My father dealt with ongoing health issues the last several years before he passed. Shortly after serious surgery, while recovering in the hospital, he made a painful trip to the bathroom and on the way back to bed he suddenly had a heart attack and 'died' on the floor of his hospital room. The nurse was there with him and immediately started CPR while the equipment was being brought into the room.

Dad, a retired engineer and a logical rationale man, and also religious and active in his church, later told me that he had a Near Death Experience (NDE), and recalled in detail that he floated to the ceiling of the room and calmly watched as the nurse worked on his body. No 'light at the end of the tunnel' moment but he felt great peace as he watched the activities below him. After a couple minutes they were able to revive him, after months of rehab he recovered, and lived for a couple more years.

Since sharing his story I've been interested in NDEs, and while I haven't made any conclusions, I try to keep an open mind and find NDEs and articles about how the brain works interesting.

While researching the story below, a few weeks ago I found a better article that included a good mix of the layman's explanation along with the technical details and various charts of brain activity, but I can't find it now so the article below will do.

Other articles suggest that this particular event may bring into question, when and how death is actually defined, and also suggest that medical ethics should reconsider the question of when a patient's organs should be harvested for transplant, and perhaps they should wait another 15-30 seconds before beginning, to allow the brain time to completely shut down.

[Note: multiple hyperlinks found at linked website article.]

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In a world-first, researchers record the brain waves of a dying patient

Does the brain replay our best memories?

By Ameya Paleja
Feb 22, 2022 (Updated: Feb 22, 2022 13:28

Our brains are pretty active and coordinated even as the body meets its demise. Researchers captured brainwaves during an individual's death and found semblance to high cognition activities such as dreaming or meditating, a recently published study has shown.

Even as humanity strives to learn more about the death of stars, there is a lot that we do not know about our deaths. Technology might help us live beyond our deaths somehow, but we do not know for sure what comes to pass as one dies. Now, a chance observation has given us our first glimpse of what happens in our brains as we die.

Continuous EEG and brain waves

An 87-year-old man was admitted to an emergency unit in Estonia after a fall. The patient was operated upon but faced as many as 12 epileptic attacks post-surgery. As part of monitoring the individual, doctors used continuous electroencephalography (EEG) that provided a means to detect the seizures. Unfortunately, the patient suffered a heart attack during this time and passed away. However, the continuous EEG monitor provided the first-ever recording of human brain activity during death.

Brain activity is measured in oscillations seen in the EEG, and scientists have previously identified different types of these oscillations such as alpha, beta, delta, theta, and gamma, to name a few. The gamma oscillations have been associated with higher cognitive tasks such as concentrating, dreaming, meditation, memory retrieval, information processing, and conscious perception.

In the case of the 87-year-old man, the researchers saw brain waves of all the different types but the gamma waves were more dominant among them. The study's researchers speculate that these waves are possibly associated with a memory flashback during these last moments of life.

Flashback memories

"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, a neurosurgeon at the University of LouisvilleZemmar, who organized the study.

While this is the first such recording of human brain waves, scientists have recorded similar waves in rats in captivity. Scientists theorize that given the specific changes in brain activity surrounding death, the brain might actually be in charge of the entire biological exercise and even executes it to precision across all species. This wouldn't be a far thought, given each cell in the body is also programmed to die.

Scientists, however, aren't jumping to conclusions yet. So far, there is the only case that can be presented as evidence to support this claim, and data interpretation, in this case, is tricky since the individual had a brain injury and had epileptic attacks. The researchers would like to observe more such cases before arriving at conclusions.

But your very own brain replaying some of the loveliest memories of life, as it takes away your life force? There are worse outcomes than that.

The study was published this week in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

Study Abstract:

The neurophysiological footprint of brain activity after cardiac arrest and during near-death experience (NDE) is not well understood. Although a hypoactive state of brain activity has been assumed, experimental animal studies have shown increased activity after cardiac arrest, particularly in the gamma-band, resulting from hypercapnia prior to and cessation of cerebral blood flow after cardiac arrest. No study has yet investigated this matter in humans.

