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The "near-death experience" reported by cardiac arrest survivors worldwide may be grounded in science, according to research at the University of Michigan Health System. Whether and how the dying brain is capable of generating conscious activity has been vigorously debated. But in this week's PNAS Early Edition, a U-M study shows shortly after clinical death, in which the heart stops beating and blood stops flowing to the brain, rats display brain activity patterns characteristic of conscious perception. "This study, performed in animals, is the first dealing with what happens to the neurophysiological state of the dying brain," says lead study...

A surge of electrical activity in the brain could be responsible for the vivid experiences described by near-death survivors, scientists report. A study carried out on dying rats found high levels of brainwaves at the point of the animals' demise. US researchers said that in humans this could give rise to a heightened state of consciousness

A fellow at New York City's Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Sam Parnia is one of the world's leading experts on the scientific study of death. Last week Parnia and his colleagues at the Human Consciousness Project announced their first major undertaking: a 3-year exploration of the biology behind "out-of-body" experiences. The study, known as AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), involves the collaboration of 25 major medical centers through Europe, Canada and the U.S. and will examine some 1,500 survivors of cardiac arrest. TIME spoke with Parnia about the project's origins, its skeptics and the difference between the mind and the...

Rocky collected money for the Mafia. A typical bagman, he was immersed in the material world of fast cars, quick cash and getting ahead by butting heads. One day, he was shot in the chest and left for dead on the street. He survived, though, and lived to tell of an experience that changed his life. "He described a blissful, typical near-death experience—seeing the light, communicating with a deity and seeing deceased relatives," says Bruce Greyson, a U.Va.-trained psychiatrist who interviewed Rocky after the shooting. "He came back with typical near-death aftereffects. He felt that cooperation and love were the...

Sleep holds the key to understanding these mystical events, reports Roger HighfieldPeople who have out-of-body experiences near death, such as flying along a tunnel towards a heavenly light, are more likely to suffer a strange effect called sleep paralysis, according to a survey that adds to mounting evidence for a biological explanation for this mystical experience. During sleep paralysis, people experience a kind of breakdown between states of consciousness which takes place on the fringe of slumber, either when falling asleep or awakening. Because the brain turns off the body's ability to move during dreaming, muscles can lose their tone,...

They are eerie sensations, more common than one might think: A man describes feeling a shadowy figure standing behind him, then turning around to find no one there. A woman feels herself leaving her body and floating in space, looking down on her corporeal self. Such experiences are often attributed by those who have them to paranormal forces. But according to recent work by neuroscientists, they can be induced by delivering mild electric current to specific spots in the brain. In one woman, for example, a zap to a brain region called the angular gyrus resulted in a sensation that...

A new study by a team of University of Kentucky researchers attempts to explain the mysterious "near-death experience" reported by some people who survive close brushes with death. The research appeared in the scientific journal Neurology. It has attracted international attention. The report's lead author says it should be possible to test the theory. The Kentucky researchers argue that near-death experiences may be caused by a blurring of waking and sleeping states brought on by a biological mechanism. Individuals who have reported near-death experiences appear to be more likely to have a strong "fight or flight" arousal system. In moments...

When Deb Foster died in a La Jolla hospital, she found herself on a stairway surrounded by cats and dogs and mesmerized by a celestial blue sky, the likes of which she had never seen on earth. Mary Clare Schlesinger hovered above her bed in the intensive-care unit, watching her husband and daughter react in shock and fathomless grief at the thought of her passing. Beverly Brodsky said she went on a spectacular journey through a tunnel of intense light, a magic ride with angels and a shapeless God to a place of perfect knowledge, wisdom, truth and justice. All...

Scientists to Probe Near Death Experiences Wed September 10, 2003 10:03 AM ET By Jeremy Lovell MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Scientists probing the paranormal said on Wednesday they hoped to set up a major experiment in Britain trying to find out once and for all whether the mind can step outside the body at the brink of death. The proposed study would involve interviewing people who had survived cardiac arrest to see if they had had an out of body experience while on the operating table. "Over the course of a year we hope this would give us 100 people...

Scientists probing the paranormal said on Wednesday they hoped to set up a major experiment in Britain trying to find out once and for all whether the mind can step outside the body at the brink of death. Missed Tech Tuesday? Become a Wireless Whiz -- get connected in every room and secure your wireless network in six steps The proposed study would involve interviewing people who had survived cardiac arrest to see if they had had an out of body experience while on the operating table. "Over the course of a year we hope this would give us 100...

