What occurs once we die?
I’ve at all times been a chilly, onerous materialist on this one: the mind shuts down, consciousness fades away, and the lights exit. And past that, what else is there to say? I had no expertise of life earlier than I used to be born and I anticipate to haven’t any expertise of life after I die.
As finest I can inform, that’s essentially the most affordable assumption we are able to make about dying. However “most affordable” doesn’t imply “undoubtedly true.” The life-after-death query is likely one of the oldest we’ve and there are all types of theories about how consciousness, in some kind or one other, would possibly survive the dying of the physique. Nonetheless unlikely these potentialities may be (and I do assume they’re unlikely), they’re not unimaginable. So how significantly ought to we take them?
Sebastian Junger is a former conflict reporter, a documentarian, and the writer of a number of books, together with his most up-to-date In My Time of Dying. Just a few years in the past, Junger got here as shut as you probably can to dying. Whereas his docs struggled to revive him, he skilled issues that rattled his understanding of actuality and that left him with profound questions and surprising revelations.
So I invited Junger on The Grey Space to speak about what it’s wish to nearly die and what he’s come to imagine about life and dying. As at all times, there’s way more within the full podcast, so hearken to and comply with The Grey Space on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you discover podcasts. New episodes drop each Monday.
This dialog has been edited for size and readability.
What occurred on the day you nearly died?
I used to be 58 years outdated. It was 4 years in the past. I have been a lifelong athlete. My well being is superb, so it by no means occurred to me that I’d have a sudden medical situation that will ship me to the ER or kill me. I had no ideas like that about myself.
One afternoon, it was throughout Covid, my household and I have been residing in a home within the woods in Massachusetts that had no cellphone protection. It is on the finish of a dead-end dust street. On the property is a cabin, no electrical energy or something like that.
We went on the market to spend a few hours and mid-sentence I felt this bolt of ache in my stomach and I could not make it go away. I form of twisted and turned. I assumed it was indigestion, and I stood up and nearly fell over. So I sat again down and I mentioned to my spouse, “I’ll need assistance. I do not know what’s incorrect. I’ve by no means felt something like this.”
What was occurring, I later came upon, was that I had an undiagnosed aneurysm in my pancreatic artery, one among a number of arteries that goes to the pancreas, and one among them had a bulge in it from a weak spot. And aneurysms are widow-makers. I imply, they’re actually, actually lethal, notably within the stomach, as a result of it is onerous for the docs to search out them.
When you’re stabbed within the abdomen and an artery is severed, the docs form of know the place to place their finger, because it have been, to plug the leak, but when it is simply inside hemorrhage, your stomach is principally a giant bowl of spaghetti. It is very, very onerous to search out it.
So I used to be shedding in all probability a pint of blood each 10 or quarter-hour, and there is like 10 pints within the human physique, 10 or 12 pints, so you are able to do the maths. And I used to be a one-hour drive from the closest hospital. I used to be a human hourglass, principally.
What was the survival fee on your situation that day?
The survival fee is as little as 30 %, however I assume that that is for an inexpensive transport time to the hospital. It took me 90 minutes to get to a physician. My survival possibilities have been extraordinarily low.
So that you’re within the hospital and there is a second when the surgeons and the nurses are engaged on you and so they’re in your proper aspect, after which in your left aspect there’s this pit of blackness and your father, who I believe has been lifeless eight years at this level, abruptly seems. What occurs subsequent?
The physician was busy making an attempt to place a large-gauge needle into my jugular vein by means of my neck. They numb you with lidocaine, so really I did not really feel a lot besides the stress. However at any fee, they have been engaged on that and it appeared to take a very long time and abruptly this black pit opened up beneath me and it felt as if I used to be getting pulled into it.
You’ll be able to consider me as extraordinarily drunk. I’m like, “Whoa, what’s that?” It did not happen to me {that a} black pit abruptly showing is senseless. I used to be identical to, “Oh, there’s the pit. “Why am I getting pulled into it?”
I did not know I used to be dying, however I form of had this animal sense that you do not need to go into the infinitely black pit that simply opened up beneath you, that is only a dangerous concept. And for those who get sucked in there, you are in all probability not coming again. That was the sensation I had about it.
I began to panic and that is when my lifeless father appeared above me on this vitality kind. It’s onerous to explain. I can not describe what it was like. I simply perceived him. It is not like there was a poster board of him floating above me. It wasn’t fairly that tangible. He was speaking this unimaginable benevolence and love. He is like, “Hear, you do not have to battle it. You’ll be able to include me. I am going to handle you. It is going to be okay.”
I used to be horrified. I used to be like, “Go together with you? You are lifeless. I am not going anyplace with you. What are you speaking about? Get out of right here!” I imply, I used to be horrified. And I mentioned to the physician, as a result of I used to be conversant, “You bought to rush. You are shedding me. I am going proper now.” And I did not know the place I used to be going, nevertheless it was very clear I used to be headed out, and I didn’t need to go.
