Their brains often show no signs of the normal sleep-wakefulness cycle, which means they are unlikely to be dreaming. Yet many people who have recovered from comas report dreams into which something of the outside world penetrated. Others recall nightmares that seemed to go on and on.
A: Many people who have woken up from comas have reported having dreams in which they saw something from the outer world. Others have had dreams that seemed to stretch on and on. A person's ability to dream is most likely determined by the underlying medical condition that put them in a coma.
A coma is similar to a dream-like state because the individual is alive but not conscious. A coma occurs when there is little-to-no brain activity. The patient is unable to respond to touch, sound, and other stimuli. It is also rare for someone in a coma to cough, sneeze, or communicate in any way.
Usually, coma patients have their eyes closed and cannot see what happens around them. But their ears keep receiving sounds from the environment. In some cases, the brains of coma patients can process sounds, for example the voice of someone speaking to them [2].
As many as 15 to 20 percent of patients who appear to be in a coma or other unresponsive state show these inner signs of awareness when evaluated with advanced brain-imaging methods or sophisticated monitoring of electrical activity. Many of these techniques have only recently been refined.
More commonly, people remember things that never happened. It's hard to characterize the different mental experiences that people have while in a coma. Some of them may be dreams, others are hallucinations.
Annie Shapiro (1913–2003) was a Canadian apron shop owner who was in a coma for 29 years because of a massive stroke and suddenly awakened in 1992. Apart from the patients in the true story Awakenings, Shapiro was the longest a person has been in a coma like state and woken up.
Dreams might be seen as an expression of emotional self-state and are usually associated with unconscious memories that can be traced back to early childhood and attachment-related experiences and have been stored implicitly in memory without access to the actual consciousness.
In a coma, a patient is alive and there is some brain activity. Depending on the severity of the injury, recovery time varies and comas can be temporary or permanent. Patients in a coma might have brain stem responses, spontaneous breathing and/or non-purposeful motor responses.
A person may appear fine, but will not able to speak or respond to commands. Spontaneous movements may occur, and the eyes may open in response to external stimuli. Individuals may even occasionally grimace, cry, or laugh.
Typically, a coma does not last more than a few days or couple of weeks. In some rare cases, a person might stay in a coma for several weeks, months or even years. Depending on what caused the person to go into a coma, some patients are able to return to their normal lives after leaving the hospital.
Use objects with pleasant tactile sensations and different textures such as soft toys, silk scarves or books. Put a bunch of flowers in the person's room or spray their favourite perfume.
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Elaine Esposito (December 3, 1934 – November 25, 1978) held the record for the longest period of time in a coma according to Guinness World Records, having lost consciousness in 1941 and eventually dying in that condition more than 37 years later.
On Aug. 6, 1941, 6-year-old Elaine Esposito went to the hospital for a routine appendectomy. She went under general anesthetic and never came out. Dubbed the "sleeping beauty," Esposito stayed in a coma for 37 years and 111 days before succumbing in 1978 — the longest-ever coma, according to Guinness World Records.
Post-traumatic amnesia typically occurs after a survivor wakes up from a coma, a period of unconsciousness. During this time the survivor may not be able to recall certain memories. This can last from a few minutes to a couple weeks, depending on the severity of the brain injury.
"Pulling the plug" would render the patient unable to breathe, and the heart would stop beating within minutes, he said. But if a patient is not brain dead and instead has suffered a catastrophic neurological brain injury, DiGeorgia said, he or she could breathe spontaneously for one or two days before dying.
People who do wake up from a coma usually come round gradually. They may be very agitated and confused to begin with. Some people will make a full recovery and be completely unaffected by the coma. Others will have disabilities caused by the damage to their brain.
The soul of a person in a coma is still there, but mostly the vegetative part of it. You see, there are three aspects of a human soul—the vegetative, the sentient and the rational. The reason a person in a coma is still alive, though unconscious, is because of the vegetative part of the soul.
If and when the person becomes unconscious they may not be able to respond to you, however, they will still be aware of your presence and voices around them. Studies indicate that hearing is the last of the senses to be lost.
Twenty-five percent of all unconscious patients can hear, understand, and emotionally respond to what is happening in their external environment. However, because of their medical condition, they are incapable of moving or communicating their awareness.
Unconsciousness is an unresponsive state. A person who is unconscious may seem like they are sleeping but may not respond to things like loud noises, being touched, or being shaken. Fainting is a type of unconsciousness that happens suddenly and may only last a few seconds. Other types can last much longer.
Severe brain injury is usually defined as being a condition where the patient has been in an unconscious state for 6 hours or more, or a post-traumatic amnesia of 24 hours or more. These patients are likely to be hospitalised and receive rehabilitation once the acute phase has passed.
Someone in a coma needs intensive care in hospital. They may need help with breathing, they will be fed through a tube and they will receive blood and fluids through a drip inserted into the vein.
It can have a variety of causes, including traumatic head injury, stroke, brain tumor, or drug or alcohol intoxication. A coma may even be caused by an underlying illness, such as diabetes or an infection. Coma is a medical emergency. Quick action is needed to preserve life and brain function.