First-ever recording of dying human brain reveals dreaming-like activity

[Ohio Joe]

“My whole life flashed before my eyes” is a phrase we often hear regarding near-death experiences – and there just might be some truth to it. Scientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain for the first time ever, revealing brain wave patterns related to processes like dreaming and memory recall.

The study wasn’t specifically designed to measure the brain’s activity around the time of death – it was just a matter of happenstance. The researchers were continuously monitoring the brain waves of an 87-year-old epilepsy patient using EEG, to watch for seizures. However, during the treatment the patient suddenly had a heart attack and died.

As such, the researchers managed to record 15 minutes of brain activity around the time of death. They focused in on the 30 seconds either side of when the heart stopped beating, and detected increased activity in types of brain waves known as gamma oscillations. These are involved in processes such as dreaming, meditation and memory retrieval, giving a glimpse into what a person may be experiencing during their final moments.

“Through generating oscillations involved in memory retrieval, the brain may be playing a last recall of important life events just before we die, similar to the ones reported in near-death experiences,” said Dr. Ajmal Zemmar, lead author of the study. “These findings challenge our understanding of when exactly life ends and generate important subsequent questions, such as those related to the timing of organ donation.”

https://newatlas.com/medical/first-recording-dying-human-brain-activity

Fascinating... And amazing.

[lagomorph777]

1. That does seem to align with descriptions of near death experiences.

[mitch96]

8. I saw a program called "Death is but a dream"... It aligns with the brain wave activity

of these dying patients.. In the program, Christopher Kerr is a hospice doctor. All his patients die and interviewing these patients he found similarities. Memories of people who have passed on are in their dreams just before death...
Gets me thinking how people believe in heaven and all the people they have known are there.. Thru the millennia could the dreams of dying people lead them to believe in an afterlife?
I don't know and I'm just rambling at this point but I see a correlation.
m

[Bluesaph]

26. Aligns with Buddhism and Hinduism too

Actually, religions have more in common than opposed. It’s mostly a fight over semantics.

For example, in my studies of Hinduism (less than six months into it), I’m finding that the belief in a purgatory aligns with the Buddhist and Hindu belief in reincarnation to live out the karma. The belief in resurrection aligns with reincarnation…

No one really knows what happens after we die. Once you claim to know, you’ve shut yourself down to learning. This study is intriguing to me because I love it when science gives us evidence (albeit small amounts) of validation of some of the spiritual explanations.

[shrike3]

36. Your view aligns with my view

Religions have more in common than opposed.

Sounds like interesting study. Hope you stick with it. Thanks for the info, too, about purgatory, i.e., Buddhist and Hindu belief.

[mitch96]

40. "No one really knows what happens after we die"... All we know is that when that last breath

leaves us and the last spark of life Is gone, the the physical person that we were starts to decompose. Back to the basic elements that we were created from.
Back to the earth, back to the planet, back to the universe.
Now the other part, the mind the consciousness the memories of that person...
I know not where they go...
m

[albacore]

2. That explains a lot of the near-death experiences that people have.

Wish-fulfillment dreams in which they see Jesus or family greeting them.

[robbob]

3. And yet, and yet....

I too looked on this discovery as evidence that all the mystical near death experiences might just be a byproduct of the brains demise, and yet…

So many stories out there, and even recounted here on DU, about people who are convinced they were visited by the spirit of a loved one at the time of their departure. I’ve got an open mind; they say energy cannot be created or destroyed, maybe that applies to our life energy as well.

Oh well, one thing for sure; we’re all going to find out eventually…😁

[NoRethugFriends]

11. bah. humbug

[shrike3]

13. I remember one person saying she encountered someone

she didn't know was dead at the time she flatlined. Yes, we will all find out eventually.

btw, my husband had a near death experience. He said it did not feel like a dream. Rather, like it was really happening.

[highplainsdem]

15. There have been a number of such reports over the years. Also a lot of reports

of NDEs where the people who were apparently dead or at least unconscious and near death in the hospital could later describe what other people at some distance were doing, what they were wearing, etc. Skepticism doesn't explain NDEs.

