What exactly is a coma? Can someone move when they're in a coma? Involuntary movements? Can they think? Dream?
401951
A coma is a deep state of unconsciousness, during which an individual is not able to react to their environment. Someone in a coma cannot respond to any form of stimulation whatsoever. Coma can be caused by an underlying illness, or it can result from head trauma. A comatose person is still very much alive, but he or she is not simply asleep. The brain wave activity in a comatose person is very different from that of a sleeping person; you can wake up a sleeping person, you can't wake a person in a coma. A coma usually does not last for more than a few weeks. Many people recover their full physical and mental functioning when they emerge from a coma. Others require various forms of therapy to recover as much functioning as possible. Some patients never recover anything but very basic body functions.\n\nSometimes, following a coma, a person may enter what is known as a persistent vegetative state; patients in persistent vegetative state have lost all cognitive neurological function but are still able to breathe and may exhibit various spontaneous movements. They may even be awake and appear to be normal but, because the cognitive part of their brain no longer functions, they are not able to respond to their environment. A vegetative state can last for years.\n\nThere are various other terms, in addition to coma and vegetative state, that are used to describe varying levels of unconsciousness and a person's ability to respond to stimuli. These include stupor, in which a person is unconscious but will eventually respond to repeated, vigorous stimulation; and obtundation and lethargy, which are used to describe a person who is not entirely unconscious but does not respond to stimuli.\n\nUsually, coma and other altered states of unconsciousness are considered neurological emergencies, and actions need to be taken quickly to avoid permanent damage.\n\nThe Human Brain\nThe human brain is made up of three basic parts: the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and the brainstem. The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain and makes up about 85% of the brain's total weight. It's divided into two hemispheres, the cerebral hemispheres, one on each side of the head. The cerebrum is where all of the body's most complicated mental and sensory functions are controlled - intelligence, reasoning, memory, emotions, vision, our ability to feel things, etc. The cerebellum is a smaller part of the brain that lies behind the cerebrum. It plays an essential role in coordination, posture and balance. The brainstem is the stemlike part of the brain that connects the cerebral hemispheres to the spinal cord and is responsible for controlling many basic bodily functions, such as breathing, blood pressure, and being awake and alert.\n\nUnconsciousness\nAs with most mental processes that occur in the brain, the biology of consciousness - also called arousal - is very complicated and not well understood. There are many tissues located deep within the brain that play a role in how conscious and alert a person is. Researchers believe that one of the important physiological processes that keeps a person conscious is the transfer, or neurotransmission, of chemical signals from the brainstem to the cerebral hemispheres of the brain. This continuous neurotransmission needs to be happening in order for a person to be aware of their environment. Abnormalities that interrupt it can lead to coma or other states of unconsciousness.\n\nAbnormalities that can cause coma include injury or damage to the brain that leads to swelling (edema) in the brain, which results in an increased intracranial pressure (pressure within the skull). Increased pressure, whether it is localized in one particular spot or spread over the whole brain, decreases the flow of blood and can lead to unconsciousness. Injury or damage to the brain can also cause some areas of the brain to shift within the skull and exert pressure on surrounding tissues and structures, including blood vessels
47091
No, and you're not unconscious either. There's a difference in the level of consciousness (how your brain is working) between when you're asleep, or if you've passed out and are actually unconscious. The simplest way of explaining it is that when you are asleep, you can still be easily awakened, for example, by a loud noise or being shaken. When you are unconscious, your brain is no longer processing external information - that is, it's still working, but wont respond to external stimulus.\n\nOh, and you don't dream while your unconscious - you do when you sleep.
