Does Consciousness Survive Death? The Science of Near-Death Experiences (NDE) | Pim van Lommel

What happens when the brain flatlines - yet consciousness continues?In this episode of Mind-Body Solution, Dr Tevin Naidu speaks with world-renowned cardiologist and pioneering near-death experience (NDE) researcher Dr Pim van Lommel. His groundbreaking Lancet study remains one of the most rigorously documented clinical investigations into NDEs - and its implications challenge our deepest assumptions about the mind, the brain, and the nature of reality.We explore:• The medical evidence for consciousness during cardiac arrest• Why the brain cannot account for NDEs• The transceiver/filter model of consciousness• Out-of-body perceptions verified during resuscitation• Why materialism may be scientifically untenable• The long-term personality transformation following NDEs• Implications for neuroscience, medicine, ethics, and the mind-body problem• What dying actually feels like• Why Pim now views death as “a transition, not an end”This is one of the most comprehensive, medically grounded explorations of non-local consciousness available today. Whether you're a skeptic, scientist, philosopher, or simply curious, this conversation forces a radical re-examination of what consciousness is.TIMESTAMPS:(00:00) – Introduction(01:00) – Consciousness & Near Death Experiences (NDEs)(05:06) – Findings from the landmark 2001 Lancet study(09:10) – Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) & verified accounts(10:42) – Consciousness beyond the brain: receiver model(19:25) – Memory, identity & self without the body(20:25) – Universal NDE elements & what they imply(29:08) – Critics, skeptics & scientific resistance(31:23) – Why consciousness cannot be measured(32:46) – Monism? Dual-aspect? Idealism? Pim’s stance(35:56) – Implications for medical ethics & end-of-life care(37:56) – Deathbed phenomena & after-death communication(42:08) – Telepathy, remote viewing & “non-local” psychology(45:24) – Quantum physics: analogy not explanation(48:28) – The next generation of researchers(50:06) – What death really is and isn’t(51:27) – Is there purpose to the universe?(54:42) – Psychedelics vs NDEs: crucial differences(58:00) – Where does Pim believe he will go after death?(1:01:20) – Final reflectionsEPISODE LINKS:- Pim’s Website: https://pimvanlommel.nl/en/- 2001 Lancet Study: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(01)07100-8/abstract- Consciousness Beyond Life: https://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Beyond-Life-Near-Death-Experience/dp/0061777250CONNECT:- Website: https://mindbodysolution.org - YouTube: https://youtube.com/@MindBodySolution- Podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/mindbodysolution- Twitter: https://twitter.com/drtevinnaidu- Facebook: https://facebook.com/drtevinnaidu - Instagram: https://instagram.com/drtevinnaidu- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/drtevinnaidu- Website: https://tevinnaidu.com=============================Disclaimer: The information provided on this channel is for educational purposes only. The content is shared in the spirit of open discourse and does not constitute, nor does it substitute, professional or medical advice. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred from you acting or not acting as a result of listening/watching any of our contents. You acknowledge that you use the information provided at your own risk. Listeners/viewers are advised to conduct their own research and consult with their own experts in the respective fields.

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Pam, thank you so much for joining me today.
Looking forward to this conversation very much.
You're welcome. Pam, let's start off with your
clinical work as a cardiologist.You've described a moment during
your clinical career that sparked what we could call your
life's question, which is how can consciousness continue once
the brain has stopped? So when did that mystery first

(00:32):
shift from curiosity to conviction for you it?
Took many years. I like you.
I had learned in University Medical school that
consciousness and product of brain function.
So that's what we know that's what I was convinced of.
So for me, my opinion was to death as the end of everything
we are until I met a lot of patients who shared the ND with

(00:54):
me. So in 1986 I read a book by
George Ritchie Returned from Tomorrow and where he described
as a medical student he died in 1943 of a dib of pneumonia and
it there were no antibiotics available.
So he died, declared death and his body was covered with a
sheet. And the nurse was so upset that

(01:15):
this young medical student had died that she was able to
persuade the medical doctor to give him an injection for other
nerine right into his heart, what was quite uncommon.
And after 9 minutes of death he regained consciousness.
He had some problem to find his body back because it was covered
with a sheep. But then he she had a very, very
deep near death experience with all the elements we know from

(01:40):
Raymond Moody. I had to read a book by Raymond
Moody which was published in 1975.
But because I this book, I started to ask my patients who
had survived A cardiac arrest ifyou could remember something
from the period of unconsciousness.
And then to my big surprise, within two years after 50
patients, 12 patients share the NDA with me.

(02:01):
And this was the moment that forme was just a site of currosity.
Because it should impossible to have memories, let alone clear,
clear consciousness, cognition, emotions, memories for early
childhood, the possibility of perception out of above the life
of the body and the brain doesn't function at all.
So that's why it started that wethat we started the prospective

(02:24):
study in 1988 in in from till 44consecutive survivors of cardiac
arrest that took four years and then another 7-8 years for the
longitudinal study. This study was published in The
Lancet and during the period that I met so many patients were
the only that I gave more and more convinced that there's a

(02:45):
continuity of consciousness and death is just the end of our
body, but not the end of our consciousness.
So it was. It took many years, but now I'm
quite sure. I'm convinced that it was wrong
as a young doctor. It's, it's pretty fascinating
work because I know as a medicaldoctor, when we, when we talk
about things like this in a philosophical manner with
medical doctors, it's something that's quite frowned upon or, or

(03:08):
it's, it's almost like fringe science for, for, to discuss
this within a clinical setting. How was that for you?
How was it? What was it like to to go beyond
what we would call just generic medicine?
Well, it was not important what other doctors were thinking
about me and about our study. There were some specialists who
were open for it, one or two cardiologists and one or two

(03:32):
other specialists, but most of them were not interested at all.
And then they are silent. Then you know enough.
And it was not important at all for me because I was just
following what my heart was telling me.
I had to look and try to understand what was, could be
the cause and content of an NDE.So that was the only important

(03:57):
thing for me. It was not about the ideas of
other people who are usually andstill now are willful, ignorant
and and have prejudice about this kind of subjects.
Yeah, In many ways, your research asks one of the oldest
philosophical questions, which is what is this relationship
between mind and matter? How do you personally define

