Lucidity before death: Brain releasing consciousness?

By Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

There is often the burst of a bright flicker shortly before a flame dies down. Can we equate our lives to a flame, and consider lucidity occurring shortly before death something akin to this? Of course, this is not a universal phenomenon but there is an increasing realisation that this happens far more frequently than we imagine. What is perplexing scientists is how lucidity before death occurs in people who are diagnosed to have irreversible brain damage. According to modern scientific thought, mind and consciousness are nothing more than a product of the brain: therefore, this is an impossibility.

Another related phenomenon is the realisation of impending death. It was exactly 35 years ago I had my own personal experience. On learning that my mother had been admitted with ‘altered behaviour’ to a private hospital owned by a relation of ours in Matara, I rushed there to her. More than anything else, I was surprised as my mother was one of the most sane persons I have ever known, maintaining excellent cognitive function in spite of a stroke which was precipitated by the forced premature retirement from her beloved teaching job. She was delighted to see her eldest and did not take much time to tell me, “Upul, when I die please hand over my body to the Medical College”. I was taken aback and told her that I could do so, knowing how casually medical students treated dead bodies. I added that she was not going to die just yet. She retorted, “It is my wish and I do not care what they do to my body as long as they learn something”. I jokingly replied “Amme, you are determined to dictate to us even after death.” I would not have been so flippant had I sensed that her life was in danger.

The following day, her attending physician, my relation, rang. From his voice I sensed something was wrong. He said, “Upul, your mother died suddenly.” After a pause, he added “There is some more bad news for you. After you left yesterday, she spoke to me and got me to promise that I would persuade you to hand over the body to a medical college.” I readily agreed realising that my mother had outsmarted me even in her death! Whilst my father was involved in politics and social services, it was our mother who brought up a ‘full cricket team’. We owe what we are today to that great lady, whose body we handed over to the Galle Medical Faculty, after a brief stop in our ancestral home in Godagama.

Alhough I did not realise at the time, with hindsight it becomes obvious that she knew she was dying. Her altered behaviour may well have been due to this realisation but she exhibited no fear of death and was ensuring that even her lifeless body would serve some purpose instead of being reduced to ashes. It was entirely my idiocy that prevented me from telling her what I feel today; what she meant to us and that we would do whatever she wished. It is one of the greatest regrets of my life.

We assume incorrectly that an unconscious person is not aware of the surroundings and let our tongues loose. When I visited my sister, who was unconscious after a bleed into the brain and said, whilst holding her hand, “Loku Nangi, mey Upul ayya” a tiny tear drop rolled from her eye. She never spoke a word and did not have any lucidity before death.

If the mind and consciousness are products of the brain, obviously, with the death of the brain, mind and consciousness also should die. The corollary to this is that if the brain is irreversibly damaged, there is no possibility of transient reversal to normality of mind. With an ageing population, one of the increasing problems is dementia. Many who develop dementia are institutionalised as they are not able to look after themselves.

There are reports of many staff members in these nursing homes noticing lucidity before death of residents who have not spoken sensibly for ages so much so that scientists have begun investigations. A trial in progress, in New York, where 500 patients with dementia are being followed up with continuous monitoring including video-monitoring should provide answers.

The unexpected return of mental clarity and memory shortly before death in patients suffering from severe psychiatric and neurologic disorders, is often referred to as “terminal lucidity”. In conducting research, as it is inadvisable to use the term terminal, some prefer to call this “paradoxical lucidity”. Almost half of those who develop lucidity die within 24 hours or one week.

There are a number of cases reported where patients who were dying of malignant tumours that destroyed almost the entirety of the brain, confirmed by radiological investigations like CT scans and MRI, waking up and discussing their lives and imminent death, lucidly.

With increasing data, neuroscientists are bound to revise their opinion about the brain. Simply because the brain is associated with the mind and consciousness, it cannot be concluded that these are the products of the brain. In fact, the ‘terminal lucidity’ may well be due to the release of the mind and consciousness from the grasp of the brain as it dies, a point well-argued by many scientists including Dr Bruce Greyson, who succeeded the well-known rebirth researcher, Dr Ian Stevenson of Virginia University.

Dr Greyson in his talk “Is consciousness Produced by the Brain” delivered at “Cosmology and Consciousness Conference – Mind and Matter” (2011), hosted by Upper Tibetan Children’s Village, Dharamsala (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPGZSC8odIU) argues this case very well. It also illustrates Dalai Lama’s very successful attempts at integrating Buddhism and modern science. After all, it is only in Buddhism that the concept of a mind independent of the brain has existed, up to now. Dr Greyson makes use of four factors to support the concept of consciousness without the brain:

1. Deathbed recovery of lost consciousness – as happened in these patients who had brains destroyed by disease.

2. Complex consciousness with minimal brain; he describes cases of very high IQ students in High School or University with hardly any brain. Only post-mortem examinations would reveal whether they had functioning brain tissue elsewhere.

3. Near-death experiences where patients watch from outside what is happening to them.

4. Memories of past life as shown by investigations into rebirth.

It would be fascinating to see science proving what the Buddha postulated.