The doctors won’t say it, but you can tell from their eyes - your time is running out.
As you lie in this hospital bed, the minutes slipping away, your mind is racing.
Ready or not, you’re about to go on the biggest mystery that humanity has never been
able to solve - into the unknown of death.
Time seems to slow down in your last moments, as you become more aware of every sensation.
You can feel your breath starting to slow down, and you wonder if you’ll know when
you’re dying, or if you’ll just...slip away quietly.
Will it be painful?
Will you discover what lies beyond this mortal coil?
Or will it just be like going to sleep?
While your body is dying, what’s your brain doing?
What happens to the brain while the body is breathing its last?
The human brain.
3.3 pounds of tissue, a mix of grey matter and white matter, that serves as the control
center for the entire body.
Composed of countless nerve cells and divided into four lobes - the frontal, temporal, parietal,
and occipital lobes - it handles the senses and all mental functions.
It leads into the brain stem, which controls the basic functions of the organs like the
circulatory and respiratory systems; the spinal cord, which controls motor function, and the
millions of nerves that control every little function in the body.
The brain is like the General commanding an army of countless soldiers in your body, so
it’s not a surprise that you can’t survive without it in working order.
What happens to the brain at the moment of death?
That depends on how you’re dying.
The first situation is when the brain kills the body.
This is when the brain sustains a massive injury that makes it impossible for it to
sustain the body.
This happens when the brain is pierced by a bullet, hit by a large blunt object like
a falling rock, or is badly concussed in a car accident or sports game.
It can also happen non-violently when a blood vessel bursts in the brain, causing a stroke
or brain aneurysm that floods the brain, drowning the vital nerves that keep things running.
In cases like this, the brain shuts down quickly, often before the body realizes what happens.
There’s no time to process what’s happening at the moment of death because the brain is
the first to go, and the body soon follows.
Sometimes the lower-brain functions of the brain stem are preserved, and this is called
brain death.
The body is technically alive, but there’s no consciousness left and the person is usually
taken off life support shortly.
But what happens when the body is the first to go?
The brain needs the body to be functioning so it can get the life-sustaining oxygen it
needs to keep running.
If the body can’t breath and the circulatory system can’t get blood to the brain, the
brain will start starving and eventually die.
This is common when other parts of the body are injured, such as a wound to a critical
organ.
It can also be caused by a heart attack, an illness like cancer, or old age as the body’s
organs start to slow down and wear out.
There are more chances for medical intervention to save a life in this case, but there’s
only so much doctors can do and eventually time will run out.
This is when the brain shuts down slowly, and people experience the sensation of dying
while fully conscious.
But how will we know what people experience?
No one’s been there and back...or have they?
Many people have claimed to have near-death experiences when they came close to death
but were pulled back.
This is common when someone has a traumatic and sudden physical ailment that brings them
to the point of death, and always involves the body but not the brain.
Survivors of heart attacks, severe allergic reactions, surgical complications, or car
accidents often recall making contact with something they believe is the afterlife.
Doctors say this is the result of the lack of oxygen to the brain, causing hypoxia and
hallucinations that feel especially intense given the trauma of the experience.
But what do they see - and is it proof that death is not the end of the road?
Most of the people who report this phenomenon are deeply religious and are intensely convinced
they made contact with heaven - or somewhere else.
When three-year-old Colton Burpo underwent emergency surgery for a burst appendix, he
nearly died on the operating table - and came back with incredible stories of what heaven
was like, including details of long-dead relatives he couldn’t have known.
He and his father wrote a book, “Heaven is for Real”, about his experience, but
many critics say there are holes in the story and Colton was never clinically dead during
the surgery.
Another boy with a similar story, Alex Malarkey, later revised his own claims as a teenager.
Paralyzed in a terrible car crash as a child, he woke up from a coma and claimed he had
been carried by an angel during his near-death experience.
But in 2015, he claimed that he had made the whole incident up and had never even read
the Bible at the time of his injury.
But what about those who saw...the other place?
When Matthew Botsford walked out of a restaurant and into the middle of a gun battle in 1992,
he was struck by a bullet and wound up in a coma.
He claimed to wind up in a place of total blackness and horror, until he was lifted
out of there by a figure he believed was God, and returned to his body.
He woke up after twenty-seven days and recovered over a two-year period, and he and his wife
wrote a book about his close encounter with hell - but doctors are even more skeptical
about his story because of the added factor of his brain injury.
The brain is a complex organ, and a bullet inside it during a near-death experience could
easily conjure up some horrifying visuals for the victim.
The survivors of near-death experiences have their beliefs about what happens at the point
of death, but what do scientists say?
Ever since the technology was available, scientists have been studying the moment of death for
clues to what happens to people.
While no one knows exactly what the dying is experiencing and whether it points to something
bigger, they have observed some amazing patterns in brain activity.