(04:19):
consciousness after decades of studying what appears to survive
beyond the brain? Yeah, I have no definition of
consciousness and there is no definition of conscious.
There's so many aspects of conscious.
I have written an old chapter inmy book Consciousness Beyond
Life, just what we could call consciousness.
So there's no definition at all.But I never used the word the

(04:43):
word mind or soul or spirit because so many people have
different ideas about these words this or never use them.
I use consciousness and enhancedconsciousness and different
layers of enhanced consciousness.
That's what I'm using. It the you just mentioned the

(05:03):
study you did in 2001 and that that Lancet study still remains
one of the benchmarks when it comes to NDE research.
What you mentioned, what convinced you to start that?
But what surprised you most about the data as it started to
stream in? Well, I was, I was just open for
the, the results and what we found in the theaters. 44

(05:26):
consecutive survivors of card arrest that 18% had memories on
the periods of unconsciousness. So they they shared an Andy with
us and 82% did not have any memories at all Now.
So now we compared to two groupswith and without an NDE to see
if we could find an explanation why only a small percentage of

(05:47):
patients report a near death experience.
So where we compared to durationof cardiac arrest, 2 minutes or
8 minutes, it didn't matter at all.
Compared to duration of unconsciousness 5 minutes or
three weeks ago, it didn't matter at all.
Where you have induced cardiac arrest in electrophysiological

(06:08):
studies in the Cath lab, it usually it takes 20 to 30
seconds to resuscitate, didn't matter at all.
So one of the main conclusion was that until that time still
mostly accepted idea that lack of oxygen in the brain should be
an explanation for the cause of of the and the we could exclude.

(06:30):
And also other things like the given medications didn't matter
at all. Fear of death before the
arrested psychological explanation did it better at all
pre knowledge that you know thatthese experiences are possible
Data better at all religion databetter or if they're atheist or
Christian or Muslim data better at all general or education data
matter at all. So the main conclusion of our

(06:52):
syllabus that there was no scientific or medical
explanation why only 80% of those people report in NDE.
And interesting there are three other prospects of studies on in
survivors of chronic rest, one from Bruce Grayson, one from
Sepanipedophenica, one from Penicillatoria with a total of
562 survives cardiac rest. And the conclusion all those 4

(07:16):
prospective cities was there is no medical explanation why
people report an NDE. So we could exclude old until
that time given explanations, hallucinations, dreams, side
effects of drugs, neurotransmitters and oxy of the
brain etcetera, you could exclude.
And and PEM when it comes to reportability, because I can
imagine when, when you get bombarded by critics, what one

(07:40):
of the questions might be, I mean, was the brain truly
offline or so, So something could be someone could ask about
the reportability of subjective experiences.
How much can we trust that? So for anyone watching or
listening, if you, how much of the conscious experiences, how
confident can we be sorry that it occurs during the cardiac

(08:00):
arrest rather than moments just before or moments right after?
There's always a good question, but first of all, there have not
been too many critical comments.There have been some skeptics or
should say debunkers just after my book came out in 2007 in the
Netherlands, but usually they don't contact me at all.

(08:24):
But it's this important question.
How do we know that the neo death experience happened during
the period of our consciousness?That that's because of the out
of body experiences. One of the elements there, there
are many elements, 12 elements, which was reported by Raymond
Moody as well. And one of the elements is out
of body experience. That is that people have a
perception out and above their lifeless body.

(08:46):
They have IDD, they have left their bodies as an old cult and
they can perceive, not see, but perceive see the 60°.
If they see details and the and then overview at the same time,
they can perceive through walls.They can see what happens to the
other side of the hospital. They can see what happens at
home. If they're trying to, to, to, to

(09:06):
focus on that so and then they can see what people are doing
with the CPR or with during surgery.
They can perceive what is happening.
They can know what is being told.
They don't hear it, but you knowwhat is being told because you
have driver salt transfer and blind people blind from birth

(09:30):
can ring us written about it. They have never seen anything.
They've never had pictures during dreams that the first
time in the world when they havean ND they can perceive their
own body. They can see if they get through
the the hospital walls and go outside to see the first time
they did trees and houses and sun and shadows etcetera.

(09:50):
So what is when you have the corroboration of the free
radical perceptions so details of the CPR then you can prove
that this and the auto body experience happened during
cardiac arrest. And I have been in study done by
Jan Holden of about 80 patients and has recently booked the

(10:13):
cells does not die and it has 128 cases of corroborated free
radical perceptions. And what they found is 95%.
What was told was totally correct was really correct.
What happened during CPR, duringsurgery, during general
anesthesia or urine coma? So this proves that it happens

(10:33):
during cardiac arrest. Let's let's go with this for now
and, and, and take your blisterson the journey with us mapping
consciousness beyond the brain, because you've described the
brain not as a producer of consciousness, but rather as a
transceiver or interface. Can you unpack what that
metaphor means in scientific terms and how it might fit or

(10:57):
conflict other modern neuroscientific theories like
global workspace or IIT, etcetera?
But first of all, let's discuss what happens to your cardiac
arrest in brain function. So what we know there have been
studies on induced cardiac arrest also, let's say in the
past where it was SASS hole testing of internal
defibrillators, ICDS, but also induced cardiac arrest in

(11:19):
animals. And we can see that in a Jewish
character crash the people lose consciousness within seconds.
The blood flow to the brain in the carotid artery is 0.
Within one second the body reflexes are gone, which is a
function of the cortex of the brain.
The brain sample reflexes are gone.
With the Gacrefax you can put a finger in someone's throat.

(11:42):
The coriolor reflexes and white and pupils who don't react to
light are clinical findings. There's no breathing, but the
breathing center is close to thebrain stem, so they stop
breathing as well. So the clinical findings are
what the brain doesn't focus at all.
And when you have the EEG registration, but they did
studies like social testing the EEG flat lines within 10 to 20

(12:07):
seconds. And we know that when you have
ACPR, it never happens that a successful CPR is built in 20
seconds. It usually in the best organized
coronary care unit will take 344minutes.
So all the 562 pages of the fourprospectus prospectus must have
had a flat line EEG must have nobrain friction at all.