Here, we present continuous electroencephalography (EEG) recording from a dying human brain, obtained from an 87-year-old patient undergoing cardiac arrest after traumatic subdural hematoma. An increase of absolute power in gamma activity in the narrow and broad bands and a decrease in theta power is seen after suppression of bilateral hemispheric responses.

After cardiac arrest, delta, beta, alpha and gamma power were decreased but a higher percentage of relative gamma power was observed when compared to the interictal interval. Cross-frequency coupling revealed modulation of left-hemispheric gamma activity by alpha and theta rhythms across all windows, even after cessation of cerebral blood flow.

The strongest coupling is observed for narrow- and broad-band gamma activity by the alpha waves during left-sided suppression and after cardiac arrest. Albeit the influence of neuronal injury and swelling, our data provide the first evidence from the dying human brain in a non-experimental, real-life acute care clinical setting and advocate that the human brain may possess the capability to generate coordinated activity during the near-death period.

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For those interested, here is an article on the study of rats that experienced similar brain wave hyperactivity just before and after death.

In the News: Death wave

Interesting read, thanks for posting.

For all the anecdotal evidence for near- and post-death continuity of thought processes, I am most surprised that it took so many years after applicable technology was available to gather this evidence. I wonder how general knowledge of this phenomenon might change people's perceptions and actions.

Those concerned about injection of political content into a non-political thread can stop reading here.

After all, if one of the brain dead can be (s)elected to the Presidency, what isn't possible?

POLITICS in a nonpolitical thread.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
Those concerned about injection of political content into a non-political thread can stop reading here.

Are you fucking kidding me? HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I SAID TO NEVER DO THIS?? Scores of times, if not hundreds of times have I pounded this point. NOTHING I have said in this forum has ever been any clearer!!

I'm not "concerned" about it, I FORBID IT, ABSOLUTELY. NO EXCEPTIONS. Do not ever again pull a stunt like this.

What am I to make of such open defiance? Do you refuse to obey my rules? If that's the case, tell me now.

Abject apologies, I think somewhere in my head I thought that, if I made it a joke, it would be OK. I have the message now, and again, I'm sorry.

Thank you

Carry on, guys

I've heard about NDEs. I don't know if they're "real" or imagined. I don't have any basis to deny other people's narration.

If I get a chance and can confirm the experience is real and not just imagined, I'll post back here. Except if I was going through it, I'd really not rather come back.

Great article, thanks for posting.

I've sometimes wondered what happens to the brain during death. I know brain death follows the cessation of the heartbeat by some margin, but what actually happens to the consciousness of a person while it happens? There's movies that explore this concept, and two come to mind: Jacob's Ladder and explicitly, Enter The Void. When you black out from a solid blow to the head or loss of oxygen, time slows down and things become dream-like. The few times I've gone out like that for whatever reason, time and reality were completely divorced from what was going on in my mind. No shit, the theme from The Wizard of Oz played in my head when I got knocked out in a wrestling match in high school. Surely other things can happen when your brain starts to die. I wonder if it's a long process in terms of what you perceive, like in the films mentioned?

I hope this leads to further investigation. I'd imagine there's been ethical hangups preventing this before now, but it would be amazing to get a good idea of what actually happens.

I was with my grandfather as he passed and there was a moment where he opened his eyes and almost sat up as if to acknowledge it was the end. It wouldn't surprise me if the brain fired up one last time in some manner. The research is interesting though I think the mystery will always remain.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

...

I know brain death follows the cessation of the heartbeat by some margin, but what actually happens to the consciousness of a person while it happens? There's movies that explore this concept, and two come to mind: Jacob's Ladder and explicitly, Enter The Void. When you black out from a solid blow to the head or loss of oxygen, time slows down and things become dream-like. The few times I've gone out like that for whatever reason, time and reality were completely divorced from what was going on in my mind. No shit, the theme from The Wizard of Oz played in my head when I got knocked out in a wrestling match in high school. Surely other things can happen when your brain starts to die. I wonder if it's a long process in terms of what you perceive, like in the films mentioned?

