What does it feel or feel like to die according to science?

In 1990, the Argentine journalist Víctor Sueiro suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest and was declared “clinically dead”. But the state lasted 40 seconds, because Sueiro came back to life.

He left testimony of this experience in several books. In summary, you said what you experienced in that short period “the typical phase of the tunnel, the light, the feeling of peace, not wanting to go back”.

The story of Sueiro, who died in 2007, is quite similar to that of other people who were on the verge of death. For a decade, scientists They investigate what happens when someone dies.

The result of these investigations, based on stories and tests with psychedelic drugs and brain scans of rats, so far is surprising.

What does it feel or feel like to die according to science?

In 2013, scientists at the University of Michigan decided to measure the brain activity of a group of rats. at the time of his deathaccording to an article in La Vanguardia.

After suffering cardiac arrest, the rats began to show brain activity defined by low gamma wave levels that differed from those in the normal waking state. For scientists, this brain activity was linked to people’s conscious perception. Therefore, they support it the brain remains active at the time of death.

Death understands various phases. Respiratory arrest occurs first, followed by cardiac arrest. Over the next four to six minutes, the brain damage is complete and that’s when hallucinations occur, such as “seeing the light at the end of the tunnel” or having memories of loved ones.

In the following two hours, pallor mortis appears, during which the body becomes pale. The next stage, Liver mortis, is characterized by the appearance of a reddish and purple color. The temperature drops to resemble that of the environment (Algor mortis) and about two hours later the extremities appear inflexible (Rigor mortis).

To learn more about what happens when someone dies, in 2018, researchers at Imperial College London worked with volunteers who took the hallucination-producing psychedelic drug DMT.

The experience with DMT has shown some of this coincidences with the stories of people who died for a few seconds. They experienced the sensation of “transcendence of time and space” and of “oneness with objects and other people”.

Stories quite similar to those shared by TikToker Kassi Hogan who, in 2021, at the age of 18, claimed to have been dead for seven minutes.

On the social network she assured that “at the beginning I was closed in a tunnel, but then I ended up among the stars. I could see the galaxy, the cosmos, everything, but my eyes were closed. I couldn’t open them or move. But I wasn’t afraid, I was very calm and at ease. I could see everything and everything, I could hear everything. It’s a bit complicated to explain.”

In this case, however, we are dealing with someone who felt as if he were dead, without there being, as in the case of Víctor Sueiro, a clinical verification. For scientists, Kassi Hogan’s experience is closer to the mystical than to science.