Her mind was alive when her brain was "dead"

In the previous post, neurosurgeon Allan J. Hamilton described brain surgery on a woman who despite a flat line EEG remembered much of what was said during her operation. Hamilton and other members of the medical team agreed that was impossible, but nonetheless true. Hamilton writes . . .

“We would have to come up with some new explanations. One theory held that her brain — and the conscious mind it produced — went somewhere else, beyond its own physical and physiological confines. Out into the cosmos. The notion that conscious awareness — something generated by and of each brain — could have life (so to speak) independent from the brain itself is a baffling idea. To us, as physicians, at least. Maybe not to Tibetan Buddhists or others who believe in reincarnation.

“Another notion, just as radical as the first, was advanced by a group of researchers. Their idea was that the memories of the conversation in the OR could survive intact as discrete quanta of energy. This is similar in concept to rays of light from stars, lying far beyond our own galaxy, reaching us here on Earth. The light we perceive tonight was actually sent millions of years ago in the past. In fact, the star whose light reaches our retinas today may have actually extinguished itself long ago. The quanta of light we perceive exist independently from the star.

“In a similar fashion, once the quanta — the packets of ‘memory energy’ — came into existence, they might become independent of any brain’s ability to remember them. Later, supposedly, these quanta could somehow be available to reenter the brain. So just as the light waves we see today in our telescopes came into being millions of years ago in a distant star, memories could persist independently in the cosmos until the individual’s brain was ready and able to ‘experience’ them.

“Imagine, for a moment, the implications of the notion that quanta of conscious energy could exist independently in the Universe, able to enter from anywhere, at any time. Maybe they might even go into someone else’s brain that was not even present, where the memories were never intended to reside. And, if intended, by whom? Could an unconscious or ‘brain-dead’ patient exert an intention? All of this also was leading us into unfamiliar territory, where theoretical physics merged with the realms of consciousness. Were our notions of being alive and aware now intermingled with quantum mechanics and the stars themselves?

“No matter how we sought to explain it, this woman’s experience seemed to indicate that the mind, the essential repository of consciousness, could somehow be induced to separate from the very brain that created it. That it could live without neuronal support of any kind. Maybe her ‘deathlike state’ was a prerequisite condition.

“We began our inquiry with a vague, scientific curiosity. We felt confident we’d find a plausible explanation that would make this seeming mystery disappear. We began by eliminating the obvious explanations. For example, we needed to be absolutely sure that no one — including the patient herself — could have heard about the conversation in the operating room secondhand or third hand from someone else. As the more rational explanations faded away one by one, we began to wonder if maybe we had encountered something unique. Wondrous even.

“Were we holding solid, convincing evidence that consciousness could exist wholly separate from the brain? Perhaps even generated outside the central nervous system rather than being its by-product? None of us — scientists or physicians — could ever have imagined that one day we might be close to a vindication of individual awareness beyond the brain. In fact, this particular patient’s consciousness seemed to thrive despite substantial evidence that her brain was concurrently dead, incapable of generating a single electrical impulse.

“We met again with the patient. Her name was Sarah Gideon, a petite brunette with . . . two children, both boys, ages five and eight. With both kids now in school, Sarah had just started working as a receptionist for a leading architectural firm in Phoenix. Her favorite pastime was quilting — something she often did with her mother and sister. She was Catholic and had attended a religiously oriented school run by the Carmelite Sisters. She went to church services but not as much as I should, she added. But I do for, like, the holy days. Around Easter, Palm Sunday, Christmas, or Christmas Eve. She told me she prayed every night before going to bed but rarely read the Bible outside of Church.

Have you ever had an out-of-body experience before? I asked.

Is that what happened to me?

No, no. I don’t know. None of us really do, I stammered.

Is there something wrong with me? With my brain?

No. Not at all. It’s just when you came up to the ICU, you recalled so much of the conversation from the operating room. That’s, well, that’s never happened. It’s not supposed to under circumstances like the conditions of your surgery. Do you have any recollection of being in the operating room? Or looking down from above? Maybe of seeing yourself on the operating table? I asked.

No, she answered, almost brusquely. I’m sorry. I don’t remember anything. Just what I heard.

What do you imagine, I asked, say, about the woman you heard discussing her engagement? What do you think she might look like?

Sarah looked down at the nurse’s call light button in her hand. A look of sadness came across her face. I imagine, Sarah confessed, she’s blonde. About five foot six. Petite. Wearing a surgical mask and hat.

What color eyes?

Blue. She concentrated on the call light. Like she might have to call for help.

Does the hat on her head look like a large surgical hat? Pulled over her head like a shower cap?

Yes, I think so.

How do you know she’s blonde? Which she is, by the way.

She closed her eyes. Because I think there was a curl of blond hair showing. Sticking out. Like it had fallen out. Onto her forehead.

“As I quizzed her for further details, it was obvious she had an image of everyone in the operating room. There were so many little facets that she knew. For example, she was able to tell me exactly where the heart-lung bypass was located in the suite. Yet it had only been brought in after she was under general anesthesia for more than two hours. In other words, she could not have seen the machine before surgery began. Sarah also knew the pump technician had a beard. She told me the second scrub nurse was African-American and very tall. In fact, she was over six feet tall.

“What emerged from the conversations I had with Sarah over the next two days was that she was aware of the room, those in it, and their conversations. Her consciousness was present in the operating theater even though it was not supported in any way by her brain.

“So what do we, in the field of medicine, do with unsettling disturbances, the supernatural ripples? Ignore them? Ban their discussion? Or declare them simply to be a puzzling mixture of science and spirit? Can we not, as doctors, allow ourselves to entertain the possibility that the supernatural, the divine, and the magical may all underlie our physical world? Would we not be the richer for just challenging our imaginations? Don’t we owe it to those who come after us to at least raise the questions? Can we not admit we yearn to glimpse the mystery of the spirit?

“To satisfy myself, I took a copy of the EEG and showed it to two more colleagues in Neurology who routinely read EEG printouts for a living. I told each one of them that this particular EEG was taken from a patient whom I was asked to declare ‘brain-dead.’ In short, this was someone whose brain seemed to be completely destroyed, and I wanted to be sure there was no evidence of brain wave activity. Both of them assured me that the EEG was unequivocal: the patient’s brain was dead. A goner.” 

 

Allan J. Hamilton, The Scalpel and the Soul: Encounters with Surgery, the Supernatural, and the Healing Power of Hope (Penguin, 2009).