Using EEG, or electroencephalogram technology, to track activity in the brain, they’ve
discovered that brain activity actually flares at the moment of death.
When researchers tested the brain activity of rats that were euthanized, they discovered
that the animals’ consciousness was even more alert and intense than the normal waking
state.
Within thirty seconds of an induced cardiac arrest, the brain goes into overdrive.
This implies something shocking - the brain doesn’t die when the body does.
How long can the brain survive after body functions stop?
Most scientists believed it was only seconds, but doctors at a Canadian intensive care unit
discovered something disturbing while working with terminally ill patients in 2018.
After life support was turned off for four patients and they were declared dead, one
of the patients’ EEG continued to show brain activity for up to ten minutes.
There was no pulse, and the pupils didn’t react when tested with light, but the patient’s
brain activity resembled the same frequency as deep sleep.
Does the body simply put the brain to sleep and let it expire quietly during a non-traumatic
death - or is the dying person experiencing something more intense?
One theory about the brain at the moment of death is called “the dark wave”.
First observed in 1940 in experiments on rabbits, it indicates that when the brain is injured,
it starts to spread brain death out from the injured spot.
Brain functions go down one by one, drowning the brain in a deep wave of depressions as
brain activity slowly decreases.
This would mean the final moments of brain function are likely confusing, disorienting,
and marked by an increasing loss of awareness.
This is most common with death caused by brain injury, but what happens when the brain is
expiring due to the loss of body functions?
Another theory proposes a much more optimistic view of our last moments.
Many people have observed that those dying, even those in palliative care as they expire
from terrible illnesses, have a peaceful or even euphoric expression on their face in
their last hours.
A study of rats at the moment of death indicated that the levels of serotonin in the blood
tripled in their last minutes.
Serotonin is a chemical believed to contribute to feelings of happiness, and it’s matched
by the powerful endorphins which have the same effect.
If one of the body’s last functions as it shuts down is to release these chemicals,
it’s likely that they take away the pain and fear of death and allow the person to
pass peacefully, enjoying a natural high that takes the edge off those last moments.
But what’s going through the mind in those last moments?
Are people too far gone - or do they still know what’s going on around them?
The question of awareness around and even after the moment of clinical death has been
puzzling scientists for many years, and new studies indicate that a person’s consciousness
can persist even after bodily functions stop.
A study of cardiac arrest survivors indicates that they correctly remember things that were
said around them after their heart stopped.
Those who were clinically dead may even remember having their deaths announced by medics, and
may be fully aware as their body functions fail them.
These people were only dead for a short period and were revived through lifesaving medicine,
but it’s likely that those who don’t get revived from their heart attack have the same
experience in their last moments.
The brain is a complex and durable organ, and it may have the ability to outlive the
body briefly.
What does this tell us about the moment of death - and is it possible to use this to
learn more about what lies beyond?
People have long been fascinated with the idea of conquering death or getting answers
about it, and many stories have been written about people exploring the great beyond or
returning from it.
A horror movie, Flatliners, depicted a group of students who performed an experiment to
stop their body functions and then resurrect themselves under a controlled environment.
They came back wrong and developed strange new powers that led to carnage, because it
was a horror movie.
But that hasn’t stopped scientists from trying to figure out what people who have
near-death experiences and came back from being clinically dead experienced.
To get closer to the truth, we’ve got to look at the person who had the longest journey.
Velma Thomas was 59 when she was taken to a West Virginia hospital for signs of a heart
attack.
She went downhill quickly, and was pronounced brain dead when it was determined she had
no brain activity.
Doctors tried to save her life by inducing hypothermia to lower her body temperature,
but it was for naught and her family was left to make funeral plans.
But Thomas was an organ donor, and she was kept on life support for more than half a
day until it was time to harvest the organs for transplant.
That delay saved her life.
It was seventeen hours later, and signs of death were setting in.
Her son observed her skin hardening and her hands and toes starting to curl.
But shortly after the family made the decision to take Velma off life support and no heartbeat
was detected, something amazing happened.
She started moving, and at first people thought it was just reflexes.
But then she coughed and moved her eyes.
By the time her son returned to the hospital, his mother was already asking for him.
She went on to make a full recovery and appeared on TV talk shows.
But as for what she remembered about her time under...the answer seems to be nothing.
And if she does, she’s keeping it close to her chest.
The evidence is that the brain is highly active at the moment of death, especially as someone
dies from reasons other than brain injury.
Those who have recovered from near-death experiences often have amazing stories, but those could
easily be the result of hallucinations caused by unusual brain activity or oxygen deprivation.
It seems to find out the truth of what happens to the brain at the moment of death, there’s
only one way to find out - but those who know aren’t telling tales.
For more on the mysteries of death, check out “What Happens When You Die?”, or watch
“Dumbest Ways to Die” for some unusual ways to get there.