(12:32):
And in meters between 10 and 20%of those patients reported in
the death experience. So that's what we know from
about and that's a bit, a bit about your question about how we
see the function of your brain, because the other thing is the
longitudinal study. We can discuss it later as well
about the transformation. But what we know from the brain

(12:55):
function that when there is no brain finger at all, people can
have what I've told you before, cognition, emotions, possibility
of perception. They have a review of someone's
life, they relive their whole life, are connected to
everything, what happens in the past.
Also with people, the conscious of people in the past, they took

(13:16):
something for your, for your small sister, you know how sad
she was. You can have future events as
well. So everything happens at the
same old where you come back in your body.
You can talk for a week what happens in your life review
while you're kind of aggressed for 3 or 4 minutes.
So there's no time and no space and everything is connected at

(13:38):
the moment that the brain does not function at all.
That means that the brain, the conscious is not dependent on
brain function. The non local conscious enhanced
consciousness. Maybe you're sitting here now we
have a waking consciousness and that's dependent of a
functioning brain and the and the waking conscious is just a

(13:59):
small part of the non local consciousness and it's just a
small part of the memories we have.
But then the brain function stops.
We go in the other non local real where there is no past and
future is is acceptable. It's always there, everything is
connected. That means that this kind of

(14:21):
consciousness is not dependent on brain function.
And to understand it, you can compare it with the, let's say
the mobile telephone. At this very moment in your room
and in my room, there are 200 telephone calls go through you
through the walls, electromagnetic informational
fields. There are hundreds of television
programs and radio programs and 1 billion websites or YouTube

(14:44):
films go through you in the formof electromagnetic informational
fields. But you need an instrument to
receive it. You need to mobile telephone to
get the the the call they're meant for you.
You mean an ATV set to receive the program.
But where your TV set is off, the program is still there.

(15:07):
You need another TV set to receive it.
And also I compare now the non local consciousness with the
cloud, the 1 billion websites and YouTube preps always there.
You need to function computer toreceive it, just part of it
because of the code you use. But your computer does not
produce, it's called the I cloud, but it receives part of

(15:29):
the I cloud. So our brain receives parts of
this no longer consciousness andthat's what we call a filter or
but also an interface. So you need to function brain to
have your waking consciousness. But let's say in, in during
dream, during deep sleep, the, the brain is functioning, but
you don't receive waking consciousness.

(15:51):
So where's your consciousness? Where you have general
anesthesia, your brain is active, but you don't receive
consciousness. So where's your it's because
you, the receiving capacity of your brain is, is is out and
where you back in your, then youreceive again parts of it.
And the interesting thing is that when you had the near death

(16:11):
experience, the the threshold ofconscious, the receiving
capacity of your brain and body,it's been permanently enhanced.
So you receive not just channel 1, your own conscious of the
channel 2-3 or four or five of other people.
That means what we call the enhanced intuitive sensitivity.
They receive information not by his senses or not by the body.

(16:33):
And they know what people think.They know what people feel.
They see that someone will die in three weeks and he dies in
three weeks and he knows that helost his mother last week, et
cetera. So they got information because
the reception ability of the brain is permanently enhanced.
And it's also fits with the concept of the brain as a

(16:54):
receiver of interface. And I think it's fascinating
because today when you when people talk about things like
the brain gut axis and when you look at the enteric nervous
system and how highly functionalit is.
And it's interesting that we tend to still focus on the
cortex in the brain as this mainsystem for this transmission or

(17:16):
receiving of events. Because it could be then
plausible that the enteric, the nervous system is just as vital
to some of this information transmitting.
What are your thoughts on that? Well, we did also.
I've told you it induced cardiacarrest in animals and we saw
those animals that the deeper friction of the brain, the
brainstem didn't function at allbetween 10 and 20 seconds.

(17:37):
There was no reaction of the brain stem.
So also the deepest structures ever, you know, it's also let's
say the the breathing centre stops is also close to the brain
stem. So we know also the deepest
structure of the brain do not function at all.
And to have awakened conscious you need many neural centres
working together to exchange in information.

(17:59):
The global neural network of of and that doesn't is not
available. May you have chronic arrest?
Well, you partially answered this question already, but I
have to ask it anyway. The the fact that consciousness
isn't generated by the brain in this case, what role does the

(18:19):
brain play in essence to you? You sort of touched on it, but
if you were to give a general outline of what you believe the
brain actually is there for in terms of governing this
localized conscious wakeful experience, well, how would you
summarize that? I told you a little bit before,
I think we need to function brain to be alive in this world

(18:41):
and to to have experiences in this physical world.
Because when you're out of this body in the other non local
realm, you don't have the physical experiences as we have
now. So the waking consciousness and
also the short term memories. But it's sort of you can also
say the brain is a transceiver. It transcends information from

(19:03):
body and senses towards your consciousness and has received
information from your consciousness in into your brain
and body. So this young sorry, sorry PIM.
That's all right. Yeah, continue.
No, no, it's all right. I was.
Going to ask as a young materialist medical Doctor Who
stumbles upon this and eventually realizes OK awareness

(19:25):
may be non local, extending beyond time and space.
How did that impact you and change how you think of things
like memory, identity, self? How did you perceive it prior to
this and then thereafter? Well, it it was not from one
moment to the other. And I think the most important
thing, when I started cardiology, I was always

(19:46):
impressed by the techniques for the echocardiography, the Cath
lab, the catheters, the, the, the rhythm disturbance,
etcetera. But at the end of my career, it
was 10% of techniques and 90% was communicating with the
patients. And then you know what people
think and you know what, what isbehind the questions as well.

(20:06):
So it's about not about a heart,but it's about a patient who has
fear or real problems with your heart as well.
So it's much more than just yourorgan.
And when you think of memory identity yourself, how should
someone now perceive this knowing that this might be a non
local experience? Well, I, I think that's what

(20:28):
what we know now from, from, from research, from the death
experiences. When we are awakened, awakened
consciousness, then we have our ego and the ego is depending on
our bodily functions. That means you have jealousy
and, and hate and aggression and, and, and greed, etcetera.
When you're out of your body, that's gone.

