No, Near-Death Experiences Are Not Dreams

 We have a new paper trying to explain near-death experiences, one entitled "The dying-moment dream hypothesis: heaven and hell as the brain’s final dream." The explanation is one that makes no sense: that near-death experiences are a dream. Anyone who has carefully studied near-death experiences may well realize the main reason why the hypothesis makes no sense. That reason is that dreams are kind of shadowy experiences much weaker and fainter than ordinary waking reality, but near-death experiences are routinely reported as very vivid experiences that are reported as being realer than normal life. 

The paper has two of the main tendencies of almost all papers trying to explain away near-death experiences: (1) a citation of irrelevant papers, while repeating untrue claims about such papers; (2) a failure to pay any attention to the most important fact about brain performance during cardiac arrest, which is that brains very quickly flatline within 10 to 30 seconds after the heart stops. 

Below are some of the irrelevant papers cited by "the dying-moment dream hypothesis" paper:

Irrelevant Papers Cited by Those Trying to Give Brain Explanations for Near-Death Experiences, Most Having Misleading Titles
"Surge of neurophysiological coherence and connectivity in the dying brain"	This 2013 paper co-authored by Borjigin had a misleading title. Rats were given a chemical causing their heart to stop. The paper failed to show any such "coherence" or "connectivity," but merely showed a very quick flatlining of the brain waves of the rats, occurring within a few seconds after their hearts stopped. In this context it is not honest to describe a momentary blip as a "surge." A 2017 paper was "Electroencephalographic Recordings During Withdrawal of Life-Sustaining Therapy Until 30 Minutes After Declaration of Death." That 2017 paper studied the brain waves of four humans who died in Ontario, Canada after their hearts stopped. These were patients different from the four Michigan, USA patients whose deaths were documented in the 2023 Borjigin paper described below.  Referring to the 2013 paper co-authored by Borjigin, the 2017 paper stated, "We also did not observe any well-defined EEG states following the early cardiac arrest period as previously reported in rats." Of course -- brain electrical activity stops when the heart stops, or only a few seconds later. The paper points out that "one must be careful about false positive EEG signals from muscular and/or cardiac sources."  Motion and muscle activity shows up on EEG readouts, producing what are called motion artifacts. An involuntary muscle twitch (or a movement by a medical person of part of an unconscious body) a few seconds after death may show up as a blip on an EEG reading. A year 2025 scientific paper ("Near-death experience during cardiac arrest and consciousness beyond the brain: a narrative review") states this: "In the context of circulatory arrest, cortical electrical waves in the alpha (8-13Hz) and beta (13-30Hz) bands disappear after an average of 6.5 seconds, while at the same time, the background activity of EEG is replaced by slow waves at delta frequency (<4Hz), which progressively attenuate and lead to a flat EEG recording with no measurable electrical wave pattern around 10-30 seconds—a neural process called isoelectricity or electrocerebral silence (Clute & Levy, 1990; de Vries et  al., 1998; Singer et  al., 1991; Smith et  al., 1990; van Lommel, 2023, p. 28; Visser et  al., 2001; Vriens et  al., 1996). Furthermore, in monkeys and cats, the EEG becomes isoelectric within 20 seconds of the cessation of cerebral blood flow (Hossmann & Kleihues, 1973). The EEG results suggest that cortical electrical activity critical for consciousness, namely alpha and beta activity reflecting top-down connectivity, is eliminated within an average of 6.5 seconds following CA [cardiac arrest]."
"Surge of neurophysiological coupling and connectivity of gamma oscillations in the dying human brain."	Here we have another misleading use of the word "surge" in a 2023 science paper title, a paper co-authored by Borjigin. The paper merely describes a little brain activity in two people after a respirator was turned off, with no evidence of brain activity continuing for more than a few seconds after the heart has stopped. The lines on brain waves charts go up and down, and there are seven or so channels of brain waves (including a gamma channel); so at any second you can usually find some little line going up and call that a "surge," although at the same time other lines (representing other brain wave channels) will probably be going down. Using the term "surge" in the title of the paper was misleading, rather like  tracking the price of Microsoft, seeing it go up 2% at 2:00, and calling that a surge. Almost any random ten seconds of brain wave activity can be statistically analyzed to show a little "surge" somewhere, if you're willing to dredge up secondary statistical measures.  In this context it is not honest to describe a momentary blip as a "surge. Shamefully, the journal Science has an article on this paper with the misleading headline "Burst of brain activity during dying could explain life passing before your eyes"; and the Smithsonian site has an equally misleading click-bait headline of "Surging Brain Activity in Dying People May Be a Sign of Near-Death Experiences." There is no evidence that either of these two people had an experience of "life passing before their eyes" or anything like near-death experiences. The subjects were unconscious when the respirator was turned off, and there is no evidence of any consciousness. Unconscious people have gamma wave activity (the activity reported), and you have plenty of gamma activity while you are sleeping. No "neural correlates of the NDE" were reported by the paper. As two MDs point out in a commentary on this paper, "The researchers reported no evidence whatsoever that these brain activities were correlated with conscious experiences in those two patients—and no reason to compare these results with prospective NDE studies in patients who have survived a cardiac arrest." For a discussion of the misleading statements made by Borjigin and others writing about this study, see my post here.
