From UFOs two, Ghosts and government cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to now. No, not exactly. A man of the people, also known as Vigo the Cruel, Vigo the Torturer, Vigo the Despised, and Vigo the Unholy. Wasn't he also Vigo the butch and dig this There was a prophecy just before his head died. His last words were, death is but a door, Time is but a window. I'll be back, While Vigo was really stepping on Schwarzenegger's toes or I guess inversely somehow with that last line. There By the way, my name is Matt, Yes and Ben, and as always we are joined by our super producer, Noel Nashville Brown. We opened to day with a quotation from ghost Busters to the famous dying words of Vigo the Carpathian and the Portrait and the Portrait, Yes, which I love that film. Now, typically, long time listeners, most importantly, you're here and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. But typically if you've listened to the show for a while, you know that Nol's nickname is often a hint to or an allusion to the kind of stuff will be covering episode. But today's a little different, isn't that right? Now? Yeah, it's a little different. Uh. You know, Nashville is not really a part of the material here, but it is part of something very special going on in Noel's world right now, right the good Mr Brown is on an adventure. As I record this, You're going to be heading out Nashville way to play some to play a show, isn't that right? You guys always made me feel so special. That's true, that's because you are. But thanks guys. Yeah. Yeah. One of the little bands I play or going to Nashville to play a Bullets shows on Friday. So if I was gonna look for this band or show what what I search? The band is called Blue Blood. We have a record out on a label called This is American Music, and um, we're playing in a place called the Basement on Friday, which is the Yes and this episode comes out on one. So if you were hearing this and you were in that Nashville area, get the to the basement. Check out our buddy Nashville Brown as he blows up the scene. I have a personal relationship with this place. I happen to have been born in Nashville, So wow, have you been to the basement? Uh you know when you're wee tyke, I have not. Actually I was. I'll date myself here a little bit. Uh. The first live performance I did in front of strangers was actually the Grand Old Opery. I was one of their kid actors for a while. Holy crap. Yeah, I remember all my lines to man, you know why because they were all up excepse were like maybe I don't know, I always kind of had a freakish voice, but but yea, So do check out do check out that show if you're in the area. Knowle's got this Clark Kent Superman thing going on. He's the the hardest working men and the how stuff works show biz. That's right, And if you have not seen him play bass in person, it's something that you really should do. And uh it also do all the sound cues. We could do an episode just about Noel, which would probably make you kind of uncomfortable. So well, you will edit this stuff about you. Yeah, so we'll uh we'll hold that for now, but no promises about never doing it. Uh. One other thing, one other piece of business before we begin. Uh, you guys know that this is a listener driven show. All our best ideas come from you. Um, Matt, Noel and I are incredibly fortunate to be able to do this and and still somehow not be fired, which we joke about a lot. Yeah, I'm I'm getting a little nervous. Maybe we just shouldn't joke about it anymore. Bend, let's just pretend like we're always going to be here. Oh yeah, I do feel like we're whistling through the graveyard. But uh, the truth of the matter is that, you know, sometimes it can be tough, and this show is far from perfect. It's always been a work in progress, and some of the best feedback we get, uh concerns like ways to improve the show or things we missed, and we always were always grateful for corrections. Uh. But the this this cool thing happened last night. I was out grabbing dinner with my girlfriend, was kind of late, and there was this other couple that was in the area, and I kept thinking, is that person like slipping me the side eye? Did I do something to offend them? You know? Yeah, surprise, I'm a little bit paranoid and social situations anyway, uh, guys leaving on and then he stops and he asked me. He says, oh, sir, I'm sorry to bother you. Is your name Matt? And then thought, okay, well I've been the clear. That's what he said, Matt, And I said, no, my name's Ben. And then it turns out this guy's name is Tanner Crowley is a big fan of our show and just happened to happen to see us. And you know, he super respectful. He's like, I don't want to interrupt you when you're eating and like I saw you guys are on the way out too, and uh, Tanner, I just want you to know that made my day. Thank you so much for making me look like a cool guy in front of my girlfriend. I'm always into stuff like that. Uh so I just wanted to say thank you. And I don't know about you, Matt or you know, but if you're like we're regular guys, if you're ever out and about and you you see us and you want to say hi, We're not gonna be jerks about it because we're we're again, super appreciative of your time. Every time you check out this show. Uh, you are I guess doing your part to keep this crazy contraption going, and it can't happen without you. Absolutely, thank you so much. And you know, if you ever recognize me, you're gonna get like triple points because nobody knows what I look like. What too bad? Sorry, I can just slip under the radar, Ben, I doubt that apparently most people think of you, which I'm fine with. I noticed that people will yeah, say Matt in comments on YouTube when they're clearly speaking about you. We need to change it up. We need to just separate. That's Matt behind the camera and I am Ben. Oh no, man, no, no this year. I mean clearly, uh clearly you are on episodes. I'm trying to bully you into getting onto some more uh so listeners, if you'd like to see and hear more of of our better half here Matt Frederick, than go ahead. And you're shaking your head, no, but don't you do it. I'll say it. Go ahead, tweet us or Facebook us. We're conspiracy stuff right to us, directly, right to our bosses. And so Matt stop, do not do any of those things. Don't listen to him. It's too late. It's recorded. No, don't edit that part out, all right. So, so with all that stuff, With all that said, uh, let's switch gears. What what's this episode actually about? This show? This is our second foray into the great beyond ben, into the Big Sleep, the Huge Finito, the great arbiter. Death right, death, one of the great equalizers, one of the things that no matter who you are, no matter how much money you make, how much money you don't make, how happy or sad you are, one day, at presently, one day, all of us will die, and subjectively how good or evil you are, right, yeah, right, that's a scary thought, no bonus points. Yeah, you literally cannot be too good to die or too evil to die. It happens to everyone. It's one of the most mysterious, enigmatic things in the human experience, right up there with uh where were you if you were somewhere before you were born? I think there's a boltier both of those butchery in there. So earlier we covered this something like this in our episode called the Future of Death, but that focused on something a little different, right, Yeah, we were looking at immortality, if if one person could achieve that, or perhaps if humanity could achieve that. At some point we looked at I think a jellyfish, we looked at Henry at a lacks. I would urge anyone to go back and listen to that episode. It has one of my favorite Uh this is weird, but it's one of my favorite