Death and Near-Death Experiences: Insights into Consciousness and the Nature of Life and Death

What Death Is and How We See It, Is Changing

We spend our lives preoccupied with the constant desire to postpone death and attain longevity. As our strongest urge is to hang on to life, we fail to realize that death is merely a process connected to life and its culmination. Science is ardently on its path to understanding death and has already revealed a few prized insights. Philosophy has also been unfolding the meaning of death, the most recent addition to the genre being the best-selling book, 'Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow', written by Yuval Noah Harari. In this book, Harari argues that soon modern science will solve the question of immortality.

A person is considered dead when cardiac arrest happens and then the brain shuts down in a few seconds. This is usually the point of no return as far as we understand death.

There is not always a sure connection between death and pain. Some people do not experience pain when they die, say, scientists. Osho, the renowned Indian spiritual leader who gave the world a refreshing look at life, used to tell his audience that we feel pain only when we resist and fear death.

For the dying person, senses and sensations decline gradually in a specific sequence: first hunger, then thirst, followed by speech, vision, hearing, and finally touch.

A certain kind of neurochemical activity happens inside the brain at the very moment when death occurs. Interestingly, this is equivalent to what happens during high-level cognitive mental activity. Science is yet to find out why this happens. Death is shrouded in mystery, mired in pain and suffering, and debilitating for those who lose their loved ones to it.

As medical science progresses phenomenally, more and more deaths are slow deaths where the medical support systems prolong life as much as possible. Still, towards the end of life, there are invariably a few days when there happens what is called “active dying”, or a rapid progression towards death. Doctors believe that during active dying, most probably, the person is unconscious, and pain is not felt.

There is a point where science and philosophy meet to ponder the questions of life and death. For example, quantum physics asserts that time and space are just our mental constructs and bound by the minds of those who perceive them. This has been proven correct for the micro-world of photons and electrons but what if that applies to our macro, day-to-day world? If we extend this argument to the logic of dying, it could be possible that death is just a shift in that mental construct, in the space-time continuum as we understand it, and there could be things beyond that point too.

Notwithstanding the philosophical enigma of death, one could also look into recent scientific studies. They suggest the presence of some degree of consciousness even after death, or at least immediately after death. Popular literature on death consistently reported people undergoing near-death experiences, seeing a stream of bright light and feeling the out-of-the-body sensation at the point when they were perceived as ‘dead’. Also, there have been rare instances of Lazarus syndrome reported when a person’s heart stops, he/she is declared dead, but then the heart suddenly restarts without any explanation.

Understanding death from a clinical standpoint is one thing, but approaching it from historical and cultural perspectives is entirely different.

Perceptions of Death in Different Civilisations

Life is dear to us. So, why cannot we see death as the natural culmination of all the lived experiences of a lifetime? Being at peace with death will help us lead a more harmonious life. It is fascinating to understand how humans understood and made sense of death throughout the history of humanity. This may lead us to discover some common threads of thought that unite us with primitive humans, nomadic tribes, the people of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance men, and so on, regarding death.

Renowned psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud observed that among the members of the tribe of Asra, people voluntarily choose death when someone whom they love dies. In modern society also, we sometimes see this phenomenon. Freud thinks that primitive humans killed enemies without guilt but feared their death. Again, our society is no exception to that though the scale of such violence has come down.

The Vikings thought death was a turning point, where one entered another life in another mythical place. So they killed and died without much remorse.

According to the Greeks, everyone who had died, heroes and villains alike, went to the underworld of Hades, God of the land of the dead. The concept of an afterlife different in quality for each individual and determined by their good deeds and bad ones, evolved much later.

Then dawned the era of Christianity. This religion made people believe in judgment day and God judging everyone based on good deeds and bad ones after death. Hindu mythology on the other hand professed you will be reborn as a lower life form like a serpent or a fly if you indulge in evil acts. If you do good instead, the Hindu belief system says, you will escape the cycle of rebirths and become one with the ultimate energy source.

Death in Literature, War, and Ideology

Death representations in literature generally have been argued to be a kind of empowerment attempt by illustrating death as a “rounding off of an eventful life”. In literature, people die all the time as in life. While in real life, death is a moment when life around it freezes in literature, every death gives new momentum to the narrative. Like real people, literary characters also struggle to escape death and cope with the impact of death.

In real life, we often deal with death through simple and constant denial, refusing to accept the possibility of our own mortality. Freud said, “It is indeed impossible to imagine our own death, and whenever we attempt to do so we can perceive that we are in fact still present as spectators.”

War, love, religious faith, human compassion and ideology (apart from suicide) are the instances when humans accept death as a real possibility and still dare it.