"Asphyxia-activated corticocardiac signaling accelerates onset of cardiac arrest,"	A 2015 paper co-authored by Borjigin, and sometimes cited as evidence that there is a "surge of chemicals" in dying brains, something relevant to explaining near-death experiences. The main reason that the study is not reliable experimental science is that it uses a way-too-small study group size of only 7 rodents. To be robust evidence, experimental studies attempting to show the effects of interventions in rodents require a sample size of at least 15 or 20 rodents per study group, and almost always a much larger number of rodents. When such experimental studies use only much smaller study group sizes such as 7 rodents per study group, they in general deserve only scorn, particularly when they are guilty of two failures this paper was guilty of: a failure to follow a blinding protocol, and a failure to report a sample size calculation (which typically occurs when experimenters know the study group sizes are way too small).  Another reason why this paper is not reliable evidence for any surge of chemicals in dying rodents is that it was attempting to do something that could not reliably be done in 2015: to track changes in levels of brain chemicals existing in only the tiniest trace amounts, over a time period of a few minutes. There did not exist in 2015 any technology capable of reliably tracking such chemicals over so short a time span. The relevant graph in the paper is Figure 4. There we see a graph purporting to track some brain chemicals existing at levels of only about 20 nanomoles. That's an incredibly tiny amount. In 2015 there did not exist any technology capable of reliably tracking changes in brain chemicals existing in such tiny amounts, over the span of a few minutes.  The authors state, "To probe the neurochemical basis of the heightened cortical activities, we performed minute-by-minute microdialysis in the frontal and occipital lobes of unanesthetized rats (n = 7) before and during asphyxiation and analyzed cortical dialysates using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)." In 2015 that was not a reliable technology for tracking changes in minute traces of neurotransmitters in rodents over a period of a few minutes, particularly when using a way-too-small study group size such as only 7 rodents.  None of the supposedly increasing chemicals listed in this 2015 paper are hallucinogens, so it makes no sense for the press to be claiming the paper has a relevance to explaining near-death experiences.  The 2015 paper mentioned above entitled "Asphyxia-activated corticocardiac signaling accelerates onset of cardiac arrest" claimed to use a technology called liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). In 2015 there did not exist any technology for reliably tracking changes over a few minutes in neurotransmitters such as serotonin existing in only the tiniest trace amounts such as a  few nanomoles.  The pitfalls of this LC-MS technology are discussed in the 2012 paper here ("Pitfalls Associated with the Use of Liquid Chromatography–Tandem Mass Spectrometry in the Clinical Laboratory"), which states this: "However, application of this technology is not automatically or necessarily translated into accurate results. Its pitfalls have to be recognized and must be addressed systematically. In particular interferences from in-source transformation of metabolites, differential matrix effects of analyte and internal standard and isobaric transitions can lead to inaccurate results of LC-MS/MS analyses." The "Asphyxia-activated corticocardiac signaling accelerates onset of cardiac arrest" reports increases in dopamine and serotonin at death. But even if such things occur, they cannot explain near-death experiences.  The paper "Effects of dopamine in man" describes an experiment in which authorities gave 13 subjects a 1% infusion of dopamine, which is enough to cause levels of dopamine to increase by very many times. The paper makes no mention of any hallucinations produced, nor does it mention any mental effects. The paper here involved experiments that increased by very many times (between 100 times and 1000 times, in other words 10000% to 100000%)  the serotonin levels in human volunteers, by infusions of serotonin. No hallucinations were reported.
"Enhanced Interplay of Neuronal Coherence and Coupling in the Dying Human Brain"	This paper with a misleading title reported on some EEG readings of a silent dying patient.  The press tried to make the paper sound as if it had some relevance to near-death experiences, which was ridiculous, because the silent dying patient reported no experience at all. The paper had a misleading title, because no actual "coherence" was observed in the dying patient.  The paper here casts cold water on the "Enhanced Interplay of Neuronal Coherence and Coupling in the Dying Human Brain" paper discussed above, implying that whatever it observed may have been an artifact of muscle movement, which produces confounding signals in EEG readings.

The author of the "dying-moment dream hypothesis" paper fails to inform his readers of the most essential relevant fact related to a discussion of potential brain explanations for near-death experiences: the fact that within 10 to 30 seconds, brains flatline after the heart stops. Any decent explanation of that reality would use the words "isoelectric" and "flatline" in an explanatory way, discussing facts like those discussed in the appendix of this post. But the author's only use of that word "isoelectric" is in a discussion of some hypothetical reality;  and his only use of the word "flatline" is one failing to explain how brains flatline within seconds after cardiac arrest. 

The fact that the brain shuts down electrically very quickly after the heart stops (becoming isoelectric, flatlining within 10 to 30 seconds) is a fact ruling out anything like dreams as an explanation for near-death experience.  The author of the "dying-moment dream hypothesis" paper conveniently fails to tell us this fact. His description of the performance of brains during cardiac arrest is extremely misleading. Instead he repeats the opposite-of-the-truth "surge" claims made in the papers stated above, none of which showed any such thing, with nothing other than the briefest of blips being reported. 