sponsored episodes by our you know, our guys so by Illumination Global. Yeah yeah, yeah, it was just it still it stood out for me right right that that was that that was a standout episode. You can also check out the video stuff there. We talk about different types of potential immortality as well as different types of immortality that just today, although not for humans or other animals. So what we're going to do in this episode is explore the nature of death. So let's say, surprise, surprise, Want Want Want, immortality doesn't work out for one reason or another. It turns out that the technology is just not there, or the bio bioengineering necessaries not there, or maybe the human brain just can't cope with physical immortality. So this person, um, let's say, let's pick somebody for an example. Um, this person dies, I I die. What happens when you die? What is death? Anyway? Well, then when you die, and I am sorry to say that you have since I had a good run. That is true, very true. A Tanner is going to mourn you as well as myself in Nolan hopefully everybody else listening. When you die, at LEAs on a physical level, it is, it's when your brain stops sending electrical signals to the rest of your body and to itself, and when your circulatory system ceases to flow. So when blood stops going through your body, stops delivering oxygen to the cells, and when there's no oxygen and cells and there's no electrical activity occurring in the brain, that's it. All those chemical processes that make us something more than a pile of meat, water and rank bacteria. Uh And speaking of brainking death is death is ranked in defined in several different ways. Right, Clinical death occurs when a person's heartbeat, their circulatory system stops, and their breathing stops their respiratory system. Then a couple of minutes later, four to six minutes later, biological death occurs. Now, this is when the brain cells start to die because they're they're not getting any oxygen anymore, and that's when you can't be brought back. At least it's thought that you can't be brought back after that point, right, the vast majority of times that is game over. Right, So we have we being a human species, not just the three of us here and everybody listening, but the human species overall has wquarreled with the definition of death for a long long time. In the very first edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, uh, death was called the separation of the soul and the body. And meanwhile, if anybody would like to read more of the stuff that we're talking about, a lot of this comes from some fantastic articles on how Stuff Works dot Com, a couple of which were written by our buddy Josh Clark over at Stuff you Should Know, and I think he wrote I think he wrote some of this on how dying works. But this, this definition of the separation from the soul and of the soul from the body, it kind of it gives us a snapshot about how closely humanity's views of death are tied up with historic religious views. Right. Oh sure, we talked a bit in that other episode about how religion is very closely linked to death because it is one of the ways we've kind of hacked the idea of death of creating these belief structures that say, well, maybe that's not Maybe death isn't the last thing, right, maybe it is but a doorway. But yeah, then you know, as time has progressed and there's so many different religious beliefs now and lack of belief in other places, that it's getting closer and closer tied to science. Sure, yeah, just uh, let's say fifteen or so additions later of the Encyclopedia Britannica, this very short entry on death became thirty times longer, and it became longer because we were understanding more about the human body. But that's not to say that death is necessarily perfectly defined yet um or that it's even easier to define. Instead, medical advances, the technology that we've been developing, they've made it actually tougher to determine that point, that finite point where death is just absolute right, where it actually occurs. And you know, identifying death without medical technology of its current state was a very difficult thing. And you know, uh, it's quite possible that a d fifty or two hundred years from now, as long as the great streak of the human race continues, that the technology we have today will look barbaric in comparison. Oh, man, we're gonna what if we look back and we realize all of these people that quote died none of them actually did. Man, we could have brought them back like three years later. Man. Man, Well, okay, let's let's do that hypothetical death thing. All right. So let's imagine that the the Frederick Clankay is several hundreds in the past, and Matt, you have gathered with the rest of your large family, because there are a lot of you here at home with the matriarch, your mother, and she appears to have died kind of like awake, kind of like kind of like a like a deathbed wake send off. Um, you think she's dead, but you need an expert. Oay, So you don't call a doctor. You call the local priest. Sure, because he, being the closest one, the closest connection to God, right, is going to have that closest link to whether or not her soul is still there. Yeah. And uh, this priest or members of your family might have done a couple of things. They might have held a mirror to the mother's mouth to see if there was any kind of breath coming off, any condensation. Um, maybe a feather to see if it moves, and so like the idea, like maybe she's breathing shallowly but still breathing. It's not to tickle her nose or something. You know. Sorry, I'm sorry if somebody has tried. Okay, a story of history is long and fraught with dark Sorry, Mom, I I you know, I'm really sad that you're gone in the scenario. Honestly, I'm kind of messed up about it right now, but I'm trying really hard to stay positive. Right. You don't want to let go. So if this didn't cloud, if this didn't move, then people would say, well, you must be dead. Now this is before this is before the eighteenth century. In the eighteenth century, we knew enough about the human body that you met. If your family moves up a few centuries, you would say, let's check the pulse. Let's hear if that inner engine is still pumping along. But that's way before the invention of the stethoscope, So you were not You're not getting a and enhanced listen to that heart. You're just either putting your ear on it, feeling somebody's chest, feeling you know, pressure points where you can feel the heartbeat. I don't know. That's I don't want to like it. Well, now, if you were a particularly educated member of society, you might have tried out something called Balfour's test, which what is that? Oh, isn't this a thing where you stick needles through the skin into the heart m uh, with little flags on top of the noodles and see if they move? Oh that is so weird to see if the pressure is changing, I guess, I guess yet to see if there's any slight palpitation. But you know, as time went on, people eventually realized that although you could be looking at a body without any sign of breathing, without any sign of heartbeat, there is still a chance that the person is alive somewhere in there, right yeah, And that's when you get story circulating. Uh. You might remember the one about by Edgar Allan Poe of a person that could be buried thinking you know, oh, this person was dead, so we buried him. Oh no, no, no, no, no, they were alive. They were just not showing some of those main signs temporarily. Right. Yeah, this is okay, this is interesting. So let's take a sidebar here, because this was one one of Edgar all impose personal fears was the idea of being buried alive. And furthermore, when you hear about vampire panics or which panics