Death — The Final Frontier

So, what really happens when a person dies?  That is the question now being studied by Dr. Sam Parnia and his associates at the Human Consciousness Project.

Here are some details from M.J. Stephey, What Happens When We Die?, Time, Sept. 18, 2008:

• They will conduct a three year study of “out-of-body” experiences.
• The study is called AWARE short for awareness during resuscitation.
• 25 medical centers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe are involved.
• The study will examine 1,500 survivors of heart attacks.
• One technique will be to place pictures that can be seen only by looking down from the ceiling to see if the victims who are “brought back” from clinical death can actually recall the pictures.

Dr. Parnia explains that “ultimately what matters is, What’s going on to a person’s mind? What happens to the human mind and consciousness during death? Does that cease immediately as soon as the heart stops? Does it cease activity within the first 2 sec., the first 2 min.? Because we know that cells are continuously changing at that time. Does it stop after 10 min., after half an hour, after an hour? And at this point we don’t know.”

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.