Consciousness could potentially continue after the brain ceases to function, with near-death experiences offering a possible glimpse into an afterlife, according to a new paper. Finnish researcher Pekka Rechardt suggests that the nature of these experiences, recalled by individuals who have survived cardiac arrest, supports the idea that consciousness is not solely dependent on brain activity.
Rechardt's work reexamines a 2025 review of near-death research. This earlier review noted that electrical activity in the brain's cortex can disappear within 10 to 30 seconds of cardiac arrest. The authors of that study, published in the International Review of Psychiatry, proposed that some near-death experiences occur during these periods of severely suppressed brain activity, where an electroencephalogram (EEG) shows a flat line.
Rechardt treats these accounts as evidence that consciousness may not be entirely reliant on the brain. He highlights that these experiences often retain distinct elements of awareness, such as a sense of presence, vivid sensations, and the ability to perceive events coherently. If these elements can persist even when associated brain activity is undetectable, it suggests that the destruction of the brain might not necessarily mean the end of the mind.
Published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, Rechardt's paper builds upon an explanation of consciousness he proposed in 2023. The earlier review by Bruno Angeli-Faez, Bruce Greyson, and Pim van Lommel also indicated that critical brain rhythms for consciousness, alpha and beta waves, disappear within about 6.5 seconds of cardiac arrest.
Rechardt's hypothesis starts from the premise that consciousness cannot be fully explained by brain activity alone. He considers how different sensations and thoughts, processed by various brain regions, are experienced as a unified whole. For instance, someone walking on a beach might simultaneously feel the warmth, see the scenery, and ponder philosophical questions. Rechardt argues that explaining this unified experience requires more than simply identifying the individual brain processes involved.
He proposes an additional spatial dimension, beyond the familiar three, from which information associated with different brain regions could be integrated. Analogous to how a person viewing a flat drawing from above can see its separate parts together, Rechardt suggests that the three-dimensional brain might connect to consciousness through a fourth spatial dimension. He also addresses the sense of being present in the "Now," noting that near-death experiences often retain this present-moment quality, even when recounting unfamiliar scenes or memories.
Rechardt draws a distinction between detecting a brain's response to a stimulus, like a color, and the subjective experience of seeing that color. These questions are part of the 'hard problem' of consciousness, which grapples with why physical processes are accompanied by subjective experience. For Rechardt, the persistence of these familiar conscious features in near-death accounts suggests a need for a framework for awareness that extends beyond the brain.
He applies this analogy to death, suggesting that just as destroying a painting does not destroy the observer, the end of the brain's connection to consciousness might not extinguish the framework of experience itself. In this scenario, awareness could continue without sensory input from the body, provided that this framework exists independently of the brain rather than being solely created and sustained by it. Rechardt posits that near-death experiences may offer a glimpse into what awaits an individual after bodily functions have ceased.