What happens after death — this question has excited the minds of mankind throughout its history. Belief in an afterlife remains a comfort to many. However, science cannot give a definitive answer to this question.
What happens to a person after the last heartbeat, how do those who have experienced clinical death describe their condition, is there scientific evidence for an afterlife, and how do different cultures and religions interpret this question?
„The question of whether there is life after death is not just a philosophical dilemma, but an existential inquiry that excites everyone. It unites ancient cultures and modern laboratories, temples and universities, believers and skeptics. The development of medicine and neurology has made the border between life and death more permeable, but no less mysterious,“ says Anna Ovsyannikova, associate professor at the Department of “Mathematics and Data Analysis“ at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.
What is death?
In the 21st century, death is not just a fact, but a process. According to Ovsyannikova, modern medicine distinguishes several stages of it: “It is curious that in recent years data have appeared on the short-term preservation of brain activity even after cardiac arrest, which calls into question the previous boundaries of life and death“, the expert notes.
One of the most mysterious phenomena are near-death experiences. Up to 20% of people who have experienced cardiac arrest report them. These descriptions are surprisingly similar: In 2017, researchers from the University of Liège (Belgium) studied the written accounts of 154 patients who had experienced clinical death. Almost everyone described three similar sensations: a sense of peace, a flight through a long tunnel, and a bright light appearing at the end of this journey.
Some survivors claimed that in this state they left their bodies and met angels and spirits. However, the order of sensations experienced by most did not match. Only 20 percent of those surveyed said that they first left the boundaries of their physical body, and then began to move through the tunnel, at the end of which they saw a bright light. According to the authors of the study, this shows that the near-death experience is different for each person. Perhaps the sensations and hallucinations that a dying person experiences depend on their language and culture.
The largest study on this topic is the AWARE project, led by Dr. Sam Parnia. It lasted from 2008 to 2014 and included 2,060 patients in hospitals in the US and UK. “About 39% reported a sense of awareness during cardiac arrest, and one patient was able to accurately describe events that occurred in the operating room when his brain was no longer functioning.
For almost four years, stories were collected from patients who experienced clinical death as a result of a heart attack. Scientists interviewed doctors and nurses who tried to bring these people back to life. The most surprising thing is that most of the survivors almost verbatim conveyed the conversations of the medical staff and quite accurately reconstructed the sequence of their actions. A third of the patients noted that everything happened very slowly and time seemed to have stopped.
In addition, Americans who were on the verge of life and death, like the Belgians, experienced a sense of peace, saw a bright light and their physical body from the outside. Scientists from the University of Montreal (Canada) were able to record the work of the brain even after the encephalogram showed a straight line - the main evidence of the death of nerve cells.
First, they noticed brain activity above the straight line on the encephalogram of a patient in a deep coma. Then similar oscillations were found on the encephalograms of cats that were specially placed in a state of reversible coma. Previously unknown oscillations occurred in the hippocampus - the part of the brain responsible for memory and cognitive abilities - and were transmitted to the cerebral cortex.
According to American scientists, the brain not only does not die along with the heart, but on the contrary, begins to work at double speed. The release of dopamine - the pleasure hormone, which plays an important role in the reinforcement system and cognitive processes - increases almost 12 times. Therefore, people can experience a sense of peace, on the one hand, and on the other - a feeling that they are thinking very quickly. 65 percent of those who have experienced clinical death report this.
In addition, at the moment of agony, the level of serotonin increases 20 times, which causes many receptors to be activated in the brain. They, in turn, are associated with visual hallucinations. Out-of-body experiences, meetings with angels and spirits, a bright light at the end of the tunnel - all this may be the result of the release of the hormone of happiness.
Israeli researchers explain near-death experiences with the malfunctioning of the brain, which experiences a lack of oxygen due to cardiac arrest and blood flow. The feeling that your whole life has passed before your eyes (almost half of survivors remember this) is most likely the result of the activation of the prefrontal, medial temporal and parietal lobes of the brain.
These areas are supplied with blood and oxygen longer than others and are the last to turn off. All these data may indicate that the brain continues to work for some time after the heart stops, and consciousness is preserved.
