our species… we're all mortal. For every single  one of us, our days on Earth are numbered. But,  

of course, many believe that this Earthly life  isn't all there is; that there's something else  

waiting for us, whenever this is all over. But  have we finally found evidence of that, as well?

This is Unveiled, and today we're  answering the extraordinary question;  

does this prove that there's life after death?

 Do you need the big questions answered? Are  you constantly curious? Then why not subscribe  

to Unveiled for more clips like this one? And  ring the bell for more thought-provoking content!

Heaven. Hell. The Underworld. The Afterlife.  Cultural depictions of a time after the time  

we're alive right now, are many. And,  in fact, there's some argument that a  

variation of life after death is the  key ingredient to any major religion;  

it needs to convince its followers that it can  provide an answer to the unanswerable - what  

happens when we die? In more recent  times, however, the afterlife isn't  

only the domain of theology and Faith. Science  has become increasingly interested in it, too,  

with countless studies and theories making  headlines. In just the last decade or so,  

we've seen news that dying brains have been  meticulously scanned, with researchers looking  

for signs of a post-life something. There are also  countless recollections of near-death experiences,  

many of which are reportedly very similar - with  white lights, tunnel vision, and a life review.

However, the cases that have really turned  heads are those that have been clinically  

tested and verified. And the AWARE study (or  AWAreness During REsuscitation) is perhaps the  

most comprehensive of all. Published in 2014,  in the journal “Resuscitation”, it refers back  

to a large-scale, four-year initiative started  in 2008, involving 2,060 patients in hospitals  

in the United Kingdom, the USA, and Austria.  All patients were cardiac arrest survivors,  

having gone without a heartbeat for varying  lengths of time. Once brought back to the living,  

the patients were extensively interviewed,  and the findings still rank as some of the  

most perplexing and intriguing in  medical science in recent years.

Forty-six percent of those interviewed were  able to report memories that researchers  

then categorized under seven key themes;  memories of fear, of animals and plants,  

of violence and persecution, a bright  light, of deja vu, memories of their family,  

and finally of events happening after their  cardiac arrest. Around two percent of those  

interviewed - upwards of thirty people - reported  a visceral awareness of their own resuscitation,  

too. They could remember the physicians working  over them, trying to get their heart to restart,  

even after it had stopped. In most cases, these  memories will have formed in an up to three-minute  

time window after the initial loss of heartbeat…  but the brain is known to cease functioning after  

only thirty seconds or so without the heart. There  was, then, up to two-and-a-half minutes (in some  

cases) where the patient could have been deemed  technically dead. Thankfully, they were brought  

back… but, in the meantime, they had managed to  create memories from somewhere. In some cases, all  

physical signs of consciousness had disappeared…  but, clearly, something was still happening.

In the context of the AWARE study, it was  deemed that this kind of experience might  

then contribute to feelings of post traumatic  stress disorder after suffering a heart attack.  

There are then some wider suggestions  that even if you have a heart attack  

and you can't recall anything about the minutes  that followed, whatever did happen might still  

go some way to affecting your mental health  in the future. However, more broadly still,  

what could the study be showing us about  the concept of an afterlife, in general?

Here, it would appear that conscious experience  actually is being created even after the heart  

has stopped beating, and potentially after  the cognitive signs of consciousness have  

faded out. One implication, then, is that it  might be possible to miss consciousness in a  

person believed to be dead. Move  one step further down that road,  

and might it be possible for that level of  consciousness to just continue and continue,  

indefinitely undetected? And isn't that,  really, what the afterlife would be?

Elsewhere, and around the same time  as the AWARE study was made public,  

reports emerged of a similar effort conducted  in Berlin, Germany. Although details are today  

scarce, it is alleged that more than nine  hundred people were made technically dead,  

under medical supervision, for twenty minutes  at a time. During that massive window,  

it's said that those people formed memories  - mostly of out of body experiences - that  

they could then report back to researchers, upon  their being brought back to life. Importantly,  

this study doesn't appear in any verified  journals. But, ultimately, if the reports  

are correct, then it would serve as simply an  elongation of the results published by AWARE.  

Again, it would seem that the end  actually isn't the end, in some cases.

In 2019, further work was completed to  calculate the likelihood that any one  

person would experience a near-death-experience.  In an international study based out of Denmark,  

Norway and, again, Germany, it was found that  around one in ten people have them. More than  

one thousand people were featured in the study,  all with a variety of individual circumstances  

surrounding their NDE. However, perhaps the most  disturbing takeaway here was that almost three  

quarters of those studied said that their NDE  had been unpleasant. While the more archetypal  

white light and warm fuzzy feeling may have  seeped into our collective consciousness,  

it would seem that, actually,  this isn't what we should expect.

In all studies mentioned in this video,  the outer body experience (or OBE) was a  

prominent feature. Some of AWARE's heart attack  survivors reported viewing themselves from above;  

it's said that some of those in the Berlin study  were left feeling as though they had levitated;  

and OBEs were regularly cited in the 2019  survey, too. As yet, science doesn't really  

have an answer for this particular aspect of  death. It doesn't seem to happen universally,  

but it is one of the more common traits  whenever anyone has clinically died,  

is fortunately brought back, and has the  memories stored of what they saw and felt.

What's your verdict on this issue? Let  us know in the comments! Is it perhaps  

telling that despite the potentially profound  implications that this research could have,  

it still isn't especially spoken about in  the mainstream? No doubt there is a taboo  

surrounding death. Despite its inevitability,  not everyone is overly keen to talk or think  

about it. But still, on this morbid but  bleeding edge of science and technology,  

there are those seeking answers. Verifiable  evidence that there's something else after we die.

For those behind the AWARE study, in particular,  their results might be especially important  

because they come from those who have been brought  back after a cardiac arrest. While definitions of  

the moment of death do differ from country to  country, culture to culture, whenever the heart  

stops beating we always know that the person is  in serious trouble. Within seconds, their brain  

will become starved of oxygen and, while the rest  of their body will fight, it will also fail within  

just a few short moments. It would appear that the  same can't be said of consciousness, however. It  

would seem as though that might continue, even if  science is as of yet unable yet to explain how. In  

the AWARE study, more than 2,000 people suffered  the unfortunate experience of a heart attack… but  

almost half of them also tapped into some kind of  energy, even when they were technically passed.

Of course, this takes us back to those various,  ancient claims of many religions. It's just that,  

from a religious point of view, you usually  needn't have evidence that the afterlife exists,  

you just need the Faith that it's real.  Science doesn't work in the same way… but  

it does accept that there are things that we  don't know. For now, the afterlife remains - to  

a certain extent - one of those things. And, by  definition, you can't know unless you're dead;  

and you can't reveal what you know if you  are dead. It's an impossible situation.

Nevertheless, work is ongoing, and the  studies are bearing fruit. Bizarrely,  

they rarely receive the global coverage that  you might expect, but there is something of  

a modern revolution going on when it comes to  this particular, unknowable field. A favorite  

space for science fiction writers for years, it's  now beginning to be a major point of interest for  

academics, too. And that's why we might already  have proof that there is life after death.

What do you think? Is there anything we missed?  Let us know in the comments, check out these other  

clips from Unveiled, and make sure you subscribe  and ring the bell for our latest content.