and people going to hunt down a body that must be possessed by the devil and his arising from the dead to drink the blood of the innocence. One of the things that they thought would be proof of this would be things like claw marks in the coffin, signs of disturbance, moving around. The body didn't look as rotten or dead as it should be. But that might mean it's because it's not because they were a monster. It's because that they too were afflicted by whatever illness was passing around at the time, and then they woke up after they were buried and died of asphyxiation trying to dig themselves out to the air. Yeah, that's definitely a fear that he had, interfear that I have. That there was this whole industry around these coffin bells. Right, do you remember, Yes, we're inside the coffin. It's connected to bells up six ft above you. And if you pull on the little ribbon or the string, then hey, I'm still here. We don't do that. Typically, Uh, we don't do that anymore. I think we should still. I like the idea of the insurance factor there, but I don't ever want to be buried shoot me into space. Man, Well, I'm gonna try for that. You've said that a lot. You really want to be shot in the space. One of that is one of my goals. Save the earthly riches for someone else. Oh man, but sorry, But just one thing I want to add to that. This idea of being buried alive kind of it really led towards that belief that perhaps death is somehow reversible, not just that you could escape it with immortality. Not just that there are certain figures who, based on religious beliefs, have been brought back from the dead, but that maybe you and I may be we don't have to die right right, Maybe we can come close but come back. So today we know that there there actually are types of technology that can well, essentially matt that can reverse death. So if if a person, let's see, whose turn is it to die? All right? No, I'm sorry to your So if NOL stops breathing, doctors could hook NOL up to a ventilator to keep the respiratory and circulatory systems running. We've also got feeding, t CPR, all these devices that can keep a person alive if you measure life by pulse. Yes, which means that's that's why you hear about people with no brain activity to speak of. Right, Yes, Um, I don't want to talk about it very much, but I have a personal story about that situation that happened recently to a friend of mine who was on life support in that way keeping the circulatory system alive, but they were monitoring brain activity and it was the moment of brain death when it was chosen that this is no longer feasible to try and bring this person back. Right, and that that line between having someone laying there that is breathing seems to be breathing even though it is a machine that's keeping that person alive. That's that line is very It can be traumatizing, I guess, but it's also it's also amazing that we can even do that. Yes to one analogy that pops up, and this is by no means a perfect analogy, it makes me think of um, brain dead body. It's sort of like a house where the plumbing works and the utilities are still connected, but there's no one living in that house. WHOA, I mean, it's and it's it's not always it's not always true. People have come back from things. Well, we'll see later on in this episode, So you're right, Matt. Doctors and family members around the world started to think that, well, maybe we shouldn't base this concept of living on a pulse alone, because there are patients who have tragically never recovered consciousness after being hooked up to these machines commonly called life support. So doctors started using different terms to describe this other than just dead. Yeah, there's persistent vegetative state. There's also someone who was in an irreversible coma uh in n Neurologists in France began describing this as a state beyond coma, these people where their bodies were alive, but their brains were too damaged for one reason or another to function to bring the consciousness back into the physical world. Around the same time, also, doctors were learning how to transplant organs into people near death to prolong their lives. Yeah, so you can. You can get a kidney or a liver or you know, any number of things back. But the brain even now, the brain is a it's a tough thing to add another one, take one out, bring one back, right, and we uh, we do know that. That's one of the reasons some people are so very hesitant to to become organ donors because they think, you know, what if I'm in a situation like that, What if I'm one of those people who goes to the brink, who enters clinical death, but uh wins the lottery and I'm able to be revived. But because I was an organ donor, there was ever happened. Right now, we could do an entire episode on organ donation, which is very different territory and more controversial than you might think. Oh yeah, because we could, we could link it up with the organ trade, the black market organ trade. Yeah, or is one of my less diplomatic friends called at one time the Oregon Trail. Yep, yep, I'm sorry, everybody, that's what he called it. Not my idea. So let's talk about what happens to your body physically during and after death, because I love that you bring up that point um where you say it's well, it's difficult to discern what actual death is. What is the point of no return? So if we take that one definition of death the cessation of higher brain activity, all the consciousness, the personality, all the stuff that makes us us. Uh. Then that part of your brain, when that shuts down or when that is damaged beyond repair, that's really all that matters. But if we take the definition of the whole brain activity, then it comes down to oxygen. Physical death on a cellular level gins when your body does not get the oxygen it needs to survive. And of course you know oxygen comes in through your lungs, primarily transports through your bloodstream, right, so that's the postal system for oxygen. Yes, the highways with all the cars and their little oxygen passengers. Okay, so you're ready to get into this. Yeah, let's let's go for it. I'm not going to be any less, okay. So here is the grizzly breakdown of what happens when your body dies. So, different cells in your body are going to break down at different speeds. So the the length of the dyeing process is going to depend on which cells in your body are deprived of oxygen the most or the fastest. Okay. So so that affects lengthen, and also people can take weeks to die or days to die, yes, or it can come on very quickly. Sure. Now let's talk about your brain. Uh, your brain needs a tru amendous amount of oxygen to function properly. It keeps very little in reserve. It's not there are no oxygen tanks up there. It just needs a constant flow of blood. And any cut off of oxygen will result in cell death really fast, within three to seven minutes under Now that's under normal circumstances. And it makes me think about someone let's say, m m A. I'm kind of a fan of mm A. And when you see someone get choked out, you it's it's hard to really understand that if you deprive that person of oxygen for a little while longer, it could be really bad, really really bad, and it's very dangerous. I don't know. Well, yeah, it's it's true. That depends up upon the length of the asphyxiation or the length of the oxygen deprivation, and it also depends oddly enough, on the external an internal temperature. We found when we were looking at people who came back from the dead, we found that inducing hypothermia may increase somebody's chances of survival the heart is also important. When blood is cut off from the heart, a heart attack can take you down pretty quickly. That's why strokes can so often hit and the time between a stroke