Sometimes, it is through developing a sense of self-worth and a sense of the value of life that we cope with the reality of death. People can have both negative and positive reactions to the death of others. The prospect of our death looms above all in varying degrees and while some people find comparative peace with it, most of us are perplexed and anguished by the thought. This is why finding a comforting view about death becomes important.

The Future of Death

Bioquark, a biotech company in Philadelphia, researched brain death in patients, who according to the US federal law can be declared clinically dead but for research, are still on life support. The aim of the experiment, titled, ReAnima Project, was to find out if stem cell therapy could re-grow and repair at least some brain cells of these dead people so that the 'brain dead' stage can be reverted into a deep coma stage.

Brain death as many of us know is the current legal parameter of death in most countries. Theoretically, the Bioquark experiment is viable to succeed; but the myriad subtle and complex practical limitations of modern science made conquering of death only a remote possibility. The whole project as of now is shrouded in mystery and controversy.

The question of what death is will continue to fascinate us until science fully understands this biological phenomenon. However, the mystery will also continue to stir our creative imagination. Death is a constant and ancient companion who cannot yet be wished away. Science will continue to probe if consciousness or the body as a whole can survive death. If the theoretical projections of popular scientists are to be believed, there are multiple universes and many replicas of us in those universes. This is another notion that philosophy could use to argue that death is immaterial in a cosmic sense.

Buddhism and Death: The Best Explanation Ever by Any Religion

Buddhism is the only religion that has dealt with life and death from a perspective of equal significance, especially Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a book that intricately examines the process of death and advises on a comprehensive method to prepare for death and the afterlife. The book that belongs to the medieval Buddhist era was published in English for the first time in 1927.

This book says there are many intermediate stages between life and death and calls them, Bardos. The verses of this book are meant to be read aloud when a person is dying so that the person gets the right direction to pass through the Bardos and attain salvation. Even after the death of a person, the recital continues. Bardo is not a physical space but a state of the mind. Buddhist teachings say- suppose at the very moment of death, we find the right path to move through the Bardo, then we all can be Buddhas, escape the cycle of life and death, and enter the realm of the enlightened.

A Meaningful Life

The best way to find peace with death is to live a life with the least cause for regret. Our literature and history constantly point to that if we care to pay attention.

When we try to live a meaningful life, create beauty from art, nurture our relationships, and the community, be happy with what we have, and learn to cherish every good moment, death will become the least of our concerns.

Death and Near-Death Experiences: Does Consciousness Linger?

When a loved one dies, we enter a new phase of experience in life. Most of us then desperately probe whether anything exists beyond death, hoping against all accepted frameworks of rational thought and scientific facts. These are familiar feelings for many who have encountered the death of someone close.

The firm conviction that only oblivion awaits us after death is ingrained in our scientific mindset and mainstream culture. Suggesting otherwise often invites mockery from the scientific community. People may judge you for having an unscientific temperament unless they hold strong religious beliefs.

As of today's understanding, the idea of an immortal soul is irrational, even to those who believe in a universal power beyond human knowledge. However, various unexplained phenomena related to death, such as near-death experiences, challenge our materialistic worldview. The fresh debates about death compel us to approach the question from new angles.

Scientific investigations about death and NDE now seem to have entered a new phase. Before relegating the possibility of the continuity of consciousness as irrational thinking, one must review the new research findings. A recent excitement has arisen about the nature of consciousness and seems to have a certain level of anchorage in scientific research.

Researchers who have studied NDE now present a view that what we call near-death experiences (NDEs) could be actually retold experiences of death (RED). This shift in terminology within the scientific community marks a significant development.

Brain death is the standard definition of death, but recent studies have now raised the question of whether the human brain really dies when the heart stops pumping nutrients and oxygen to it. The findings suggest the brain cells can be revived hours past death. The cells do not die in the immediate hours after a living being dies but only kind of hibernate.

The notion of retold experiences of death (RED) presupposes that the consciousness remains extremely alert in the moments after the brain completely shuts down. In such moments, the dying person experiences a heightened level of clarity of vision and feelings, which challenges the understanding that those visions are the hallucinations of an oxygen-deprived, dying brain, as is generally believed.

The Yale University Experiments on Reversing Death

Meanwhile, in 2019, a group of scientists at Yale University achieved a milestone in research surrounding death. They re-enlivened pig brains slaughtered hours before the time of the experiment, refuting the understanding that an oxygen-deprived brain of a mammal could survive for only 15 minutes. The scientists had connected the decapitated heads collected from slaughterhouses to a machine (BrainEx) that exactly replicates heart functions. The machine supplied nutrients and oxygen to the heads in the exact dosages and ways a heart does. After the machine was connected to the heads, brain functions reverted to a partially normal state. The research team kept the pig brains in a state of sedation throughout the experiment, a decision due to ethical concerns. The neurons in the brain became active and almost normally functional as soon as the sedative wore off toward the end of the experiment. ‘Nature’ published the findings from this study, which made quite a sensation in the scientific community. This experiment, when viewed in the context of near-death experiences, raises the question of what consciousness is and whether death is the end of it.

