Flashes of lucidity before death: The debate shaking up neuroscience
Near-death experiences and terminal lucidity raise questions about what we know about consciousness
“My mother had advanced Alzheimer’s. She no longer recognized us and seemed indifferent to the strangers who visited her once or twice a week. The day before she died, however, everything changed. Not only did she recognize us, but she wanted to know what had happened to each of us in the past year.” The testimony of a German woman, collected in 2019 by Alexander Batthyány, director of the Viktor Frankl Institute in Vienna, highlights a case of what has been dubbed terminal lucidity, a brief return of the self in people who seemed to have faded long ago due to brain injuries or Alzheimer’s.
In his book Threshold, Batthyány recounts his research on this little-studied phenomenon, relating cases of family members and healthcare professionals who witness what appears to be a temporary return of lucidity in someone they thought was lost. According to his estimates, up to 6% of people who appear to have lost consciousness forever experience it. In an interview with EL PAÍS, the psychologist defends the importance of studying these cases to understand their significance. For him, they challenge the current notion that the mind is only an emergent property of the brain and that when the brain is damaged consciousness disappears forever.
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