The author of the "dying-moment dream hypothesis" is making statements that have no basis in fact when he states things such as "When the brain is completely decoupled from external sensory constraints, it initiates a profound top-down projection of its own internal architecture—relying exclusively on memory and affective priors to generate a highly structured, closed-loop internal simulation." The author makes quite a few assertions about dreams that are not well-founded. 

Nothing that we know about the content of dreams gives any support to the idea that near-death experiences are some kind of dream. People almost never have dreams in which they are floating above their bodies viewing them from above (a common report in near-death experiences). People almost never have dreams in which they are traveling through a tunnel, seeing a Being of light (a common report in near-death experiences). People don't have dreams in which they are reviewing all of the events of their life (a common report in near-death experiences). While people commonly have dreams about deceased relatives, such dreams almost invariably involve such relatives existing here on Earth. People almost never have dreams in which they view some other realm of existence and see a deceased relative.

I have been carefully recording my dreams for years. My post "I Keep Dreaming of Danger, Death, the Deceased and Life After Death" (which I have updating almost every week, for years) is one of the most extensive records of a single person's dream experiences ever published, consisting of well over 500 dream descriptions.  While the dreams I have had very frequently involve the deceased and very frequently seem to symbolize the idea of life after death, there has been very little match between the content of my dreams and the content of near-death experiences.  Excluding dreams about subway tunnels and other earthly tunnels, I seem to have never or almost never had a dream matching the common report in near-death experiences of being propelled through a tunnel. I have never had a dream of encountering some mysterious or mystical Being of light. I have never or almost never had any dream of encountering a deceased person in some unearthly realm or heavenly realm. 

Dream content is something very different from near-death experiences. Near-death experiences have a high repetition of a small number of motifs,  motifs that very rarely appear in dream content. The content of dreams is enormously more diverse and varied than the content of near-death experiences.  And dreams are shadowy, faint experiences, unlike the "realer than life" experiences so often reported in accounts of near-death experiences. 

Appendix:  The term "isoelectric" or iso-electric in reference to brain waves means a flat-lining equivalent to no electrical activity in the brain, as measured by EEG readings. The paper here states, "Within 10 to 40 seconds after circulatory arrest the EEG becomes iso-electric." Figure 1 of the paper here says that such an isoelectric flat-lining occurred within 26 seconds after the start of ventricular fibrillation, the "V-fib" that is a common cause of sudden cardiac death, with "cortical activity absent." Also referring to a flat-lining of brain waves meaning a stopping of brain electrical activity, another scientific paper says, "several studies have shown that EEG becomes isoelectric within 15 s [seconds] after ischemia [heart stopping] without a significant decrease in ATP level (Naritomi et al., 1988; Alger et al., 1989)."  

Similarly, another paper refers to blood pressure, and tells us, "When flow is below 20 mL/100 g/min (60% below normal), EEG becomes isoelectric." meaning that brain electrical activity flat-lines. The 85-page "Cerebral Protection" document here states, "During cardiac arrest, the EEG becomes isoelectric within 20-30 sec and this persists for several minutes after resuscitation." Another scientific paper states this, again using the word "isoelectric" to refer to flatlining of brain waves: 

"Of importance, during cardiac arrest, chest compliance is not confounded by muscle activity. The EEG becomes isoelectric within 15 to 20 seconds, and the patient becomes flaccid (Clark, 1992; Bang, 2003)."

A recent scientific paper referring to EEG readings of brain waves states this: 

"The trajectory of EEG activity following cardiac arrest is both well defined and simple. It consists of an almost immediate decline in EEG power, which culminates in a state of isoelectricity [flatlining] within 20 s [seconds]." 

A year 2025 scientific paper ("Near-death experience during cardiac arrest and consciousness beyond the brain: a narrative review") states this:

"In the context of circulatory arrest, cortical electrical waves in the alpha (8-13Hz) and beta (13-30Hz) bands disappear after an average of 6.5 seconds, while at the same time, the background activity of EEG is replaced by slow waves at delta frequency (<4Hz), which progressively attenuate and lead to a flat EEG recording with no measurable electrical wave pattern around 10-30 seconds—a neural process called isoelectricity or electrocerebral silence (Clute & Levy, 1990; de Vries et  al., 1998; Singer et  al., 1991; Smith et  al., 1990; van Lommel, 2023, p. 28; Visser et  al., 2001; Vriens et  al., 1996). Furthermore, in monkeys and cats, the EEG becomes isoelectric within 20 seconds of the cessation of cerebral blood flow (Hossmann & Kleihues, 1973). The EEG results suggest that cortical electrical activity critical for consciousness, namely alpha and beta activity reflecting top-down connectivity, is eliminated within an average of 6.5 seconds following CA [cardiac arrest]."

You can find quite a few additional papers asserting that brains flat-line very quickly after cardiac arrest by doing Google or Google Scholar searches for the phrase "EEG becomes isoelectric" or "EEG becomes iso-electric."