Scientific Proof That Your Consciousness Exists After Death

Does life, or rather consciousness, continue after death? Are we more than just our bodies and brain? If you listen to Western materialist/reductionist science, the answer is a disheartening no. Consciousness, it is believed, arises from physical processes within the brain and when we die, consciousness dies with it, and it’s anyone’s guess as to what happens next. However, the great spiritual traditions have been telling us just the opposite for millennia: “We are spiritual beings, having a human experience,” to quote Teilhard de Chardin. But you’ll have to take that promise on faith, mainstream science tells us, as there is no reliable evidence to back it up.

But as is so often the case, things are not quite as clear cut as they seem at first glance. In fact, there is quite a bit of evidence to demonstrate that indeed consciousness is not a byproduct of the brain, but rather that the brain is simply a tool of consciousness—a biocomputer, if you will—and that when the body dies, consciousness continues to exist in different forms, and, in documented cases of reincarnation, in different bodies as well.

But I don’t expect you to simply believe me because I said so. Rather, I want to present evidence, both scientific and anecdotal to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the story currently being spread by those who think that consciousness dies and disappears with the brain is at best shortsighted and, beyond that, patently false.

[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”110028″]

You Are More Than Your Body

If consciousness is a product of the brain and nothing else, then when the brain and heart stop functioning, consciousness should also cease to exist. But unfortunately the evidence we do have shows that this is most definitely not the case. In fact, there are hundreds of documented cases (and likely thousands of undocumented cases) where people who had near death experiences—that is, when their bodies were pronounced dead by trained medical professionals, often for substantial amounts of time, but later came back alive through miracle or medical intervention—were able to vividly recount what happened to them during the experience and which was later confirmed to be accurate by independent persons.

Take for example, the case of Pam Reynolds, who:

“… underwent a rare operation to remove a giant basilar artery aneurysm in her brain that threatened her life. The size and location of the aneurysm, however, precluded its safe removal using the standard neuro-surgical techniques. She was referred to a doctor who had pioneered a daring surgical procedure known as hypothermic cardiac arrest. It allowed Pam’s aneurysm to be excised with a reasonable chance of success. This operation, nicknamed “standstill” by the doctors who perform it, required that Pam’s body temperature be lowered to 60 degrees, her heartbeat and breathing stopped, her brain waves flattened, and the blood drained from her head. In everyday terms, she was put to death.

“When all of Pam’s vital signs were stopped, the doctor turned on a surgical saw and began to cut through Pam’s skull. While this was going on, Pam reported that she felt herself “pop” outside her body and hover above the operating table. Then she watched the doctors working on her lifeless body for awhile. From her out-of-body position, she observed the doctor sawing into her skull with what looked to her like an electric toothbrush. Pam heard and reported later what the nurses in the operating room had said and exactly what was happening during the operation. At this time, every monitor attached to Pam’s body registered “no life” whatsoever.

“After removing the aneurysm, she was restored to life. During the time that Pam was in standstill, she experienced a Near Death Experience. Her remarkably detailed out-of-body observations during her surgery were later verified to be true.” [1]

Another incredible example is the case of Dr. Melvin Morse and his patient Olga Gearhardt:

“Olga Gearhardt was a 63 year old woman who underwent a heart transplant because of a severe virus that attacked her heart tissue. Her entire family awaited at the hospital during the surgery, except for her son-in-law, who stayed home. The transplant was a success, but at exactly 2:15 am, her new heart stopped beating. It took the frantic transplant team three more hours to revive her. Her family was only told in the morning that her operation was a success, without other details. When they called her son-in-law with the good news, he had his own news to tell. He had already learned about the successful surgery. At exactly 2:15 am, while he was sleeping, he awoke to see Olga, his mother-in-law, at the foot of his bed. She told him not to worry, that she was going to be alright. She asked him to tell her daughter (his wife). He wrote down the message, and the time of day and then fell asleep. Later on at the hospital, Olga regained consciousness. Her first words were “did you get the message?” She was able to confirm that she left her body during her near-death experience and was able to travel to her son-in-law to communicate to him the message. This anecdotal evidence demonstrates that the near-death experience is a return to consciousness at the point of death, when the brain is dying. Dr. Melvin Morse thoroughly researched Olga’s testimony and every detail had objective verification including the scribbled note by the son-in-law.” [1]

But death is not required for consciousness to leave the body, as demonstrated by the famous case of Dr. Charles Tart and ‘Miss Z’ (whose name was changed for privacy purposes). Dr. Charles Tart is one of the world’s leading out of body experience researchers, who through a synchronous turn of events, ended up performing one of the most famous experiments of all time, demonstrating that indeed consciousness is not confined to or generated by the body or brain.

