By Tim Binnall
An intriguing study looking at the brain activity of a dying man suggests that our lives may really flash before our eyes during the process of passing over to the 'other side.' The surprising findings reportedly came about by accident when doctors were treating an 87-year-old patient who had taken a bad fall and subsequently developed epilepsy. Physicians overseeing the man hooked him up to an electroencephalogram (EEG) in order to monitor his brain activity and determine the proper course of treatment. However, as this was unfolding, the patient suddenly died from a heart attack, which inadvertently provided researchers with the first-ever recording of a person's brain activity when their death occurred.
"This was actually totally by chance, we did not plan to do this experiment or record these signals," study co-author Dr Ajmal Zemmar explained to the BBC. Be that as it may, the data captured by the EEG was truly astounding as it showed brain activity associated with memory recall unfolding during the 30 seconds before and after the man died. While we do not know exactly what was unfolding in the mind of the patient in those moments, Zemmar mused that "this could possibly be a last recall of memories that we've experienced in life, and they replay through our brain in the last seconds before we die."
Given that this was a solitary case involving an individual with an injured brain, the researchers were cautious about drawing any conclusion from the study. To that end, Zemmar told the website Insider that "what we can claim is that we have signals just before death and just after the heart stops like those that happen in the healthy human when they dream or memorize or meditate." He also observed that "these findings challenge our understanding of when exactly life ends and generate important subsequent questions, such as those related to the timing of organ donation."
That said, other neuroscientists who have seen the study echoed Zemmar's call for caution before jumping to any specific conclusions about what exactly the researchers accidentally documented. "Whether the recorded activity underlies any particular kind of subjective experience, whether so-called 'near death experiences,' or impressions of life flashing before one's eyes, is impossible to say," Professor Anil Seth stressed to The Guardian, "and will likely remain so." That is, of course, until an individual is in their final moments and, at that point, they're unlikely to be telling anyone what is going through their mind in the moment they leave the realm of the living.