I hope this leads to further investigation. I'd imagine there's been ethical hangups preventing this before now, but it would be amazing to get a good idea of what actually happens.

I gotta admit that movies like Jacob's Ladder and Flatliners came to mind when I first heard about this story. I've only seen Jacob's Ladder once, years ago when much younger, and it's such a bizarre movie, and somewhat disturbing, that I really didn't understand its premise. I should probably go back and watch it again to see if I can get any more from it, at my age and experience level now. I've never heard of Enter the Void so I'll check that out.

Another TV show that came to my mind while reading about this story is the remake of the sci-fi Battlestar Galactica. Specifically, the aspect in which the non-Centurion numbered Cylons, at the moment of death, upload the totality of their memories and feelings to a repository, to be later downloaded to a new body where they continue to live, making them somewhat 'immortal' within the collective Cylon experience.

The sci-fi River World book series by Philip Jose Farmer deals with a story line in which long-dead historical figures from earth suddenly reappear alive on a different world, in a different struggle.

There are futurists today that speculate that one day humans will be able to download their memories and feelings onto a computer chip before death to be preserved and accessed by loved ones, friends, and future generations...or the chip can be implanted into an artificial you so that some form of your being continues to live.

What if this NDE brain wave hyperactivity is the universe's way of uploading your memories and feelings for later access? It opens up some interesting possibilities...although I'm not quite certain how I feel about them.

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Lincoln, Einstein, Bach, Mozart, Edison, Bell, Pasteur, Hawkings, Mother Theresa etc..continue to 'live' ... along with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Dahmer, Booth, Oswald, Berkowitz, Cullors, Garza, Tometi etc...

My religious faith doesn't fill in the blanks for me on this issue and allows me some small speculation, while precluding the rest... but the sci-fi curiosity geek in me, the side of me that wonders how lost loved ones are doing, can't help but wonder about death.

I completely agree with you, and hope that further research is done and that we learn more about what the brain experiences during death.

Thanks for sharing your experience with being knocked unconscious. I've taken a couple solid knocks to the dome, got a tiny bit scrambled for a moment, but never total loss of consciousness.

Wizard of Oz huh? Wow. Munchken land. That had to be bizarre.

I heard that on Dan Bongino’s show about a week ago. Very interesting. It is possible that your life really passes before your eyes.

Just two things I can share here.

In the 1980’s in my EMT class we were taught the last sense to shut down was the sense of hearing and to remember this at all times while attending the newly deceased.

It may sound strange to many but in the last moments of my dogs lives I’ve held and spoken to them and asked for the attending Veterinarians to allow me some time after they have been pronounced. I hold them close and speak to them for some time after. If they still hear me and I can give them some comfort as they cross……

And in regards to Modern Day Savage relating his father’s NDE, I have no doubt what he said is the truth. I experienced a similar incident during a cardiac incident during a stress test. I had a sensation of seeing the ceiling in the room coming closer and suddenly it wasn’t.

Draw your own conclusions, I have drawn mine already.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
I gotta admit that movies like Jacob's Ladder and Flatliners came to mind when I first heard about this story. I've only seen Jacob's Ladder once, years ago when much younger, and it's such a bizarre movie, and somewhat disturbing, that I really didn't understand it's premise. I should probably go back and watch it again to see if I can get any more from it, at my age and experience level now. I've never heard of Enter the Void so I'll check that out.

I'll warn you now: Enter The Void is arguably a much more disturbing movie.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
My religious faith doesn't fill in the blanks for me on this issue and allows me some small speculation, while precluding the rest... but the sci-fi curiosity geek in me, the side of me that wonders how lost loved ones are doing, can't help but wonder about death.

I'm right there with you, perhaps less religiously decided, but I do wonder and I have some guesses what happens.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
Wizard of Oz huh? Wow. Munchken land. That had to be bizarre.