and the time of death can be so closely together. When you die, we can break it into two phases. Right before he died, that's what's called the agonal phase. The dying persons often disoriented, will seem like she or he can't get comfortable, uh, and also may seem like this person can't catch your breath, which leads us to the next phase. Yeah, the death rattle. If you have ever heard this, you know exactly what it sounds like. If you have not, I hope you don't ever have to hear it. This is when lots of fluid builds up on the lungs and congestion causes this sound. And it's called the death rattle because I don't know, maybe there's just not a better name for it. It's it's a horrible sound. And you've heard it, Yeah, yeah, I have. I've heard it. So as the cells in the person who's dying, the body as they lose their connections right this person, you may even see them convulse a bit like they're having some kind of seizure or muscle spasm. And that's another thing that I really don't want to see. Right, it does, It does occur, which is part of the reason that I treat reports of famous last words with such skepticism, because as beautiful as as it is to think that someone makes a flowery, grandiose speech, a witty one liner, and then just dies, that's usually not how it happens. So let's talk about the body after death. After the heart stop speeding, the body begins to turn cold. This is known as the death chill or algor mortis. So for each hour, the body temperature falls about point eight degrees eight three degrees celsius or one and a half degreased fahrenheit, until it reaches room temperature or if they're outside the temperature of the environment. At the same time, the blood starts to pool and settle, and this is where we encounter the stiffening of the body, known as rigor mortis. Yeah, and that what is that two or six? I know it's a while, it's like two six, two to six hours. Yeah. And you know, if you're familiar with C s I or any of those shows, you're familiar with that. Um, it's a real thing. It's really weird. Now, while the while the body as a whole may be dead, there's still some things inside the body or that are a part of the body that can still be alive. Skin cells, for example, can be harvested up to twenty four hours after death. But there are some other things that are still alive that lead to this putrification of the body as it begins to break down, decon as it decomposes. That's that's things like bacteria. A lot of the your intestines you know, are made up of so much bacteria. Ben right, it's primarily bacteria. I think we mentioned this in an earlier episode, right, I think it might have been the death and that a couple other ones too. It's a fascinating idea, right right, that we are outnumbered in our own bodies by other living things were much more like our own city or if maybe your own world if you want, that walks around and mistakes itself for an individual. And it's not just in your intestines, it's all over and inside you. Yes, so so for instance, uh, when when you die, the bacteria inside you can survive, they start breaking down their host. Here's a grizzly fact for you. The pancreas is so full of so many different types of bacteria that it pretty much digests itself after someone passes away. It's like a fruit inside your body for the bacteria, and these organisms work their way to other organs. Your body becomes discolored, turning green and purple, then finally black. And if you can't see this, you will smell it. Yeah, that's because the bacteria create this awful gas. Uh. It's really bad. And in addition to smelling up the room or wherever it is that you happen to die, the gas is going to cause your body to bloat, your eyes will bulge out of their sockets, tongue will swell and protrude. There's some of the grizzly facts here we could mention, but will continue to something a little different. Let's move to a week after death. A week after death, this in has blistered, and touching it can cause it to fall off. A month after death, hair nails, teeth generally fall out. The hair and nails. By the way, Josh Clark just did an episode I think of Don't Be Dumb where he mentions this and no, I think the whole episode is based on it. The hair and nails are rumored to grow after death, and you've seen that movies all over the place and writing, Uh, that is actually not true. There's no magical growth properties to these cells. Uh. It merely looks like this because your skin is drying out after death. And I mean you know, as as your skin starts to dry and pulls away from your hair and from those cells, it looks as though it's growing, or has grown at least the internal organs and tissue liquefy, and that in turn swells the body until it bursts out and then eventually even really, depending upon the conditions of the environment in which this body is found, all that remains is a skeleton. And then if we move for months to years to centuries, only the bones. And then if we move past that, unless you win the lottery of fossilization, right, just nothing and depends again on the conditions. Because there have been there have been many ancient U I guess vestiges a remnants of humans found, but more often when we say that we're talking about, you know, the very ancient ancient Homo sapiens. We're talking about discoveries of pieces of skeletons. Yeah, I mean it also depends on the temperature of what zone or where you are, the humidity, aridness. But that's so, that's what happens to the body. And this brings us to the more enigmatic, I would say, the more crucial question. That's the body. What happens to the mind, What happens to the consciousness? What happens to you? And we're gonna talk about that in just a moment, right after a word from our sponsor. Hey, guys, you've heard us talk about the Great Courses before, and you know that Ben and I like learning as much as we possibly can, and we like learning at our own pace, right, and we're excited about something new from the Great Courses. You may have heard us talk about this before. They had a fantastic thing on the history of Espionage um which I read cover to cover and listen to the audio on It's This new thing is called the Great Courses Plus Video Learning service. It's unlimited access to thousands of fascinating subjects. Yeah, that's right. There are over four thousand, six hundred video lectures that you can get access to in subjects like history, science, photography that's one of my favorite ones. Even cooking. That's right. These are taught by award winning professors experts from National Geographic Smithsonian. Uh, in the case of cooking, the Culinary Institute of America. And with the Great Courses Plus, you can watch as many different lectures as you want, anywhere, anytime. Right. Uh. Here's another thing. So the Great Courses Plus is officially launching this fall. It's not out yet, but because you listen to stuff, they'll want you to know you have an opportunity to be one of the few people to try it now for my favorite price, free, it's true, and that's only if you use the invitation code conspiracy. Now, this code is only going to work for the first one hundred people, so we urge you to use it as fast as possible. Right yeah, I think we count in that one hundred two. So go ahead and forget. We know you're gonna love the Great Courses Plus, so you can sign up now for your free beta access. So go to the Great Courses Plus dot calm and enter the invitation code conspiracy. That's the Great Courses Plus dot com invitation code conspiracy, and we are back. We have talked about the body. We have talked about the nature of death and how tricky it is to define it. And now let's make it even more complicated. Let's talk about the mind. The mind, ben the mind? What is