Sam Parnia

“I hope that people will begin to understand that when the brain loses global function just before or after death, this is less “brain death” and more brain hibernation of sorts. The brain has hours yet when full function could be restored after being lost. In the meantime, through the process of disinhibition, the brain pours all of its resources into activities that will maximize its chances of staying alive—namely, getting the heart to beat again. It also activates abilities that existed merely as potential, yet dormant, states. For instance, the genes that repair any damage to fetuses but are “turned off” at birth. In death, these genes flip back on, presumably to join the brain’s battle to stay alive. In the same way, as already discussed, when people enter the ocean of death, there seems to be an inflection point of brain dysfunction, which triggers disinhibition and activates certain functions that were lying dormant in a sort of “sleep mode.” This provides access to extreme, yet otherwise hidden, capabilities in the depths of human consciousness that in turn give access to other realities that are now more relevant in preparation for this new state of being. While the doctors and nurses fight to save the individual, the dying person’s sense of their own consciousness becomes enormously vast: like the cosmos compared with the Earth. In this state of hyperexpanded and hyperlucid consciousness, people are filled with a deep and profound understanding of themselves and of life: they are liberated from their body yet have a hyperconscious awareness of all events around and beyond themselves all at once and in 360 degrees. They realize that their real self is their consciousness, not the body. In this new, expanded state, their consciousness and selfhood feels like a field of energy, analogous to an electromagnetic field, one that can penetrate the thoughts of others and objects. Yet people still feel connected to the body through a metaphorical cord of sorts. Linear time loses meaning. Instead, people experience millions of realities, almost downloading them like computer data, simultaneously. They review and judge their life based on the quality of actions and intentions. They realize that there has been a cause for everything in their lives. They recognize that they are responsible for their own actions and intentions, and they relive the downstream consequences, or domino effect, of their actions on other living beings. They relive their own actions through the eyes of the other living entity, human or animal, and deeply feel how they felt in that moment. Thus, they appreciate the positive and negative value of their actions. They also recognize that the value of their actions was determined by the intentions behind them.”
― Sam Parnia, Lucid Dying: The New Science Revolutionizing How We Understand Life and Death