Yeah, it was bizarre. The short version is, I was wrestling a guy who landed on my head when I took him down - he weebled when I expected him to wobble. We hit the mat and time, space, and me as a concept were all gone. It was black, and I heard "Weeeeee're off to see The Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz! Because because because because becauuuuuse!" I came to kind of slowly. It was like the system rebooted and did a power on self-test. It was still dark because I was under him, and my eyes were closed. Eyes open, audio registering a tournament around me, and body face-down on the mat with arms around someone. Limbs gave feedback, I realized what was going on, and finished the match. The way the guy landed and didn't move with my arms tangled around him, nobody noticed I was out, or they would have stopped it, so I don't know how long I was out, but it wasn't more than twenty seconds or so.

Blacked out on my feet a few other times from lack of oxygen or sudden change in blood pressure. Once, I had stood up in a hurry after sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room, and headed into the kitchen. I came to on the floor, looking up at our ten gallon fish tank. The water was splashing violently. The back of my head hurt badly. I had apparently blacked out while making the turn, and fell backwards into the fish tank and hit the back of my head on the water change bucket I had just pulled out. I'm lucky the tank didn't fall off the stand, probably would've killed me if it fell on my head while I was out. That one was nothing, I went from walking into the kitchen to looking up at the fish tank. The wrestling match time was definitely some neurons firing off.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
...

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
Wizard of Oz huh? Wow. Munchken land. That had to be bizarre.

Yeah, it was bizarre. The short version is, I was wrestling a guy who landed on my head when I took him down - he weebled when I expected him to wobble. We hit the mat and time, space, and me as a concept were all gone. It was black, and I heard "Weeeeee're off to see The Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz!
...

When I was in 9th grade I was called into court as a witness over a neighborhood incident that happened during a friendly basketball game. After relaying what I witnessed, the defense lawyer questioning me stopped, and in a quick moment of court room levity, smiled and asked if I made my shot. I was caught off-guard by the question but grinned and said "yes sir I did"...

...so, I gotta ask... did you win your match?

“recalled in detail that he floated to the ceiling of the room and calmly watched as the nurse worked on his body”

This brings to mind a similar story of a guy I worked with for a short time as a roofer many years ago. He couldn’t have been more different than your father. He was a drunk and drug abuser of the highest order. Drinking and driving was second nature to him. He claims to have gotten in a pretty bad car wreck and described this same experience. He looked down at the car his body was in and said he yelled at himself to get the hell back down there. The next thing he remembered was coming to with paramedics working on him.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:

There are futurists today that speculate that one day humans will be able to download their memories and feelings onto a computer chip before death to be preserved and accessed by loved ones, friends, and future generations...or the chip can be implanted into an artificial you so that some form of your being continues to live.

Altered Carbon

quote:

Originally posted by shovelhead:
...

In the 1980’s in my EMT class we were taught the last sense to shut down was the sense of hearing and to remember this at all times while attending the newly deceased.

It may sound strange to many but in the last moments of my dogs lives I’ve held and spoken to them and asked for the attending Veterinarians to allow me some time after they have been pronounced. I hold them close and speak to them for some time after. If they still hear me and I can give them some comfort as they cross……

And in regards to Modern Day Savage relating his father’s NDE, I have no doubt what he said is the truth. I experienced a similar incident during a cardiac incident during a stress test. I had a sensation of seeing the ceiling in the room coming closer and suddenly it wasn’t.

...

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:
Absolutely! It remains for quite a while.
Interestingly enough, I wasn't conscious in the ambulance, but I knew what the EMT looked like when I met them later and that the drivers name was Chuck.

I wasn't aware that the sense of hearing was the last to shut down, so it's good to know. Also, thanks for sharing your experiences.

For all that we know, there is much that we don't know.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
...so, I gotta ask... did you win your match?

Ha! Yes, I pinned him.

As coincidence would have it, one of the topics being discussed later tonight on the radio program Coast to Coast is NDEs.

I don't know tonight's guests or their reputations and it's a mixed bag with C2C. Sometimes you get some mystical ethereal charlatans looking to sell books and speaking engagements... but every so often you get expert, or at least professional or scientific researchers that try to get to the fact-based truth of a topic, or at least share authentic experiences.

Thought I'd mention the program for any night owls in the group.

https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2022-03-13-show/