Near-death experiences occur at moments when the brain is barely functioning. This conclusion was drawn by Bruno Angeli-Faez (Brazil), renowned researcher Bruce Greyson (USA), and Pim van Lommel (Netherlands), who studied how brain activity changes during cardiac arrest and resuscitation to understand exactly when these unusual experiences arise.
It turns out that the dying person “visits other worlds” when the brain is sending almost no signals at all. In the first few seconds after the heart stops—or during attempts to revive the person—the brain may still show some activity, but people who are revived this quickly rarely report having vivid “adventures.” The electrical signals that are sometimes recorded in the brains of dying individuals are more likely linked to muscle movements or circulation issues than to consciousness or thought. In other words, the idea that near-death experiences are simply brain-generated is not supported.
This raises intriguing questions: could our inner self persist even when the brain is no longer active? Could it be independent of the brain and capable of existing separately from it? Such questions challenge the conventional notion that the brain is the sole source of our thoughts and perceptions and open new ideas about what truly shapes our identity and experience.
What do you think—does the “self” persist after brain death?
The article was published in May 2025 in International Review of Psychiatry.
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