this thing the mind? Right? Right? Is it? Uh? Is it consciousness? We can barely define consciousness, much less quantify it. There have been all these reports of people dying matt at least being clinically dead, only to return minutes or hours later. And these are the things that we call near death experiences or indeed ease kind of like oh do you remember that movie Flatliner? Oh? Yes, I do. They used to scare the heck out of me. Man. A bunch of their in medical school and they're trying to are they in middle school? I know. They're just a bunch of doctors trying to figure out what the afterlife is. So they bring people to the brink, let them die, and then try and bring them back right. Yeah, they like freeze them, induce uh in, do some kind of clinical death, and then they shock them back right with the paddles terrifying. But it turns out near death experiences at whatever they are, uh spoiler alert, No one's quite sure yet, but they're real. Yeah, and and they're part of our lives. Now, that's something that I think a lot. I mean, hopefully most of you have heard of an n D. I think you probably have there. That means there are phrases like my whole life flashed before my eyes, or go into the light, or I went towards the light, but I came back Caroline. Yes, I think it's a little different situation, but you know, right, So, yeah, yeah, that's that's a great thing. And that's a great thing to point out because they are part of our culture on and there have been decades of research in this. But Matt, what are these things? Are they hallucinations, spiritual experiences? Are they a proof of life after death? Or are they just chemical changes in the brain and sensory organs right before you die? Wow, way to be a buzz kill bend. I know, I'm sorry. So this guy, Dr Raymond Moody coined the term near death experience in his nineteen book Life Afterlife, and many credit Moodies work with bringing this this whole concept, this idea of a near death experience to the public's attention. Right, But that's not the first time this has happened. It's just heat is most likely to want to coin the phrase. But the phrase is important because it it creates the thing. Right. It's no longer a concept, It's a thing. Right. It's no longer a bunch of isolated experiences. But reports to this. Uh. This is something Josh points out in his article. Reports of this date as far back as Plato's Republic. WHOA that that's pretty old. YEA three and sixty b c E. There's the story of a soldier who was killed in battle, had a near death experience, describes the soul leaving his body and being judged along with others in heaven. WHOA, and then he just came back. I guess, like, presumably who did he get kicked out? I don't know. I don't know. I'm gonna have to go back and read Plato's Republic. Well some It's interesting to say that because sometimes people say that they have this conversation where they are told that they need to come back to do something. It's not your time, it's not your time. In fact, most near death experiences share a share a surprising number of common traits, but not all of them are created equal. You know, and some don't follow a pattern at all. There have been people who died and say it was just dark, I felt a jump and I woke up here, you know ingrating memorial or whatever. But there. But I would say, I mean a lot of them do share some common things, right, sure, let's talk about a few. Well, one of them is the light that we mentioned. Going towards the light. Sometimes it's this very intense, not painful, sometimes painful, but not always painful, that will fill up the room. And uh and oh. In some cases, subjects see a light that they feel represents either their idea of heaven or what they believe to be heaven, or maybe even God. And that's that's interesting because you kind of have to wonder if there's a ruor shack aspect to this, you know, like a ruor shack ink blot, wherein people are seeing a little bit more about there themselves than they are seeing what's on the page. Oh yeah, and if you're seeing that light, I'm I'm just assuming that what I would associate with would be probably the sun or warmth, you know, and something that is calming and inviting. Almost I would I would probably I've never to my knowledge had in your death experience. But I would imagine if if it happened to me, uh, and I had already had a day that crazy, it would be anything goes I wouldn't. I would be completely fine with the idea of being another worldly, of some otherworldly encounter. Another thing that people report, and this is fascinating, is the out of body experience or o b E. This is when someone dies, they feel that they have left their body. That you will hear stories about looking down and seeing the surgeons completing the operation. You'll hear anecdotes of people watching their own bodies get shocked and being pulled back in uh. And sometimes they feel that their spirit, their incorporeal consciousness is lifted out of the room into the sky, maybe even into space, toward that intense lights. Now, I just want to point out that and o b E may sound exciting, Um, it is good to know that you don't have to have a near death experience to experience and outer body experience. However, we don't recommend most of them, at least on air. Okay, I see where you're going. Uh. And then let's also let's also give a note to the government sponsored experience or experiments rather with outer body stuff tremendously controversial. Checkout Project Stargate and Swan s w a NN. I just want to say you almost said government sponsored experience and that phrase. Oh man, I'm so many things are being conjured with that. Oh my gosh, not all of them pleasant. So you could also you could also, if you have an inde um, enter into another realm. And this is strange because I was reading about this even as a kid. You know, people would say they may. Most people who say they go to some other place go to a place where they feel like a safe, warm, glowing light bathing them, essentially heaven, some some version of an afterlife paradise. But a minority of people have described their passage. They say they do go somewhere, but they go somewhere terrible, horrible, beyond human comprehension. They go to whatever is on the other side of that drop in uh event horizon. They go to hell, something very much like that's their report. It makes me think about whether or not what type of pain receptors are involved with that. You know, if you're if you're still able to feel whatever has caused you to enter this state, if you can feel it intensely. Then I can imagine that you probably end up in hell. That's interesting. Yeah, And then again it's how much of this is based on someone's perception, because we will say that there is at this point no universally scientifically accepted proof that these people are actually going somewhere. But so what we're telling you are the reports of people have survived, and they also sometimes don't go there alone. No, Sometimes when you have an out of body experience, there are other things, other beings with you. These sometimes have been called beings of light. Sometimes there are representations of spiritual entities like an angel or again in rare cases, a demon um. But a lot of people will think that they're seeing dead loved ones, people who have already made it to wherever it is that they've leave they are. And there are also reports, of of course we've mentioned the tunnel, that people feel they're in a tunnel with that intense light at the end. They also have reported communication. This is something that happens often where the subjects or the people have returned from this near death experience. Uh say that they heard a voice telling them it's not their time to go