As central banks. Hello welcome to vision or is me Sophie Shevardnadze till recently the concept consciousness lay at a confluence of philosophy really but my guest today offers a clinical view on it dr steven law is one of the worlds leading in the new consciousness and hes with me today. Professor Stephen Lewis belgian neurologist recognized worldwide as a leading Clinical Research in the field of neurology of consciousness and list topics so glad that youre with us today. Right someone at jump rating whistle you never speech knocked unconscious right are lost consciousness but speed speaking scientifically can we actually match your lost consciousness i mean its. Someone who has been knocked out by mike tyson for instance really unconscious at that moment. Well i dont know what it is like to be knocked out by mike tyson its once your question about consciousness and when we lose it i think the historical. Soucy is that we have considered consciousness as all or nothing you read or not out unconscious or come of those or your conscious and this black and white decision is very probably wrong with others so that consciousness. And loss of countries this can be very gradual and i think this is this is very important historically when i started this research in the ninetys we had no money. And. Whats we. Going. To say just stage where people looked away but were. Basically just waiting to die now we know that many patients we talk to are conscious are so sensitive. And so this is very important. Or less consciousness is not all or nothing ok i think that this talk will be about different gradations of how much will lose conscience and what a conscious really is in different states for instance some people write they report saying all kinds of wild things during a near death experience which would call an unconscious state of mind i know that some Scientists Say oh these are just how listen ations but if my brain is hallucinating in this state right in means i still have conscious is just you know tripping on something so does that mean that even in the state of comma a human being possesses like you say minimal or some sort of consciousness do we have a notion of how much could that be and what is it. I think youre absolute 0 i aint that a dead the air we is made is when trying to measure consciousness how do we do that were having this discussion right now were talking if you will come talk we will use sign language or something so the only person right now so who knows what she sending feeling is you and you alone so you need to share that and of course if you who are coming up those considered unconscious can no longer communicate and so what do we do we basically look from the outside its myself as a clinician as someone who tries to measure and measurable consciousness im gonna ask questions and so in intensive care we feel that a severe traumatic brain injury or a bleeding who survived a cardiac arrest and or in this kind of those states i would ask him to do something squeeze my hands make any movements and then if i had to announce or i kind of test proof that they are conscious but of course when they dumped it on sir did i really prove to their own townships no so this is very tricky were making inferences based on peoples motor response when trying to measure consciousness article and sometimes we can get it wrong and i think as you said we have underestimated the capacity of the brain. Often kolo when we think theres nothing going on like in some patients off to coma like in people who have a near death experience this is very clear evidence that this idea is they can have a very rich subject this personal. And ceiling but also like you know we see this in the movies and sometimes we hear someone who has been in a coma our reputation state for a long time and the relatives for instance refusing to give up on that person every day being by his side and talking to him believing that he can hear them and then sometimes miracles happen this people come out of fetid tate of states or commas and they start living normally gradually and most of them actually say that they could hear people talking to them while they were unconscious do you see how that happens well absolutely i think with the scene we contribute to do a better understanding residual brain function after coma and so was in the European Task force and also now the American Academy of neurology we propose it more neutral term which is under sciences weight so. From now well try to recruit the least people no longer as educated but as unresponsive they just no longer responds to questions and yet they look away and indeed this is a difficult i know theres a substantial. Fraction of these patients who have. Ceilings emotions and itself and very frustrating because we downed axis so what theyre actually perceiving and that is the editor of the religion and thats the expertise of the team here because science book where we use functional m. R. I. Hi this is easy you see some machines here behind me all possible measures to try. And document whats going on inside so we no longer depend on the motor response we can go and measured directly whats happening in iraq so i read that and have located the area out the brain that is responsible for ending seeing this vision. Tunnel to the afterlife so how rare would you say this experience is sounding if you can physically observe the impulses creating them so it ends what do you mean by real its we have. A scientific challenge to define what is reality but i think its very well slow down and i think its a season logical reality where i dont think we should be too arrogant this is being many years now that weve seen with trying to understand these near death experiences that nobody truly can explain and maybe if i can sophia. Has a little request for everybody watching us now in russia who maybe had such an experience or who know someone who had a near death experience please share it with scientists share it with us the email address is very simple and deep from near death experience. Thats be or visit our website i created a sunday show in its mind care minds carried out sunday should wear including with our friends in russia all over the world we try to reduce our insurance when talking about consciousness including the very 2nd aging topic of near death experiences that we need more testimonies we have over thousands but sometimes i feel frustrated because i never had one so i should start by listening very carefully to people who have. And then try to understand so they temper apparent told junction as far as i understand is also linked to things like schizophrenia alzheimers. In the case of grey. Its my favorite organ and youre absolutely right that we have part of the brain right here in the middle its on the right side where if i was simulate it and even Healthy People one could prove folk socalled out of body experience so this is interesting now i dont think we should again say that just this art of the brain explains near death experience its too reductionistic but it is interesting to have some hypothesis another part here is important for this feeling of presence then of course the assistant told. Tracks that are quite sensitive to lack of oxygen can give this kind of tunnels it isnt this bright centralized and we also know the stories about people having flashbacks of their lives and this is a structure here deep in the temporal lobe that is important for memory where we have patients with my brain a free stroke that sometimes the stories that are making me think of a near death experience with a gann i think were not there yet we are making brain scans in people who