Cardiac arrest (CA) survivors experience cognitive deficits including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This multi-center study systematically investigated the broad range of cognitive experiences and awareness during CA using a three-stage quantitative and qualitative interview system plus objective testing of the accuracy of recall. Among 2060 CA events, 46% of survivors had memories with 7 major cognitive themes: fear; animals/plants; bright light; violence/persecution; deja-vu; family; and recalling events post-CA. Of these survivors, 9% had near-death experiences and 2% described awareness with explicit recall of seeing and hearing actual events related to their resuscitation (out-of-body experiences). One patient had a verified period of conscious awareness during which verifiable events were accurately recalled in accordance with CA and resuscitation. The data suggest that consciousness and associated cognitive processes may be present despite clinically undetectable consciousness, and may contribute to post-CA psychological complications.

The AWARE I study — 2060 cardiac arrest patients across 15 hospitals in the US, UK, and Austria over four years. 46% of survivors had memories during resuscitation; 9% had full NDEs. One patient (Case 4) had verified veridical perception of events during documented cardiac arrest consistent with an out-of-body experience — the most methodologically rigorous veridical NDE case in the clinical literature. Used calibrated visual targets placed above resuscitation tables to objectively test OBE claims.

AWARE — AWAreness during REsuscitation — A prospective study

Led by Dr. Sam Parnia at NYU Langone, the Parnia Lab runs the largest prospective studies of near-death experiences during cardiac arrest, including the landmark AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) studies. The lab uses calibrated visual targets positioned above resuscitation tables to test out-of-body perception claims under controlled hospital conditions. Parnia's research represents the most methodologically rigorous attempt to empirically test consciousness survival hypotheses in a clinical setting.

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