RE: Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), Souls, and Atheism
November 21, 2011 at 4:45 am
(This post was last modified: November 21, 2011 at 4:56 am by Shell B.)
Listen, 19 out of 20 people who suffer sudden cardiac arrest die. Those who live are resuscitated within minutes. If I remember correctly, the likelihood of surviving lowers rapidly after the first 5-10 minutes. You are saying that all brain activity ceases, which is not possible, but we'll go with it. You say this occurs within 2 minutes. Okay, we'll go with that too. Even still, there would be 5-8 minutes of ceased brain activity (lol) before the patient was resuscitated -- tops. The patient loses consciousness within seconds of cardiac arrest, leaving 2 full minutes, at least, of brain activity. After cardiac arrest, patients are often kept in an induced coma, so the body can heal and various other reasons outside of my scope of knowledge. That leaves plenty of time for the patient to hallucinate and then associate it with a NDE.
About.com is one of the worst possible sources you could ever use. Just so you know.
From How Stuff Works
About the veracity of traumatized cardiac arrest patients' claims:
From Richard G. Druss, MD; Donald S. Kornfeld, MD
About.com is one of the worst possible sources you could ever use. Just so you know.
From How Stuff Works
Quote:The brain can survive for up to about six minutes after the heart stops. The reason to learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is that if CPR is started within six minutes of cardiac arrest, the brain may survive the lack of oxygen. After about six minutes without CPR, however, the brain begins to die. (See How CPR Works to learn more about the procedure.) Prompt resuscitation allows the physician time to assess and treat the damaged brain. Medication and mechanical ventilation permit tissue oxygenation, but severe brain damage or a prolonged period without oxygen or glucose causes the death of the brain.
By definition, "brain death" is "when the entire brain, including the brain stem, has irreversibly lost all function." The legal time of death is "that time when a physician(s) has determined that the brain and the brain stem have irreversibly lost all neurological function."
About the veracity of traumatized cardiac arrest patients' claims:
From Richard G. Druss, MD; Donald S. Kornfeld, MD
Quote:Ten survivors of a cardiac arrest who had been treated in a cardiac monitor unit were studied by psychiatric interviews six weeks or more after arrest. Not a single patient could face the full implications of the arrest and called forth various defense mechanisms to control the anxiety evoked by this experience. Frightening and violent dreams belied their often tranquil appearance. The patients developed various theories and explanations to enable them to integrate the experience of "having been dead and reborn." The arrest survivors as well as ten comparative patients without arrest who had been treated in the same monitor unit showed long-standing emotional problems including insomnia, irritability, and a restriction of their activities often beyond what was medically appropriate.