back as Some also say that they were given a choice to go into the light wherever it may lead, or return to their earthly body. And then the last one that we're we're gonna talk about here is the idea that you see your entire life, right, You get a replay or at least major points in your life where you're maybe it's just your brain firing off all these different memories really rapidly. Um. Some people call this the panoramic view of life. Others will see a fast forward film of the entire thing. Um. You know this can be. There are a lot of different ways that this has manifested. Some people say that it happened extremely fast. Some people say it happened really slowly, and they were there for almost another lifetime, and they might feel that they're being judged during this time. Yes, so I think it's interesting that you point out the difference here mat between and out of body experience and a near death experience, because some people, uh, some people claim to experience these out of body circumstances when there's no death or dying or even physical threat. Do you have time for like a quick anecdote? Yeah, okay, so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go too much into personal history. But you know this because you and I have talked about it off air. Uh. Members of my family on one side of my family where I'm from, historically have and this is not Nashville, A's and gentlemen is a much more rural area. But members of my family have claim uh for decades in the past to have things where they'll have dreams that later come to pass, or they'll say that they have had out of body experiences or can induce them. And you know, these are members of my family, so I'm not trying to violate their privacy or anything. But listeners, I believe it is quite possible that you know someone who feels that they have experienced this, or that you yourself may have experienced something like this inexplicable thing, right, And that gets us to some interesting statistics. How many people have had something like a near death experience or an out of body experience. Well, according to a nineteen eighty two poll by Gallop and William Proctor, they found that fifteen percent of all Americans who had been in a near situation where they almost died or died and then came back had experienced an n D. So not that many people, as a matter of fact, of a minority. Definitely a minority, but fifteen percent, I don't know. Yeah, Well, of that fifteen percent, nine percent said their experience had this out of body thing going on, and eleven percent, again of that fifteen percent, uh said they entered another realm or dimension. An eight percent said they met spiritual beings. Now, in comparison to all of the people who have been in these near death situations, it's a very small number, and it's getting smaller, but good news on this. Of the people pulled of that fifteen percent, only one percent reported a negative experience. But we gotta remember these reports are you know two that's that's upwards of twenty years ago. And there are other researchers who you know when they when they are studying this kind of thing, they're usually looking at a much smaller scale. Um And also, the statistics on indies are going to vary pretty widely, right, So much of pulling and pulling is an art. So much of pulling depends on how the question is framed and where where you're sampling, where you're sampling, who you're asking, even the time of day or the environment they're in Uh. For instance, those people who are being pulled in a busy day at the mall are a lot less likely to think in depth about their answer. Uh. The but the point being that these statistics still are not conclusive. One thing that is very interesting that the Gallup poll found there was that religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs don't appear to affect the likelihood of having a near death experience. So somebody who is very much UM, considers themselves very religious to whatever particular religion it might be, and someone who considers themselves completely and atheists may all have a similar experience. It doesn't necessarily impact their thing. It's not just um, one particular denomination of Christians or one particular Eastern religion having these experiences. It's across the board, and people aren't sure exactly what the common denominator is other than almost other than dying. Other than dying, Yeah, other than dying. Wow. It's it's one of those things, man, man, this whole topic. You know, we talked about it a little bit earlier. But my existential dread of death brought on to me by my grandfather. It's not his fault. He just just was a great thinker, and uh, he thought about it way too much. And I don't know, somehow or another he's got me to about it way too much, and this kind of stuff, thinking that all humans, all life maybe experiences this kind of thing when it dies. I don't know. I wonder do you think that. Do you think the higher order animals? Do you think that mammals experienced something? I mean, we know so little about animal intelligence other than the fact that we woefully underestimated it for most of human history. I guess it just depends on what is scientifically happening to trigger whatever is occurring, and what exactly is experiencing this. Now I'm excited about this idea that because what is the near death experience of an African elephant or chimpanzee or a cetacean like a dolphin. You know, what do they do? They swim toward a light for instance? Do they here that falls of loved ones? What about even cattle? That's a thing to think about. Yeah, that's a that is true because he had do have intelligence. Well, either way, whatever we find should be applied to any animal with the with the I guess the brain structure of similar brain structures, because at this point scientists cannot ultimately explain why some people have near death experiences and why some people don't. And that's partially because these things are complex, they're emotionally charged, and there's a lot of it we can't really test, Like there's there's not an effective, double blind, peer reviewed methodology for whether someone actually met God. Yeah, these are all subjective reports of people who experienced something on their own. Yet we can attempt a little bit of let's call it scientific speculation. How about that? All right, So our brains process sensory information. We know that much. We know that what you and Noll and I and everybody else listening to this encounters as reality is just the sum of century information we receive, filtered by our brains. And really it's only the stuff our brains say, Hey, that's what that is. Look at that? Yeah, what's that smell? What's that smell? Is that a horse selling? Our brains sell like yeah, our brain, And then sometimes our brains will get something and not send ent our conscious mind like I forget about it, Yeah, forget about Yeah, I'm just gonna pretend that's not there. Yeah, yeah, you should get a sandwich. Me and stomach. We're talking. Oh lord, so sequel to inside out on it as it is. But okay, so that so we have these these huge nets cast right through all of our different sensory organs, and then we also have a very complex system of nerves and muscles that do something most of us take for granted. If you're not driving, listeners, if you're in a place where it's safe for you to do this, like you to close your eyes, close your eyes and they close, and and listen to this. So take your right or left hand, your choice, and hold it out in front of you. Now move it to wherever you want to move it slowly, make take your index finger and touch it to your nose. Not that hard, hunt, Isn't that weird? We know where our We know where our body is in space