What happens after death remains one of humanity's greatest and most enduring mysteries.
Now, researchers have found signs of consciousness in patients whose hearts had stopped for several minutes, bringing scientists closer to uncovering the truth about life after death.
More than 140 patients, who were at risk of cardiac arrest, across 13 hospitals in the UK and Spain, volunteered for an experiment that would see music played through a speaker during the first two minutes of resuscitation if their hearts stopped.
After recovering, the survivors completed a ten-item memory test that mixed sounds played during resuscitation with others that had not been played.
The group hearing nature sounds, including rain and birdsong, and one hearing newly created melodies scored above chance, while a third group hearing the same melodies under different experimental conditions performed around guessing level.
The findings suggest that 'consciousness may be preserved even during states of reversible clinical death,' the team wrote.
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