1087114
This is a very interesting topic. It's like how you can hear yourself say something in your mind, but you don't actually hear sound. Or how you see a certain image when your eyes are open (hence, daydream). It's difficult to observe thoughts as they are happening, since the only way to actually formulate an opinion about what we are thinking is to analyze what we remember thinking. It's pretty amazing how our minds work, and what they control. We can't (more accurately, MOST of us can't) voluntarily control the rate of our heart beat, but we can voluntarily control our breathing. Yet, when we are asleep or not paying attention, our brain's nervous system takes over. It's so amazing...\n\nI can go on about this forever! : ) I actually have never heard of the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle but I'll look into it. (After a pause...) My thoughts are telling me to finish typing. ^_^
654026
In my case, i'm actually fully awake and can hear everything that's going on around me, i just can move, speak or open my eyes.  The first few times it happened, it scared the whey out of me.  I still find it frightening.\n\nI did some research on it and while the people on here that have said it is part of our defense mechanism to keep us from acting out dreams and thereby harming ourselves or others, are correct, the sleep paralysis is actually different in that we are not dreaming when it happens.\n\nYou can use any and/or all of the search engines available and find quite a bit of information on it.\n\nOne of the things i find most helpful is a tip i read on one of the sites.  It said to rapidly move your eyes back and forth or to try moving your feet.  While these don't always work, i have found that sometimes they do and when they do work, i can bring myself out of it.\n\nAnother thing i do is try not to sleep during the day if i'm home alone.  In my case, it happens if i nap; but, because of some other health issues, i nap a lot.  So, if i have to sleep during the day, i will either do it while my husband is home or i'll call my sister or a friend ~ in any case, i ask someone to either come in or call after an hour and wake me up.\n\nThere are some that associate sleep paralysis with narcolepsy, so you might want to use the available search engines and do some research.\n\nFOR THE PERSON WITH THE NECK PROBLEMS:  Could you please explain how it is related to your neck problems?  I, too, have neck problems and i'm always wanting to learn more about the sleep paralysis.
693496
Gave blood.  I knew if I got up that I would faint but the nurse made me move to another seat.  I made it to the seat but then I took a nap.  That's what I call it.  When I was coming back, my eyes saw light and shadows of people but everything was wayyyy blurry.  The voice in my head told me to wake up because I knew that I had passed out but for about 8 seconds I couldn't move nor get my eyes to focus.  It's wierd.  You know what's happend to you but you can't react to stimulus.  I kinda miss it.
420273
Coma is a fairly vague term and can cover a variety of levels of unconsciousness. A now-dated but very important book in this field, "Coma and Consciousness" by Plum and Posner, tried to lay out levels of impaired consciousness like "lethargy" and "coma." In general, when people are in a coma, they've suffered an insult (trauma, poisoning, metabolic upset) that affects both hemispheres of the brain, or else the deep part of the brainstem, so that their overall conscious level declines. Damage to one half of the brain only usually produces "focal" deficit, i.e. a limited problem like weakness on one side or speech problem.\n\nThe medical field worldwide now uses the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) to assess *how* comatose someone is. This has 3 components: the motor (movement), the verbal, and the eye-opening components. Minimum score is 3 (you get a 1 in each category just for showing up), maximum (normal) is 15. \n\nA score of 13-14 is someone who's confused. The usual score for people we say are "in a coma" would be 3 to 7 - anyone around 7-8 usually needs a breathing tube and treatment in intensive care. The GCS is useful for ongoing assessment of how someone's doing - if their GCS drops, they might need repeat scanning, blood tests or surgery - and it's important in terms of prediction. People who have a lower GCS on admission after head injury are more likely to die or be left with long-term problems.\n\nSo yes, someone in a coma could twitch. The way in which their motor system responds to stimulation (pain or ICU-tasks like sucking gunk out of their lungs) can indicate how severe the injury is. They may or may not breathe on their own, they may or may not flicker their eyes to stimulus. If someone scores 3 (i.e., no response to anything), there are other tests used like whether their pupils react, whether they have a gag reflex, and others, to determine whether they have suffered brain death.
905680
Sleeping? The were comatose. Almost on life support.\nThey aren't & haven't been nearly as effective as we need them to be as long as I can remember.
905971
here are some English stats on Coma..\nhttp://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/c/coma/stats.htm\n\nnot sure if these help
158304
Near-death experiences are persons and events of the past, or maybe future events yet to happen, which a person in a coma or near death experiences.. Many of these people who experience this phenomena says that they can feel themselves leaving their bodies. There are no scientific methods to prove or disprove their  stories. There seems to be a pattern of similarity in the stories of those who have experienced near-death experiences. I think that there might be something to this, and it is beyond our ability to comprehend at the present time. Maybe in the future, we'll know more about this. Only time will tell.
