What Happens When We Die?: A Groundbreaking Study Into the Nature of Life and Death (Paperback)

The evidence presented in the book makes you realise that there is certainly something going on that science is yet to discover. Ive been studying near death experiences and paranormal phenomena for ten years and this is the best book ive ever read ! Cant wait for book number two !!!

His coup was in persuading Southampton Hospital to allow a full-on research study into the phenomenon, persuading them to put up suspended boards across the hospital (if anyone reported floating above the bed, could they then read what was the other side of the boards?!) However, funding meant it was only a very small scale study, and reading this book confirms that there is a long way to go before anything close to proof is achieved, one way or the other.

Parnia makes a good introduction to the various theories surrounding the genuine mystery of what consciousness is, and his logic in dealing with these theories is largely persuasive. It is a very readable book to the non-medical and the non-scientific, very occasionally he perhaps simplifies or over-dramatises.

What is perhaps the most powerful section of the book is the individual stories of NDEs. Some, especially from impossibly young children, are utterly extraordinary, while several reports made by from sober, highly experienced surgeons working in the heart of the medical establishment are particularly persuasive. I hope this is not the last we hear of Sam Parnia and his work, and that funds are found to allow for a full study. After all, it's hard to imagine any subject being more relevant to all mankind than what happens to us all after death...

Ever since he was a medical student, Parnia MD, PhD was fascinated by what it is that makes us all unique as individuals, in other words what is the relation between the mind and the brain? Later he was touched by the experience of seeing his patients' die and was left with the question of what happens to the human mind and consciousness at the end of life? Disappointed that science had not seriously tried to study this question, he developed a scientific model i.e. cardiac arrest and started research into this field. This was almost 10 years ago...

This book starts with a review of the subject based upon the literature. Although, this is generally where all other books on the subject stop, he however, goes further by describing how novel research was set up and taking us along with answers obtained from the first ever published scientific study to test the different theories of causation of near death experiences. Parnia's study which was published in the medical journal 'Resuscitaton' has been followed by three other independent studies carried out in the US and Holland and published in top journals such as 'The Lancet'. All these researchers including Parnia have concluded (rather significantly) that the occurrence of "lucid well structured thought processes together with reasoning and memory formation when the brain ceases functioning and the clinical criteria of death are met, suggest that the human mind and
consciousness may continue to function at the end of life...!" In this book Parnia then explains how this finding relates to the problem of human consciousness, brain function as well as modern physics.

I have read the other reviews on this site, in which some have been disappointed suggesting there is no study or only a small study in this book and I was frankly very surprised!!! Perhaps they did not read the book very thoroughly or perhaps they were looking for something that is not yet out there. As well as a review of the subject that is based on over one hundred published studies, there are also results from the four newly published scientific studies, including Parnia's own detailed above.

This is a great book and arguably the most complete book examining what happens when we die from a scientific angle. I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone with an interest in this area. Moreover it is an easy and enjoyable read and although in parts it is serious in others it is quite light hearted. I can't wait to get the results of the larger multi center study that he has now started...!