Clinical death – a mystery of the future? What is clinical death? Doctors conducting research on NDE (near-death experience), but also ordinary people have been trying to answer this question for many years. Why do we want an answer to this question so badly, and why does this phenomenon arouse so much fascination?
What is clinical death – definition
From a medical point of view, death means the disappearance of the body’s vital functions. From a medical point of view, it is impossible to bring back to life someone who is dead. That is why the increasingly frequent testimonies of people who loudly say that they have experienced death are causing controversy among both the medical and scientific communities, as well as the public. It is increasingly being said that clinical death is possible. This is for one simple reason. The testimonies of various people, who have never met each other and sometimes live on different continents, overlap too closely to be contrived. On the other hand, technological advances and increasingly easy access to information have made this thesis easy to undermine. What cannot be disputed, however, is the fact that a person was presumed dead and then inexplicably “came back” to life. Clinical death (NDE – near death experience), is a condition in which the patient develops symptoms indicating the cessation of signs of life, Heart rate, pulse, breathing ceases, and blood circulation stops – that is, there is a lack of vital functions. During a near-death experience, however, brain function does not cease, which is the fundamental difference between biological death. Therefore, it can be a reversible phenomenon if brain death does not occur. Four minutes after the cessation of function, there is irreversible damage and changes in the nervous system, whose cells begin to die, respiratory arrest occurs. The cause of clinical death can be an accident, trauma, but it also happens to be a condition that precedes death from natural causes.
What do survivors of clinical death say?
All people who claim to have experienced an NDE describe their unusual experiences very similarly. The same themes and feelings appear in their testimonies. Many remember the moment of leaving their body, an overwhelming feeling of love and acceptance that makes not everyone want to “return” to their previous life, some see a kind of movie of their past incarnation. The main and culminating point in all cases is an encounter with mysterious, luminous figures with whom the deceased communicate through thoughts rather than words. The return is closely related to the course of this conversation. In the course of it, a person coming to the conclusion that he has not completed all things on Earth may decide to return. Other times, he is sent away due to the lack of completion of certain matters in earthly life – and literally return to the life before the gates of heaven. The experience of a close encounter with death is talked about by people all over the world, books are written about it, films are shot, documentaries are made. People who have been on the borderline between life and death, after returning from the afterlife, often change their entire life – appreciate it more, spend time with loved ones, fulfill their dreams. They have a different perspective and a deeper awareness of the passing of life. They treat their NDE as a second chance from God.
What is biological death?
It is a mistake to use the term clinical death with biological death. In the first case, there is a cessation of vital functions, but this is a reversible process, as indicated by the return of bodily functions, of patients who have persisted in a state of NDE. Biological death , by definition, is an irreversible process, the activity of all functions and vital activities of the body is stopped. There is cardiac arrest and brain death. All vital activities cease.
The experience of death – does life after death exist?
However, not all scientists and doctors give credence to these revelations. Research on clinical death is being conducted all the time. Patients who have been declared dead and yet continue to live are being interviewed in detail to find the scientific reason for these stories. The most common opinion encountered among the medical community is that of the brain’s defense response. This is because some scientists believe that people in a state of clinical death experience hallucinations that are the result of the brain’s defensive response. The brain receives the body’s signals, including the level of adrenaline in the blood, and simply produces a mechanism that allows this “stressful” phase for the body to pass smoothly.
However sound the arguments of scientists are, many people believe that the testimonies of people who have survived their own death are proof of the existence of life after life. More clearly, they are proof of the existence of God, a higher being, or at least they are proof of the existence of another, extrasensory world. It is a world of which we can only become a part after death. A world without suffering, without evil, without worries and tears. A world in which love is the only and most acute emotion. Is this the Paradise we aspire to? This is a question each of us will have to answer for ourselves.
Faith or science? This is the question of Our time.
