During cardiac arrest (CA), the clinical criteria for death (ie, no cardiac output, no respirations, and fixed and dilated pupils) are reached for
a variable period of time, and loss of brain function eventually ensues.
1
In that particular moment, or right after a CA, when cerebral blood flow and electrical
brain activity are impaired or null, some patients experience a wide range of subjective
phenomena, such as “seeing a tunnel”, a “bright light”, a “mystical being”, “feelings
of peace”, and “out-of-body experiences”, in which people describe a feeling of separation
from their bodies, as well as awareness of things during the episode or event.
1
,
2
,
3
,
4
These descriptions have been known for centuries. In 1740, Pierre-Jean du Monchaux,
described a case of a near-death febrile patient who experienced similar features.
5
The patient underwent several phlebotomies and during one of the last phlebotomies,
he lost consciousness for a significant period of time, and then “he saw an extremely bright light and thought he was in heaven”.
5
Moody, in his book Life after life, collected all the experiences from 150 people who had been close to death.
4
He used for the first time, the term near-death experiences (NDE) for the recurring features noted in these survivors. Moody's observations were
not limited to CA survivors, but included people who were considered sufficiently
ill to have died without medical intervention.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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References
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 04, 2014
Received:
September 28,
2014
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