A group of Yale University researchers made another scientific leap in 2022 as they connected the entire body of slaughtered pigs to an advanced version of the machine, BrainEx, this time named OrganEx. The machine restored cellular functions and blood circulation to the bodies of dead pigs after one hour of death. The study showed that organ decay after death is a slower process than previously thought, suggesting there could be scope for intervention even after brain death.

Imants Barus followed the path carved by the above researchers who dared to commit their lives to the study of such a controversial subject, often at the risk of inviting criticism of their academic integrity as unscientific and irrational. Barus’ book, ‘Death As an Altered State of Consciousness: A Scientific Approach,’ came out in 2023. Frontier research in consciousness, death, and NDEs, along with related books, has provided new insights to the medical community and consciousness researchers. It has also helped grief counselors and carers reduce the anxiety and fear of death in dying patients and offer hope and solace to those who have lost loved ones.

The Correlation Between NDE Studies and the Buddhist Understanding

One of the most intriguingly common aspects of NDEs and the Buddhist view of reincarnation is that both describe the after-death sensations in a similar vein. The light, the meeting of deceased loved ones, and the sensation of love and compassion are described in NDEs and in Buddhist discourses on death and rebirth. The Buddhist vision of life anchors on compassion because of its basic premise of ‘emptiness’, which, in a nutshell, is the interconnectedness of all life in the universe and a realisation that there is no essence without a cause. NDEs also provide a sense of universal compassion to the dying.

One simple explanation for this similarity is that Buddha might have had a near-death experience (NDE) during his prolonged meditation without food. Historical narratives suggest that he reached the threshold of death and was revived by a village woman, Sujatha, who fed him milk after finding him unconscious.

Another explanation is possible outside the mainstream scientific path if your rational thinking is open enough to accept a different kind of hypothesis: that there might be undiscovered phenomena out there yet. Many unexplainable things surround NDEs: for example, all the near-death visions happened after the brain completely shut down, raising doubts about whether consciousness is a function of the brain after all, and those who experience an NDE often reported seeing only deceased loved ones and people whose deaths they were not even aware of. None reported seeing a living person in their visions. The visions had a sharpness and clarity that humans do not possess when they are alive and their brains are fully functional.

Those with spiritual inclinations might argue that Buddha had an experiential realization of the true nature of reality (Dhamma in Buddhism) through meditation. Science is not a dogma but an evolving realm of inquiry. What if we accept the Buddhist argument as a valid hypothesis from that viewpoint? And consider the chance that our consciousness transitions into another realm of reality when we die, that the compassion arising from our interconnectedness is what holds all of us together, and that our brains are plugged into an expanse of common consciousness that perpetually separates into individual packets, which again merge back into the mother energy field when we die? Researchers like Greyson and Barus suggest that we think hypothetically of our brain as a filter, a sieve that lets only certain aspects of the vast expanse of consciousness through, and suppose this filter lets consciousness dwell in the human body for a while. Think of our intelligence as a limited edition of a 360-degree understanding of the universe, a version enabled and modified by our brain and our body.

We shall have to redefine all our views and perspectives on life if death is only a transition from one realm to another. The notions about what is valuable in life will momentously change. All those who came back to life after experiencing an NDE were changed people with a more altruistic life vision and better compatibility with the anxieties life presents. It is a world tense and worried to the core, with people struggling to find a meaning to life and its trials and tribulations. Research in the field of death and consciousness has proven that even discussing these existential questions and possibilities has a positive effect on those involved. We fear what we do not know, and any attempt to understand more has a value in itself.

References

What It Feels Like to Die, Jennie Dear, September 9, 2016, theatlantic.com

Is Death the End? Experiments Suggest You Create Time, Robert Lanza, November 4, 2010, huffpost.com

First Hint of 'Life After Death' in Biggest Ever Scientific Study, Sarah Knapton, October 7, 2014, telegraph.co.uk

Our Attitude Towards Death, Reflections on War and Death, Sigmund Freud, 1918, bartleby.com

Death and the Afterlife, norse-mythology.org

How the Greeks Changed the Idea of the Afterlife, nationalgeographic.com

cambridgescholars.com

What If We Knew When and How We'd Die?, Rachel Newer, June 18, 2018, bbc.com

Are stem cells the answer to bringing people back from the dead?, (n.d.), Healthline.com.

Science and the Near-Death Experience: How Consciousness Survives Death, by Chris Carter.