(20:50):
You're just the essence of who you are.
It's it's all about love, about acceptance, about compassion,
about being interconnected with other people and being connected
with animals, with plants, with planet earth.
So you're connected with everybody and everything because
that's the non local aspect of conscious and you don't have

(21:11):
this kind of feeling. You're raking conscious.
Except we had a near death experience.
There's people with an ND talk about what I said and has
intuitive sensitivity. If you're connected with
everybody and everything, they feel connected with animals and
plants and with other people andthey know that everything you do
to others will come back to you.If you give hatred and

(21:34):
aggression towards us, it will come back to you.
Or you give love and acceptance and compression, it will come
back to you. And it is also for nature.
But you have problems with nature, how we treat planet
Earth. It will come back to us.
We know it already, but that's the lessons we can learn from

(21:55):
it. So and and so the essence of who
we are is we always call it selfwith capital.
The self with capital is the highest aspect of who we are.
And and I think that we we are light being the self with
capital is a light being and send sometimes aspects of of who
we are in this higher self towards back to embody to learn

(22:16):
other lessons as well. In sticking with this theme of
phenomenology and transformation, many Indies
include similar events, light, unity, unconditional love as you
mentioned. Do you interpret these as
neurophys, psychological archetypes, or are these
glimpses into the deeper structure of consciousness
itself? I think you just said it

(22:37):
already, because when the brain doesn't function, it cannot be
neurophysiological. Aspects of it must be aspects of
consciousness. And it is, it's these are
universal elements. The problem is that near death
experience is an ineffable experience.
There are no words for it. So a child will use different
words and interpretation as an adult and and and Christian will

(22:59):
use different words as a Muslim or atheist or, or for Buddhist.
But to try to, to, to put it to words, this inexpert, this
ineffable experience as well. And then there you have, as I
said, you have being aware of being dead, dark space go
through eternal come again and heavenly environment with with

(23:22):
beautiful landscapes and coloursand music.
And then meeting this his relatives with communication and
and meeting being of light with feet of unconditional laugh and
access to wisdom. You understand that advance
quantum physics. When you're back in your body,
you you don't understand anymore.
You can have some live review. You can have a preview of

(23:46):
someone's life. You come, come to a border.
You know that when you pass across this border, you will
never come back. And there is usually a voice
which tells you it's not your time yet.
You have a task to fulfill and then you're conscious.
Return it to the body with an awful experience because you
again experience all the pain and limitation of your disease.
When you have a traffic accident, everything is broken.

(24:06):
It's awful to be back in your body.
It's the psychological after effects of Indies are quite
profound. I mean, you mentioned all of
them. Those less fear of death,
greater compassion or some more sense of meaning from from your
experience and from the data you've encountered, how often do
you see these ever fully returning back to its previous

(24:26):
state where where someone loses that sense of greater
compassion? Has that some?
Has that been something you've encountered, or has it been a
pretty permanent state in most people's lives?
Yes, first of all, we did a longitudinal study.
We saved interview two years andand eight years after cardiac
arrest with all survivors of cardiac arrest with an ND and a

(24:47):
mesh control group of patients who survived cardiac arrest with
no memories, pest control group with the same age, same gender
and the same time interval. And now what we found is that
only patients with the ND had toclassical transformation, No
Fear of death. A new insight was important of
life so unconditional love and compassion towards yourself

(25:11):
accept your own negative aspectswe all have and then towards
others and towards nature and they're more interested in
spirituality and the third aspect is enhanced their
truthful sensitivity. That means that this is the
objective proof of the subjective experience because
only patients with an ND had this transformation.

(25:33):
But having had an ND you try to talk about it with with doctors.
They say total nonsense and hallucination here you get
medication you get over it. So usually they stop talking
about for years. I've met people who have been
silent about it for 50 years after first attempt to talk, to

(25:54):
share it with others. And there's a period of
depression, homesickness and loneliness.
So it's it's Andy is a spiritualtrauma.
Despite the positive content, it's very hard to be back in
this material world. I always as a joke said, when
you have Andy in India, you get congratulations.
When you have it in Western world, yes, yes, you're just

(26:18):
crazy. And they think they're crazy.
They didn't know. They don't know there's a name
for it. They don't know that they're not
the only one be referred to psychiatric institutions, but
they start keep talking. But once they're here and read a
book or see it on television or read your podcast and so it has

(26:39):
a name. It's in their death as well.
And they start to accept it. It takes years and then they
can't integrate it in their in their life.
That means the materials world is not important anymore.
They don't give money is not important.
Society is working with them. They become vegetarian, they

(27:00):
love nature, they love silence. So they changed a lot.
And this is a permanent change. There's after characteristic, 3
minutes, 3 minutes, there's a permanent life change the rest
of their lives. But first they have to accept it
and they have to integrate it, and it can take years and years.
Yeah, it's, it's almost like this blissful high that you

(27:21):
enter and then thereafter have to come back to to reality.
It is. It does sound pretty sad.
It is sad for a. Little bit part of the goal with
my channel was as a as a medicaldoctor myself when growing up
fundamentally materialist and and then it's doing a philosophy
degree thereafter. When I did that, it sort of
changed so many views of my own and, and big part of this

(27:44):
podcast is to try and expose others to to more deeper
philosophical thinking. Do you think when you're
engaging with skeptics, do you believe that they might be one
day a shared scientific languageyou could use to explore these
with people? Or do you find it's very
difficult still today, after allof this, to communicate these
ideas? Well, I've hardly met any

(28:05):
skeptics who want to discuss it with me and whether you're
whether you're Internet that that, that I'm talking about
deniers and debunkers. A sceptic is someone who wants
to think about it, but the debunker and the denier doesn't
accept. And usually the problem is there
have been discussions also Rupert Celtic has discussed and
other people have discussions talking with a debunker or a