Dr Eben Alexander, a Harvard-educated neurosurgeon, fell into a coma for seven days in 2008 after contracting meningitis. During his illness Dr Alexander says that the part of his brain which controls human thought and emotion "shut down" and that he then experienced "something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death." In an essay for American magazine Newsweek, which he wrote to promote his book Proof of Heaven, Dr Alexander says he was met by a beautiful blue-eyed woman in a "place of clouds, big fluffy pink-white ones" and "shimmering beings".

Last Friday night (March 22), March Madness was in its televised glory. And Taylor Swift was singing and strumming at Time Warner Cable Arena. Despite such competition, Christ Episcopal Church managed to draw 1,100 people. The attraction: A doctor describing his time in heaven. Not just any doctor. Sitting on stage, answering questions from the Rev. Chip Edens, the church’s rector, was Dr. Eben Alexander. He’s a Charlotte native who wrote “Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife.” His book is such a mega-seller that he has talked to Oprah – and Universal Pictures won a bidding war...

Mary C. Neal, a Wyoming surgeon, has a more spiritual view of life after a near-death experience following an accident while kayaking in 1999. (Family photo, Credit) JACKSON, WYO. — The way Mary C. Neal sees it, she has essentially lived two different lives: one before her “accident,” as she describes it, and one after.“I would say that I have been profoundly changed in all aspects of my life,” said Neal, a respected orthopedic spinal surgeon in western Wyoming. “The details of my life, before and after, are similar. But the essence of my life — who I am,...

Abingdon resident Michael Solano describes his "spiritual awakening" after suffering a stroke while nearly choking to death at a crab cake eating contest in Timonium. Abingdon resident Michael Solano says he no longer fears death after a harrowing experience that nearly cost him his life. “I can tell anybody who's willing to listen what it’s like to die,” he said. “I’m very respectful of death. I’m not trying to want it or have it bestowed upon me, but when it happens, I’m not going to be afraid.”

[The following is an experience obtained over several months by the Near-Death Research Foundation from a woman who had never shared this before, except with her son, and remains anonymous. The foundation is directed by a radiation oncologist, Dr. Jeffrey Long. The major and minor details of this story remained consistent over the months it was shared.  It was very difficult for her to share this.  Approximately one of every four such experiences are this detailed.  Among the experiences that have this level of detail, the events are quite typical. For your discernment]: When I was a young, single woman living...

Two books arrived in recent weeks that are written from the scientific standpoint and have to do with near-death experiences. We'll be drawing articles from them, starting with one by a researcher named Roy Abraham Varghese. As Varghese points out, in There Is Life After Death, near-death experiences cannot be explained by anesthesia, chemicals in the brain, lack of oxygen, sedatives, hallucination, or other factors skeptics have sought to use in explaining the death episodes. Even those blind from birth have been able to describe their environment once they "leave" their body! When -- in trying to duplicate near-death experiences...

Is there life after death? Theologians can debate all they want, but radiation oncologist Dr. Jeffrey Long argues that if you look at the scientific evidence, the answer is unequivocally yes. Drawing on a decade's worth of research on near-death experiences — work that includes cataloguing the stories of some 1,600 people who have gone through them — he makes the case for that controversial conclusion in a new book, Evidence of the Afterlife. Medicine, Long says, cannot account for the consistencies in the accounts reported by people all over the world. He talked to TIME about the nature of...

In new book, he says that near-death accounts transcend cultures and agesThe near-death experience story is so common that it has become a bit of a cliché: A medical patient, hanging in a murky limbo between life and death, is drawn through a tunnel of bright light, meets their maker, and is told they must return to the land of living. But that scenario played out letter-perfectly for Mary Jo Rapini. And her story is getting firm backing by a doctor who has studied some 1,300 near-death experiences. Medical doctor Jeffrey Long chronicles Rapini’s story, along with his own research,...

Death is terrifying, right? Correct? Oh, sometimes, yes, for some -- perhaps. But in the majority of near-death experiences, death is described not as a frightening traverse onto foreign turf, but as a feeling of return. How strange this seems! "I'm home. I'm finally home," they often say they felt. "This is my real home!" many claim they felt upon death (and entrance into the eternal). That's a constant in near-death experiences: the feeling that this -- Heaven -- is where they originated (in the Mind of God) and that earth was indeed as Catholicism says: a place of exile....

Several years back we met a woman from Syosset, New York, who had a near-death experience. We try to be cautious with all such reports. We're well aware that there can be deception in any realm, and also that near-death experiences, because they involve a reality far outside our own, can seem strange to some people.  But hers sounded legitimate -- one of the most powerful we've heard -- and the Church has been recording such experiences since the fourth century (when Pope Gregory the Great detailed them). Scientists recently issued a study saying that millions have had these experiences,...