Meet the Dutch cardiologist who believes consciousness can exist outside the body

A radiation oncologist has studied near-death experience reports for over 25 years and compiled around 4,000 accounts in the hopes of finding more patterns that would reveal insights about consciousness and humans' final moments before or around death.

The body's response to cardiac arrest has been linked to near-death experiences.

A leading expert on near-death experiences, psychiatrist Dr. Bruce Greyson, says that during his decades of research on this topic, this area of research has become far more mainstream and accepted as a rigorous area of inquiry.

There's a new (contested) physiological explanation for near-death experiences based on analysis of the brains of resuscitated coma and cardiac arrest patients.

Some scientists argue NDEs are constructed by the brain, not actually experienced

Despite the powerful memories associated with NDEs, scientists question the idea that the experiences prove consciousness endures after death, opting instead to find physiological explanations for common reports of out-of-body experiences, euphoric and lucid thinking, and more.

Four in 10 CPR patients report consciousness not captured by standard measures.

The University of Virginia has the nation's most established near-death studies division, but institutions including the University of Southampton, the University of Connecticut, and the University of North Texas have also explored the field.

A near-death experience is a phenomenon experienced by roughly 5% to 23% of the population, and typically occurs after a traumatic physical event or a brief clinical death.

Accounts of near-death experiences share similarities with hallucinogens, with reports of mystical-like states of consciousness across both contexts.

A 'paranormal activity' unit at the University of Virginia studies challenges to mainstream scientific ideas about human consciousness.

What happens in a dying brain?

Near-death experiences usually happen during death or on the border of life and death when a person isn't understood to be conscious. This article details the science of what's going on with the brain during NDEs.

Brain activity sometimes goes into overdrive around the point of death according to researchers' recent analysis of patients' brains before and after they were taken off their ventilators.

The main criticism of a recent neurophysiological explanation for near-death experiences is that these events are too complex to be explained as a neurochemical response to an oxygen-deprived brain.

The Lazarus Effect is when a heart begins beating on its own after declared death

Formally called autoresuscitation, this rare phenomenon occurs when someone is declared dead following a cardiac arrest but their heart beats again without help—making it seem like the person came back to life. Doctors don't know the exact cause.

Terminal lucidity is the phenomenon of sudden, heightened mental clarity when on the verge of death

The "Let's Talk Near Death" podcast explores phenomena around the end of life, inviting guests to recount their own experiences. This episode focuses on the phenomenon known as "terminal lucidity," where patients experience clarity, vivid memory recall, and more, typically following a heart attack, stroke, or other trauma.

Psychiatrist Bruce Greyson created a scale to identify and rate NDEs

Researcher Bruce Greyson is one of the world’s leading experts on near-death experiences. This article explores what the field of NDE research has learned over the last five decades, discusses the difficulties of studying such a controversial topic, and outlines what we’ve ruled out as the cause of these events.

The oldest medical report of a near-death experience dates to around 1740.

Research advances suggest death takes much longer than we realized

Recent research indicates that organs, including the brain, are better at handling a lack of oxygen after the heart stops beating than previously known. Such findings may open up possibilities that include someday reversing certain death processes and expanding the availability of organs available for organ donations. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Scientists are studying dying patients' brain activity in the final moments of life

In the final moments of life there are distinctive bursts of coordinated neural activity. Researchers are interested in parsing that data to better understand the dying process and also exploring how this data relates to our understanding of consciousness.

Near-death experiences can be reminiscent of religious visions, yet people across different faiths as well as those with no declared religion have reported them.

Listen to an avowed rationalist discuss his frightening near-death experience visions from 2020 and how it changed his life outlook.

Near-death experiences have been reported across cultures for millennia.

Watch this 2021 video demonstrating a full brain death examination

This video and accompanying article in the peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine show the then-standard steps of a full brain death examination—demonstrating the process on a medical dummy to search for pain, blinking, eye movement, cough, gagging, or other forms of responsiveness. (May need to sign up for a free account to view.)

Brain death is a uniquely modern problem stemming from modern ventilators.

NDEs typically change people's outlooks drastically and can prompt depression

The phenomena are regularly categorized as hallucinations, but some specialists are interested in their psychological nuances. Many survivors report feeling less anxiety about death, though some surveys show the experiences can increase physiological sensitivities.

Studies of psychedelic use may help shed light on the nature of consciousness

The nature of consciousness—what it is, where it comes from, and how it manifests as moment-to-moment experience—remains under debate by scientists. Recent studies show psychedelics were found to boost low-frequency brain signals known as delta waves, a behavior also seen during dream states.

'Donation after circulatory death' is on the rise

This occurs when a patient in a coma is on life support and family members agree to donate the organs. Watch this video about a 2025 New York Times investigation that identified 12 instances across nine states of bungled or premature attempts to retrieve organs from people whose families had authorized withdrawal of life support.

