A study of seven terminally ill patients found identical surges in brain activity moments before death, providing what may be physiological evidence of “out of body” experiences reported by people who survive near-death ordeals.
Doctors at George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates recorded brain activity of people dying from critical illnesses, such as cancer or heart attacks.
Moments before death, the patients experienced a burst in brain wave activity, with the spikes occurring at the same time before death and at comparable intensity and duration.
Video and full article at Discovery News
have you ever seen experiments using DMT? the drug that is, amongst other places, produced in the pineal gland, and is thought to be the cause for these experiences before death, or severe dreams etc.
Interesting stuff!
The same could happen when you black out. I was at the hospital having a routine injection and blacked out 5 minutes after the injection, whilst I was out (a grand total of about 20 seconds) I saw images of my life from childhood to present day all flick very quickly.
That was the first time it had happened, I was suprised when the doctor said I had only been out a few seconds as it felt like many hours.
Gives some insight into why they are always so sincere in their religulous beliefs. Course to them this don’t mean shit! You can talk to the hand coz the brain ain’t listening.
My brain would be surging too if I was ABOUT TO DIE!!!
I did look down on myself from above an operating table when I was about 14. Just for a second. And I was directly above myself getting further away till I stopped at a point and my brain took a snapshot. It was just before the anaesthetic nabbed me. I always wondered if I’d imagined it or if there was actually a mirror above me in the operating theatre and that’s what I’d been looking at. Weird feeling, but then, so is anaesthetic. Last time I went under I was at a rave in Ibiza – in my head – never been there, never really raved either. Must have been a good dream as the staff were laughing when they brought me round. Martin heard me shouting for a ‘Fecking coffee and more drugs’. Hmmm.
i want to die for a second to experience that then come back to life – how cool would that be!
Just a wee tangenty addition… If you ever have to go under anaesthetic, think of a lovely beach or somewhere happy you want to be just before you go under. A lovely anaesthetist told me this when she gave me my pre-med once and so far I’ve had a very jolly time.
I guess it’s just the body’s way of living that little bit longer – that last discharge of energy to fuel the brain; the ‘fat reserves’ to be used in real emergencies. Quite sad and lovely at the same time. My wee granny had Alzheimer’s for a few years and we went to visit her in hospital in Glasgow for a last time before we came back to London after the Christmas holidays. She was lucid, she knew where we lived, tried to give me pocket money and was chatting like nothing was wrong. I said to Mart as we left that she’d die that night. She died while we were on the train back. It was her last wee burst of electricity.
It seems fairly obvious that when the brain is suffering from Hypoxia, it is likely to go through a small period where neurons randomly fire or mis-fire as they struggle to use what little oxygen is left. I would imagine that patients who have been resuscitated from this stage of hypoxia will often remember hallucinations created by these misfiring neurons. This combined with sensory stimulation at the time of the hypoxia is probably what people mistake as an out of body experience.
We’re dying, sir.
WHAT?
We’re losing power, rapidly…
Well do something about it! Quick! FULL FREAKIN’ POWER! We have to think our way out of…
Oh! No!… Too late. We’re dead.
Aw…
Oh pooh, i hate this…
The popular ‘light at the end of a tunnel’ hallucination that people have during a near-death experience is apparently caused by oxygen deprivation; fighter pilots in training have the same vision when they reach certain altitudes and black out.
I remember my grandad once telling me that he fell out of a car and was knocked unconscious. Like David he was only out for about a minute, but to him it had felt like hours, and he had had a rather strange vision of warm sunlight pouring through a gap between a pair of curtains…
@JayKay – I agree, I’m not a neuroscientist, but I imagine the brain, like the body, will do all it can to live a little longer. I think it’s tricky to try to explain the intricate workings of the brain when parts of it are still a mystery to science!!
Life and death are the same thing. When you are dead its exactly like it is now, only without a brain or body.
I’m a nurse and have seen folk just about to go then suddenly start speaking and speaking about dead relatives coming to collect them, it happened to my gran as well. I’m sitting on the fence with this one!
@Diane Brown – I see why you would sit on the fence as I’m sure you see death more than most people, being a nurse, but it would be interesting to know how much of it is the imagination of the individual. Everyone has heard about near-death experiences, the long white tunnel etc – are these people, and their confused, struggling-to-stay-alive brains, just imagining it based on things that have been suggested to them in the past? It’s an interesting debate
Well there is the law that states energy can neither be created nor destroyed but transformed into another form. Electrical energy into chemical energy as we shuffle off and decompose or an energy surge so we can go somewhere afterwards. Who knows – but I’ll tell you what, Christmas is about watching those presents twinkle and sparkle under the tree. Then the day arrives to open them and all our hopes or fears or questions, all are answered at that moment of opening. Once that is done are we pleased, gutted, or over the moon. I would like to be able to choose to leave some presents closed, not through ignorance or fear. Just because if I know what the answers are going to be, I don’t need to look do I.
@JayKay – re anaesthetic….I wish I’d known what you said about thinking of a beach. I was only 11 when I had to have an operation, and once I’d had my pre-med I was forced to listen to hospital radio! Omg, it was dire! (No doubt, I’d probably enjoy it now! lol)
LC x
This reminds me of something I read a few years back about people who had literally died for a few seconds before being resuscitated and they are now unable to wear a watch because the electronic energy in their body plays havoc with it. Dunno if it’s true…
Hi Derren,
The theory I have on the matter is that just before death your brain slows time – and in that split second just before you’re gone, you live – in your head – what seems like an eternity. This makes sense to me and explains all those people who have died and claim to have seen the golden gates of heaven etc. This study seems to back up my little theory. If this is true it seems like the best trick of the human brain. Living in a dream world for what seems like (or could be) for ever. I guess it works in the same way that you can have a dream which feels like days in a matter of minutes.
