How do you know that our consciousness survives the brain?
Because I confirmed it when I was teaching cardiology at the Arnheim Hospital - 800 beds - investigating 344 cases of Near Death Experiences (NDEs), with the network of clinical researchers that I directed in 10 Dutch hospitals, and that I published in 2001 in the journal scientific “The Lancet”.
And it caused a universal impact.
So much so that, since then, I have dedicated myself to studying how and why our consciousness can survive brain death. I have given more than 500 conferences in 11 countries where my books have been published.
What have you investigated and disseminated?
As a young doctor, he believed that consciousness was a product of brain functions and, therefore, died with the brain. But, by studying hundreds of new cases of near-death experiences, he confirmed that death is the end of our physical body; but not from our consciousness.
Is there consciousness after life?
There is a continuity of our consciousness after brain death. And we know this because some people of all cultures and beliefs experience it anywhere on the planet.
When and how?
Consciousness always exists and we receive part of it at birth with our brain, which acts as its receiver and relay throughout our life; but only when it stops working do we have access to the enormous territory of consciousness, which houses everything we have experienced...
Isn't it just a collection of memories?
It is much more, but we cannot all access it on a daily basis in our lives: only some humans experience it in verified NDEs, as we did, in a scientific way.
Do you mind retelling the case of the “resurrected” man who recovered his teeth?
Male, 44 years old, cardiac arrest; He arrives at the hospital already cold, his skin bluish; his pupils do not react to light; he doesn't breathe; he does not respond to any stimulus; He has no pulse... He was in a deep coma with no body or brain reflexes: we intubated him and a week later he was still in a coma in the ICU until he finally regained consciousness and the first thing he asked us was where his teeth were. Nobody knew...
Where were his teeth?
...She asked until she saw the nurse passing by hours later who, she said, had put her in a box. It was impossible for him, even if he had been conscious, to see that movement without aerial vision...
Did the nurse give you back your teeth?
Excited, because she had seen him in a coma when extracting them so she could intubate him before collecting them and storing them in that box.
What does that case you saw prove?
It is not a case: there are hundreds, I published those 344 in “The Lancet” and every day others like the one with teeth are observed. Another paper has just been published, signed by a team of British doctors, with another 120 cases of clinically proven NDE.
What do you think they prove?
That after death we still have consciousness capable of experiences, although only in rare cases of NDEs do those who can explain them survive.
What is your conclusion?
It's not just mine: millions of humans of all times, cultures and religions have experienced these NDEs.
Could they not be the result of anoxia, hallucinations, reversible neurological disorders?
I have scientifically discarded them in my works. I believe that our brain does not generate consciousness: it only retransmits it just as the CPU of a computer retransmits data from the cloud. Consciousness continues after the death of the brain.
But is it still personal: our self?
It is no longer ego; It is only our being. And while we live with the body, the brain is only capable of capturing a part of the immense experience of that being of ours. That's why so many of my patients after having an NDE miss it when they return and radically change their lives: work, partner, goals...
Because?
Because the NDE highlights what really has value in our existence and highlights what does not have it.
What is that consciousness without ego like?
It is not local but interconnected with everything and everyone in all space-time.
Isn't that a mystical definition?
I stand by the observations and statements of my NDE patients.
Isn't it quantum physics?
There are undoubtedly parallels in their descriptions with what we understand by quantum and subjective-objective duality. But, often, we collide with the limits of our scientific method to explain what exists, although not yet demonstrable.