Pig brain cellular activity was restarted hours after death in study published in 2019

Yale University scientists restored basic cellular activity and circulatory function in pig brains about four hours after death with a synthetic cocktail of preservatives and nutrients. This work— which didn't restart electricity activity in the brain or consciousness—could help advance future human stroke and brain injury treatments.

The debate on why humans are conscious—and what that means

Understanding what consciousness is, and why and how it evolved, is perhaps the greatest mystery known to science. Watch interviews with the world's leading experts on what it is and whether we'll ever know.

Brain death is a top source of organ donation

Brain death is a significant source of organ donations because patients declared brain dead and hooked up to intensive care unit machines will still have oxygen flowing to organs like the heart, lungs, and kidneys—preserving those organs.

Brain death is a top source of organ donation

Brain death is a significant source of organ donations—approximately 40% of organs in the US and the UK are recovered from people who experience brain death. Patients declared brain dead and hooked up to intensive care unit machines will still have oxygen flowing to organs like the heart, lungs, and kidneys—preserving those organs.

Observant Catholics can donate organs because the official Catholic stance is brain death is death—enabling organ donation

The Vatican states that brain death, when properly diagnosed, means that a person is dead even though machines can keep them alive. That official stance from Catholic leadership and echoed by most Catholic doctors and ethicists enables the families of observant Catholics to proceed with organ donation.

Thanatology is the study of death and dying.

A brain scientist's experience with a stroke

What happens when a leading brain scientist has a stroke of her own? Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor recounts moment by moment watching her brain function slow and then cease, followed by a prolonged recovery. Through this experience, she details what she learned about the phenomenon of stroke and how it has impacted her research ever since.

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

Why the nature of consciousness is such a difficult problem

David Chalmers is one of the leading philosophers of consciousness. In this video, he outlines some of the major questions in this field, including the "hard problem of consciousness," which seeks to find neural correlate for every conscious experience.

Some founders of quantum mechanics thought consciousness could influence phenomena

Since quantum systems exist as a superposition of states before producing a definitive outcome, some quantum pioneers wondered if the act of conscious observation was what collapsed the wave function of possibilities into one state.

In 1968, a Harvard Medical School committee issued the first neurological definition of death

The definition set a legal and medical precedent for how we define death, important for issues including organ donation. This 2020 video podcast discusses the history of brain death controversies and the variability in how death has been determined, including discussions in the late 1960s about when patients are considered dead in the context of organ donations.

Brain death is a medical diagnosis without any wiggle room

Seeking to resolve long-standing variations between hospitals and state procedures, in 2023 several expert groups published comprehensive step-by-step guidance for clinicians to follow when determining brain death in kids and adults. Among other guidelines, it stated that doctors don't need to get family consent to do the tests needed to make this determination.

Can physics explain where consciousness comes from?

Consciousness is a complex emergent phenomenon of the brain, which is primarily composed of neurons and glial cells. Since all matter is composed of atoms that follow the laws of physics, there may be quantum processes beyond classical electrochemical interactions that can explain where consciousness comes from.

After the first gene-edited pig heart transplant patient died, a latent pig virus was discovered inside his xenotransplant.

Brain death is very rare—only 2% of hospital patients have brain death in the US

A peer-reviewed analysis examining US hospital billing code data from 2012 to 2016 concluded that the incidence of brain death is about 2% in the country. There was no available information indicating what proportion of those patients underwent organ donation.

Xenotransplants are an experimental last resort for the terminally ill when they cannot or will not receive a human organ.

Nonamputees can be tricked into thinking they have phantom limbs with rubber arm experiments.

Panpsychism suggests that all matter possesses consciousness

The theory describes consciousness as a fundamental, ubiquitous property, rather than separate or emerging from matter. Cosmopsychism posits that the universe is conscious, while some critics argue that consciousness itself may be an illusion.

Chinese scientists transplanted a pig lung into a human being in 2025—but it had to be removed.

Research suggests the brain maintains connections to lost limbs

Decades-old research suggested brain reorganization after amputations, but brain scans show unchanged limb representations. Phantom limb pain may result from such unchanged brain maps, which may enhance prosthetic limb control in brain-computer interface technology.

An essay exploring how living day-to-day with a brain implant helps restore a sense of identity

Companies like Neuralink are experimenting with volunteers who have lost control over their bodies. Many of the program's participants claim the most significant benefit from the tool is the ability to perform simple, mundane tasks, such as playing video games or shaking hands, rather than more obvious milestones like walking or eating. This essay explores what it's like, day to day, to use a brain implant.

Sleep is no longer considered a binary state—scientists are seeking to map a variety of liminal states between sleep and waking, including the hypnagogic state associated with boosts of creativity.

In 1984, a dying infant lived for three weeks with a baboon heart inside her chest.