An Illusion of Death

A study that scientifically explains near-death experiences is disturbing news for God.

A friend of mine was once alone at home when an artery in his brain burst. He remembers being in excruciating pain for hours, and then suddenly he was walking along a tunnel in exquisite comfort. “It was like wading through velvet,” he told me. Soon, he saw a light at the end and while a part of him wanted to enter it, he was suddenly pulled back to consciousness and pain again. Years later, as he told me this, he remarked, “That was when I knew that I am here for a purpose.” 

Early this week, The Times of India ran an article which said that doctors at George Washington University had found that near-death experience was nothing but a spurt in electrical activity. They monitored the brains of seven terminally ill patients and found that in each case, while the brain gradually ceased functioning, towards the end, there was a flurry of action lasting from half a minute to three minutes. It was the last wheeze of the brain, so to say. They hypothesised that this tricked the brain into imagining things. The tunnel experience is not the only near-death incident. There’s also the Out of Body experience, where the almost-dead patient finds himself looking down at his sleeping form. Neuroscientist Dr VS Ramachandran, who has written bestsellers like Phantoms In The Brain, says this can easily be induced by stimulating parts of the brain with an electrode. 

The implications of all this is a little disturbing. At the core of all religions is two things—man’s desperate search for meaning to his existence and his fear of death. A near-death experience was solace at both levels: it was proof that there is a happy place waiting after death, and, because you didn’t die despite the experience, it meant that you returned to humanity for a reason. 

However, as science starts its baby steps towards studying the most complicated thing designed by nature, the human brain and consciousness, rational explanations are springing up for supernatural experiences. For my friend, it means that he is not there for a purpose at all. Indeed, after half a decade, he was diagnosed with a genetic disorder, which was why the brain aneurysm happened in the first place.  But it’s not just him. At some point, science will force even the staunchest believer to accept that humanity has no meaning given unto us from above. Whatever meaning is needed, we will have to forge it. And that might not be such a bad thing.

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