Editor’s note: The new book The Immortal Mind, by Dr. Michael Egnor and Denyse O’Leary, is now out. The following is an excerpt from Chapter 3. Even though the brain may be failing in the last days of life, some people become quite lucid, talk to visitors, and then die a few hours later. This terminal lucidity presents another challenge to the idea that the mind is simply what the brain does.

When a loved one journeys toward death and bodily resources fail, the lights may seem to be going out, one by one. But then…  they may come back on again, briefly. …

Science writer Jordan Kinard reported in Scientific American in 2023 that for decades, researchers, hospice workers, and family members have watched “with awe” as victims of dementia suddenly find their memories and personalities again, just before they die.

What Lies Beyond

Of course, historical and traditional accounts of such deathbed scenes abound. But in recent years, medical researchers have also started studying this sudden, remarkable lucidity — terminal lucidity — weeks, days, or hours before death. Is it, as a materialist might say, mere noise from a dying brain? Or is it a signal, intimating what lies beyond? One research team confirms, “It happens unexpectedly: a person long thought lost to the ravages of dementia, unable to recall the events of their lives or even recognize those closest to them, will suddenly wake up and exhibit surprisingly normal behavior, only to pass away shortly thereafter.”

Even people who might prefer to believe that terminal lucidity is just random brain noise admit that they are not sure. Science writer Jesse Bering tells us, “I’m as sworn to radical rationalism as the next neo-Darwinian materialist. That said, over the years I’ve had to ‘quarantine,’ for lack of a better word, a few anomalous personal experiences that have stubbornly defied my own logical understanding of them.” Similarly, at Discover magazine, “Neuroskeptic” offers readers a remarkable account of terminal lucidity from the early 20th century, stating, “I do not believe in miracles and this story didn’t change my mind on that score. However, unless we reject the whole story as a fiction, it is surely one of those ‘anomalies that neuroscience ought to be able to account for.’”

The Trouble with Materialism

Well, yes. Neuroscience ought to be able to account for terminal lucidity. But why should that mean reassuring the world that someday we will prove that it is just random brain noise? That’s the trouble with materialism as a foundation for neuroscience. It comes to mean an endless search for materialist explanations that don’t really fit the evidence instead of seeing what we can learn from the evidence.

Just what is happening in the human brain during bouts of terminal lucidity remains unclear. Sam Parnia is director of research into resuscitation after heart attacks at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. He notes that in one multicenter study, one in five survivors of heart stoppage reported a lucid experience. He suggests that the lucidity is triggered by a spike in brain activity due to the loss of oxygen. But he does not dismiss these experiences as mere noise:

Rather, in his view, the dying process “gives you access to parts of your brain that you normally can’t access.” As he told science media, the study — of which he is one of the authors — “found these experiences of death to be different from hallucinations, delusions, illusions, dreams, or CPR-induced consciousness.” …

Saying Goodbye

Sometimes lucidity becomes a way of saying goodbye. Australian palliative care doctor Will Cairns notes that one of his patients, dying at home, was unresponsive for two days while his son was traveling to see him. But when the son arrived, he woke up to talk with him for several hours. Then he became unresponsive again, and a few hours later he died. Cairns asks:

How many times have nurses told us at morning handover that early the previous evening one of our patients who seemed stable and had been sleeping peacefully most of the time in our palliative care center had roused themselves to an alertness not seen for ages and asked the nurses to summon their family for a meeting? After a period of conversation, the patient has gone back to sleep, and died later that night.

Modern palliative care furnishes many accounts that sound like the vast traditional literature on last words — a final communication at the point of death. The mind, sensing that the body is failing, rallies briefly for a purpose. Needless to say, such lucid episodes imply that the mind is more than the disjointed activities of a failing brain.