What happens to the body after death
Immediately after the cessation of blood circulation, a cascade of physiological changes begins. At the same time, some cells of the body - skin, cornea, bone marrow - continue to function for several hours after death. This allows them to be used for transplantation, and in this sense, death is not an instantaneous act, but... a stage of transition.
Is there evidence of life after death
According to Anna Ovsyannikova, today science does not have convincing evidence of the existence of life after death. None of the experiences of clinical death can be objectively confirmed as contact with another world. All descriptions can be explained by the brain's work in conditions of hypoxia (lack of oxygen), the release of endorphins, or the last neuronal activity.
However, in 2023, a team of neurophysiologists from the University of Michigan published a study in which rats showed a surge in organized brain activity reminiscent of wakefulness after cardiac arrest. This gives rise to talk about the “last awakening of the brain“ - a mysterious neuropeak, when consciousness can be preserved longer than previously thought.
Is there life after death - the opinion of scientists
Physicist Roger Penrose (Nobel Prize, 2020) and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff put forward a hypothesis about the quantum nature of consciousness, suggesting that information can exist outside the body. Their theory remains unconfirmed, but it inspires philosophers and popularizers of science. Meanwhile, according to a Pew Research study (2021), only 27% of natural scientists in the United States believe in the afterlife. The rest either deny it (54%) or consider it a philosophical question that has no scientific answer.
Cultural and religious ideas about life after death
Anna Ovsyannikova notes that humanity has invented dozens of concepts about the afterlife - from resurrection to reincarnation: According to a Gallup poll (2022), 72% of people around the world believe in the existence of life after death. This belief can take different forms, but it remains a universal human phenomenon. Nikolay Bukanev, a popularizer of history, author of the historical and popular channel “11 ECU“, explains that for many, denying any version of the existence of the afterlife is an attempt to fight their fear of the unknown.
“If everyone were sure that death ends existence instantly and completely, erasing personality, consciousness, memory, then the end of life would not be so exciting.“ Therefore, it is often more convenient for people to convince themselves of the lack of life in the “afterlife“, telling others about some scientific research, about the lack of evidence, about the fact that there are no signals “from there“. In this situation, a person should not be responsible for what has been done, obviously and secretly, in the present life“, says the expert.
For religious people, the answer also represents salvation. After all, they lead a righteous life, observe the canons of their faith, and therefore have the right to count on a better fate than those who do not. According to Nikolay Bukanev, these two seemingly polar points of view are actually very similar. It turns out that all people believe that there will be something after death. Some believe that there will be a Great Judgment in which they will find a better eternal life, others believe that death will be a liberation from the entire burden of life, a complete erasure of all files, both useful and harmful.
The point of view that there is nothing after death is very similar in essence to Eastern ideas that in a series of constant rebirths, the highest grace is the cessation of this movement of the wheel of Samsara and again the complete erasure of all files that connect us with life.
„In monotheistic religions, in particular in Christianity, it is believed that it is earthly life that will become the basis for the future life, the test that we will pass before appearing before the Chief Judge. Therefore, no one plans to erase the earthly, but on the contrary, we will remember every action, every day and be responsible for it. And so that everything does not seem too harsh, because it is human nature to make mistakes, in Christianity there is the sacrament of confession, where a person can ask for forgiveness for his sins in advance, because after death people do not have such an opportunity.
But there is another relief, the way to pass the main test. These are the prayers of your loved ones and descendants for you. That is why we pray for our deceased friends, relatives, acquaintances, in order to make life easier for them after death. And at the same time, think about yourself, isn't it time to prepare?
Why is this question important?
Death is a mirror of life. The realization of its inevitability shapes personal values, motivation and worldview. The meaning of life, a sense of duty, the desire for creativity - all this, perhaps, exists precisely because we know that one day everything will end. And regardless of the answer - is there life after death or not - this question remains one of the most powerful stimuli for science, religion and art.
Modern science is still far from understanding the nature of consciousness and the limits of life. But one thing is clear: belief in an afterlife is not only an attempt to avoid the fear of death, but also a way to give meaning to what is happening here and now. “A person can be destroyed, but not defeated“, wrote Hemingway. And perhaps it is in this resistance to the end that our immortal part lies.
Source: ria.ru