The Stuff of Those Visions in Clinical Death
A surge of brain activity in dying rats may hold an explanation for the vivid, realistic visions experienced by some human victims of cardiac arrest, researchers say.
About 20 percent of such patients say they have experienced lucid, lifelike hallucinations after clinical death, often described as visions of an afterlife or other supernatural scenarios. Seeking a physical explanation for the phenomenon, scientists from the University of Michigan induced cardiac arrest in nine rats and monitored their brain activity with an electroencephalograph.