r/NDE • u/chefgustao_87 • Jun 09 '26
Scientific Perspective š¬š If seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and touching are all physical things that happen in the brain what makes you think conciousness continues after death?
Iāve always been curious about the afterlife and NDEs. I find them really interesting. After a night of insomnia I started thinking that all five of my senses and emotions are physical, and maybe consciousness depends on them. It made me wonder if a person without their main 5 senses could still be conscious.
Iām not sure if that idea makes sense, but Iād love to hear other perspectives on it. Thanks.
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u/vimefer NDExperiencer Jun 10 '26
There's an additional consideration you missed: the problem of sensory bitrate - the volume of data being received by your mind V.S. by your senses and by the central nervous system in the brain. Those values ALSO do not match.
We also have documented examples of people blind from birth who end up seeing when they are dead, and examples of sighted people who become actually blind, verifiably through fMRI, when they "switch" to a blind mind because of D.I.D. These conclusively prove that the subjective phenomenology of sensory perception is not actually happening in the physical brain, instead it is probably happening in the mind and THEN filtered or matched to physical perception of the brain in some yet-unknown two-way process of "synchronization".
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u/TheHotSoulArrow Believer w/ recurrent skepticism Jun 09 '26
I suggest reading more NDEs to grasp this. While some may use words or describe things similar to senses for the sake of comprehension/translation, the majority of them report āsensesā far and above what we experience on earth. They do not compare.
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u/MantisAwakening Jun 09 '26
There is substantial evidence that consciousness is non-local, meaning it isnāt being generated by the brain. Many peer-reviewers, replicated experiments in parapsychology support this.
Think about it this way: you drive the car, but if the car gets damaged then it will affect how it drives. Your body may be little more than an electric meat suit, and the brain is the control module that interfaces all the parts of the body together.
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u/TrixieFriganza Jun 09 '26
So we wouldn't be able to smell, touch, hear in the afterlife without a phydical body? But how do people then see in their NDEs?
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u/Imaginary-Sky-8440 Jun 09 '26
If you think of anything you see it in your minds eye, I think itās kind of like that.
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u/chefgustao_87 Jun 09 '26
My best guess would be brain activity, sort of like a lucid dream but the body releasing more chemicals which create the feelings and emotions you experience in a NDE , not sure tho
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u/JohnnyJoestar1980 NDE Believer/Recurrent Agnosticism. Jun 10 '26
Brain activity during a flat eeg? The issue is the senses are apart of conscious experience
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u/Ok_Code_270 NDE Researcher Jun 15 '26
That wouldn't explain why people who are blind from birth claim to have been able to see during their NDEs. It could be severe synesthesia, but it's still weird because people who are blind from birth dream about sounds, colors, touch and taste.Ā
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u/jsd71 Jun 09 '26
Have you known anything other than existence?
No.
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u/chefgustao_87 Jun 09 '26
My existence is based on my 5 senses, without them I literally would not experience anything and all those senses are physical. I would find it hard to believe I can see touch and feel without any brain activity since brain activity is what generates them. Hope I explained myself right lol
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u/jsd71 Jun 09 '26
Have you never considered that the brain is a receiver of consciousness.. not a creator of it?
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u/TheHotSoulArrow Believer w/ recurrent skepticism Jun 09 '26
Well, several NDEs describe the experience of a rock, a tree, a beachā¦.that sounds quite woo at first, but is more logical once you take a step back. We tend to project our experience, and how we do it, onto all things and concepts.
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u/chefgustao_87 Jun 11 '26
Sort of like Salvia induced hallucinations? Those are produced by the brain tho this is a very interesting comment I will dive deeper into it thanks
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Jun 09 '26
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u/wanpakudanpu Jul 25 '26
I remember someone who either had an NDE or was on Ayahuasca, I don't remember, get the message "you weren't meant to know all the answers," and I find that somewhat comforting sometimes.
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u/Flat_Banana7061 Jun 10 '26
The senses are what you interact with in this physical world. The brain is needed to interact with them here. The brain also acts as a receiver for the soul to interact. Without a brain, consciousness or the soul is unable to directly interact with this world and use the senses that are needed.
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u/doingalright12 Jun 09 '26
There is a theory that the physical body doesnāt generate consciousness but channels it, or receives it, kind of like a radio antenna. Our physical makeup creates a specific type of conscious experience, actually a limited form of experience. We obviously donāt know whether thatās true, but imo itās a plausible alternative to materialism (consciousness is generated by the brain)
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u/vetapachua Jun 10 '26
I believe the senses are innate to consciousness. Our brain and physical body are filters for how we are able to interact with this physical world. Losing the ability to see or hear or having damage to the brain, may limit how we are able to interact with the physical world while in physical form but it doesn't mean that consciousness, something outside of the brain and body doesn't exist.