(28:27):
denier. They don't know the literature.
They they have just prejudice and willful Icorus.
They don't they haven't read my book.
They haven't read the Lanceter. They haven't read anything else.
The I've published many articles, but also other people
like Bruce Grayson, Ken Ring andother sepani, Peter Fennec have
been so many books. But they have an opinion without

(28:50):
any basis of science as well. So they have a problem.
I don't mind if they're don't accept my ideas, then they have
a problem. I that's not my problem anymore.
I've learned it. Yeah, I think there's there's
nothing worse than formulating it conclusion about something
without actually sifting throughthe data and and actually

(29:12):
reading the person's work beforemaking.
I will never want to convince anybody.
It's up to them if they want to be open or not.
And, and and you know, there area lot of also professors and
neuroscientists, etcetera. They tell personally to me, you
could be right, but officially said it's total nonsense until
they reach higher. And then they said perhaps I was
wrong my whole life because theylose their research money to

(29:35):
lose their position in the university.
It says it's dangerous to tell other people in this kind of
academic world that it could be different as we always thought.
But based on this prospective studies on the ethnic space, we
have to reconsider the never proven hypothesis that conscious
is a product of brain function and the death is just the end of

(29:58):
our body, but not the end of ourconsciousness.
And they have. I've been now studying it for 39
years. It's so normal for me now, but
it was, let's say, totally new for me when I started.
Yeah. Look, do you believe then that
one day we might be able to measure or detect this
consciousness independent of thebrain?

(30:20):
And if so, like what type of technologies do you think might
make these paradigms possible? It's impossible.
You cannot measure in the non local real.
It's beyond the physical world, so you cannot measure it.
Let's say where you measure activity in the way you can
neural correlates and that that's so you see activities in

(30:44):
the way you can measure it by EEG or Meg or fMRI of PET scan,
but it doesn't say anything about the content of
consciousness. So the current material science
or that is true, but you can objectify, but you can measure
what you duplicate, what you canfalsify.

(31:05):
Now what you think and feel yourconsciousness, you cannot
measure, you cannot objectify, you cannot duplicate, you cannot
falsify. So consciousness does not exist
at all in the material science and that's the problem.
So we have to to expand science to a post material science to
include subjective experience. But you cannot objectify
consciousness in the non local realm.

(31:27):
It's always about subjective experiences.
So we have change. We have to change science to
include subjective experiences. And what we did with the
transformation, it's a kind of objective proof of the
subjective experiences. But you cannot prove subjective
experience, never. You have to accept it.

(31:48):
How when you look at your work and and your current view of the
mind body problem, let's say, how does your work sit within
this long tradition of philosophical theories?
Is it a monist theory? Is a dual aspect theory?
What? How would you describe this as a
philosophical? Yeah, I, I'm always relucted to
give it a name. Let's say it has been in all

(32:10):
human history. It has been said in Buddhism, it
has been said in the Vedas and the Upanishads, in Hinduism.
It has been said that the Kabbalah has been agnostic
Christianity. It has been all the people who
are living in this world. The, the, the, the apostrophe.

(32:31):
Everybody has said that there isdeath is not the end for me.
Now most comes to is less but ontological idealism or pen
psychism or protopen psychicism.But I'm very reluctant because
people are talking about a terminology and I want to talk

(32:52):
about content. So for me, consciousness is
fundamental in the universe. So everything comes from
consciousness. Matter is derivative from
consciousness and not the other way around.
So consciousness is always everywhere together with energy

(33:13):
and information. It's fundamental in the
universe. So it starts with consciousness
and your body also has started with consciousness and the world
we see around this started with consciousness.
And also there's animals and plants and planet Earth have
kind of subjective aspect, whichyou call not, it's not a human
consciousness, but it's a kind of subcutivity because it

(33:34):
everything comes from this fundamental consciousness,
primary consciousness. Do you think that, for example,
William James suggested at some point that the brain transmits
rather than creates consciousness?
Do you, a century later, do you think that neuroscience is
finally catching up to that intuition?
At least? Because I find today when I

(33:55):
interview guests as well and speak to people, this this seems
to be a growing theme that people are starting to question
things more. They are starting to ask
questions about consciousness beyond the brain.
What have been your views throughout the years?
Yeah, I'm very positive. Let's say if you have the
Journal of Conscious Studies and20 years ago it was 80%
materials based studies on consciousness and now it's about

(34:16):
6070% post material based studies on consciousness.
So it's changing and especially younger generation, like you are
much more open than my generation.
So when I give lectures to, to to medical students and also
the, the, the emails are received from everywhere, the
younger generation, younger doctors are aware of it, nurses

(34:39):
are more aware of it. So it's better for the page to
want to share the ND with the medical profession as well.
So I'm positive it it it will change.
And and if consciousness truly continues after physical death
as as doctors, how should how does that reshape our medical
ethics, let's say around resuscitation, organ donation,

(35:03):
end of life care? How do you believe this would
impact that? Oh, a lot.
It makes a lot. Let's say when when the the end
of life care, it's about the moment of dying, the terminal
faith. They have several experiences

(35:24):
which are based on non local conscious and of life
experiences. People who are in the turbo
phase of of illness can have be in contact with the conscious of
diseased relatives, let's say partners or parents of diseased
child. They see the light, they see
brutal landscape. They don't get the moment of
transition is is near of. Unfortunately, most doctors and

(35:48):
nurses and other people think they are hallucinations of side
effects of drugs. But the research, research from
Switzerland is about more than 80% of people in terminal phase
of illness have this kind of endof life experience.
But it's just always good easy to express it to others, but
they are in and out the body. Then you have the terminal

(36:09):
lucidity, people who have the end phase of Alzheimer's
disease, who don't recognize thefamily members for years or even
even are in coma or unconscious,suddenly set up in bed,
recognize the family members, call them by name, thank them
and die. I mean, you know how the brain

(36:30):
looks and say of, of, of of of Alzheimer's.
It's just a lot of mess in the, in the skull.
There's no brain function left. They have to share that
experience. The people are healthy and are
at the death bed of a very closeloved one and the moment he
dies, he can see the light or even are taken with them in the

(36:52):
death experience. They get out of the body to the
turtle to the light see sometimes the life review of the
disease and then at once they'reback in the body at the at the
bed rather just a different diedshared that experience.
They're normal people who have this kind of experience.
They have to peer immortal experience that you that you

