When the Brain Shuts Down

An intriguing new study of NDEs (Near Death Experiences) has found that resuscitated patients often report phenomena that seem to count as evidence that there's something more to our cognitive experience than just the material brain.

Here's an excerpt:

One in five people who survive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) after cardiac arrest may describe lucid experiences of death that occurred while they were seemingly unconscious and on the brink of death, a new study shows.

Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and elsewhere, the study involved 567 men and women whose hearts stopped beating while hospitalized and who received CPR between May 2017 and March 2020 in the United States and United Kingdom.

Despite immediate treatment, fewer than 10% recovered sufficiently to be discharged from hospital.

Survivors reported having unique lucid experiences, including a perception of separation from the body, observing events without pain or distress, and a meaningful evaluation of life, including of their actions, intentions and thoughts toward others.

The researchers found these experiences of death to be different from hallucinations, delusions, illusions, dreams or CPR-induced consciousness.

The work also included tests for hidden brain activity. A key finding was the discovery of spikes of brain activity, including so-called gamma, delta, theta, alpha and beta waves up to an hour into CPR.

Some of these brain waves normally occur when people are conscious and performing higher mental functions, including thinking, memory retrieval, and conscious perception.

Identifying measureable electrical signs of lucid and heightened brain activity, together with similar stories of recalled death experiences, suggests that the human sense of self and consciousness, much like other biological body functions, may not stop completely around the time of death, adds Sam Parnia, the lead study investigator.

"These lucid experiences cannot be considered a trick of a disordered or dying brain, but rather a unique human experience that emerges on the brink death," says Parnia. As the brain is shutting down, many of its natural braking systems are released.

Known as disinhibition, this provides access to the depths of a person's consciousness, including stored memories, thoughts from early childhood to death, and other aspects of reality. While no one knows the evolutionary purpose of this phenomenon, it clearly reveals "intriguing questions about human consciousness, even at death," says Parnia.

Wesley Smith at Evolution News states that,

...maybe there is no evolutionary explanation. There is certainly no discernible natural-selection benefit. Moreover, what purpose would such a “soft exit” offer? Why would it appear? How would it develop if consciousness is solely generated by the brain and is purely a materialistic phenomenon?

Good questions, but the study also raises the question of whether there might be more involved in our cognitive life besides just our material brain. Perhaps we also possess another substance, an immaterial mind or soul.

NDEs certainly point in that direction.