[KineticLensman]

> the brain continues to work for a period after the heart stops

I had a sudden cardiac arrest (Ventricular Fibrillation). I felt dizzy and oriented for a few seconds (5?) after my heart stopped pumping blood and then I passed out. There was no life-flashing-before-my-eyes, no tunnels of light, just sudden dizziness and disorientation and then nothing. The next thing I remember was coming round in hospital.

[jvanderbot]

Right. I used to box and I'm now painfully aware of the fragility of consciousness.

If you get hit right, the ~0.25-0.5 seconds prior and after to that hit do not exist for you. They are gone. You'll never know how you were hit or what you were doing, your eyes will just change instantly from "looking ahead" to "looking to the side/up" and you'll have to adjust very quickly to this new reality, despite the fact that the transition was instantaneous for you.

One guy used to joke that if you ever said something really dumb, you'd have about 1-2 seconds to hit the person who heard it so you could continue as though it never happened. Should tell you something about the kind of person you might find at a boxing gym.

[q845712]

small memory gaps after head trauma are relatively well documented - I'm recalling from ~15 years ago, but iirc the belief is that while the person is conscious at the time (before the head trauma) there's a disruption of the storage processes and those moments are forgotten. And then similarly, following a head trauma it takes a while for normal processing & storage to return. However, there's still some kind of conscious experience happening during those times. So there's a more philosophical question of like, "if you comfort someone and they forget it, was there any value in the comfort you provided?" but i felt like the paper was trying to argue, "yes" -- per the gp

> there is still a moment, just a moment, to say good bye and I love you

and why not? Maybe sometimes there is. and maybe the value of that is more for the living than the dead, but imo the point was that there's an argument they can still hear you. Will they remember it later? That's kind of a non-sequitor question if they're in the midst of dying.

[jacquesm]

Gmail has a little button at the bottom just after sending a mail to cancel it, that could be wired up to a boxing ball somehow.

[oblak]

What if you just don't remember the experiences you've had during this moment? Not impossible, imho

[root_axis]

An interesting thought, but in my mind it also raises the question of the meaning behind a sequence of memories that you don't remember remembering, there's simply no reason to assume it happened at all since without memories there is no other evidence of the event.

[willis936]

A dying person will not revisit their final moments if they were saved as memories. Giving comfort in passing is a kindness and a dignity to both the dying and the bereaved.

[omgitsabird]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterograde_amnesia

[petercooper]

It's an interesting point that rapidly becomes philosophical in a "if a tree falls in the woods" sense. I recently read a paper that suggested that sedating anaesthesia used with the promise of making a patient unaware of a procedure may actually do no such thing - instead they prevent the patient remembering the procedure afterwards. Which as a potential patient one day.. is a little terrifying, because even if I don't remember any trauma the next day, do I really want to experience it nonetheless?

[wruza]

Feeling of being cut alive consists not only of your perception, but also of biochemical reactions, that’s why falling from the stairs dead-drunk doesn’t feel much horrible, and when you or your relatives are in danger, you don’t feel your fingers and muscles applying enormous force on things, which would be very painful otherwise. When you’re on a table, doctors don’t usually see (afaik) any of your blood pressure, hormones, etc raise too much. No reaction is no pain, which itself is a complex of sensations and thoughts, not a single signal. This state is not conscious, but yeah it may induce philosophical thinking.

[jmopp]

When you're taken out of a minor surgery, you're usually awake as you're wheeled from the operating theatre back to your ward. If I think though about the one time I had surgery, I remember being told to think of something relaxing, falling asleep, and then waking up back in the ward. It's really interesting to think about how there was a brief period where I was awake, yet making no memories.

[neuronic]

True, forming memories at that time might simply be unnecessary overhead since you're not likely to turn back without significant medical help. Memories that will never be accessed are just pointless.

But so are hiccups, who knows...

[ASalazarMX]

Also not very likely, as people who report those experiences say they're intense and vivid, not fleeting like a dream or an alcohol blackout.

[disabled]

First, I am sorry that you went through that.

Near death experiences do not happen to everyone who dies and is resuscitated. Supposedly, according to Wikipedia [1], it only happens to 10-20% of people. If someone is critically ill, it happens to 17% of those people.

But, it does happen to some people who go in to cardiac arrest.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience