House M.D. on Near-Death Experiences

House (talking about himself and visions he had): "The patient was technically dead for over a minute."
Wilson: "Do you think he was dead? Do you think those experiences were real?"
House: "Define real. They were real experiences. What they meant... Personally, I choose to believe that the white light people sometimes see, visions, this patient saw: they're all just chemical reactions that take place when the brain shuts down."
Foreman: "You choose to believe that?"
House: "There's no conclusive science. My choice has no practical relevance to my life, I choose the outcome I find more comforting."
Cameron: "You find it more comforting to believe that this is it?"
House: "I find it more comforting to believe that this isn't simply a test."
~ House MD, Season 1, Episode 21


In 2005, when this episode came out, this quote was true. There was no conclusive science on what happens when the brain shuts down. In fact the "common sense" assumption was that, when the brain starts shutting down, all of the chemicals in the brain stop pumping, and consciousness starts fading out. As such it may have been fair to assume that there was no way to account for things like the "white light" or other vivid hallucinations that some people see during "Near-Death Experiences" (Hereafter, "NDE") without appealing to some deity. After all, if the brain is fizzling out and your consciousness is fading away into nothingness, how can you have a vivid, lucid, and "realer-than-real" experience?

Take, for example, Dr. Eben Alexander's book "A Proof of Heaven", in which he claims that he made a day trip to "Heaven" while in a coma. He claims: "I was a speck on a beautiful butterfly wing; millions of other butterflies around us. We were flying through... indescribably colors... arcs of silver and gold light." To which, I can only echo Bill Maher's response "That's not Heaven, that's a Lunesta commercial", but there is a point to be made here. If we assume that Dr. Alexander really did perceive (I'm not sure that it's really correct to say that he "saw" anything) what he claims to have perceived, and if our "common sense" is right, and the brain is slowing to a halt as it nears death, how do we explain books like "A Proof of Heaven" or "Heaven is For Real" or the dozens of other anecdotes that we've all heard to the same extent?


The short answer is that the "common sense" assumption is flat out wrong. We now have the one thing that Dr. House lacked in 2005: The science to back up what he already knew to be true.
In a 2013 study published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" researchers from the University of Michigan found that, when a brain is nearing death, there is a massive spike in neural activity. In fact, those areas of the brain that are associated with conscious information processing are activated at a far higher level than in normal wakefulness. In other words, when you're at death's doorstep you literally have a "heightened state of consciousness". To quote this study:

"NDE represents a biological paradox that challenges our understanding of the brain and has been advocated as evidence for life after death and for a noncorporeal basis of human consciousness, based on the unsupported belief that the brain cannot possibly be the source of highly vivid and lucid conscious experiences during clinical death. By presenting evidence of highly organized brain activity and neurophysiologic features consistent with conscious processing at near-death, we now provide a scientific framework to begin to explain the highly lucid and realer-than-real mental experiences reported by near-death survivors.

So you see, House was right. These lucid hallucinations, visions of being a speck on a butterfly's wing, are just that: hallucinations. They're not proof of a deity, or an afterlife; they're proof that your brain is a stubborn organ and it will put everything it has into a last ditch effort to get your body to come back online, and it really doesn't care that that will probably give you some pretty trippy hallucinations, because at least you might still be alive.


Bearing all of this in mind, I think House was right about one more thing: Why would we want for there to be an afterlife? Why should we waste our finite existence hoping and praying for a better one after we die? Why should we hope that this life is just some cruel test to determine where we end up after we die? Why should we devote so much time and effort into concerns about an afterlife, just so we can pretend that we'll get to see some friend or family member again once we're both dead?

The fact of the matter is that we've already seen our dead friends and family for the last time. We're not going to see them again. If I'm heartless for telling you the truth, then so be it. The truth is that we only get so much time, and if we squander it on considerations of an afterlife, we don't get any more. So stop worrying about where someone is going in an afterlife that doesn't exist. Stop trying to save people's nonexistent souls. Get out there and actually interact with people, because the immortality that your friends, family, or anyone else will ever get, is to live on in the memories of those who outlive them. And that's all the more that any of us should have the audacity to hope for.

"Be thankful that you have a life... and forsake your vain and
presumptuous desire for a second one." ~ Richard Dawkins

[End Note: Of course this study was done on animals (it's hard to find a justification for killing people just to measure their brain activity near death), but honestly if you're going to insist that findings done on animals (especially other mammals) aren't typically generalizable to humans, you are essentially attempting to invalidate all of biology and all of modern medicine. In other words: you're just plain wrong. Sure maybe some later study will call this one into question, and at that time it would be suitable to raise assorted objections, but anyone wishes to simply say "this study doesn't mean anything because humans aren't animals", then I have no kinder words for you: You're just plain wrong. That said, even if we were to pretend that NDE's are proof of some kind of afterlife, then why are so many mice going to heaven?]