If you say speaking, what does that basically imply?
I did not hear phrases, however I suppose you would need to classify the communication as telepathic, and it was very particular. It was, “You do not have to battle this. I am right here. I am going to handle you. You’ll be able to include me.” Once more, I’m a rationalist, however I’m a rationalist with questions. I wished to know what that was. Was it simply neurochemistry?
Once I wakened the subsequent morning within the ICU, I used to be in plenty of misery and the nurse got here in and mentioned, “Wow, congratulations, Mr. Junger, you made it. We nearly misplaced you final night time. You nearly died.” And when she mentioned that, that is once I remembered my father. I used to be like, “Oh my God, I noticed my father, and I noticed the pit,” and all of it got here speeding again to me
The expertise you had is just not all that unusual. This type of factor will get lumped underneath the umbrella of “near-death experiences.” At this level, does science have a agency grasp on what’s occurring right here?
Sure and no. I imply, there was a case the place a person was dying. I believe he’d had a stroke and so they had electrodes connected to his cranium to sign totally different mind exercise to know methods to deal with him. And he handed some level of no return and the physician mentioned, “It is okay, you possibly can flip the machines off,” principally, however the sensors have been nonetheless in place on his cranium. So that they had the possibility to observe what was occurring to the mind waves in actual time as an individual died.
What they discovered was that within the 30 seconds earlier than and after the second of dying — and naturally dying is not simply confined to a single second, it is a spectrum — there was a surge in mind exercise associated to dreaming and reminiscences and every kind of different issues.
So one of many issues which may occur when individuals die is that they expertise this flood of sensations from their life. Why would they? Who is aware of? It is onerous to give you this Darwinian purpose for why this may be adaptive when an individual’s dying. It is not a query of survival and procreation, and Darwinism is just not involved with emotional consolation. It simply would not matter within the Darwinian arithmetic, so it is onerous to know what to make of it.
One of many medical paradoxes right here is that people who find themselves dying expertise near-total mind operate collapse, and but their consciousness appears to crystallize, which appears unimaginable on its face. Do scientists have a proof for this? Is it even a paradox in any respect, or does it simply appear that method?
I do not assume anybody is aware of. Finally, nobody even is aware of if what we understand throughout life is true. I imply, it is identified on the quantum stage that observing a particle, a subatomic particle, modifications its conduct. And naturally, if you observe one thing, it is a completely passive act. You are not bombarding it with one thing. You are simply watching.
If a photon is distributed by means of two slits and an impassable barrier, and it is unobserved by a aware thoughts, it is going to undergo each slits concurrently. And when you observe, it is pressured to select one slit. In order the early physicists mentioned, commentary creates the fact that is being noticed, after which the snake begins to swallow its tail.
Science is nice and we are able to map the neurochemical modifications and I’m certain we may give a purely materialist rationalization for them, however do you assume it is sensible to go away it there or do you assume there’s one thing simply inherently mysterious about this that we’ll by no means fairly perceive?
At one level, somebody mentioned to me, “You could not clarify what occurred to you in rational phrases. Why did not you flip to mystical phrases?” And I mentioned, “As a result of rational phrases is what a proof is.” The choice is a narrative, and people use tales to consolation themselves about issues they cannot clarify. I do not select to make use of the God story or the afterlife story to consolation myself in regards to the unexplainable, which is what is going on to occur once I die.
However there may be one factor that basically stood out to me. I purchased all of the neurochemical explanations. I purchased the hard-boiled rationalist rationalization that we’re purely organic beings once we die and that’s it and that the flurry of experiences that dying individuals have is simply the dying mind frantically bombarding us with indicators like, “What is going on on? Cease. Cease, cease, cease!” Besides there’s one factor I don’t perceive.
When you give a roomful of individuals LSD, we all know that one hundred pc of these individuals may have hallucinations. We all know why. We all know how that works. There is no thriller there. You do not want God to elucidate that, however they’re going to all hallucinate various things. And what’s unusual about dying is that solely the dying appear to see the lifeless. They do this in societies all around the globe and have for ages. And the individuals who aren’t dying don’t see the lifeless. And infrequently, the lifeless are unwelcome and so they’re a shock. It is not some reassuring imaginative and prescient of Aunt Betty.
It’s extra like, “Dad, what are you doing right here?” Or my mom, as she died, she noticed her lifeless brother, who she was not on talking phrases with. When she noticed him, she was horrified. She was like, “What’s he doing right here?” And I mentioned, “Mother, it is your brother, George. You must be good to him. He is come a protracted method to see you.” She simply frowned and mentioned, “We’ll see about that.” She died a day later.
So it isn’t like these are comforting visions, and the truth that solely the dying see the lifeless is the one factor that science cannot fairly clarify. It is the one factor that basically does make me marvel if perhaps we do not perceive every little thing in scientific phrases. Possibly there’s something lacking right here that could be very important about how actuality works, how life and dying work, what consciousness is, and in the end what the universe is.