Now, a new study, published in the journal Resuscitation, adds more evidence that people may experience life’s memories flash before their eyes during the near-death experience following cardiac arrest.

The research, led by those from the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, assessed reports from survivors of cardiac arrest who described lucid death experiences that occurred while they were seemingly unconscious.

Fewer than 10 per cent of the 567 patients studied, who received CPR in the hospital, recovered sufficiently to be discharged, scientists said.

Four in 10 patients who survived, however, recalled some degree of consciousness during CPR that could not be captured by standard measures.

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The new study finds these experiences of death could be different from hallucinations, delusions, illusions, dreams or CPR-induced consciousness.

Researchers suspect the brain’s processes in such people during this state may be opening access to “new dimensions of reality”, including a lucid recall of all stored memories from early childhood to death.

These new dimensions, according to the study, include experiences of people’s deeper consciousness such as all their memories, thoughts, intentions and actions towards others “from a moral and ethical perspective”.

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However, scientists agree that research until now has “neither proved nor disproved” the meaning of patients’ experiences and claims of awareness in relation to death.