(37:13):
4:00 in the night you wake up. I think of your father.
He said, oh, how sad or how is he?
And next more you got a phone call that at that very moment he
died. So you have communication.
Sometimes you see them as a light being saying goodbye to
you and they have to post, post portal experiences after that
communication. About 125 million people in

(37:37):
Europe have this kind of experiences.
It usually happened during the night because you call it a
dream. It's not a dream, but it's got a
dream. You will forget, but you'll
never forget this kind of experiences.
About 80% of the people have experience of after death
communication in the first days,weeks of months after the death
of a closed family member. They can see them, they can hear

(38:01):
them, they can communicate with them, they can smell them, they
can feel everything is possible.And usually they'll they say I
had a dream, but it is not a dream.
And when you have this after that communication to prove that
consciousness of a disease rather rather is still there,
consciousness is always there. So when I give Lexus also 30 or

(38:22):
40% of the people in the audience when I asked for it
said I had an after death colleague.
That's why they come because they they know now all the other
way around, they'd have contact with this conscious of disease
relatives. It's all the conscious is means
also it's not local. It's always there and you have
kind of access to it when you'realive as well.

(38:45):
So all these kind of experiencesprove that consciousness is
still there, but it's not not, let's say, scientific proof.
A real scientific proof is just being mathematics.
You can prove or or or, but you cannot prove in psychology or
psychiatry or this kind of subject.

(39:07):
You cannot prove it. It's beyond reasonable doubt.
Yeah, it reminds me when I spoketo Noam Chomsky about this, he
he he spoke about how the the whole scientific revolution was
completely abandoned after Newton because once once
theories became so complex that he could not explain reality
anymore, we started developing theories to just explain what we

(39:31):
believe made the most sense. So science of ultimately just
dropped the ball and trying to understand the fundamental
nature of reality. And he said there is no mind
body problem because technicallythere is no body because we just
don't know. What matter is you really know.
The matter doesn't exist. Yeah, exactly.
It's just emptiness. Exactly, and he was like, there
is just no mind body problem. There is no body.

(39:53):
We don't know what matter is, which is ultimately the
something that you kind of fundamentally agree with.
How has this changed your life when you when it comes to
personal implications? How has your research actually
shaped how you live, How you seedeath and and understand
purpose? That's a good question as well.
I think people ask me what what about my death?

(40:15):
I say I'm I'm curious. I'm not afraid I'm curious what
will happen but my life changes.Well my wife is very open.
She post physiotherapist but shedid Tai chi and chi ku and she
up to traditional Chinese medicine, yoga etcetera.
So she's open for everything. So our both our life change.
Our home is always silence but be garden.

(40:39):
We love gardening. We will we we we live theater
pizza from a National Park. We each day we are out at least
one hour biking or walking in nature.
We are both vegetarian, my wife more strict than I am, but you
know, the rest of perhaps sometimes take fish, but the
rest. And we have a also in our home,

(41:02):
we have a place where fifty families each Saturday come and
take the biologic dynamic vegetables.
It's based of Anthroposophy. So for, for 2530 years, we have
a place where people come. So there's a farmer who brings
the, the vegetables with us and the family comes here.

(41:23):
So we, we have for more than 30 years biological dynamic
vegetables as well. So we, we changed our life as
well. My wife's also interested in
Anthroposophy also a bit. So we're we're discussing a lot.
It's it, it seems that well. Also as a cardiologist, I'm
assuming you know how healthy that is for you.

(41:44):
So after seeing years and years of block, you've made a good
decision. We, we, we, we walk a lot and
bike a lot still each day and I'm now 82 but I'm still each
day bike and walk. You know, it's incredible when
when you think about back when you were young medical student,
perhaps as a materialist think Iassume you were skeptical of
things like parapsychology, any phenomenon that was outside of

(42:07):
the scientific realm. Have you explored that anymore
since this journey? Things like telepathy or or
talking, the sort of accessing streams of consciousness beyond
what we consider scientific. First of all, I'm never used to
work paranormal and I'm never used to work parapsychotic.
It's normal, it's a psychotic, but you need different theories

(42:28):
about it. As a young doctor, I was not
interested. My father was a neurologist and
he couldn't, my father couldn't accept my research in the death
experiences. He had a problem with it.
But I'm I know. But I'd say we read about study
about the death experience and non local constant telepathy,

(42:48):
which are called non local information exchange.
You can get information beyond time and beyond space.
You have perception, what we call remote view, because non
local perception. I know Stephen Schwarzer had
written books about it. So it's possible to know exactly
what happens on a long distance or in a long time.

(43:11):
Stephen Schwarz did studies in Egypt and you could find a
nonlocal perception palaces who were not known yet.
So it's real so, but I know never used the world telepathy.
I used no local perception, no local information exchange,

(43:33):
etcetera. I tried to because consciousness
has no is always interconnected,no time, no places the
information is possible. That is much more normal than we
know. So many people have this kind of
experiences, so also future events of prognostic dreams.
You dream about something and and then a year later you see

(43:55):
marriage or whatever or Deja vu where you come somewhere on a
place. I must have been there, but not
now. So all this kind of experience
is an aspect of non local consciousness, but.
This might be too personal, but have you ever had a near death
experience? I always say not as far as I
know, but in my aura and in my is said perhaps when I was 2

(44:18):
years old but I don't know. But I'm over.
I resonate with all the people who haven't and the ears shared
with me and and they come to me.They they feel that I'm open.
So people who don't know me cometo me and start to share their
experience with me. So it could be.
Do you feel like maybe things like quantum mechanics or our
lack of understanding of physical reality today and the

(44:40):
fact that people are exploring this and so many different
diverse theories is helping thisfield grow and and and sort of
triggering people to think beyond the brain?
Yeah, well, I use scrotificationalso written a chapter about it
because I'm used to the terminology non local
consciousness. Non local is beyond time, beyond
space and interconnected. But I use scrotifices as an

(45:02):
analogy and not as an explanation for consciousness.
I I use neurophysiology neurophysiology and I use any
research to understand the aspects of near death
experiences, but quantum is justan analogy.
Yeah, it's it's, it's always tough because a lot of people

(45:23):
try to use that as an explanation.
So you. So I really like that.
Another thing is also for for quantum.
Not all quantum is believe it, but consciousness is essential
because the the the observer doesn't exist, because the
observer makes an an an an an experiment and the result of

(45:45):
experiment is depending of the consciousness of the of the
observer. So there's no objectivity at
all. In at last in, in, in, in, in,
in science you can prove that light behaves as particles and
you can prove that light behavesas Braves both as true, but it
is not possible to have it. So consciousness is fundamental

(46:08):
also for quantum physics and also we know down now that there
is no objective science at all. It's something you think about.
It is. Is there any reason why you
almost went down the Pennsyka's route versus the idealist route
with your explanation of consciousness?

