doctor of Energy Information Sciences, Professor: “Ghosts and ghosts are really existing clots of energy. Most often these are etheric bodies thrown off at a moment of great shock.”

The ghost of Emperor Paul I, killed in the Engineering Castle, still scares tourists to this day. Witnesses describe a ghostly figure walking around the castle and sometimes even playing the flute.

According to researchers, the Subtle World exists in parallel with the physical world. This is a world of energy and information. What is called the “subtle world”, “other planes”, “parallel worlds” - these are simply, perhaps, those aspects that our consciousness does not perceive until a certain moment. And then, at some point, switching, it begins to perceive.

It is believed that the Subtle World is inhabited by the souls of people and animals; elemental spirits and various kinds of ethereal creatures live there. This is where human life continues after death. This is where ghosts and apparitions come from. According to psychics, we can draw information from intangible sources. This extra-sensory information can tell us about the future or the past.

Numerous testimonies of encounters with ghosts and apparitions do not allow us to neglect this phenomenon. It is believed that these are the souls of the dead who want to convey certain messages or requests to the living. For example, the ghost of the poet Dante Alighieri appeared to his son to indicate the place where the last songs of the Divine Comedy were hidden...

Remember, in the movie Flatliners with Julia Roberts, medical students decided to experience clinical death. One after another, young doctors set off on an unpredictable journey to the other side of life. The results were stunning: the “comatose” met THERE people whom they had once offended...

What happens in those 5 - 6 minutes when resuscitators return a dying person from oblivion? Is there really an afterlife beyond the thin line of life or is it a “trick” of the brain? Scientists began serious research in the 1970s - it was then that the famous American psychologist Raymond Moody’s acclaimed book “Life After Life” was published. Over the past decades, they have managed to make many interesting discoveries. At the conference “Near Death: Contemporary Research,” held recently in Melbourne, doctors, philosophers, psychologists and religious scholars summed up the results of studying this phenomenon.

Raymond Moody believed that the process of “feeling out of body existence” is characterized by the following stages:

Stopping all physiological functions of the body (and the dying person still has time to hear the words of the doctor stating the death);

Increasing unpleasant noises;

The dying person “leaves the body” and rushes at high speed through a tunnel, at the end of which light is visible;

His whole life passes before him;

He meets deceased relatives and friends.

Those who “return from the other world” note a strange duality of consciousness: they know about everything that happens around them at the moment of “death,” but at the same time they cannot come into contact with the living - those who are nearby. The most amazing thing is that even people who are blind from birth in a state of clinical death often see a bright light. This was proven by a survey of more than 200 blind women and men conducted by Dr. Kennett Ring from the USA.

When we die, the brain “remembers” our birth!

Why is this happening? Scientists seem to have found an explanation for the mysterious visions that visit a person in the last seconds of life.

1. The explanation is fantastic. Psychologist Pyell Watson believes he has solved the mystery. According to him, when we die, we remember our birth! We first become acquainted with death at the moment of the terrible journey that each of us makes, overcoming the ten-centimeter birth canal, he believes.

We will probably never know exactly what is happening in the child’s mind at this moment, says Watson, but his sensations are probably reminiscent of the different stages of dying. Are not, in this case, near-death visions a transformed experience of birth trauma, naturally, with the imposition of accumulated everyday and mystical experience?

2. The explanation is utilitarian. Russian resuscitator Nikolai Gubin explains the appearance of the tunnel as a manifestation of toxic psychosis.

This is in some ways similar to a dream, and in some ways to a hallucination (for example, when a person suddenly begins to see himself from the outside). The fact is that at the moment of dying, parts of the visual lobe of the cerebral cortex already suffer from oxygen starvation, and the poles of both occipital lobes, which have a double blood supply, continue to function. As a result, the field of view narrows sharply, and only a narrow strip remains, providing central, “pipeline” vision.

Why do some dying people see pictures of their entire lives flashing before their eyes? And there is an answer to this question. The dying process begins with newer brain structures and ends with older ones. The restoration of these functions during revival proceeds in the reverse order: first, the more “ancient” areas of the cerebral cortex come to life, and then the new ones. Therefore, in the process of returning a person to life, the most firmly imprinted “pictures” emerge in his memory first.

How do writers describe the sensations during death?

