Does Life Flash Before Our Eyes At The Death Moment?

Scientists concluded by reading new data from a scientifically documented “incident” that we may see the tape of our life before our eyes at the moment of our death.

A team of scientists measured the brain waves of an 87-year-old epilepsy patient. While recording their neural responses, the patient had a fatal heart attack, giving scientists an unexpected recording of the brain of a dying person.

The results of this revealed that in the thirty seconds before and after the patient’s death, the man’s brain waves followed the same patterns that they usually follow during dreaming or recalling memories.

In their study, published in the medical journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience on Tuesday, the team’s scientists wrote that brain activity of this kind might indicate that the final “sight of our tape of life” may occur in the last moments of a person’s life.

What the team in Vancouver, Canada, accidentally obtained was the first-ever recording of the brain of a dying person, said study co-author Dr. Ajmal Zammar.

He said, “It happened completely by chance; we did not plan to conduct this experiment or record these signals.”

Will we catch a glimpse of our loved ones and happy memories at the moment of death? It’s impossible to be sure, says Dr. Zammar.

“If I jump into the philosophical realm, I would expect that if the brain does flashback, it will probably remind you of good things, rather than bad things,” he said.

But, he said, “what can be remembered will be different for each person.”

Dr. Zammar, a neurosurgeon at the University of Louisville, added that within 30 seconds before a patient’s heart stopped supplying blood to the brain, his brain waves followed the same patterns they follow when we perform tasks that require higher cognitive skills, such as focusing, dreaming or recalling memories.

This continued until 30 seconds after the patient’s heart had stopped beating, which is the point at which the patient is usually declared dead.

He added, “This may be the last recall of the memories we lived in life and are projected through our brain in the last seconds before we die.”

The study also raises questions about when, exactly, life ends: does it stop when the heart stops beating or when the brain stops working?

Dr. Zammar and his team caution that no general conclusions can be drawn from a single study. They note that the patient had epilepsy with cerebral hemorrhage and swelling, complicating the matter further.

“I have never felt comfortable inferring anything from one case,” Zammar said. He noted that for years after the record obtained by the team in 2016, it looked for similar cases to help strengthen this analysis, but it was unsuccessful.

However, a 2013 study in healthy mice may provide evidence for this.

American researchers who carried out this study reported high levels of brain waves at the moment of death and up to 30 seconds after the mice’s hearts stopped beating, precisely similar to the findings of Dr. Zammar regarding his epilepsy patient.

Zammar considered that the similarities between the two studies were “amazing.”

Scientists now hope that publishing this information will open the door to further studies of the last moments of life.

“I think there is something spiritual about the entire NDE,” Dr. Zammar said. He added, “Our findings like this represent a moment that scientists wish to record.”