without observing it through other things. Our brain knows what our hand is doing when it's not looking at it. It's a superpower we take for granted. That's how we know where we are in space. That really is something I take for granted. That's something everybody takes for grant because we're used to it. Can you something that I do? So one of my favorite things is to get on my drum kit when all of the lights are out and there's not a single source anywhere and it's in the pitch black, and tests to see if I can play a song all the way through in the complete darkness just by understanding where the things are in muscle memory. That is one of my hands down favor things to do. So I just want to say thank you human bodies for being able to do that. Can you do that? Can you play the songs in the dark? Oh? Yeah, dude, that's that is so interesting, that's amazing. I would love to I would love to see slash here that I guess here it. Yeah, yeah, you wouldn't see it unless you had night vision. Will work on it. So, but that's that's another sense. Right, So imagine that as you're dying, all of your senses are malfunctioning, right. Uh. You know, people will say that hallucino hallucinogens can induce some similar experiences to in your death experience. So instead of the real stuff that's happening, what you're hearing, what you're feeling, what you're seeing is faulty information, maybe because of drugs, maybe because there's some sort of traumatic experience causing your brain to shut down. So what you're actually getting from that great filter is your brain trying to interpret and curate all this information. So some some scientists have said that this neural noise for lack of a better term, and overload of information creates that image of a bright light that grows larger, and that because your your spatial sense right is malfunctioning, that your brain might interpret this as you moving because it's it's losing control. It's it's wow. That is that's fascinating to think about. It's you know, it's it's not a conclusive proof, but it's a pretty good argument. Yeah, it's a good argument, and I can visualize it really well. We also know that there's this peaceful, calm sensation people report during a near death experience, and that could be a coping mechanism with what's going on. It could be endorsed fins that are produced during the brain when there's some kind of trauma. A lot of people will experience this, this sense of strange detachment and almost this emotionless response when you're going through some kind of traumatic event like this, whether or not it's related to a near death experience. And this is pretty much this is the same effect that's going on in your body. Your your brain is trying to cope really hard with what's going on, and it's almost like it doesn't. So you can't say that your brain doesn't understand, but it is getting signal noise or you know, their wires are being crossed. Sure, so okay, well then how would we how would we explain in this perspective, how will we explain those visits to heaven or meeting with uh God? Well, that's that could be a lot of things that are kind of working together. You're we're talking about that faulty sensory and put your oxygen deprivation, your your brain and your body aren't getting that life the blood and the the chemical that makes us function. And then you've got the endorphins and the chemical concoction that's being released. Uh and you know it might create this surreal euphoria that's happening. This it feels realistic to you maybe, but it's just happening in your mind. And then later we know how tricky memory is. When the subject of the survivor recalls this encounter, it goes through the filter of that person's conscious mind. So these bizarre things that didn't make sense are retroactively or kind of redcond Yeah, in in this argument again and to something understandable. You put your filter on that has all of your your past experiences, your beliefs, all the structures that make up who you are. Throw that filter on that thing that you went through, and there you go. And while we're talking about filters, this is something that interests me too. Uh, It's strange how if you look at the common store eas of alien abductions in the modern age and the common stories of fairy abductions kind of things. It's strange how the tropes match one on one and so closely. Anyhow, the episode for Another Day, we mentioned like four episodes for another Day. But the next question is how do we explain those out of body experiences that occur using things like memories. Somebody is dead, there's no brain activity, there's no blood flow, how do they come back and remember something? Again? Anecdotal spoiler alert projects Stargate was closed because they figured that it was all a bunch of malarkey. But if if it is true, if somehow people do have this ability to perceive these things while they're not while they're not in their body, while their body is dead, while the part of the brain that makes memory is closed for business. And then they come back and say I remember for this person saying this in the room with me. That's like driving a car down a road that doesn't exist and still getting to your destination. This thing h this thing could happen just with retroactively explaining stuff. There's also a pretty compelling argument, not not conclusive, but compelling argument that maybe people are still receiving sensory information in a way that scientists have yet to pin down or to track. I can imagine some quantum stuff going on there that we just have yet to study. Yes, and that is where we get to the big end of this episode. Uh, what is consciousness is the question we still haven't answered, right, Yeah, well we haven't on this show answered what is consciousness? Yet? I don't think, Uh, I don't think anybody out there has yet. Well, people have answered it to their satisfaction, sure, which maybe that's where it belongs. I mean, is consciousness a thing hardwired into the surface of the matter making up your brain, like a tattoo along your neural net, your synapsis, or is the substance of the brain, just like a radio receiver is at the end point for something like a radio wave, Is that what you are? Is that what the consciousness is? And if that is the case, where is the transmission coming from? I'm pretty sure it's Georgia State Radio. I mean, yeah, I got maybe I got on a little bit of a SOAPO, but no, I love it, but we don't. Just sitting here listening, I love We don't have the answer though, and I eight five is the point, which is a pretty good radio station, and I really enjoy it. Then uh, then that I'm happy with that. But listeners, we would like to hear from you whether you have had a near death experience and out of body experience, whether you think the current scientific theories of this hold any water? Do they have sand? If so? Why? If not? Why not? And we're about oh is that you know. I'm not gonna say anything this time. I'm just gonna let you hear the sound of the mic clicking on and sit here in silence. Okay, Well, I know, oh you are here. I'm here, Okay, I was just kidding. Oh good, all right, So, uh no, what do you what do you think? Do you have you ever had and you know, there's a very personal question, have you ever had out of body experience or anything like that? No, I mean the closest thing I've had are like brushes with things that one could interpret as being a sign of of the afterlife for you know, what happens next. But I've usually been able to justify them in some way or another. But I can't help but like, remember the feeling of feeling like that was a thing, even though I was able to later kind of say, oh, no, this is actually what happened. Um, So I'm sort of the fence about