The incident that happened to Arseny Tarkovsky is described in one of his stories. This was in January 1944, after the amputation of his leg, when the writer died of gangrene in a front-line hospital. He lay in a small cramped room with a very low ceiling. The light bulb hanging above the bed had no switch, and had to be unscrewed by hand. One day, while unscrewing it, Tarkovsky felt that his soul was spiraling out of his body, like a light bulb from its socket. Surprised, he looked down and saw his body. It was completely motionless, like that of a person sleeping in a dead sleep. Then for some reason he wanted to see what was going on in the next room.

He began to slowly “leak” through the wall and at some point he felt that a little more and he would never be able to return to his body. This scared him. He again hovered over the bed and, with some strange effort, slid into his body, as if into a boat.

In Leo Tolstoy’s work “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” the writer stunningly described the phenomenon of clinical death: “Suddenly some force pushed him in the chest, in the side, his breathing was even more suffocated, he fell into a hole, and there, at the end of the hole, something began to glow -That. What happened to him was what happened to him in a railway carriage, when you think that you are going forward, but you are going back, and suddenly you recognize the real direction... At that very time, Ivan Ilyich fell through, saw the light, and it was revealed to him that life his was not what was needed, but that it can still be corrected... I feel sorry for them (relatives - Ed.), we must do so that they do not get hurt. Deliver them and get rid of their suffering yourself. “How good and how simple,” he thought... He was looking for his usual fear of death and did not find it... Instead of death there was light.”

By the way

But we didn’t see it!

The head of the intensive care unit of Moscow Hospital No. 29, Rant Bagdasarov, who has been bringing people back from the dead for 30 years, claims: during the entire time of his practice, not one of his patients saw either a tunnel or a light during clinical death.

Royal Edinburgh Hospital psychiatrist Chris Freeman said there was no evidence that the visions described by patients occurred when the brain was not working. People saw “pictures” of another world during their lifetime: before cardiac arrest or immediately after the heart rhythm was restored.

A study conducted by the National Neuroscience Institute, which involved nine large hospitals, found that of more than 500 “returnees,” only 1 percent could clearly recall what they saw. According to scientists, 30 - 40 percent of patients who describe their journeys through the afterlife are people with an unstable psyche.

Have you ever been in a state of clinical death?

Tell us about your “journey” to another world by email [email protected]

The Mystery of Hell and Heaven

Hell? These are snakes, reptiles, an unbearable stench and demons! Paradise? This is light, lightness, flight and fragrance!

Surprisingly, the descriptions of people who have been in the next world - even if only for a few minutes - coincide even in details.

- Hell? These are snakes, reptiles, an unbearable stench and demons! - Nun Antonia told a Life correspondent. She experienced clinical death during an operation in her youth, then still a woman who did not believe in God. The impression of the hellish torment that her soul experienced in a matter of minutes was so powerful that, having repented, she went to the monastery to atone for her sins.

- Paradise? Light, lightness, flight and fragrance,” Vladimir Efremov, a former leading engineer at the Impulse Design Bureau, described his impressions after clinical death to the Zhizn journalist. He outlined his posthumous experience in the scientific journal of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University.

“In heaven, the soul knows everything about everything,” Efremov shared his observation. “I remembered my old TV and immediately found out not only which lamp was faulty, but also which installer installed it, even his entire biography, right down to the scandals with his mother-in-law. And when I remembered the defense project that our design bureau was working on, a solution to a very difficult problem immediately came, for which the team later received a State Prize.

Experience

Doctors and clergy who talked with resuscitated patients noted a common feature of human souls. Those who visited heaven returned to the bodies of their earthly owners calm and enlightened, and those who looked into the underworld were never able to move away from the horror they saw. The general impression of people who have experienced clinical death is that heaven is above, hell is below. The Bible speaks exactly the same way about the structure of the afterlife. Those who saw the state of hell described the approach to it as a descent. And those who went to heaven took off.

In some cases, when a person was absent from earth for a very long time, he saw on the other side of the border the same pictures of hell and heaven that the Holy Scriptures paint for us. Sinners suffer from their earthly desires. For example, Dr. Georg Ritchie saw murderers who were riveted to their victims. And the Russian woman Valentina Khrustaleva - homosexuals and lesbians, fused with each other in shameful poses.

