“During a heart attack, I lost consciousness. Instantly, I found myself in a white, luminous and limitless space. In front of me, luminous beings formed an arc. Among them, a male figure stood out for his charisma and the intensity of his love. I immediately thought, “I’m dead,” but I wasn’t afraid. I was in an incredible bliss, I had never felt so alive. It was like a homecoming. » Twenty years later, Fabienne Raoul, a former nuclear engineer, still recalls with emotion this extraordinary episode which turned her life upside down.
Revealed to the general public in 1975 with the publication of Life after deathe by Dr Raymond Moody, near-death experiences (NDEs) are reported by people who have survived a state of clinical death, that is to say prolonged cardio-respiratory arrest. From the 1970s, advances in intensive care have enabled a growing number of people who have survived clinical death to report EMI. According to several international studies, 10 to 20% of patients resuscitated after a cardiac arrest have such experiences.
These phenomena have also been observed during comas or under anesthesia. Baptized “experiencers”witnesses of these events describe leaving their bodies, passing through a tunnel, seeing a brilliant light, and feeling extraordinary love and peace, often accompanied by encounters with luminous beings or missing loved ones.
Negative experiences
“During their decorporation, people see themselves floating above their body, they can hear conversations or telepathically capture the thoughts of the caregiverexplains Doctor Patrick Theilllier, former head of the medical findings office at the Sanctuary of Lourdes and author of several works on the Emi. They can then move to other places. Often, they speak of a tunnel opening onto a landscape of great beauty. These stages are followed by encounters with known or unknown beings, and sometimes with a luminous entity from which emanates an indescribable love. Some see their lives flash before them and experience unparalleled serenity. However, a barrier tells them that their time has not yet come, sending them reluctantly back to their earthly lives. »
“People come back transformed”
However, some people describe terrifying experiences, called “Negative Emi”. These episodes may include a feeling of emptiness, deep fear, visions of threatening entities or dark landscapes, accompanied by disturbing noises and sometimes feelings of damnation. They are less often told than the positive Emi. But whatever their nature, the Emi deeply mark those who have experienced them, modifying their perception of existence and reinforcing their conviction of the existence of life after death.
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Multiple scientific studies have explored these phenomena in order to discover whether EMIs are simple hallucinations or whether they correspond to a tangible reality. For Charlotte Martial, neuropsychologist and researcher at the University of Liège, “Emi could be a reaction to stress: a subjective experience which would allow the body to face situations of extreme danger by mobilizing all its resources, like a survival mechanism. »
The human being is body and soul
Former head of the surgical anesthesia-resuscitation department at Sarlat hospital, Doctor Jean-Pierre Postel believes that “Emi is a sort of safeguard for the brain against the unacceptable. The brain realizes that this is the end and that we are heading towards nothingness, so it tells itself a story that can make this end less hopeless. It is just an experience in the suburbs of death which in no way constitutes proof of the existence of life after life. A bit like a computer that glitches and whose information reappears. »
Trained in a materialist approach, most doctors maintain that consciousness is strictly linked to brain activity, observes Dr. Theillier. However, Emi’s testimonies suggest the opposite, reporting not only thoughts, but also previously unknown knowledge. Like this woman discovering the existence of a brother who died before she was born, information never shared by her parents but confirmed when she woke up. Or people in a deep coma in an operating theater capable of reproducing conversations held outside.
The results of a 2014 study by researchers at the University of Southampton, however, challenged this materialistic approach by indicating that consciousness can persist for up to three minutes after a cardiac arrest, even in the absence of brain activity caused by oxygen deprivation.
“This does not, however, explain why people who have had these experiences come back transformed,” comments Doctor Theillier, who believes that science will never be able to explain the Emi. “These experiences can only be understood within the framework of Christian anthropology which recognizes that the human being is body and soul and that there is a soul open to the spiritual dimension. » An idea similar to that developed by 1963 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology and Medicine, neurophysiologist John Eccles: “We must recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world. »
Witnesses, an investigative film on the Emi
Are the perceptions reported by witnesses in a state of clinical death hallucinatory in nature or reality? While many scientists argue that these experiences are the result of the last gasps of a brain in distress, some suggest that our consciousness may function independently of our physical body.
To explore the Emi phenomenon, director Sonia Barkallah, already author of a first film on the subject (False start in 2010), solicited experts and scientific researchers. She confronts their theories with the disturbing testimonies of people who have experienced Emi. A captivating documentary conducted with the rigor of a police investigation. In cinemas from November 6.
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