Dying to know the truth: visions of a dying brain, or false memories? Thoughtful commentary about out-of-body experiences during near-death events and whether they indicate consciousness without brain function, as several recent research studies have suggested. The commentator is at the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at the University of London:

The nature of mind-brain relationships and the possibility of life-after-death are some of the most profound issues relating to mankind’s place in the universe. The report in today’s Lancet by Pim van Lommel and colleagues of near-death experiences (NDEs) in survivors of a cardiac arrest provides intriguing data that are relevant to these issues. Theirs is the second prospective study of this type, the first being a smaller-scale study done in Southampton by Parnia and colleagues. Both groups of researchers think that their findings indicate a need for radical revision of current assumptions about the relationship between consciousness and brain function. van Lommel and colleagues ask, “How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG?”. But the truth is that nobody knows when the NDEs reported by these patients actually occurred. Was it really during the period of flat EEG or might they have occurred as the patients rapidly entered or gradually recovered from that state? The Lancet [free acces; requires registration]