One of the most vivid stories about the horrors of the underworld belongs to the American Thomas Welch - he survived an accident at a sawmill. “On the shore of the fiery abyss I saw several familiar faces who died before me. I began to regret that I had previously cared little about my salvation. And if I had known what awaited me in hell, I would have lived completely differently. At that moment I noticed someone walking in the distance. The stranger's face radiated great strength and kindness. I immediately realized that it was the Lord and that only He could save a soul doomed to torment. Suddenly the Lord turned his face and looked at me. Just one glance from the Lord - and in an instant I found myself in my body and came to life.”

Often, having been in the next world, people, just like nun Antonia, take church orders, without hesitation to admit that they have seen hell.

Pastor Kenneth Hagin experienced clinical death in April 1933 while living in Texas. His heart stopped. “My soul left my body,” he says. – Having reached the bottom of the abyss, I felt the presence of some spirit near me, which began to guide me. At this time, a powerful voice sounded over the hellish darkness. I did not understand what he said, but I felt that it was the voice of God. The power of this voice made the entire underground kingdom tremble, just like the leaves on an autumn tree tremble when the wind blows. Immediately the spirit released me, and the whirlwind carried me back up. Gradually the earthly light began to shine again. I found myself back in my room and jumped into my body like a man jumps into his trousers. Then I saw my grandmother, who began to tell me: “Son, I thought you were dead.” Kenneth became the pastor of one of the Protestant churches and dedicated his life to God.

One of the Athonite elders somehow managed to look into hell. He lived in a monastery for a long time, and his friend remained in the city, indulging in all the joys of life. Soon the friend died, and the monk began to ask God to let him know what had happened to his friend. And one day a dead friend appeared to him in a dream and began to talk about his unbearable torment, about how a never-ending worm was gnawing at him. Having said this, he lifted his robe to his knee and showed his leg, which was completely covered with a terrible worm that was devouring it. Such a terrible stench came from the wounds on his leg that the monk immediately woke up. He jumped out of the cell, leaving the door open, and the stench from it spread throughout the monastery. Over time, the smell did not decrease, and all the inhabitants of the monastery had to move to another place. And the monk throughout his life could not get rid of the terrible smell that clung to him.

Heaven

Descriptions of heaven are always the opposite of stories of hell. There is evidence from one of the scientists who, as a five-year-old boy, drowned in a swimming pool. The child was found already lifeless and taken to the hospital, where the doctor announced to the family that the boy had died. But unexpectedly for everyone, the child came to life.

“When I found myself under water,” the scientist later said, “I felt that I was flying through a long tunnel. At the other end of the tunnel I saw a light that was so bright that I could feel it. There I saw God on the throne and below people, probably angels, surrounding the throne. As I drew closer to God, He told me that my time had not yet come. I wanted to stay, but suddenly I found myself in my body.

American Betty Maltz in her book “I Saw Eternity” describes how immediately after her death she found herself on a wonderful green hill.

She was surprised that, despite having three surgical wounds, she stood and walked freely, without pain. Above her was a bright blue sky. There was no sun, but light spread everywhere. The grass under her bare feet was such a bright color that she had never seen on earth - every blade of grass seemed to be alive. The hill was steep, but my legs moved easily, without effort. All around Betty saw bright flowers, bushes, trees. And then I noticed a male figure in a robe to my left. Betty thought it was an angel. They walked without talking, but she realized that he did not know her. Betty felt young, healthy and happy. “I realized that I had everything I had ever wanted, was everything I had ever wanted to be, was going to where I had always dreamed of being,” she said when she returned. “Then my whole life passed before my eyes. I realized that I was selfish, I felt ashamed, but I still felt care and love around me. My companion and I approached a wonderful silver palace. I heard the word "Jesus". A pearl gate opened in front of me, and beyond it I saw a street in golden light. I wanted to enter the palace, but I remembered my father and returned to my body.”

