Erasing Death audiobook

This was the best book I have read in years. I highly recommend it.This doc is an expert in resuscitating people whose hearts have stopped. These days they can use advance techniques involving, but not limited to, chilling the patient, and revive people even hours after they are as dead as a doornail. No breathing, no heartbeat, nothing happening measurable in the brain. You know the results of CPR are pretty terrible, most folks end up dying within a few days anyway, or having brain damage. The science and the technology now exist to greatly improve outcomes.There are three main thrusts to this book. The first is the author's campaign to get skilled personnel and devices in place in every ER to do so.The second is that we should really take seriously what people report they experienced during the time they were dead. Some remember nothing, but a significant percent have so-called Near Death Experiences, which the author would like to rename Actual Death Experiences. He is actually part of a large scientific study of that phenomena. It's fascinating, read it.The third point is... what is consciousness exactly, from a scientific POV? He reviews the research and current hypotheses, about where thoughts come from, and so on. If someone's brain completely stops functioning during the time they are dead, then resumes functioning and they return as the same personality, where did that consciousness abide during the time the brain was dead? What is it? Where is it?A fascinating read for people, like me, who are into biological science, consciousness, and the afterlife.

I really enjoyed this book because it approached the subject from the perspectives of science, personal experiences, and philosophy. I thought that the information about resuscitation teams and the technology they now have to save people was fascinating, and I hope that the book helps to see both in place in all hospitals. The author's study of NDEs is remarkable as well.

Life after death? Well, apparently there is resuscitation after "clinical death". Sam Parnia is a doctor who specializes in emergency room resuscitation after cardiac arrest. We all ultimately die of cardiac arrest: the heart stops beating, the lungs stop mixing oxygen and blood, and brain activity ceases due to the lack of oxygen. But in some cases resuscitation has brought the "clinically dead" back to life. This book falls into three parts: 1. The technology and treatment of resuscitation, which the author feels, is poorly understood and developed. 2. The rare claim of some of those resuscitated that they've experienced some kind of event after they've died clinically, including the so-called "out-of-body" experience. And, 3. The whole notion of consciousness. Raymond Moody wrote THE book on near death experience "Life After Life" in 1975. He coined the phrase. Moody went on to claim that people had lived previous life times. This didn't improve his credibility. Since then the subject has fallen out of favor for lack of more credible evidence and a willingness to test this idea "scientifically".Dr. Sam Parnia makes a good case for understanding the "dying" process and developing standardized procedures to be used in resuscitation, such as super-cooling the patient. He also has attempted to design an experiment to identify those who have undergone "out of body" experiences during their clinical "death". The problem is that full resuscitation is rare. Few of those cardiac arrests are reversed without brain damage and maybe only 10% of those who do survive undamaged claim any kind of "near death" experience. So, the evidence is pretty thin but Parnia believes that it's strange that it happens at all. So, why does it happen at all? Parnia thinks that consciousness may be some kind of immaterial state of being (not a brain state at all) that actually continues after "death". He's still working on creating experiments to test this fascinating notion.

I’ve been amazed by this book where Sam Parnia re-vived the dilemma that had been raised thousands of years ago by Aristotle and Plato.What happens when we die? Is our Soul or Psyche dies with our body or it stays?Is there relationship between our mind and body?All these questions were flourished again un the book Erasing Death scientifically.I liked the book,it’s a masterpiece.

I was fascinated by this book. I do admit to skipping over some of the more statistic-heavy and research study focussed chapters of this one, but the personal anecdotes and the many examples of NDEs where the (unconscious) people involved seemed able to give details at a later date about what was happening around them that they could not possibly have known. It's bizarre, and I wonder if they will ever get definitive results of the ongoing study they're doing to try to obtain quantitative (as opposed to qualitative) data on whether out-of-body experiences are some kind of dreamlike hallucination or the result of human consciousness at a time when that human is deemed unconscious. I found this thought-provoking but it's not for everyone.

A nice popular review of the biology of the death process and relatively recent cutting edge of resuscitation science. Intriguing questions on how there can be lucid conscious experiences, including types of near death experience (NDE) and memory formation when there is supposedly no brain activity during cardiac arrest. The author is the chief investigator for the fascinating ongoing AWARE II trial.

FascinatingIt took me many months to finish this book, because it is a LOT to digest. After a string of losses, I could only handle small portions at a time. But it is truly a fascinating read. My only criticism is that in their attempt to make sure we understand clearly, the author repeat a lot of information, which for me actually made it harder to understand at times.

WowExtremely thought-provoking. Addresses death, health care standards of care for cardiac arrest, the amazing notion that many of us don't have to die but do, and that they soul might someday be a measurable entity - something we may just if yet be able to detect.

After Death StoryThis is a very interesting book.It is full of new ideas to me, because I am not in healthcare now..It is well written.but the ideas can be hard to grasp. The author's idea concerning stsndardization seem to be right. IT causes one to think

This certainly explained many issues and made it clear this is a complex and ever-changing field, but it did not attempt to give a clear answer on many topics in this area.

This is a book I read 10 years ago...It's very good but a bit outdated by now.

How science/medicine is prolonging life ... learning new things about how to keep people aliveSome discussion of after death experiences

Interesting. Subject matter very complex at times. Slow in some places, but worth the time.

An interesting read but often too repetitive to the point where I often skipped pages at a time.

The author of this book is a resuscitation doctor, that is, he tries to revive people whose hearts have stopped. There are two complementary areas of study he talks about in this book. The first half of the book deals with improvements in resuscitation techniques and the sorry fact that the best pro

I like this book because Dr. Parnia doesn't spend a lot of time speculating. He spends a lot of time talking about how the specialty area of resuscitation has pushed the boundary of death back. Whereas before, death, seen as the point of no return, was placed at the point where the heart stopped, there was no breathing, and the pupils did not dilate (a sign that the brain is not currently functioning), now, specialists can pump chilled saline into such a body and resuscitate it hours later and there have been full recoveries afterwards. He spends a chapter even going over how there have been patients who were medially defined as being brain dead who - years later, after being administered drugs like dopamine and Ambien - woke up and were lucid while these drugs were in their system, even though modern medical knowledge had said that certain areas of their brains were damaged to the point where consciousness was not possible. He spends a short time talking about Near Death Experiences (NDE's), which he emphasizes should really be called "After Death Experiences". What I liked about how he treats the subject is that he doesn't speculate - he does point out that none of the explanations that have been offered really fit. For example, one explanation has been that because the body has more carbon dioxide than usual (this would be found almost universally among resuscitated patients, as the process of forcing air into the body would cause this), this causes hallucinations. He points out, however, that a typical hallucination from this case would not be well-structured - it would be incoherent. However, the experiences that have been reported by patients who reported NDE's (or ADE's, rather) have been well-structured and coherent. This, among other things, ought to cause us to rethink our assumptions about what consciousness is, according to the author.