[shrike3]

21. We've had our fair share of experiences, but darned if I'd know how to classify them.

[Ptah]

16. Life energy?

Proponents and practitioners of various esoteric forms of spirituality and alternative medicine refer to a variety of claimed experiences and phenomena as being due to "energy" or "force" that defy measurement and thus are distinguished from the scientific form of energy.

Claims related to energy therapies are most often anecdotal, rather than being based on repeatable empirical evidence
There is no scientific evidence for the existence of such energy, and physics educators criticize the use of the term "energy" to describe the ideas as potentially confusing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_(esotericism)

[Bluesaph]

27. Agreed

Our bodies are made of earth. But what happens to our energy? Can energy be = soul?

Who knows…

[JudyM]

4. More research on this would be useful, to say the least.

The team says that the observations indicate the brain is capable of coordinated activity even after blood stops flowing through it. Similar changes in gamma waves around the time of death had previously been detected in rats, but this marks the first time that such activity have been detected in humans.

This was an epileptic patient who was hooked up for monitoring. Seems that many people would be willing to have the donation of their bodies to science begin a bit early, though ethics constraints on the researchers may prevent this. We could learn so much…

[Bluesaph]

28. Suicide?

I believe it should be legal for terminal patients and also for severely clinically depressed with no hope of recovery.

My nephew took his own life after many years suffering as a schizophrenic. He was able to live life as a “normal” person with medication. But He hated normal. He wasn’t himself and he was always depressed. It was a lose-lose situation. I’m 100% sure he would have volunteered as a candidate for a study such as this since he believed in reincarnation and was just ready to move on.

[JudyM]

32. Pretty certain that would be unethical, though.

Even if the suicide decision was made unrelated to volunteering, unfortunately.

Very sorry about your nephew’s suffering. And for yours and your family’s, as well. You all tried…

[shrike3]

37. I agree. The ethical issues would be thorny.

I

[ItsjustMe]

5. Brainstorm

[Midnight Writer]

6. What is interesting to me to me is the why.

You can think of this as the brain and consciousness reacting to ease the person during the dying process. But why?

Evolutionary theory tells us that our bodies and functions are derived from natural selection. The traits that survive through thousands of generations are the traits that lend to our survival as individuals and as species.

Yet this seems to have nothing to do with survival or propagation, as death is already imminent.

So how and why did we evolve this trait to put us in a merciful dream state at the time of death? I don't see an evolutionary purpose behind this.

Just curious.

[renate]

9. My daughter and I were talking about this just 24 hours ago!

About how that sense of peace, or a life review, or whatever neurochemical release takes place to make death a little easier would have no evolutionary advantage whatsoever, yet it seems to take place as far as we know.

I read about science for fun, so that's the approach I would be inclined to take to answer any "why" question, but I also believe that science simply cannot explain everything, and also that there's more to consciousness than the movement of ions across a nerve cell's membrane. It seems to me that a life review, or just an easy passage into death, is either a partial explanation of "what's life all about" or a deliberate mercy from a kind universe. It seems like the existence of something more is at least an explanation worth considering, even if we'll never get a conclusive answer about that either (at least not until after we die).

[Bluesaph]

29. Great question!

In my studies of Hinduism I’m learning that the generational “transfer” of previous knowledge (traits) is called “karmic memory”. To me, that seems like a spiritual thing and not a genetic thing. I want to know more!

[Kaleva]

34. It made being eaten alive easier to handle

[fightforfreedom]

7. Is that what happened to Trump?

[orleans]

10. in every instance i have ever heard of,

when someone has a near death experience or when there is someone at the side of a person who is dying, the people who the dying "see" are not living.

if it was "memory retrieval" ("their brains may be replaying some of the nicest moments they experienced in their lives,”) then the dying would also be seeing the living.

if it was all hallucinations then the dying would also be seeing the living.

instead, the dying "see" the dead.

perhaps the "memory retrieval" is triggered by the dying person simply trying to place the individual they are seeing rather than their brains replaying random/happy/outstanding memories

[Bluesaph]

30. Not in the case of my grandfather.

A few days before he died he went into a deep sleep. Like a coma. Everyone thought he was not going to wake up. But he stayed that way for three days and woke up complaining that his legs aches. His legs were actually cramping. He said during those three days he walked with his mother and father and other people. But he also said he could hear the conversations of the family members who had been coming to pay respects. He knew things he couldn’t have known unless he heard them.