Pilipchuk

Surprisingly, our contemporary, policeman Boris Pilipchuk, who survived clinical death, also spoke about the shining gates and palace of gold and silver in paradise: “Behind the fiery gates I saw a cube shining with gold. He was huge." The shock from the bliss experienced in paradise was so great that after the resurrection, Boris Pilipchuk completely changed his life. He stopped drinking, smoking, and began to live according to the commandments of Christ. His wife did not recognize him as her former husband: “He was often rude, but now Boris is always gentle and affectionate. I believed that it was him only after he told me about incidents that only the two of us knew about. But at first, sleeping with a person who had returned from the other world was scary, like sleeping with a dead person. The ice melted only after a miracle happened - he named the exact date of birth of our unborn child, day and hour. I gave birth exactly at the time he named. I asked my husband: “How could you know this?” And he answered: “From God. After all, the Lord sends us all children.”

Sveta

When the doctors brought Svetochka Molotkova out of her coma, she asked for paper and pencils - and drew everything she saw in the other world. ...Six-year-old Sveta Molotkova had been in a coma for three days. Doctors tried unsuccessfully to bring her brain back from oblivion. The girl did not react to anything. Her mother’s heart was breaking with pain - her daughter lay motionless, like a corpse... And suddenly, at the end of the third day, Svetochka convulsively clenched her palms, as if trying to grab onto something. - I'm here, daughter! - Mom screamed. Sveta clenched her fists even harder. It seemed to my mother that her daughter was finally able to cling to life, outside of which she had spent three days. As soon as she came to her senses, the girl asked the doctors for pencils and paper: “I need to draw what I saw in the next world...

Scientists have given explanation light at the end of the tunnel

Semyon POLOTSKY.Ytpo.Ru, October 31, 2011

Mystical sensations receive a rational explanation

People who have experienced clinical death say that at that moment they felt like they were leaving their own body and flying through a dark tunnel, at the end of which light was visible. Some hear strange, unearthly sounds, while others view the events of their lives, but as if in reverse. Others say that they are meeting their relatives who have long since passed away. And especially impressionable people claim that they discovered extrasensory abilities in themselves after flying into the astral plane.

However, scientists are skeptical about such reports and explain these sensations quite rationally. Thus, researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge came up with the theory that the brain is trying to adapt to the fact of death, which gives rise to hallucinations.

Dr Caroline Watt from the University of Cambridge says it's possible to experience the same sensations without being in intensive care. "We put a virtual reality headset (HMD) on the subjects and turned on an image of themselves. It turned out that they were seeing themselves from the side at a distance of several meters. All participants in the experiment said that they could imagine that they had left their own body. Many said that it was very realistic," Watt said.

The feeling of peace and tranquility that those who have returned from the other world talk about is caused by the release of the hormone norepinephrine into the blood, scientists say. It is usually released during times of stress or trauma. The brain perceives death as similar to these critical events in an attempt to adapt to circumstances it has not previously encountered. The apparent meeting with deceased relatives can be explained by the same thing. A person has pleasant memories associated with them, so a large amount of norepinephrine causes these visions.

The long tunnel or flight towards the light is the result of the gradual death of cells that are responsible for transforming the light entering the retina into certain patterns in the brain. This opinion is shared by Professor Sam Parnina from the Department of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh.

It is worth noting other theories that have been put forward earlier. According to a study by scientists at the University of Maribor, increased levels of carbon dioxide in the blood cause such strange hallucinations. Other experts agree with them, adding that patients hear unusual noise due to a lack of oxygen, which stops flowing to the brain. And “life rushing by” is a consequence of the gradual dying of memory cells. The process works in reverse, so the older pictures appear first.

Natalya Bekhtereva: Clinical death is not a black hole

The famous neurophysiologist Natalya Bekhtereva (1924-2008) studied the brain for more than half a century and observed dozens of returns “from there”, working in intensive care

A black tunnel, at the end of which you can see light, the feeling that you are flying along this “pipe”, and something good and very important awaits ahead - this is how many of those who experienced it describe their visions during clinical death. What happens to the human brain at this time? Is it true that the soul of a dying person leaves the body?

Weigh the soul

- Natalya Petrovna, where is the place of the soul - in the brain, spinal cord, heart, stomach?

It will all be fortune-telling, no matter who answers you. You can say “in the whole body” or “outside the body, somewhere nearby.” I don't think this substance needs any space. If it is present, then it is throughout the body. Something that permeates the entire body, which is not interfered with by walls, doors, or ceilings. The soul, for lack of better formulations, is also called, for example, what seems to leave the body when a person dies.

- Consciousness and soul - synonyms?

