What Happens in the Brain of a Person in a Coma? What do they live halfway between dream and reality? They tell.
Coma is arguably one of the most exciting phenomena in the medical field. As research advances, the chances of getting out of it improve. Today, many people wake up and can share what they have seen, experienced or heard: un tunnel towards a white light, the impression that his spirit is detached from the body. A strange experience halfway between dream and reality.
“Those long endless dreams where we live and where we feel everything”
“Once in a coma, I detached myself quickly enough from my body to wander. Without really knowing how, I was able to be alongside my loved ones”, explains Laurence Musy to West France. After a fall from skiing, she was in a coma for four months. Much of the people who are in a coma have had experiences bordering on reality. They often have the feeling “of being there without being there”.
Julie Bourges was 20 years old in 2013 when she was seriously burned during her high school carnival. After the accident, she spent three months in an induced coma. She recounts her experience on her Instagram account: “those long, interminable dreams where we live and where we feel everything. (…) these deliriums which mean that once I woke up, I could no longer dissociate the dream of reality, as disconnected, ”she explains.
In the newspaper Midi-Free, Martine Rondeaux delivers another testimony: “I was in a house, in the bosom of a huge family, further on there was an old lady and a river. Not far away was death, the Grim Reaper. Every time I said no to her, the old lady would smile at me. “After a car accident she was put into a induced coma. It is reminiscent of the near death experiences (NDEs) described by resuscitated people after cardiac arrest .
“I felt total well-being, ecstasy”
Joseph Garcia, now 82, remembers what he went through when he was in a coma at the age of 21. “I found myself in a large ocher room, very beautiful, he told Midi Libre. I realized it was a tunnel. There was a white spot at the bottom. Just white. Absolute white. I’ve never seen a white man like this. Even the snow is not so white. I saw myself in the light, well, my shadow. I immediately felt very light. I said to myself: ‘if that’s what dying, I don’t fear death’. Where I was, I felt total well-being, ecstasy. Nirvàna as we say now “.
“For weeks in the hospital”, while the doctor took care of him, Joseph Garcia was “out of his body”. “Later my roommates told me that I hadn’t stopped screaming and moaning, and yet I didn’t feel anything. Then my body was seized with such violent hiccups that I did. made the bed shake. I was made to drink syrups for days on end. The doctor said I would not make it through the night. I saw myself from above: as if someone else was in my place . It may seem illogical but it is so “.
There are 4 stages of coma
The “real” coma, unlike the “artificial coma” caused by doctors, can have several causes: head trauma, cerebrovascular accident (stroke), tumor, and so on. There are four stages of coma, which doctors assess based on three criteria: eye opening, motor response and verbal response. By adding the results, they determine the level between vigil coma (the patient feels pain and utters a few understandable sentences), the so-called “light” coma (the patient has no neurovegetative disorder), coma carus (deep coma, absence verbal and motor responses, autonomic disorder) and past coma (also called brain death).
To determine its duration, professionals have several techniques. Recently, Inserm has developed a hearing test to determine the patient’s state of consciousness, which makes it possible to establish prognoses on the patient’s future state. But it is recognized that the longer the duration, the greater the consequences for the brain and vital organs.
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