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By Root 624 0

I saw patterns that I might otherwise have missed. These events were not unique to dying. People suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy recalled having visions, hearing words or music, feeling the presence of the sacred. Those who ingested psychedelics—especially those who were in the final stages of cancer—recounted full-blown dramas that included death and resurrection, oneness with all things, an overwhelming love, the certainty that the death of the body did not mark the end. In both cases, when people returned from their drug trip or death trip, their fear of death had evaporated. Spiritual virtuosos in prayer and meditation reported not only visions (for some) but also an overwhelming peace and unity with all things and the certainty that there is more than this material world. Spontaneous mystics could have written the scripts for some of the near-death experiencers; but mainly they felt an overwhelming love that had nothing to do with theology or religious denomination. It seemed that, with the possible exception of temporal lobe epilepsy, encountering the “other,” or the “other side,” radically transformed the experiencer, as if rewiring his priorities and even his personalitiy. Every person I met in Houston testified to that fact.

For several days, I heard stories like Edward’s, all passionate, all spoken as divine revelation, all compelling.What I did not hear was airtight evidence that these mystical voyages did in fact take place—that they were something other than tricks played by a dying brain. The near-death-experience advocates desperately need that proof. For their claim challenges one of the foundational principles of modern science: that your consciousness depends entirely on your brain, and when the brain shuts down, so does your identity. These survivors who refused to die fervently believe that consciousness exists apart from the brain, and, by extension, that there exists another dimension beyond what we can see and hear and touch in this material world. That claim will not triumph without a fight.

The Brain’s Operatic Demise

Gerald Woerlee is spoiling for a fight. These “delusions,” the Australian anesthesiologist said, are “easily explained” from both a narrative and neurological point of view. It’s simply what a brain does when it is dying.

Woerlee argues that when a person’s heart stops beating, he will appear to be dead because he lacks enough oxygen in his brain to move or to see, even though the brain stem, which controls the most basic functions like breathing or swallowing, remains active. Because this brain is not functioning normally, Woerlee says, it sets off a cascade of neurological events that explain every part of the near-death experience. When the prefrontal cortex malfunctions, you have a sense of calm, serenity, peace, joy, and painlessness. When the primary motor cortex malfunctions, you can’t move.When the postcentral gyrus malfunctions, you can’t perceive touch or sensation.When the parietal cortex malfunctions, you can’t perceive where your body ends and the universe begins, making you feel at one with the universe. When the angular gyrus malfunctions, together with muscle spindles, you can believe you are moving or flying.

I can accept that someone could look lifeless and still remain conscious at some level. Who has not heard about people who emerge from a coma recalling the sounds and events around them? But the common experiences—the tunnel, the beings of light, the life review—how can these be explained away?

“The tunnel-and-light business is one of the easier bits to explain,” Woerlee replied.

A brain in distress—that is, a brain gasping for oxygen—releases adrenaline, which widens the pupils of the eyes. And when the pupils dilate, he said, they can let in a hundred times the amount of light that pupils do under normal conditions.

“And so, if someone has had a shock or their pupils dilate due to illness, disease, fear, drugs, or oxygen starvation, that person will actually say, ‘Hey, the room’s getting lighter.’ You look around and think, ‘He’s mad, the room