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Study suggests that the brain is still aware for a period after the heart stops
- Thread starter Enter The 36 Chambers
- Start date
itwasTuesday
He wasn't alone.
*just in case*
Amibguous Cad
Member
All this shows is that the definition of "clinical death" is way different than the colloquial one.
The Albatross
Member
Aye. My grandmother had a stroke and vividly remembers "dying." Her heart stopped for some period of time, I forget how long, but she has this lengthy memory of "dying." For her, it was religious, she was a religious person, she wasn't like a 'believe anything spiritual live/laugh/love' religious person, she was a tough as nails, Catholic-who-escaped-occupied-Poland kind of religious person. She had icons and all those sorts of old world Catholic orthodoxic memorabilia around her house, but she would have never talked about God or Jesus, though after she 'died,' she plain as day told us weeks later, "I remember the whole thing." She said she was terrified, scared, and hurt in the hospital, but then was suddenly taken over my an overwhelming calm and serenity, literally said the same sort of thing 'walking towards a bright light,' that you hear everywhere. She was slowly walking towards it, for a time that seemed like a very long time as she recalled, and then seriously she says her husband (who died about 10 years before), said that it wasn't her time and she had to go back, she didn't want to, but she did, and then came out of it and was back in the noisy, painful, loud emergency room.
But after then she was never afraid of death, and used to talk about 'when she died' so matter of factly like it's the most normal thing in the world (which, I suppose, it is, not everybody is born, but everybody dies). Consciousness is something that we just don't comprehend.
She'd live for another like 8 or 9 years after that, and ultimately when she finally died she was in pretty rough shape psychologically and so she wasn't as serene about her real death as she had been for the years in between her fake death and real death, but you can't blame her, dying sucks until you're dead, at least according to her.
Monocle
Member
I searched fruitlessly for this a couple hours ago but my Google skills were not up to par.
aHebrewMenagerie
Member
Thats fucking terrifying.
The Main Event
Member
I learned that from Robocop 2.
Jesus tap dancing Christ dude....that is....intense.
My example of near death isnt nearly as interesting, but I got cancer when I was 21 and the trauma that surrounded the diagnosis, surgery and treatment clearly cuts my life into 2 parts. I can remember things in my life that happened before I was 21 but a lot of the memories have faded. My mom or sisters will bring up stories from out childhood and I honestly dont remember a lot of them. I still have some vivid memories, but not nearly as many as I used to have. The trauma of the event seems to have done something to my memory bank, whether it be shock or whatever, but for me, my existence is really tied more to my life post cancer. Its really weird (Im 31 now).
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Gabriel Beaurieux, writing in 1905, quoted in Kershaw, Alister (1958). A History of the Guillotine. John Calder. ISBN 9781566191531., cited by "Losing One's Head: A Frustrating Search for the 'Truth' about Decapitation". The Chirurgeon's Apprentice. Retrieved April 8, 2014.
There are other instanced referenced on the Chirurgeon's Apprentice page as archived, and you can find the report elsewhere in the original French correctly attributed and giving the Doctor's employment.
Uh - this is strange. I had a near death experience when I was grade 3. I almost drowned. When I went under for the last time I saw myself floating in the water. The next thing I remember is walking around on the beach eating popcorn with no idea how I got there. A friend of mine said his big brother saved me and pulled me to shore.
I didn't have the "life flash before eyes" moment, but that nagging and prevailing thought, yeah, that is definitely there.
You call them fanastic, while some cultures call them common. What your asking for is proof within a certain model of understanding and explanation. The problem is where we are at in our general understanding of consciousness and our ability to measure or know what the fuck where measuring.
That in itself is going to require some innovation, heavy retooling and further understanding between the relationship of mind and body. Which is my point exactly. In order to get the "proof" new roads will most likely need to be paved. That means you need people to be open to these ideas, to begin with for them to be willing to look at them more closely.
It's hard to get an answer if you don't ask the question. It does happen often though but again the person who might be bumping into the answers would be doing so unknowingly and if they have no point of reference in relation to the possibility of something even remotely possible that in itself will increase the odds that accidentally discovered evidence will be overlooked or ignored.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
Flatliners was a documentary. No wonder it did terribly
While it sounds silly I can't say that this isn't possible. There's a hell of a lot that we don't know about everything. We know a lot and it's always increasing but we don't know and understand everything. Who's to say our brains can't tap into some underlying universal field of energy. It's mumbo jumbo but then the notion were all made of tiny wobbling particles that don't physically connect would have sounded like mumbo jumbo not that long ago. I'm hoping for some sci fi shit to go down when I die. I want to see the Universe!
BlackRainbowFT
Member
Consciousness isn't something that can be "separated". It's not like it's a concrete entity... Like a cookie in a cookie jar.
Some studies have shown that lesions to the right parietal junction (to simplify, it is an area that receives various sensory information and pieces them together in order to form a coherent representation of your body) lead to OBEs. You can induce this in healthy patients by interfering with its normal function. You can do this using a technique called TMS.
I have a few books on the link between religious experience and science in general. Absolutely fascinating stuff...
Finale Fireworker
Member
When she originally told me the story, I asked her what she meant by "remembering her death." She had a hard time describing it. She had to compare it to other things, using similes and metaphors, to help put what it felt like into words.
