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"Horror and Ecstasy": What Happens to Human Consciousness After Death
Residents of Weld, Maine, have been gathering at the cemetery every third Thursday in August for 30 years. They all bought land for their graves and throw a party to meet their future cemetery neighbors. The welders believe that great friendships can begin with barbecue, pumpkin pie, and conversation.
Janine Carpenter, a resident of Weld, USA: "We will all go there someday. "It warms our hearts to know that after death we can still be with those loved ones we have enjoyed throughout our lives."
You might think this is just some kind of small-town American Gothic. What if these people are right? What if the relationships between souls continue after death?
Neuroscientist Christoph Koch (Director of the Allen Brain Institute, USA): “I had a clinical death experience when I was infected with the coronavirus. It was truly amazing! I saw a blinding light, felt fear and ecstasy, and there was no longer a body, no Christoph, no sense of “me” as a separate person, no world, no passage of time.”
American neurobiologist Christof Koch is one of the most respected researchers in the field of consciousness. What he describes is called a “near-death experience.” Ancient doctors mentioned this phenomenon. People who have had a heart attack and come back to life have a similar story.
Christoph Koch: "Near-death experiences are not flights of fancy; they have many common features in different people: freedom from pain, bright light, separation from the body, floating above the body. This can include encounters with lost people or spiritual beings similar to angels. "This happened to me four years ago, and since then my fear of death has disappeared."
If scientists previously considered such visions to be hallucinations, then Professor Koch's discoveries revolutionized. Neurobiologists conducted the first large-scale study to prove that near-death experiences are not dreams of the mind, but a kind of parallel reality.
Sam Parnia, director of critical care research at Langone University School of Medicine in the US, said: "My mission is to bring people back to life after heart attacks. We have done the largest study of its kind in medical centres in the US and Europe, looking at 2,000 people who have been clinically dead."
The results of the university scientists' research are also surprising. 40% of patients who returned from the afterlife had a near-death experience. Even the most convinced skeptic cannot ignore such statistics.
Sam Parnia: “Millions of people have come back to life after being in intensive care. And many people have reported that they can see and hear what is happening in their rooms. But from our perspective, they were dead, and their brains should not be functioning at all. This challenges everything we know scientifically. “The evidence suggests that when the brain turns off what we call consciousness, mind or spirit, our personality does not disappear, but remains, at least for a few minutes or hours.”
Jeffrey Olsen is one of the study participants. He almost died in a terrible car accident. The car in which the whole family was riding collided with a truck. His wife and eldest son were dead, but the youngest son was safe.
Jeffrey Olsen, US citizen: “I felt a light surrounding me. It seemed clear and calming. I began to hover over the scene. And my wife, whom I thought was dead, was in this light with me. She insistently told me that I had to go back because I had a little son who would be left an orphan. Then I made a choice and decided to return to this world.”
But what happens to the human brain at the moment of clinical death? Does it really stop working? Professor Jimo Borjigin from the University of Michigan tried to answer these questions. First, we conducted a study on rats.
Sam Parnia, director of critical care research at Langone University School of Medicine in the US, said: "In both humans and mice, the brain continues to function during death and is much more active than during periods of normal functioning."
But what surprised the scientists most was the sudden surge in hormones. It increases to levels never seen in a lifetime.
Jimo Borjigin: "Norepinephrine increased 60-fold. Concentration is important. Dopamine can increase 40-fold, and serotonin 80-fold. This is the pleasure hormone. "We believe that elevated levels of these neurochemicals are associated with the cognitive state of cardiac arrest patients."
New scientific data is forcing people to reconsider their attitudes toward death, soul, and body. The term “carbon footprint” usually refers to a person’s contribution to global pollution, but a carbon footprint can mean something else. An American startup is proposing to make diamonds from the ashes of deceased loved ones.
Manager Jacob Parker: "They can see this eternal diamond every day and wear it around their neck, near their heart or on their finger."
The company's president, Adele Archer, grew the first diamond from the ashes of her best friend. The girl inside her asks you to do something meaningful with it. Adele decided to make jewelry from fragile ashes.
“When we started, it was incredibly difficult to build a supply chain because the way diamonds were made actually came from Russia,” said Adele Archer, co-founder and CEO of Eterneva.
This technology was actually invented by Russian scientists. Discovering new sides of yourself after death is probably the dream of those who decided to turn their bodies into diamonds. To obtain the stone, 150 g of human ash is enough. Diamonds are loaded into a machine and grown under high pressure for 10 days. It is not the ash itself that is loaded into the press, but pure carbon separated from the ash. The grown diamonds are cut with a laser knife. The magic happens in the laboratory. A mixture of gases such as methane and hydrogen turns into the hardest mineral on Earth. The trip was led by the inventor of the technology, Professor Vladimir Blank.
Professor Vladimir Blank, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Director of the Institute of Technology of Superhard and New Carbon Materials: "We created it for the first time in the world. Many years have passed. Having received the appropriate permission, we agreed to take part in a competition organized by one of the international companies."
Diamonds can grow in almost any color, and when they fall into the hands of a jeweler, they turn into diamonds. In terms of purity and hardness, these stones are no different from natural stones. Despite the fact that ash diamonds are not popular in Russia, there are many orders from abroad.
Vladimir Blank: "I prefer another option. When the wedding takes place, the groom presents the bride with flowers. You can make diamonds from rose petals. "It's much easier to do than from human ashes."
But there are many people on Earth who consider their life to be their only treasure and are willing to pay any amount to never part with it. These are billionaires. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has invested millions of dollars in a startup whose mission is to laugh at death. The billionaire has gathered 12 Nobel Prize winners in one lab to develop cell therapy. By studying animals, scientists have already discovered four genes responsible for aging and death. Bezos's star team must turn off these genes in human DNA.
Cynthia Kenyon, director of the Center for the Biology of Aging at the University of California (USA): “Surprisingly, we found that changing the genes instantly doubles lifespan and causes much slower cellular aging.”
It sounds like science fiction, but we can't help but remember the story of Donovan Harbison, an American who took his first steps after receiving a titanium heart transplant.
Donovan Harbison (USA), a man with a titanium heart: “When I heard the word ‘heart failure’, I thought it meant death.”
The teacher waited for a donor for over a year. He was getting worse, the days were counting down, and Donovan was offered to take part in an experiment. Surgeons removed his heart and installed a titanium pump that pumps blood using magnets.
Donovan Harbison: "It's definitely harder because you can't feel your heart normally. I woke up and realized my heart was gone. "I'm going to walk out of the hospital with a piece of metal in my chest that's keeping me alive."
If a person can live without a heart, perhaps the body is not the limit of consciousness?