a lot of that stuff. I wouldn't say I don't believe that that stuff is possible, but I definitely I don't know enough to know. Would you mind a little bit? Oh yeah, there's a there's a couple. There's one in particular where the girl used to date in college. Um, a good friend of ours passed away in a car accident, and she would just kind of come and meet me in between classes and we would hang out her car for a while or just kind of in the area. But there was one time where it was cold, so we were definitely staying in her car and um, she was sitting in there waiting for me, and I got there and she looked really upset and freaked out, and I was like, what's wrong. And she kind of looked at the windshield on the instide the windshield and she sort of blew on it, and the girl who had died her signature was there on the inside of the windshield. And it was like this intense moment of like, oh my gosh, I'm experiencing this thing, this is real, like all this stuff is really happening. And then you know, you us to give it a little more thought and you realize, you know, she hadn't died that long ago, and they rode together a lot, and um, you know, they were like in their late teens early twenties. Is this the kind of thing a girl would do is like write her name on conversation on the inside of a wind on the one on the inside of a window, and um, you know, it's ready to do on new fingers that can kind of stick around. And so that's now I explained that, but it doesn't really change the fact that at the time I felt this like intense connection to something, which is you know, it's weird, it's kind of sad to explain it away in a way, but I don't know that's what that was. Well in in a way, explaining it in that manner is a coping mechanism, right, You're not only even though it's kind of a hard thing to do sometimes it also I don't know, it's one of those things where you when you can bring that light out in the darkness and say, well, maybe this is what it is. I don't know, it actually makes me feel better. Yeah, no, I mean, it's definitely it was an interesting experience. I've had other moments like that, but nothing that's pushed me over the edge. But yeah, I don't discount anything. I like to think that there's certainly things beyond my understanding, but I will probably never understand, so I choose not to be a jerk and say it's all focus. Oh yeah, I think absolutism is probably a a foolish move, especially when we consider when we consider how much of human history has been a It's like you remember that old story and we may mention on the air about the elephant and the mice, and there's, yeah, there's there are larger things, and human understanding is so cartoonishly limited at this point that it seems almost arrogant too. This too completely discount anything. Uh I don't I don't feel like it's necessarily sad if there is a scientific explanation, because that shows that there is some sort of progress. But there's so much stuff that we as a species are still grossly incapable of measuring, let alone understanding. Right, Like we we get to the brain and and you know, it's true that there's a lot of pseudoscience, and it's true that there are a lot of Charlatan's and swindlers and things like that, but it's also true that there are brilliant people working every day to add just a little more light to this cavernous universe. And uh, I just want to I want to be along for the ride, man, I want to see what happens. It's interesting stuff. I mean, it's interesting times for sure. It seems like every day there's something new that either completely contradicts or you know, it starts a whole new ideas. Here's a question, and Matt, what do you guys think do you think maybe this this is a question that presupposes a lot of stuff. Listeners, So I understand if it's a loaded question, are we maybe not supposed to know what happens after we die? Or is there really just no answer? Is it really just that's it? Is it? Like? Remember that video game Captain Planet where you have to play the whole thing through and you only up one life? No, it was a really difficult video. Heard of this video games? Yeah? How have I not played that? Uh? Well, let me save you sometime, man. Oh no, because I'm gonna sit down and then not get up until I beat it. But shoot, Like, if there is something, then why why is there no proof? Why do people have no clue? Me included? It's because the experience of what being alive is outside of being alive as a human, So, like you have to separate the two. So being alive as a human is a thing that happens, right, You become alive all of a sudden out of nowhere. Then you become not alive at some point further down the line. Right now, what I'm proposing, gentlemen, is that that whole experience that is all an arcade game set in the Rick and Morty universe. Uh, that's what it is. You just start doing it and then you end up you're back and it's like wa wa dog dub and you're like, oh man, that's what the whole thing was. So if you were ever in a dramatic accident and you hear in the distance, Wabba Labba dog baba, yeah, it's like, oh, okay, I'm alright, it's just Rick. Yeah. No, I mean backing it up to something slightly serious. I guess I'm sorry. No, No, that's great. It is great. Um, it's like you said that, we're sort of blinked into existence, you know, based on whatever circumstances. But then somewhere along the line we developed this entitlement where we're like, we deserve to know. I mean, you got me, that's true. Shots fired, but that is all. Well what do you think? Listeners? Thanks so much for listening, and we hope you enjoyed this. Again, death is a serious and universal thing. So while we might be joking around a little bit, it is I think, is we said earlier, a little bit of whistling through the graveyard maybe, But we hope you found this U interesting. You hope you found it um worth worthwhile, and more importantly, we'd like to hear from you. Yeah, we we want to do a bit of a poll of our own. Have you experienced any kind of near death experience? And if not, that maybe an out of body experience? Uh? And do you have a relative that has a great story. We just want to know. We want to we want to know if you even believe in this stuff or what you believe happens when we die. We want to know all of that stuff because we just been and I are curious. And again, you guys always send us the best ideas, so the next time we update this will be like, oh, look at all these people said they knew way more than us, Ben right, Yes, it's true. And if it is a personal story that you do not want to have on the air, yes, then please let us know that as well. We'll write to everybody who writes in and and just check and make sure that's cool where we bring anything to the public, but we are going to head out. Oh and met people want probably want to know the best way to contact us. Right, Yes, that is important information, and here it is. You can find us on Facebook and on Twitter. We are conspiracy Stuff or at conspiracy Stuff on both of those. You can find us on Google Plus if you use that conspiracy stuff again, it exists, Ben, we are there. Uh, and you know find us on YouTube. We are conspiracy stuff there as well. Even though the show's stuff. They don't want you to know conspiracy stuff. You just have to in your mind right now. Just smash those two together. They are one and the same. Ladies and gentlemen, all right. And the last thing, Uh, if you don't want to do any of that stuff, all the social rigamarole, get off my lawn. Just send us an email from your Dell machine. We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com. M hmmmmmmmm. From one this topic, another one explained phenomenon. Visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.