Would be good to hear what you think on the matter!
Thanks,
Aden
There is also a theory that when we die, we loose weight, its something negligible like 26 o.z or something, still very interesting.
@Gemma: There’s also a theory that when we die, we shit our pants. If that’s true wouldn’t that explain the 26 oz?
That sounds weird … patients with heart attacks … Well, let’s hope the patients gave approval for those studies.
I’ve already read something likewise in research about out of body experiences. Or what may be Out of Body Experiences
I myself dont think it is the out of body experience they see … not sure either ofcourse, but those patients were not healthy and therefor can not be with all people. The disease already fucked up their system, body and brain. And the medication/treatment.
But what it then could be? I’d say something is def. pretty active. The brain might fuck up as well … interactions not going normal either up there anymore. I myself dont think the patient experiences an out of body sytem, hopefull she/he is not there anymore, not aware, drifting
Hi Derren, My experience of this is a little different, i was assaulted repeatedly with a metal bar by a gang of youths, during the attack i suffered a subarachnoid brain haemorrhage to my pre frontal cortex (my forehead), on the final part of the attack (a blow) i suddenly felt as if i was floating about 2 -3 feet in the air, there was no light, no relatives, no memories,just blackness & what i did feel was the sensation of hitting your funny bone or pins and needles in my entire body times 10 million, it was if it was so intense i was paralized and i couldnt move, i could also hear everything in a kind of slow motion way but i couldnt move. Im still alive and getting better,I mentioned your program to my psycholigist we both reckon you use some pyscholigy in your magic shows.
Really chilling fact…Due to escaping stomach gases as the corpse decays, the muscles of the stomach contract, and sometimes force the corpse to SIT UP!!!!!! This is apparently why tomb stones were first erected; not to identify the grave (that idea came later,) but to stop the corpses from sitting up, and ‘rising from the dead’ (This was back when people believed in things like vampires and zombie voo doo.)
You’ll have a good night’s sleep tonight, won’t you?
but if brain uses energy as calories burnt from the body mass but that might not explain 26 GRAMS that they say we lose.
though some funky people suggest that it is the 15 little people that live in your head wondering off to find someone else to live in.
I can’t remember the original source now, but I recall watching a TV programme where researchers used a helmet that produced electromagnetic waves (I think) on a perfectly healthy test subject that was quite happily seated in a room by themselves for a period of time.
The researchers stimulated different parts of the brain with different energy levels and then asked the subject what they were experiencing.
They found by stimulating a specific part of the brain, the subject would spontaneously report that they felt the presence of someone else in the room – that they weren’t alone.
How to simulate a spiritual experience huh?
@JayKay – Good advice re thinking of something peaceful and nice before going under. Also applies when getting sedated.
I put this down to the thinking good thoughts whilst still lucid.
I’ve had a few ops under sedation past couple of years and I’d reccommend putting yourself in a good place before they take you under, as you’ll still be chatting away without knowing it and it’s best to be saying nice things to those who are coming at you with a scapel! Apparently I’m very complimentry and tell everyone they’re beautiful
x
Well, this works nicely for me, I believe in ‘ghosts’, and have believed that a ‘ghost’ is someone who goes into shock just before they die, which triggers an OoB/OBE.
Reality is virtual, it’s created, creation doesn’t form without perspective, creativity.
This doesn’t mean I believe in God, but i’m just saying your perspection of reality can go anywhere, you’re not stuck to your body. The things electricity and the brain can do is amazing, both combined is fantastic!
Does all this extra brain activity allow the perception of something that is real or does it create something that is imaginary? Is there not common brain activity in the rationally minded and common activity in the not so ratioanlly minded? Is a person’s view of reality less valid because the brain activity that allows its perception located in a different part of the brain?
Over the years I have had several out of the body experiences. None that I would associate with being near to death. The experience though seems very real and the best way I could describe it is being in 2 places at the same time as at the initial point of seperation, I have been aware in a physical and conciouss way of 2 distinch bodys simultaneously and orientated in different directions. It’s definately wierd.
This reminds me of that one episode of House in which a man becomes addicted to electrocuting himself because of the high almost dying produces. I wonder if death by massive electrical shock would cause stronger brain activity?
Surely it would have an effect, as neurons fire through electrical charge due to chemicals. Even an electromagnet with no direct electrical current can affect the way they operate, as codifier said. I have no clue how one would set up a study electrocuting people, though.
A sudden blackout and coming to big ligt
There is just a few slight problems with this. First, if oobes and nde are all imaginary then there is evidence that people can see things or hear conversations going on in distant places and of people being told stuff that they didnt know at the time that has turned out true. sometimes they are even seen by the person they are witnessing whilst out of body (known as a reciprocal oobe). This appears to suggest that telepathy is involved somewhere and that even if the brain surge is the cause of ndes that it doesnt prove that because of that we are totally confined to just our body. Also why do most people NOt recall their ndes? Also im not aware of any surge in eeg of pam reynolds the women who had an nde during a brain operation. She was connected to eeg the whole time no surge found
Oh someone mentioned time earlier and this is something that ive thought of too. Can the brain during an nde create in effect an infinite duration nde. It is interessting that nde experiencers say their nde took an infinite length of time. Perhaps it did! Maybe just as in a black hgole where the perspectives of the person going in to a hole and the person outside have two different persepctives the same occurs (expcet reversed with the experiencer there forever and the outside person saying it took only finite duration)?