She started by saying that she knows she lost consciousness. She remembers being pinned inside the car. She remembers being sideways. She remembers her vision going black - which she described as her POV being quickly burned from the center outward. Like her field of vision was a piece of paper that swiftly disintegrated to reveal nothing but blackness behind it. She says this feeling is scary, but she knows that this was her losing consciousness and not her being killed. She knows this wasn't her death because she was consciously fading out, and even after her vision went black. She remembers being disoriented. She remembers being shocked. She remembers thinking to herself "what's happening?"
This is her "blue memory."
Her "red memory" plays out differently. She remembers being pinned inside the car. She remembers being sideways. But her vision doesn't go black. It stays completely clear, crisp, and vivid. But there is no consciousness. No background thought. There is no disorientation, there is no shock, and there is no train of thought. To her, this final image is not the field of view of a living thing. It's like the recording of a video camera that was knocked over. But there's no director. There's nobody behind it. It just lays there recording until it runs out of tape. Then it stops.
That's how she remembers dying.
astroturfing
Member
^^^
to the above, could your friend be suffering from Cotard's syndrome..? it's a rare and serious condition in which people literally feel dead or that they should be dead.
nah. there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for out of body experiences (spoiler: it's a hallucination), and it can be induced in the lab. it's nothing mystical. i mean, you know what you look like, it's not that difficult to hallucinate/dream a vision of yourself that you're looking at from the outside, right?
to the above, could your friend be suffering from Cotard's syndrome..? it's a rare and serious condition in which people literally feel dead or that they should be dead.
nah. there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for out of body experiences (spoiler: it's a hallucination), and it can be induced in the lab. it's nothing mystical. i mean, you know what you look like, it's not that difficult to hallucinate/dream a vision of yourself that you're looking at from the outside, right?
true but I don't care because IMO testing on 9 rats doesn't deserve to be published or used as proof in any way. look at how some ppl in this thread are using this incomplete research to prove w.e. point the wanna prove.
RumblingRosco
Member
The way you write these posts makes it sound like a creepypasta. I feel like we're being meme'd here.
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
Um, no. There is zero credible evidence that consciousness exists outside of the physical substrate that holds it. You're talking about wishful thinking, not science.
SealedSeven
Neo Member
Meme or not, either way I'm enjoying the read.
Finale Fireworker
Member
The floating "she remembers" at the end was just a mistake, I already deleted it. It was out of view when I made a fresh linebreak. The story is dramatic and profound to me and something I've always thought about since she explained it. That's why it sounds the way it does. It is not something I take lightly.
But if you're familiar with any of my posts, this is just how I post. I like telling stories. This is not a meme.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
No, you're just very likely to die shortly.
If your mind is alive you are not dead. It's very simple. Your heart is just a dumb muscle that pumps blood through your body, what's YOU is your mind (i.e. brain). You're not dead until that dies, and that takes a little while after the heart muscle stops pumping.
Sure, you can trick the mind in fun ways. But that's very different from believing in actual OOBEs.
DriftingSpirit
Member
Welp.
First thing I thought of.
If this thread bothers you, do NOT read scp 2718. It will seriously fuck you up.
Mr_Antimatter
Member
Oh great, so death feels like sleep paralysis? That's freaking scary as hell.
Pejo
Member
Dude, if you're not already subscribed to /r/nosleep - you need to go there and write some stories. You've got a talent.
CreepingFear
Member
This was a Tales from the Crypt episode with Beau Bridges and Tony Goldwyn. Terrifying that it is real.
CloudyTuba
Member
I always assumed this was true. Your heart and lungs serve to maintain your body, but it's not like everything just immediately turns to dust the moment it stops. Your cells are all still alive, just starving. Your brain can't last long without it, but there might be a little time between when your heart stops and your head bluescreens, right?
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
Someone writing that down without corroborating evidence is proof of nothing. It's like saying the bible is true.
A doctor writing about it in his diary is not evidence.
exactly
Interesting article with some actual doctors and physicists talking about quantum theory and consciousness being a separate entity. I dont really think the subject has been studied all that much because its too hard fo scientists to not be working towards their firm belief that consciousness is only created by the mind.
http://www.collective-evolution.com...-suggests-consciousness-moves-on-after-death/
http://www.collective-evolution.com...-suggests-consciousness-moves-on-after-death/
Count Dookkake
Member
.
So basically the brain doesn't quite shut off with the textbook definition of death.
I'd just say they never actually did then as just because something like the heart has stopped doesn't mean everything else instantly does the same. Technically, even the muscles will twitch after the brain goes as the system is still charged so to speak. Kind of like how you can turn off or pull out a power adapter and the green light takes a few seconds before it fades.
No but once you realize what happens after you die you're really going to never wanna die.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
I don't believe in any religious or supernatural stuff, but man would it be cool if something like this quantum consciousness idea turned out to be true.
markofhavoc
Member
Brock Reiher
Banned
Unless you died in the morgue I wouldnt worry about it lol
No, this is all stupid. Those feelings are explained by the fact that your brain is still floundering around after death, so you see and feel crazy shit. It's just all in your head.