In a conversation with his children’s babysitter during the mid 1960’s, Tart learned that she had been having out of body experiences while sleeping for much of her life in which she reported that she often floated up to the ceilings of the room she was in.

Not one to miss an opportunity, a few weeks later Tart invited her to participate in a study to verify if she was indeed having true out of body experiences—or simply hallucinating as many skeptical scientists might claim.

He set up a simple experiment: He took Miss Z to his sleep lab where she would stay for four full nights, sleeping in a specially designed room equipped with medical instrumentation to monitor her brain waves, heart rhythms and other biophysiological and neurocognitive measures during sleep. Then he did something unusual that would help him to know if the out of body experiences she experienced were indeed real. Dr. Tart explains in a paper on the research:

“Each laboratory night, after the subject was lying in bed, the physiological recordings were running satisfactorily, and she was ready to go to sleep, I went into my office down the hall, opened a table of random numbers at random, threw a coin onto the table as a means of random entry into the page, and copied off the first five digits immediately above where the coin landed. These were copied with a black marking pen, in figures approximately two inches high, onto a small piece of paper. Thus they were quite discrete visually. This five-digit random number constituted the parapsychological target for the evening. I then slipped it into an opaque folder, entered the subject’s room, and slipped the piece of paper onto the shelf without at any time exposing it to the subject. This now provided a target which would be clearly visible to anyone whose eyes were located approximately six and a half feet off the floor or higher, but was otherwise not visible to the subject.” [2]

The idea goes something like this: if Miss Z was actually leaving her body while asleep and floating up to the ceiling, she should be able to accurately report the secret, random numbers Dr. Tart had written on the paper in the envelope. And on the fourth night, something amazing happened:

“On the first three laboratory nights Miss Z reported that in spite of occasionally being “out,” she had not been able to control her experiences enough to be in position to see the target number (which was different each night). On the fourth night, at 5:57am, there was a seven minute period of somewhat ambiguous EEG activity, sometimes looking like stage 1 [sleep], sometimes like brief wakings. Then Miss Z awakened and called out over the intercom that the target number was 25132.” [2]

The number Dr. Tart had randomly selected and written on the envelope was indeed 25132. There was a 1 in 100,000 chance that Miss Z could have guessed the number by accident, which is statistically highly improbable and demonstrated that indeed Miss Z had a real out of body experience. Furthermore, she had accurately confirmed that the envelope was lying down on the shelf and not upright against the wall as she had assumed it would be in her waking state.

But things get even more interesting when you consider the cases in which people who are completely blind are able to accurately report details of their environment, confirmed by non-blind witnesses, during near death and out of body experiences. World renowned psychologist and researcher Stanislav Grof elucidates:

“An extensive study conducted by Ken Ring and his colleagues has added a fascinating dimension to these observations: people who are congenitally blind for organic reasons and have never been able to see anything in their entire lives can perceive the environment when their consciousness detaches from their bodies during various life-threatening situations. The veracity of many of these visions has been confirmed by consensual validation; Ring refers to such visions as veridical OBEs (out-of-body experiences) (Ring and Valarino 1998; Ring and Cooper 1999). Various aspects of the environment accurately perceived by disembodied consciousness of blind subjects ranged from details of electrical fixtures on the ceiling of the operating room to the surroundings of the hospital observed from bird’s-eye view.” [3]

Clearly, consciousness is not limited to only existing in physical form. But what about life after death? Do religious and spiritual theories of reincarnation hold up in the face of scientific skepticism?