(46:30):
Any. It's not for me, not just told
you before. It's not about the the
terminology. I, I will can't talk and discuss
it. I know Bernardo Castro very well
and and and I can discuss with people also with with
philosophers. The terminology is not so
important for me. We can discuss the ideas and not

(46:52):
a terminology. Yeah, it's, yeah, it almost.
It almost encloses someone into a box that they didn't get stuck
defending exactly. And often too far.
It shouldn't. It shouldn't become a dogma.
And that's the problem. It should become a dogma.
When you look at looking forward, when you when you look
at the next generation of scientists and philosophers,

(47:15):
what do you see them doing differently in terms of studying
the nature of consciousness? What would you like to see
actually? Well, I think it should be
important that a lot of neuroscientists, but also
physicians and other philosophers know about results
of near death experience research because they don't know

(47:35):
and they don't want to know because they're frightened if it
could be true that they have been wrong with their whole
life. It's an awful, there's a huge
problem for them. So, but the what I told you, the
younger generation is much more open.
Also known. There are scientists in the in
the Netherlands who are more open for non local
consciousness, but they're very reluctant to share it with
others as well. But it will change.

(47:59):
Let's say my book Conscious Beyond Life is now in most
schools in the Netherlands for 6070 year old students get my
book to read and to give something to write about.
And my my granddaughter studyingpsychology in the second year,

(48:20):
she had my book and had to do anexamine about it.
So it's it's changing. The younger generation is more
open and they've no more. But it's, it's a small process.
It's a process. It'll take some time, but again,
I'm positive. That's incredible.
I think that's that's great to see things come full circle like
that. When you were when you were
exploring this and finally came out of your materialist view of

(48:44):
the brain as the main function for consciousness.
What books did you read? Who, Which authors were the
people who took you out of this and took you even further into
this? For people who are curious and
would like to. I also say people who have Andy
have been my greatest teachers. That's it.
You have to listen to people with open mind.
And science is asked a question with an open mind.

(49:04):
So. So you have to get rid of your
dogmas because otherwise, yeah, you cannot listen anymore.
You cannot read anymore because you're still in eternal vision.
So, but I've read many books that I started to read.
I really started to read the Bible, for instance, and and and
and Tibetan Buddhism and the banished shuts and and and

(49:26):
whatever books with a lot of philosophy books, consciousness
books, quantum physics books, a lot of books about their death
experiences. But the most important thing for
me was the starting point was listen to people with an NDA.
They have been my really my teachers.
And if you had to summarize the ultimate message that comes from

(49:49):
that, for anyone who still sceptical, still curious about
Ndes, what about that topic do you love so much?
And, and if you had to summarizethe major findings of what you
think would fundamentally shift someone to explore this topic,
what would those be? I think that based on what we
know now is that death is just the end of your body, but not

(50:13):
the end of your consciousness. There's no beginning, Norco will
there ever be an end to conscious?
It's before birth and after death.
There's consciousness. So when you die, you're involved
in unconditional love. You will be connected with other
people you love. So it's it's, it's not the end

(50:36):
of who we are. I think that's the main, main,
the most important aspect of what we have learned.
And we always connected also when we have died.
So the lessons also we have to live now in love to others as
well, where you help people to be nice or help people to help,

(50:59):
like two different aspects. Just helping to help is
important, but helping to be nice is something else.
So this kind of lessons you haveto learn it.
It's it's just about be open to others and helping others and
giving love to others. When it comes to the universe.
And to nature. Exactly.

(51:21):
I was going to about to take this further as well.
When it comes to the universe itself, do you see the do you
think there is a teleological purpose to all of us?
Do you believe that fundamentally consciousness
might have a a purpose in this, or is there a purpose in the
universe for you? Yeah, that's a difficult
question because there's no definition of consciousness as

(51:42):
well. I think we have a consciousness
during our life to learn lessons, I think and, and, and
the the essence of who we are, the higher self with with
capital, it has always be there,always be there.
So, and this is just universal love, compassion and acceptance.

(52:06):
That's the essence of who we areand we have to learn during our
life, have to learn this lesson.I think that could be the
purpose of of this non local or universal of divine conscious,
whatever you would call it. Yes, I think that's the the most
intriguing part of exploring these theories of consciousness.

(52:27):
When Robert Lawrence Kuhn wrote the is now this 350 theories of
consciousness. It's just growing and growing.
But the The funny thing is, is that it's intriguing because
every theory of consciousness must have some sort of
philosophical outcome. So the ethics change or the
values change, the morals change.
And generally when it comes to these Pancycus theories or or I

(52:48):
know you don't want to label them and put them into boxes,
but they tend to have a slightlybetter overall philosophical
picture and ethical framework that comes out of it then our
generalized dead matter view. So I think that's one of the
most positive things that does come out of these experiences
for people. Is that it does come.
They're more interested spirituality.

(53:10):
Spirituality is to search for inner knowledge by experience,
in a wisdom by just by experience.
I think that that's what people are starting to do, just more
spiritual beings or the essence of who we are.
And as a Doctor Who's explored such profound topics, do you

(53:33):
find things like psychedelics ormeditation, other forms of
consciousness experiences sorry as as almost a transcendence
into that realm to almost tuningin, let's say to.
Sometimes, sometimes it can happen.
Let's say that where you're People who meditate sometimes
get an experience of enhanced consciousness, but more often

(53:56):
not, and it cannot be the purpose for meditation.
You get it enhanced consciousness, but it may happen
may you do psychedelics. Sometimes it may happen that you
have enhanced consciousness, usually not the same elements as
an ND, but mostly it are hallucinations, frightening
experience, negative after effects etcetera.

