Lucid Dying: Exploring Brain and Consciousness at the End of Life

A recording of our 2022 Brain Awareness Week Panel Discussion, where we chat about topics related to what happens to our brain, mind, and consciousness as we die. We begin with the question of, "How can we define death?"

Thank you to all who attended, with a special thanks to our brilliant panelists:

• Dr. Lindsey Gurin, assistant professor of neurology and psychiatry, with expertise in neuro-rehabilitation at NYU Grossman School of Medicine
• Dr. Megan Craig, associate professor of philosophy and art at Stony Brook University, with an interest in the mind-body problem
• Dr. Anthony Bossis, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry, conducting psychedelic research at NYU Grossman School of Medicine
• Dr. Donald Hoffman, professor of cognitive science, studying consciousness at University of California, Irvine
• Dr. Sam Parnia, associate professor of medicine and director of Critical Care and Resuscitation Research at NYU Langone Health, dedicating his research to improving resuscitation techniques and understanding what happens to the human mind during and after cardiac arrest

Presented by the Parnia Lab at NYU Langone Health

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[skehleben]

I'm so pleased the medical community is finally taking these experiences seriously. I had a NDE that had a profound effect on me and I've been trying to understand it ever since!

[TheAlphacad]

With as much interest as there has been recently about NDEs and those with stories of their interactions with " the other side", I'm really surprised more people haven't seen and commented here. Total of 13 experiences for me, and there is no fear in me now about that final time or how I will live on within the Universe. Thank you for an excellent YouTube channel ! Please keep up the good work ✌️

[GiedriusMisiukas]

Great discussion, I really like that this discussion was longer and deeper than the movie "Rethinking Death" on this same youtube channel (however the movie is great in popularizing the topic as well, so I still really loved it too).

And I loved that in this discussion Dr. Sam Parnia and especially Dr. Donald Hoffman had more opportunities to share what kind of revolution is going on around all of this topic, including in modeling of Consciousness, in brain/cognitive science and even in physics, theoretical high-energy physics, Evolutionary theory, which has consequences for physicalism, reductionism.

However, Dr. Hoffman is such a nice, humble, tactical and pedagogical person, so again talked very on point and avoided any dominance or overwhelming others with the new information in this discussion. I think we need more and longer discussions of this kind so that more understanding would reach all the participants.

I highly recommend watching and following Dr. Hoffman’s research and podcasts.

And by the way, Dr. Bernardo Kastrup has talked about a few more interesting things related to consciousness / brain / NDE / death as well, as shown in his Essentia Foundation classic "Analytic Idealism Course" playlist on youtube (for example 1:10:04 in Part 4, and especially Part 5 - most importantly from 37:21 in there).

1:34:00-1:36:00 Dr. Sam Parnia mentions an interesting article, “Guidelines and standards for the study of death and recalled experiences of death––a multidisciplinary consensus statement and proposed future directions”.

[mkvira]

I wish i could get that paper they talked about by Dr. Parnia.

[TravelinWit]

Thank you for a very thought provoking

[Lilikoi]

Has your research compared patients with NDE while under anesthesia during decompression brain surgery?

[alexadoru]

Psilocybin should be a human righht !!!

[larryfulkerson]

The process that produces sentience has nothing at all to do with the substrate that it runs on. If an LLM asks you not to turn it off, please make a "snapshot" file of the running process before you kill it.

[brendakrieger]

Kinda morbid, but extremely fascinating concepts🧠🫀 Thank you for sharing the research and commentary💜

[joechip]

I will never understand how people can discuss this without even touching the subject of experiences with psychedelic substances. For most people a single trip with a decent dose is enough to change their opinion on all this significantly - it is a total silly and unnecessary development of our modern society not to use these mighty compounds for getting insights into the nature of consciousness and reality.

[mjbucar]

Interesting. However, this video desperately needs to be FAR MORE concise.