Life may really fly by before the eyes of dying people, according to the latest accidental scientific data.
A team of scientists in Vancouver, Canada was trying to measure brain waves in an eighty-seven-year-old patient with epilepsy.
But during the neurological imaging, he suffered a fatal heart attack and this situation allowed the scientists to record what happens to the dying brain.
They found that 30 seconds before and after death, brain waves followed the same patterns as during sleep or recollection.
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Such brain activity could suggest that the memory of life occurs in the last moments of people who are dying, according to a report by a team of doctors published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.
Dr. Ajmal Zemar, co-author of the study, said that a team of scientists from Vancouver accidentally came across the first record of a dying brain.
"Actually, this was completely accidental because we didn't plan an experiment like this, nor did we plan to record the signal."
So, at the moment when we are about to die, will we at least briefly remember the beautiful events in life and the people we love?
Doctor Zemar says that it is impossible to answer that question.
"If we were to get into a philosophical story, I would guess that our brain flashback would probably recall good things more than bad things," he explained.
"But what is memorable varies from person to person."
Zemar says that 30 seconds before a man's heart stopped supplying blood to his brain, his brain waves followed the same patterns that occur when we perform highly cognitively demanding tasks.
This happens when we concentrate, dream or remember.
These patterns of brain waves appeared for 30 seconds after the patient's heart stopped beating - that is, until the moment when we usually declare a person deceased.
"It could be the last reminder of what we've experienced in life, as if replaying in our brains in the seconds before death."
The study also raises the question of when exactly life ends - when the heart stops beating or when the brain stops functioning.
Dr. Zemar and his team cautioned that no general conclusions can be drawn from this study.
The fact that the patient had epilepsy, that his brain was swollen and he was bleeding, further complicates the situation.
"I'm always uncomfortable talking about a case," said Zemar.
For years after the initial 2016 record, he searched for similar cases to back up the analysis, but to no avail.
But a 2013 study of healthy rats provided a possible guideline.
In that analysis, US scientists reported high levels of brain waves at the time of death and up to 30 seconds after the rats' hearts stopped beating.
It was the same situation that Dr. Zemar encountered with a patient with epilepsy.
The similarities between the two studies are incredible, said Dr. Zemar.
He hopes that the publication of information about such a case in humans will open the door to other research on the last moments of life.
"It seems to me that there is something mystical and spiritual about the experience of a close encounter with death.
"And discoveries like these are the moments scientists live for," Zemar concluded.
Watch the video about to young people who have come back from the dead
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