Your life may actually flash before your eyes before death, new study reveals

According to new findings from a scientific "accident," our entire lives may actually flash before our eyes before we die. The brainwaves of an 87-year-old patient with epilepsy were being measured by a team of experts. However, he died of a heart attack during the neurological recording, providing an unexpected recording of a dying brain, reports BBC. This accident demonstrated that the man displayed the same patterns as dreaming and reminiscing memories. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience published their research which said this type of brain activity might indicate that a final "recall of life" may occur in a person's final moments.

According to Dr. Ajmal Zemmar, co-author of the paper and neurosurgeon at the University of Louisville, the team, which was working in Vancouver, Canada at the time, received the first-ever recording of a dying brain by mistake. He spoke to BBC about the research, "This was actually totally by chance, we did not plan to do this experiment or record these signals." He said that it is difficult to decide if one recalls happy or sad moments as they are dying. He said, "If I were to jump to the philosophical realm, I would speculate that if the brain did a flashback, it would probably like to remind you of good things, rather than the bad things."

He added, "But what's memorable would be different for every person." He stated the patient's brainwaves followed the same patterns as when we perform high-cognitive demanding jobs like focusing, sleeping, or recalling memories in the 30 seconds before his heart stopped delivering blood to the brain. He said, "This could possibly be a last recall of memories that we've experienced in life, and they replay through our brain in the last seconds before we die." The research also raises concerns about when life truly ends, whether it's when the heart stops beating or when the brain ceases working.

The research reads, "Just before and after the heart stopped working, we saw changes in a specific band of neural oscillations, so-called gamma oscillations, but also in others such as delta, theta, alpha, and beta oscillations." Dr. Zemmar and his colleagues have emphasized that one research cannot be used to make broad conclusions. The fact that the patient was epileptic and had a large and bleeding brain adds to the difficulty. Dr. Zemmar said, "I never felt comfortable to report one case." He sought similar situations to help reinforce the analysis for years, following the original recording in 2016 but was unsuccessful.

He spoke further about this experience, "I think there's something mystical and spiritual about this whole near-death experience. And findings like this - it's a moment that scientists lives for."