imagine your life is flashing before your eyes and you're remembering reading this comment
First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)
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Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)
#42I’m sure there would be a long line of willing terminal and euthanasia patients who would join a study to record their final moments, I’m surprised this hasn’t been done yet.
I am not so sure about this. What would motivate someone to willingly transform their last moments into a medical experiment, with all the risks of being treated in not-so-nice ways? Almost nobody wants to die in a hospital in the first place. And as part of a medical "experiment", no thanks. Science can fuck off as long as they don't have control over their (small, but existing) emotionally detached workers. https:/…
It doesn't matter that you aren't sure, and it doesn't even matter if most people agreed with you. Around 60 to 70 million people die every year globally, so if even a tiny fraction of these were willing to take part there would be sufficient numbers for a statistically significant study.
In any case, the fact that a significant number of people opt for organ or body donation suggests they are willing to allow their deaths to be useful to others in some way.
Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)
#43I developed epilepsy a few years ago and each of the two times I had a waking tonic clonic aka “Grand Mal” it felt like they describe the brain when it’s dying. It’s the closest thing I’ve heard people describe as dying so it can be profound. Incidentally my neurologist said that she had patients that don’t stop their seizures because they feel like they areare mystical or part of their mental work. That’s a wild tho…
Without spoiling too much, this is a major theme in Dan Brown's latest novel 'the secret of secrets'.
I added it to my reading list!
Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)
#44I’m sure there would be a long line of willing terminal and euthanasia patients who would join a study to record their final moments, I’m surprised this hasn’t been done yet.
I am not so sure about this. What would motivate someone to willingly transform their last moments into a medical experiment, with all the risks of being treated in not-so-nice ways? Almost nobody wants to die in a hospital in the first place. And as part of a medical "experiment", no thanks. Science can fuck off as long as they don't have control over their (small, but existing) emotionally detached workers. https:/…
"Science can fuck off" - reminded me of Ricky from Trailer Park Boys. I a good way :)
Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)
#45I have lost consciousness several times in my life. Not a pleasurable experience specially as last time I did it because of such extreme pain that I thought I was passing away. However I have had always recollection of those seconds or minutes when I was unconscious: there was always an intense and quick succession of memories and images accompanied by sound. At some point the external sound from people trying to rea…
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/25/the-possibilia...
When David Eagleman was eight years old, he fell off a roof and kept on falling. Or so it seemed at the time. His family was living outside Albuquerque, in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. There were only a few other houses around, scattered among the bunchgrass and the cholla cactus, and a new construction site was the Eagleman boys’ idea of a perfect playground. David and his older brother, Joel, had ridden their dirt bikes to a half-finished adobe house about a quarter of a mile away. When they’d explored the rooms below, David scrambled up a wooden ladder to the roof. He stood there for a few minutes taking in the view—west across desert and subdivision to the city rising in the distance—then walked over the newly laid tar paper to a ledge above the living room. “It looked stiff,” he told me recently. “So I stepped onto the edge of it.”
In the years since, Eagleman has collected hundreds of stories like his, and they almost all share the same quality: in life-threatening situations, time seems to slow down. He remembers the feeling clearly, he says. His body stumbles forward as the tar paper tears free at his feet. His hands stretch toward the ledge, but it’s out of reach. The brick floor floats upward—some shiny nails are scattered across it—as his body rotates weightlessly above the ground. It’s a moment of absolute calm and eerie mental acuity. But the thing he remembers best is the thought that struck him in midair: this must be how Alice felt when she was tumbling down the rabbit hole.
Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)
#46I have lost consciousness several times in my life. Not a pleasurable experience specially as last time I did it because of such extreme pain that I thought I was passing away. However I have had always recollection of those seconds or minutes when I was unconscious: there was always an intense and quick succession of memories and images accompanied by sound. At some point the external sound from people trying to rea…
I've also lost it, around ~10 times so far. Never have any dreams or flashbacks. Just before passing out, I realize what's going to happen, but it's often too late. I only have a terrible headache afterwards.
Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)
#47I developed epilepsy a few years ago and each of the two times I had a waking tonic clonic aka “Grand Mal” it felt like they describe the brain when it’s dying. It’s the closest thing I’ve heard people describe as dying so it can be profound. Incidentally my neurologist said that she had patients that don’t stop their seizures because they feel like they areare mystical or part of their mental work. That’s a wild tho…
Ramachandran, the Temporal Lobes Epilepsy and God - Part 1
Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)
#48I have lost consciousness several times in my life. Not a pleasurable experience specially as last time I did it because of such extreme pain that I thought I was passing away. However I have had always recollection of those seconds or minutes when I was unconscious: there was always an intense and quick succession of memories and images accompanied by sound. At some point the external sound from people trying to rea…
So is it similar to dreaming? Also, what do you mean by "sound"? Like music or actual sound from your memories?
Part of it has to do with the memories, which gradually gets overtaken by the voices of my wife, doctor or whomever was trying to wake me up.
As an example, I think I was around 16 years old and I was very much into sport cycling and Tour de France. When I lost consciousness a slide show of Tour de France competition accompanied by the TV commentators rush into my thoughts. All of it at very high speed and extremely overwhelming.
I think of it as an analogy of a memory dump of a process that is no longer running (consciousness), and everything gets just read and dump at high speed and without any sense nor capacity to make sense of it, only leaving a small impression in my short memory area which afterwards I was able to remember for longer time.
Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
So is it similar to dreaming? Also, what do you mean by "sound"? Like music or actual sound from your memories?
I’ve had similar experiences. In my case it wasn’t like dreaming exactly, more like that in between state where you’re falling into a nap but still awake. Sound was kinda like being underwater, in fact recovering consciousness very much felt like surfacing into reality for lack of a better term. It was kinda cozy, definitely not an experience to be scared of.
Coziness was something I did not experience as my conscious losses were always triggered by highly stressful situations (pain, fear). For me it was extremely overwhelming, as if my brain was on overdrive.
Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)
#50I have lost consciousness several times in my life. Not a pleasurable experience specially as last time I did it because of such extreme pain that I thought I was passing away. However I have had always recollection of those seconds or minutes when I was unconscious: there was always an intense and quick succession of memories and images accompanied by sound. At some point the external sound from people trying to rea…
For contrast, when I was put under with propofol for surgery, there was nothing.
I thought I would gently fall asleep, but it was actually extremely fast. It went from "tell me about your life" which the anesthetist uses to check your state to "oh so came here for uni..." to "huh the surgery is over" in a single cut.
Nothing in between, nothing like that thing you feel when before you fall asleep at night or wake up in the morning. I felt tired when I woke up, but I didn't think I had dreamed or felt anything at all in between.