47396
I don't think you're passed out long enough. Plus I think you go to delta sleep and not rem sleep when you're unconscious, as opposed to asleep. I've only passed out once though, so what do I know.
689225
His temp might be low because taking too much severely depresses breathing, everythings slows down, and your body cools off, not to mention the fact that taking too much can put you into a coma so if you're smart you'll call 911, since you can't know for sure if he's just sleeping or in a drug induced coma, unless of course you have tried waking him and he doesn't respond.  I'd err on the side of caution and just call an ambulance and hopefully things will be ok. \n\nand if he's not going to wake up, wouldn't you rather it was with him already in the hospital, where there are people trained to deal with things like this?
486691
This is the best question I've ever seen.  Thanks so much for asking it!  You will not get the full answer, but it will be very interesting if you keep asking smart people what they think.  I really want to know the answer to this question, and I never thought to ask it myself.\n\nObviously the brain (and possibly the body as well) requires some kind of regenerative process, just like it requires a certain amount of food and water and oxygen.  You can't go too long without either, or else your body will break down.  If you "lose sleep," you suffer - no one gets away with it.  In fact, one of the ways they use to torture prisoners of war nowadays is sleep deprivation.  Even the most hardened killers begin to crack under its effects, physically and psychologically.  \n\nDo trees sleep?  You have to wonder.\n\nI'll let you in on one secret I know that most people do not.  One of the answers to your question is that the unconscious mind has about 1 million times more processing power than the conscious mind.  It would make sense if our body's natural functions require the full force of regulatory calculations that only the unconscious mind can perform.  In other words, if we only used our conscious minds to run our body and brains, we would quickly degenerate and die.  We're nowhere near as smart when awake as we are while asleep.  Unfortunately, the only way to do work (to get food & water) is to be awake, alert, receiving new data, and guiding one's movements.  Then again, we can live for decades in a coma.\n\nThis is such a great question.
772426
It depends on how hard the head was hit.  He/she may just be a little stunned, but if there are any other indications of brain damage, or if the loss of speach persists, you should get him/her to a hospital.  Try asking questions, see if the person understands you, or try to get them to write answers down.\nIf the person's head was hit very hard, don't wait.  When it comes to a person's brain, you shouldn't take any chances.
401641
Our consciousness remains after death and exists before birth. Think about it. How much of you is still you if you lose a finger? ane eye? Both legs? If you can still be "you", even if most of you is gone, your consciousness still remains. It doesn't even need you to have conscious thinking (think dreams etc.).\nWhen you die, your consciousness remains. That consciousness can be at peace or disturbed depending on how you lived your life. If you are filled with anger or sorrow or craving you will remain as a conscious being without a body, clinging to the objects or places of your attachments.\n\nHope that helps.
620371
I worked with a woman in her late 30's who had one pop.  She had surgery and was in a coma for a while but eventually she did come back to work. I would not say she was recovered fully though. She was much slower in everything, she was very quick to get angry and (not to be mean) she was obviously a little more stupid--she had a hard time with everything.
1020487
I had an out of body experience... I was hit by a drunk driver and was in a coma. I was clinically dead in that coma which lasted 22 days. \n\nI went through a tunnel and there was light at the other end... hence I was still alive after my death... hence... there is a God... and all the atheists will find that out when it is too late to do anything about it. One bows one's knee now before the God of creation... or one will be forced to make that bow later... in great fear and trembling.
1102789
As a child we grew up with a neighbor who was paralyzed. He could not move his arms, hands feet, legs,\nneck or head. In summer she would have him sit outside in his wheel chair. His hands always lying across the other on his lap. She always had a sheet over him , sleepers on his feet.  In his room was a t.v. and a bed that he stayed in . Most of the time he was upright in bed where one could roll his head down to a level position. Numerous times a day he had to be turned where he was facing the floor. My sister, my mother and I always went to assist in helping turn him. It looks like you are flipping him over, which you are to face downward or upward. We would talk to him but he would grunt like and look at us. He was indeed a wonderful person and yet he could not feel a thing. His wife fed him, washed him and catered to him until the day he passed. This is how I met a paralyzed Man for the first time. I thank God for having met him and spending time with him..