More questions. I want answers.

[orleans]

33. were the people he walked with still living? nt

[Kaleva]

35. My experience with people who died is similiar

They talked about seeing or going to see someone or others who were dead.

[shrike3]

12. Not all death experiences are the same, unfortunately.

I've heard of bad experiences. And no experience at all. Waking up and remembering absolutely nothing.

[Ohio Joe]

14. I saw nothing...

I posted about it here some years ago but searching, I can't find it now but... I'd had botched hernia surgery, they nicked my bladder, sewed me up and sent me home without noticing. My bladder ended up bursting. I did not realize something was very wrong until almost a day later and we called an ambulance. They took me to the nearest hospital (not where I had the surgery) where they thought I was just high. I was not able to get taken to the correct hospital and in contact with my doctor for many hours. When I woke up I found that at one point I had been dead around five minutes. I saw nothing though

[orleans]

18. a friend of mine died for a couple minutes

and he didn't remember anything either

sometimes we just don't remember what happened i guess

[shrike3]

23. There was a thread on reddit not long ago, people who saw nothing.

[tavernier]

19. Must be because you're from Ohio.

Go Blue!

Ok, I’m just teasing you!

[Noodleboy13]

20. Same for me, nothing.

like an unplugged computer. Not horrible, just ......nothing. Kinda lost my fear of death, not that I'm in any rush to go back. 3 weeks in the Dead Zone (Coma) kinda sucked tho, you remember some of that shit. Glad to hear you made it through and welcome to the club. Not everybody can say they crossed dying off their bucket list. Cheers mate.

peace,
Noodleboy

[shrike3]

22. Yeah, I've heard that from others. So all NDEs are not the same.

[shrike3]

24. Glad things worked out okay. Yikes.

[peggysue2]

17. Fascinating material

Because it speaks to the Great Unknown. The fact that science may be able to record this brain activity over a larger sample of patients wouldn't surprise me. There have been many, many narratives of near-death experience and so often the details are similar. Still doesn't prove anything but it definitely stirs curiosity and reiterates the question: Why? What is the point of this end-note dreaming? If that is, in fact, what it is. And if not dreaming, hallucination? What?

Round and round we go!

[shrike3]

25. another interesting recounting

https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/life-after-almost-death

On a sunny April afternoon in 2013, while my dad was driving home after work, a 26-year-old man in a Toyota Camry broadsided him. The impact sent my dad’s Cadillac careening into a brick retaining wall. Paramedics had to saw off the door to extract him from the vehicle.

When I saw him several hours later, he was conscious but had no recollection of the crash. His blood pressure was so low doctors could barely detect a pulse. They thought they were losing him. Then something strange happened.

“I could feel myself slipping away as the nurses probed for a vein to give me blood,” he told me the next morning. “All of a sudden, I was overcome by an eerie silence. There was no sound at all. I saw myself on the gurney, and then an amorphous shadow crossed the wall. I can’t describe what happened or why, but from the moment the room got quiet, it was as if I was in another dimension.”

[StarryNite]

31. What is the meaning of life?

Like others who have already questioned what the purpose of experiencing memory retrieval as we die would be, that is my question too. Why?

“Science and Truth are simple phenomenon of nature, but it is the known that is preventing us from mastering the unknown.”
― Chandrakanth Natekar

[SYFROYH]

38. that's the best news I've heard all day

[Zorro]

39. I was in a solo car accident when I was 25

Failed to negotiate a turn at too high a speed, and ended up rolling over a few times.

My life quite literally flashed before my eyes. Like every event in my entire life. It was an extraordinary experience.

The car was totaled, but I managed to walk away from the wreck with only a few bruises.

[onethatcares]

41. I'd really like to wander through

the "good" things I'd done for others when I'm on my journey out. Leave the assholeish stuff out of that chapter if you will.