It helps us grow and empathise, and see all the little pictures that make up the bigger one we see from the omniscience of the narrator.” What is certain is that we return better, because experiencing the lives of others makes us understand their aims and dreams, their fears and foils, the challenges and difficulties, and joys and triumphs, that they face. When we return to our own life, we might return a little shaken, likely a little stronger, hopefully a little wiser. In this, we don't merely write *about* a character - we momentarily *become* them, and walk as they walk, think as they think, and do as they do. It is like a lucid dream, where we guide the outcome. With reading, we get to live other lives vicariously, and this is doubly so with writing. If a character's life flashes before their eyes, it flashes before the author's eyes too, and he or she remembers it as his or her own. Through this, the author gets to experience multiple lives. They completely overcome the author, and only when they do this can they cause a similar reaction in the reader. This suggests, according to the research team, that this “life replay” phenomenon may be a built-in biological response to death “conserved across species.“When writing, there are some scenes that are emotionally overwhelming. While this is the first documented case of human brain activity during death, scientists have recorded similar gamma brain wave fluctuations in the brains of dying rats. “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.” Is there a silver lining at the end of life? “Through generating oscillations involved in memory retrieval, the brain may be playing a last recall of important life events just before we die, similar to the ones reported in near-death experiences,” Dr. For instance, gamma waves have a connection to “high-cognitive functions” such as meditation, concentration, dreaming, memory retrieval, information processing, conscious perception, and even memory flashbacks. Different waves serve different purposes. “Just before and after the heart stopped working, we saw changes in a specific band of neural oscillations, so-called gamma oscillations, but also in others such as delta, theta, alpha and beta oscillations.”īrain oscillations, or brain waves, are various patterns of brain activity in living human brains. Ajmal Zemmar, a neurosurgeon at the University of Louisville, in a media release. “We measured 900 seconds of brain activity around the time of death and set a specific focus to investigate what happened in the 30 seconds before and after the heart stopped beating,” says study organizer Dr. This event was unexpected and tragic, but it did provide the research team with a unique opportunity to view brain activity in real-time as an individual passes away. Unfortunately, during an EEG recording session the patient suffered a heart attack and died. Raul Vicente of the University of Tartu and his team used electroencephalography (EEG) to detect the patient’s seizures and provide treatment. Researchers accomplished this by monitoring an 87-year-old epilepsy patient near the end of their life. This latest research supplies serious evidence that the brain remains both active and coordinated during and after the “death transition.” Interestingly, further data also suggests that this “life replay” is a programmed, biological response that comes naturally to human brains - and possibly many other species as well. on a Friday can feel like an eternity, but the weekend usually ends in the blink of an eye.Ĭould our brains really “replay” an entire lifetime’s worth of memories and moments within a matter of seconds upon death? Countless people who have had near-death experiences testify as much, but up until now neuroscientists have struggled to make sense of what happens in the mind during and immediately after death. For example, waiting for the clock to reach 5 p.m. Recorded brain gamma waves during death were similar to those that occur during dreaming and meditation.Īlbert Einstein once said that time is relative, meaning the perceived rate by which time passes depends on the person and situation. The data, at the very least, suggests that our brains indeed continue working not only as we pass away but even in the seconds following heart stoppage. Now, groundbreaking new research by a team at the University of Tartu is providing the first-ever record of brain activity during death. TARTU, Estonia ( ) - The notion of “your life flashing before your eyes” as you die has been a cultural expression for over a century, depicted in countless movies, books, and other works of fiction.
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