For me - no. There are many formulations about consciousness, each worse than the other. The following is also suitable: “Awareness of oneself in the world around us.” When a person comes to his senses after fainting, the first thing he begins to understand is that there is something nearby other than himself. Although in an unconscious state the brain also perceives information. Sometimes patients, upon waking up, talk about what they could not see. And the soul... what the soul is, I don’t know. I'm telling you how it is. They even tried to weigh the soul. Some very small grams are obtained. I don't really believe in this. When dying, a thousand processes occur in the human body. Maybe it's just losing weight? It is impossible to prove that it was “the soul that flew away.”

-Can you say exactly where our consciousness is? In the brain?

Consciousness is a phenomenon of the brain, although it is very dependent on the state of the body. You can render a person unconscious by squeezing his cervical artery with two fingers and changing the blood flow, but this is very dangerous. This is the result of the activity, I would even say, of the life of the brain. That's more accurate. When you wake up, at that very second you become conscious. The whole organism “comes to life” at once. It's like all the lights turn on at the same time.

Dream after death

- What happens to the brain and consciousness in moments of clinical death? Can you describe the picture?

It seems to me that the brain dies not when oxygen does not enter the vessels for six minutes, but at the moment when it finally begins to flow. All the products of a not very perfect metabolism “fall” on the brain and finish it off. I worked for some time in the intensive care unit of the Military Medical Academy and watched this happen. The most terrible period is when doctors bring a person out of a critical condition and bring him back to life.

Some cases of visions and “returns” after clinical death seem convincing to me. They can be so beautiful! The doctor Andrei Gnezdilov told me about one thing - he later worked in a hospice. Once, during an operation, he observed a patient who experienced clinical death, and then, upon waking up, told an unusual dream. Gnezdilov was able to confirm this dream. Indeed, the situation described by the woman took place at a great distance from the operating room, and all the details coincided.

But this doesn't always happen. When the first boom in studying the phenomenon of “life after death” began, at one of the meetings, the President of the Academy of Medical Sciences Blokhin asked Academician Arutyunov, who had twice experienced clinical death, what he actually saw. Arutyunov replied: “Just a black hole.” What is it? He saw everything, but forgot? Or was there really nothing? What is this phenomenon of a dying brain? This is only suitable for clinical death. As for the biological one, no one really returned from there. Although some clergy, in particular Seraphim Rose, have evidence of such returns.

- If you are not an atheist and believe in the existence of the soul, then you yourself do not experience fear of death...

They say that the fear of waiting for death is many times worse than death itself. Jack London has a story about a man who wanted to steal a dog sled. The dogs bit him. The man bled to death and died. And before that he said: “People have slandered death.” It's not death that's scary, it's dying.

Singer Sergei Zakharov said that at the moment of his own clinical death he saw and heard everything that was happening around, as if from the outside: the actions and negotiations of the resuscitation team, how they brought a defibrillator and even batteries from the TV remote control in the dust behind the closet, which he had lost the day before . After this, Zakharov stopped being afraid of dying.

It's hard for me to say what exactly he went through. Maybe this is also the result of the activity of a dying brain. Why do we sometimes see our surroundings as if from the outside? It is possible that in extreme moments, not only ordinary vision mechanisms are activated in the brain, but also mechanisms of a holographic nature.

For example, during childbirth: according to our research, several percent of women in labor also experience a condition as if the “soul” comes out. Women giving birth feel outside the body, watching what is happening from the outside. And at this time they do not feel pain. I don't know what it is - a brief clinical death or a phenomenon related to the brain. More like the latter.

Clinical death. A line that can still be crossed and come back. In this article we will look at the stories of people who have experienced clinical death.

The first incident happened to Vicki Noratuk. Blind from birth. Here's what she says: “I was blind from birth. I saw neither light nor shadow. Many people have asked me if I can see darkness? No, I don't see darkness, I don't see anything at all. And in my dreams there are no visual images. Only taste, touch, smell and hearing. But nothing related to vision"

At 22, Vicki was in a serious car accident. She was taken to the hospital in an unconscious state.

From Vicki’s memoirs: “I remember that I was in the hospital and looked at everything that was happening from above. I was even scared because I was not used to seeing my surroundings. I've never seen anything. So at first I was scared. And then I saw my wedding ring and thought that it was me lying down there on the operating table.