[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”110030″]

Proven Cases of Reincarnation and New Life After Death

For more than four decades, Ian Stevenson, a Canadian-American psychiatrist who worked at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, pioneered research into reincarnation experiences from around the globe. Some of the stories he heard and subsequently researched to verify as true prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that consciousness is able to transcend bodies intact over lifetimes.

Here are a few of the more remarkable case studies he captured:

“A typical Stevenson case was that of Swarnlata Mishra, born in a small village in Madhya Pradesh in 1948. When she was three years old she began having spontaneous past-life memories of being a girl called Biya Pathak, who lived in a village more than a hundred miles away. She described that the house Biya lived in had four rooms and was painted white.

“She began to sing songs that she claimed she used to know, together with complex dance routines that were unknown to her present family and friends. Six years later she recognized some people who had been her friends in the past life. This stimulated her father to start writing down what she said.

“Her case generated interest outside of the village. One investigator who visited the city discovered that a woman who matched the description given by Swarnlata had died nine years previously. Investigations subsequently confirmed that a young girl called Biya had lived in just such a house in that town.

“Swarnlata’s father decided to take his daughter to the town and to have her introduced to members of Biya’s family. As a test the family introduced people who were not related to the child. Swarnlata immediately identified these individuals as being imposters. Indeed some details of her past life were so precise that all were amazed.” [4]

And another:

“Another case involved an eighteen-month-old boy called Sam Taylor. As his diaper was being changed he looked up at his father and said, “When I was your age I used to change your diapers.” Later Sam disclosed details about his grandfather’s life that were completely accurate. He said that his grandfather’s sister had been murdered and that his grandmother had made milkshakes for his grandfather using a food processor. Sam’s parents were adamant that none of these subjects had been discussed in his presence. When he was four years old, Sam was shown a group of old family pictures spread out on a table. Sam happily identified his grandfather every time with the announcement, “That’s me!” In an attempt to test him, his mother selected an old school class photograph showing the grandfather as a young boy. There were sixteen other boys in the photograph. Sam immediately pointed to one of them, once again announcing that that was him. He was right.” [4]

While western science may be quick to try and write off such cases as coincidental, these cases represent a mere fraction of one percent of the volume of similar research out there. Psychologists and doctors from around the world have been documenting cases like this for hundreds of years in obscure medical and psychological journals. The sheer volume of similar reports and statistical improbability of such occurrences points to the fact that there is a whole lot more going on in our reality than meets the eye.

What’s more is that some of the implications of recent quantum mechanics research lends support to many of these experiences. Certainly the work and research of Bohm, Laszlo, Pribram, Stapp, Hameroff, Penrose, Russell and Wigner offers much in the way of explanation in this regard, and each year more and more prominent researchers and scientist are beginning to see the inextricability between consciousness and quantum/subatomic reality, where neither can exist without the other. Depending on who you ask, the only framework that makes sense and completes Einstein’s work toward a grand unified theory of everything is one in which consciousness is the cause of all reality, in which case it most certainly does not die with the body, but is the cause of it in the first place.

Either way, as science and spirituality continue to merge, it is inevitable that the true nature of reality will be revealed and reconcile the often times conflicting experiences and beliefs of these two integral fields.

Citations:

[1] Scientific Evidence Supporting Near-Death Experiences and the Afterlife, http://www.near-death.com/science/evidence.html
[2] Journal of Near Death Studies, March 30, 1997
[3] Holotropic Breathwork: A New Approach to Self-Exploration and Therapy, 2010
[4] The Immortal Mind by Ervin Laszlo

Recommended articles by Justin Faerman:

About the author:

Justin Faerman is a visionary change-agent, international speaker, serial entrepreneur and consciousness researcher dedicated to evolving global consciousness, bridging science and spirituality and spreading enlightened ideas on both an individual and societal level. He is the co-founder of Conscious Lifestyle Magazine and the Flow Consciousness Institute and a sought after teacher, known for his pioneering work in the area of flow and the mechanics of consciousness. He is largely focused on applied spirituality, which is translating abstract spiritual concepts and ideas into practical, actionable techniques for creating a deeply fulfilling, prosperous life.

Learn more at: www.flow-mastery.com and www.consciouslifestylemag.com

[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”110027″]