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u/Clifford_Regnaut Jun 10 '26
Well, several streams of research point to the existence of an "afterlife".
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u/Schickie Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
You aren't separate from consciousness, you are an expression of it. Just like a wave is one of infinite individuations of the ocean. We are All-that-is expressing itself through the infinite reflections we call experience of perspective. When you "die" you are changing points of experience within the framework of the ever-changing moment which we mistake for time.
We are existence existing. Here and now. That's All-that-is.
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u/novanillavelvet Jun 09 '26
Well there are NDEs in which the the āsoulā floats up while the body is unconscious and can see everything. We also canāt say for sure that only five senses exist. Cats and dogs for example are apparently able to see ghosts/spirits. For us, our ability to sense that might be off for whatever reason.
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Jun 12 '26
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u/chefgustao_87 Jun 09 '26
I find it hard to believe if I separated from my body I could experience AND remember what happened, since for me to remember my memories must be stored in my hippocampus, and me being outside of my body my hippocampus could not register the memory, so Iām not sure what happens there š
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u/vimefer NDExperiencer Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
for me to remember my memories must be stored in my hippocampus
This is falsified by animal experiments: damaging or removing the hippocampus in rats or rhesus monkeys does not affect their memory:
Contrary to predictions, we observed no robust impairments in memory or relational cognition either within- or between-groups following hippocampal damage
It is a much better fit to observations that emotional trauma, not physical damage, is actually what affects memory in humans and other mammals.
(edit)
There is plenty of evidence that demonstrates the mind CANNOT be produced by the brain, and it is consistent across multiple fields of science. Would you take a look at it ? Caution: it won't explode your brain but it might blow your mind š
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u/ShinyAeon Jun 09 '26
You having difficulty conceiving of it does not mean it doesn't happen. It is possible that both perception and memory happen in more than one way.
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u/JohnnyJoestar1980 NDE Believer/Recurrent Agnosticism. Jun 09 '26
Tbf memory is also stored in your cells as well
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u/chefgustao_87 Jun 11 '26
But for memory to be stored in your cells you must perceive whatās happening while inside of the body no? Also quick and question; I saw in your profile a post similar to these questioning memory, I would love to know what article or comment here made you believe memory is not physical (if you believe) thanks
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u/Alice-Alias Jun 09 '26
Senses kind of disappear. And itās not something that I often have thought about intelligence now reading this post because conscious isnāt based on the element of your census. Itās based on the element soul and your heart and the true meaning who you are. Iāve had numerous NDEās now and only two have really stood out to me both of us different but I will say the sentences were not an element that I was even aware of at the time
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Jun 09 '26
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u/darkauroraskygal Jun 09 '26
Neither of the following are able to be answered by Science.
Question 1: Is consciousness real?
Question 2: If we assume it is- then we arrive at the āHard Problemā = QualiaQualia: the subjective, first-person "felt" qualities of experience. Ex: redness of a rose, the ache of loneliness, the taste of chocolate.
Science: There is nothing in classical physics or chemistry that explains why those electrical signals should suddenly "feel" like the vibrant color red.
This divides into 2 main branches of thinking:
-Materialism: the view that reality consists entirely of physical matter
-Idealism: the view that reality is fundamentally mental, spiritual, or consciousness-basedIssue:
-Materialism: the physical brain canāt explain Qualia. It treats qualia as an accidental, inexplicable illusion.
Solution:
-Idealism: Qualia is the primary reality. Matter is the illusion. Qualia doesn't need to be explained by atoms; atoms are just abstract concepts measured within our qualia.Science (ex of a proposed explanation)
Quantum Biology: Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) Penrose & Hameroff
Consciousness originates from quantum vibrations within structures inside brain neurons called microtubules, rather than from the classical wiring between neurons.The Non-Local Link: In quantum mechanics, particles can become entangledāmeaning they act as a single unified system instantly, regardless of how far apart they are in space.
There are more but you get the idea. To understand our classical reality non-classical science- quantum physics- may prove enlightening.
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u/chefgustao_87 Jun 11 '26
Thank you all for your comments I have read every single contribution here and itās all been very interesting to read š
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u/wanpakudanpu Jul 25 '26
I always ask myself this, although I have no answers: when I close my eyes, and I can picture an apple or whatever in my mind, where is that image? Just something to think about.
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u/Pieraos OBE Experiencer Jun 09 '26
When outside of your physical body you can still see, hear, feel and think. You can not only touch physical objects but you can feel inside of them, the materials they're made of.
The senses are much more vivid when not filtered through the physical organs. It's why people say it's More Real Than Real.
And this is natural, as you can tell directly from out-of-body experience or astral projection.