QIMR links medical condition to proof of human soul.
August 29, 2011 - The Queensland Institute of Medical Research released data today that they believe adds credence to the existence of the human soul.
Whilst studying over 700 patients from around the world that have been diagnosed with the rare neuropsychiatric disorder Cotard Delusion, a condition in which people hold a delusional belief that they are dead (either figuratively or literally), scientists made a discovery that they had not expected.
The study, which has been ongoing since October 2008, has discovered that Cotard Delusion, also commonly know as Walking Corpse Syndrome, was much more prevalent in patients that had undergone a near-death experience in their past. While it was initially believed that this disorder was primarily encountered in patience suffering psychoses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, it is now believed that the condition may be directly related to the trauma created at the time of the near-death experience.
89% of those studied had experienced a near-death experience at some point, be it from cerebral infarction, attempted suicide, near drowning or cardiac arrest. A recent study by Dr. Sam Parnia, shows that, at the time of a near-death experience, patients are “effectively dead”, with their brains shut down and no thoughts or feelings possible for the complex brain activity required for dreaming or hallucinating. This therefore rules out experiences reported by these patients, such as out-of-body experiences, encountering “beings of light’ and the well known ‘tunnel experience’ as simple hallucinations.
According to Parnia, “Arch sceptics will always attack our work. I’m content with that. That’s how science progresses. What is clear is that something profound is happening. The mind – the thing that is ‘you’ – your ‘soul’ if you will - carries on after conventional science says it should have drifted into nothingness.” What is now being suggested is that it is possible, in theory, that people that have suffered a NDE may have indeed ‘crossed over’ with their soul leaving their body, leaving the physical mind with a sense of loss, resulting in a sensation of being disconnected, invisible to a degree to the rest of the world and in more severe cases, Cotard Delusion. A similar study was conducted in 2008 in the UK on 1,500 heart attack patient-survivors. The three year study concluded that people without a heartbeat or brain activity were still capable of visual perceptions.
These near-death experiences are not just bound to modern Christianity either. A study on five ancient civilizations report near-death experiences, and shamanic afterlife ‘journeys’, and regardless of culture-specific differences, all elements of the near-death experience remained the same.
This all ties in to work done by Dr Duncan MacDougall who made weight measurements of patients as they died. His results consistently showed that there was a weigh loss of 21 grams at the time of death. MacDougall attributed the weight loss to the fact that the soul must have some physical weight. He also did studies on animals including mice, sheep and dogs and the results were “uniformly negative” which he attributed to the fact that animals do not possess a human soul.
Studies continue into the existence of the human soul, which could have far reaching effects in the realm of science, and possibly the treatment of what has always been considered a mental disorder, with drugs.
