To what extent can science explain some mysteries of human existence, such as reports associated with near-death experiences or past lives? And is consciousness limited to brain functioning or is it far beyond matter? It’s not every day that internationally renowned neuroscientists, psychologists, biologists or philosophers come together to reflect on these topics, from a scientific perspective, but they are doing so these days, until Sunday, at the Symposium ‘Behind and Beyond the Brain’, promoted by the Bial Foundation, in Porto.
If near-death experiences finally seem to have a scientific explanation, albeit partial, the reports of thousands of children who reported exact and proven details of alleged past lives in other times and geographies, remains an enigma that science has managed to get closer to, but has not yet synthesized.
After all, we are talking about a universe that, despite being very complex and intangible, is already beginning to be measured. There are at least 2500 reported cases of children, over the last few decades, who say in detail and consistently that they lived in another body and at another time. And in more than two thousand of these cases it was possible to confirm the historical veracity of the allegationsthanks to a long-term research project carried out by the University of Virginia, in the United States, through its Department of Perceptual Studies (DOPS).
As for near-death experiences, part of the veil that has covered one of the most extraordinary experiences of human life is also beginning to be revealed. Global data indicate that “around 25% of people who have suffered a cardiac arrest report having had a near-death experience”, associated with a white light and a sensation of being out of their body, said Belgian neuroscientist Charlotte Martial, professor at the University of Liége, in an interview with DN, regarding her participation as a speaker at the symposium.
The doctor and researcher at the Belgian reference hospital for coma states, in Liége, has studied in depth the neuromechanisms associated with critical situations, such as cardiac arrests and others that lead people to intensive care.
More than half say they see ‘entities’
The researcher adds that “around 15% of patients who survive a stay in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) also report near-death experiences, whether they involve resuscitation maneuvers or not”. At the level of the general population, “what research indicates is that around 4% of the population may have experienced an equivalent experience at some point in their life”.
The most intriguing thing is that the majority (60%) of those who report having experienced those phenomena also report “encounters with entities”. Charlotte Martial says that “the experiences are quite varied, and may involve a simple sense of presence or more vivid encounters with images, or dead loved ones or entities with humanized figures”.
The researcher has conducted studies on these altered states of consciousness _ so to speak _ both in a real scenario and in ‘laboratory’ mode and the most innovative and disconcerting conclusion is that “the reported experiences are very similar in both scenarios”, she told DN.
The trial wanted to understand whether by artificially inducing critical situations in the brain similar to those that occur in a heart attack, through a hyperventilation maneuver, what memories would produce in people in a normal state. “What we verified, using a scanner, is that neuronal complexity increased, just as happens in a real scenario.”
It was thus proven “for the first time, that it is impossible to induce sensations similar to those of near-death voluntarily”. In the experiments, substances known as psychedelics were used, such as ayuaska, which are also used in serious cases of mental illness, and volunteers also reported feelings of peace or visualizing a white light, among others.
Asked if the sensations described have more to do with something that happens in the brain than with the near-death experience itself, Charlotte Martial is very pragmatic: “Yes, despite the common perception that the near-death experience occurs when the brain “shuts down” completely, scientific evidence does not support this idea. In short, when the brain is deprived of oxygen, levels increase, creating a noticeable lack of energy in brain cells. This sets off a chain reaction, making certain areas of the brain, such as those involved in perception and consciousness, such as the occipital and temporoparietal regions, much more active. The brain releases large amounts of neurotransmitters, mainly in these areas, which may play a role in the different sensations of a near-death experience, such as feeling at peace, seeing vivid images, feeling separated from the body or having strong and lasting memories.” The results of the Belgian neuroscientist’s two investigations on the topic were published in Nature Reviews Neurology (2025).
Consciousness beyond matter?
Regarding the eternal doubt of whether consciousness remains after death, Charlotte Martial considers that “the honest answer, from a strictly scientific point of view, is that we cannot conclude that it does. At the moment, we do not have the technological tools to be able to test this hypothesis, so we have to recognize this limitation”, she said. And the experiments carried out could only focus on brains in clinical and not biological death, he explains.
Neuroscientist Christof Koch, from the Allen Institute for Brain Science and former professor at MIT and Caltech, who has studied consciousness, recognizes the difficulty in reducing conscious experience to physical mechanisms and questions contemporary physics regarding the definition of what is “real”, taking into account near-death experiences or mystical states or episodes of terminal lucidity – which continue to defy a strictly scientific explanation, he says.
Koch defends the need to reconsider classical metaphysics, such as idealism or panpsychism, in light of the current scientific method, recognizing that they consider consciousness as a fundamental element of reality and not as a mere by-product of the brain. The neuroscientist is an apologist for the Integrated Information Theory, which postulates that any system with a high degree of integrated information has subjective experience – a scientific formulation of panpsychism. A central figure in the study of consciousness, Koch has developed innovative methods to detect signs of conscious activity in non-responsive patients.
Past lives
The advancement of studies on these subjects also comes up against scientific limitations when it comes to theorizing about the reports of children with memories of ‘past lives’. But that is the life mission of Jim Tucker, who is following the work started by Ian Stevenson 60 years ago at the University of Virginia in the Department of Perception Studies. Among the more than 2500 reports, there are children who describe the violent death of a stranger, who recognize old villages they have never been to, or whose statements, when verified, point to real people who have already died, without any apparent connection to their family network. Some have birthmarks compatible with injuries from their supposed “previous life”, and sometimes reports begin very early when they begin to talk, around the age of two.
Some of these reports were documented over six decades of research, under the magnifying glass of teams trying to rule out fraud, fantasy or cultural contamination.
The research data challenges conventional models of consciousness and memory. Tucker says he has no definitive answers, but advocates facing the limits of materialism, no matter how uncomfortable it may cause us. In his speech, at the symposium taking place in Porto, he explores everything from psychological and environmental mechanisms to more uncomfortable hypotheses, which go beyond what is normally taught in medical schools.
Among the Portuguese participants, Miguel Castelo Branco, neuroscientist at the University of Coimbra, is involved in applied research projects to try to capture and stimulate brain signals in people ‘trapped’ almost in a coma or in vegetative states in order to, together with robotic systems, find out if it is possible to communicate with them. “The idea is to test, for example, on people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, who cannot move, but it cannot be said that they have no mental life,” he said in statements to DN.
The researcher _ from the organizing committee of the symposium that registered 400 participants _ considers in summary that “some phenomena have a physiological explanation, others do not and others may still have one, so science should not give up searching”.
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