(54:17):
So it's dangerous as well. It can be dangerous, but there
have been also examples of very positive after LSD or seriously
bean or DMT or whatever. But it is not easy and it could
be dangerous as well. Yes, yeah.
And what they interesting is they have done fMRI studies in

(54:42):
people who using these psychedelics and then you see
parts of the brain becoming lessactive, but they have enhanced
consciousness experiences. That's also interesting.
Yeah, that, yeah. But when I spoke to Bernardo, he
spoke about the exactly the samething.
And he finds that to be one of the ultimate markers that show
because there's so much activityoccurring.

(55:03):
So if the the reverse is happening in the brain, it just
makes sense that definitely not the source.
And then if you, when you look at your work, your it, it's a
vast body of knowledge. So much to explore.
I'll put links to your books down below as well.
Outside of ND ES, outside of outof body experiences, any other
areas that you feel can help fine tune this work or bring us

(55:27):
closer to understanding the conscious experience?
Yeah, but I think what I told you before, all the experiences
around to death, but in the dying it happens so often that
usually people outside at the bottom, they have to share it
with others. So the end of life experiences
after that communication, the the terminal lucidity, they are

(55:50):
all aspects of non local consciousness.
And, and so we have to discuss it.
Why can't it happen so often? And, and, and it's because it's
normal. But interpretation of what's
happened to us. They, they don't understand
because they just believe it's adream.
But what I also told you before,you normally forget a dream with

(56:11):
this you, you never forget. So this kind of experience are
important aspects of non local conscious beside the scientific
research of the death experiences.
It's almost like we have to be retrained as medical doctors as
well to approach that with patients when you explore that
clinical counter because it's a paradigm shift in thinking.

(56:31):
It's just and it's to be open minded, but I said it's so you
forget what you've learned and listen to the patients and you
get more and more intuition as well.
When you're open for patients, you'll hear much more behind the
words as well. When you look back at your
career and, and you reach closerto death, we're all getting

(56:52):
there. As you said, we need to
normalize this, this topic. What?
When you look back at your life,what what do you?
What would you look most likely most like to be remembered for?
I, I, I think, but I'm just grateful for the life I had.
I'm grateful for my wife and my children and my grandchildren.
I'm grateful the way I could live being a cardiologist and

(57:16):
doing the ND research. I'm grateful for it.
So I'm happy and that's my conclusion when I'm 82 years
old. Now I'm looking back and I'm
happy and grateful. You're 82 years young, PIM.
It's it's the when, when that heart stops beating.

(57:37):
Where do you think PIM goes afterwards?
Yeah, I'm curious. I think I've only got with the
other dimension. So that's what I said.
I'm a little curious. So I'm I have not fear, perhaps
reluctant to think about the dying process of dying that
could be very unpleasant. But as soon as I leave my body,

(58:00):
it will be wonderful. Yeah, I guess it all comes down
to the mechanism of death, eh? Like do you want to get shot in
the leg and bleed out for hours before it finally happens versus
going quietly in the night? I think it's hopefully,
hopefully the best we go quietlyin the night.
But thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to chat to
you and your work's incredible. Your body of work's all amazing.

(58:21):
It's been such a pleasure to read it and reread it because I
read your book quite some time ago.
And then to go back through it, it's been really great.
Any final words from you poem? Anything you feel we haven't
touched on that you'd like to explore before closing?
It was a pleasure to talk with you.
I think you're already a lot. You've prepared well, so and I
hope it also did kind of podcasts to help people to open

(58:44):
their minds. I think that's why I do these
kind of, I've given board of 50syouth the last 2-3 years.
So and I think it's important because it's the and the
research has been done, but a lot of people don't know
anything about it. So it's important and most
people don't like to read books anymore.
So this kind of interviews is helpful perhaps to change the

(59:09):
minds of a lot of people. Yeah, and I think this that's
exactly what this podcast is trying to do.
So hopefully people see this interact, engage.
But if there's any links to any specific articles or papers you
want me to put in the description for people to click
on, please do share. Yeah, my, my, my website is
country beyondlive.com and you can have all the scientific

(59:33):
articles, you can have a lot of interviews, you can see
everything that you want to see.So my website is in.
Yeah, Alex, I'll put a link to all of that as well to the.
Link to my book as well perhaps?Yeah, and.
Continuity of consciousness. All your papers.
And I think the, the, the paper,the continuity of consciousness

(59:53):
from the Big Law Institute is a very important paper.
I kind of regret it's 40, only 40 pages.
So it's it's just kind of updated summary for my book.
Yeah, yeah, it's nice and accessible.
Hopefully a quick read for some people, but we'll see how fast
they can get through it. But yeah, man, it's it's it's
amazing. It's incredible work.

(01:00:14):
And it's it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
I I've still one point. Did you read the last book by
Dan Brown? No, I have not yet.
The ultimate secret? No, it's just about your death
experience. It's no longer consciousness,
telepathy, non local perception,etcetera.
It's just what I told you is near in his book and have been

(01:00:36):
studying for eight years now already have been.
I don't know if he read my book,but I think he must have read my
book. So that's very important that
because millions of people will read this book and they will say
they will read about non local consciousness, near death
experiences, telepathy, non local perception, etcetera.
So it's very helpful to to to other people to be open.

(01:01:00):
Yes, it's almost like it it it bridges that popular culture
with this, with this type, it makes it a lot.
More and and that's that's that's very positive.
Yeah, no, no, for sure. And and I think that's exactly
what needs to happen, is that the more pop culture starts to
get into this and that's mainstream academia cannot do
this alone. You have to sort of bridge in
some sort of a popular media andthen that's when the message

(01:01:21):
gets received. The change will come from the
population, not from science. Thank you, it was nice to talk
with you.