Doctors fussed around me. One doctor even said that he was very sorry, because my eardrum was damaged. She is blind, but may also lose her hearing. Then the nurse replied that she might not be able to get out of the coma at all.

And I thought distantly. I felt calm. Why are they so worried, I thought. Then I thought that they wouldn’t hear me anyway. Before I had time to think so, I rose up through the ceiling of the hospital.

It's so wonderful to feel free. Don't worry about anything. I knew where I was going. I heard music. Absolutely incredible sound from the lowest tones to the highest. I was approaching a very beautiful place. There were green trees. I remember that birds were flying around them. There was also a small group of people there. But they were all made of light. It was incredible and very beautiful.

I was filled with joy. Until that moment, I had no idea what light was. I had the feeling that I could gain any knowledge. As if all the knowledge of the world was stored in this place. And then I was sent back to my body. It was painful for me. I remember feeling terrible.

Dr. Rawlings

Unlike most researchers, Dr. Maurice Rawlings was present at death and resuscitation, learning about the patient's feelings first hand. In one case, Dr. Rawlings dealt with both science and religion, body and spirit, heaven and hell.

Here is an interesting excerpt from his interview: “I became interested in the experience of the afterlife when I was dealing with a patient who had been to hell. He had chest pains, and I checked whether they were of cardiac origin.

We put him on a moving track to increase the load on his heart and connected it to an ECG. We recorded painful manifestations. If the ECG is off the charts, there is a problem with the heart.

But unlike an ordinary patient, this guy dropped dead during the study.

Everyone knew what to do. The sister began to give him artificial respiration. His heart stopped. Breathing stopped. Then I began to do external cardiac massage, but he was dead.

Unfortunately, there was no blood flowing into his heart. I took out the tools, but his eyes rolled back, he splattered with saliva, turned blue, stopped breathing, and his heart stopped beating.

I started work again. Usually in this case, half of the patients return to life, half suddenly die.

He twitched in convulsions and said: “Doctor, I’m in hell.” I told him not to worry, because I’m a doctor. “Doctor, you don’t understand.” And again, as soon as I walked away, his eyes rolled back, he began to splutter, and his heart stopped beating.

The sisters looked at me and asked me to do something.

And then the dying man, having come to his senses for a second, said: “Doctor, pray for me. Get me out of hell, do something, every time you leave I go back to hell."

Clinical death was repeated in the same person under similar circumstances, and I decided to compose a prayer for him in order to somehow make the task easier for myself and him.

I said, repeat after me now: “I believe in God.” And he repeated these words after me and said: “Please forgive me my sins, keep me from hell and if I die, send me to heaven.”

After these words, he began to behave calmly, like an ordinary dying person. There were no more cramps or saliva."

Incident in the maternity hospital

And finally, an incident that was told to me personally. It was this incident that made me think about the existence of another life. It happened to my mother. While pregnant with my second child, my mother went into labor and she and her father went to the hospital.

Upon returning from the maternity hospital, my mother changed greatly in character, and later she told us all what happened during childbirth.

Here's what she said: “The contractions started at night and I was taken to the nearest maternity hospital. The birth was difficult, it was decided to have a caesarean section. Then I blacked out and felt myself rising up and saw that I was floating above my body, and the doctors were standing around me and performing an operation. I heard them talking and were clearly nervous, realizing that something was wrong with me. She lost a lot of blood, the midwife said.

But I wasn’t scared, I was very calm, I felt so good without my body, I felt light. But then I began to be pulled down, and I noticed how the thread that connects me to my body was leaving me.

Then, without noticing how, I found myself in a cube. It was a translucent cube that looked like jelly. There were some entities sitting in this cube, their faces were practically invisible. I only remember their evil eyes. They, seeing how I was being sucked into this cube, began to laugh. For some reason I understood that they enjoyed watching other people’s suffering. In the end, I was sucked into the cube.

It was very crowded and scary there. These entities pointed at me and laughed. Then I noticed that the thread that connected me to my body was very stretched and was about to break. I realized that if this happened, I would stay here forever.

And then I felt a very sharp electric shock. The thread that connected me and my body immediately tensed and in an instant pulled me into my body, so that I immediately opened my eyes.