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Failure to elicit near-death experiences in induced cardiac arrest.

2006; International Association for Near-Death Studies; Volume: 25; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.17514/jnds-2006-25-2-p85-98.

1573-3661

Bruce Greyson, Janice Holden, J. Paul Mounsey, Chester Carlson, Paul Mounsey,

Cold Fusion and Nuclear Reactions

Persons reporting near-death experiences (NDEs) sometimes describe a sense of having been out of their bodies and observing their surroundings from a visual perspective outside of and above their bodies.We attempted to study such phenomena during the surgical implantation of automatic implantable cardioverters/defibrillators (ICDs), electrical devices that monitor the patient's heartbeat and automatically detect cardiac arrest and administer an electrical shock to return the heart to normal rhythm.When ICDs are implanted in a patient's chest, cardiac arrest is induced under closely monitored conditions, in order to test the ICD's sensitivity and effectiveness.This study was designed to investigate the accuracy of out-of-body perceptions during NDEs that occur during these induced cardiac arrests.A computer in the operating room displayed quasi-randomly-selected unusual visual targets so that they were visible only from above eye level, from a visual perspective looking down upon the body of the unconscious patient.In a series of 52 induced cardiac arrests, no patient reported having had a near-death experience, and none reported a sense of having left the physical body or observing from an out of-body visual perspective.This failure to find a single NDE in 52 induced cardiac arrests may have been due to preoperative reassurances that patients