hadnt yet that experience and trying to make correlations the truly presently it would be too arrogant to say well this is just this our dead chemical process in this or that part of the brain weve understood it and know i think we need to be more curious and to study it but also with an open mind because sun treasonous truly is one of the biggest mysteries sizes trying to solve ok lets say if we stop dismissing near death experiences as just person imagination right and we accept them as important brain activity what can we really say about them as of now definitely what are they back when from near a science point of view. Well the scientists will tell you be careful and what is true today is not necessarily true tomorrow so it is about a scientific methodology striving to confront what to crush them to under said was what you think you can measure and so currently yes we have a couple of hypothesis we got a number of papers it seems that kind of reduce our ignorance but its still a challenge for science im fascinated by the sat that people who have for example a cardiac arrest when we know that the brain is using so much energy there is no other organ in your body that nice so much energy and certainly theres a lot of blood for a number of energy these people have these are very rich and details. And memories of how is that its important to stress that they are not deaths because for some people also this is proof of life after death i wouldnt agree i think currently death is really a from tear it is a code for us to study we consider it in society as well indeed binary youre either dead or aligned with biologically speaking this is a process and now with modern medicine and technology we can resuscitate some people for example was a cardiac arrest and we need to increase our efforts to understand the process of dying at one point to become serious versatile and that is what we consider the best so near death really so theres. Wishes as a side dish immunity as a medical community the more curious and to sow the phenomenon more and i think were a little bit of scrapes we consider this so complicated and we. Suffered from also censorship we consider this maybe as its evident which it should stand well that take a short break right now when were back well continue talking to dr steven law has he is one of the worlds leading researchers in a neurologist cautiousness stay with us. When i was still seemed wrong. Role just dont call. Me the world is yet to shape out these days become educated and in danger because the trail. When so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. Secret prisons are not usually what comes to mind when thinking about europe however he even the most prosperous can be deceived within this 0 song there were 2 view houses were. Prison was located and the only. Access to the story investigators uncovered the darkest dealings of the secret services but i mean. The great of nor. Before. Trying for justice on a. Little more than a week before the election many are asking the question do you believe the polls we have good reason to do so should voters trust the polls if you dont trust the polks will you trust the outcome of the election. And were back with perfessor. Belgian researcher professor of neurology talking about what consciousness is and how much do we really know about it stephen when you have that near death experience everyone has very different visions i mean some people see there that parents some say their lovers some see tunnels is there something anything from with people youve spoken to who have share their experience with you about this vision. That they have in common for instance if im an athlete and i dont believe in afterlife right and i my my my my brain functions in a way that i dont i dont believe there will be a tunnel after i died that i see right with a light leaving me to have an or whatever will i see the same thing as a person that for instance is very religious and believes in an afterlife is there like a common thing a Common Threat that all the near death experiences have yes there is i think there is something universal grows old coach others and we try to. Give it time to stop so what is the most. Common in the. Mostly. Christian. West or. The 1st one is that they all sealy extreme the good sometimes they dont even do worse to express how good they say that its really difficult this is this is. That. They lose track just. And it was very interesting. Discussion. With father sergei who is a. Religious leader in the Orthodox Church but also discusses with people. In the intensive care and he said that the patients had negative experience and that is something that maybe we should try to explore more and hence again i think i would lie and more people from russia to share this and to compare it with what we see. In belgium and france in the United States where we have now sauza its a specimen east. Another example it strikes me is the interpretation of the tunnel you mentioned already which seems to be different when talking with my colleagues and in the muslim world where it would be sometimes interpreted as a door or in india where when i did come for instance and we also collaborate there its more like a river so yes something seems to be clearly universal but also there are difference individual differences that maybe also cultural differences that they currently are too anecdotal rini more evidence what maybe we can compare to is grete strikes i dont know socio if you ever had a near death experience. So it is difficult for us to talk about but you had dreams right i had to move all the time and i think your dreams and my dreams somehow are similar in their surrealistic contents and we can yes aid that there is something dreamlike but of course mine dreams in be very different in their precise content than yours so my answer about near death experiences is i think this is a sees a logical reality that needs more science that has a shared common structure but also with maybe a personal meaning that can depend on where we were up and of course my friends and colleagues in india will hear much. Less frequently people talking about the virgin mary or jesus and vice versa here we have less people talking about some indian dots that again this needs to be documented more. More want more details matter but when you asked me if i am an atheist with that a near death experience yes and maybe youll even have a missy experiences so far when we look at the dozens of tests in venice we have is very hard for me to predicts we have very religious people who have these experiences sometimes they will indeed read this as something that brings them closer to god that they will become more religious but not necessarily and also vice versa so i think its not just im a very religious person so i have this or that near death experience i think there are in this a biological substrates people often run out of options and now were talking about assisted dash for those who lost consciousness for avar. So in your opinion does that mean that we quit being conscious with being alive in a sense so when my heart beats and my body functions but my brain is unresponsive coklat cognitively dad and my still a life its. A very important question where. We as a definition for death ok well done 8 that is when your heart and lungs and brain cease to function and areas are simple then say this is more complicated when a decision is and its in the machine the our decision rests or it let me and show you such a machine. So this change the course of history its redefined death this machine by the way it is called osea this auster greek that the each citizen does of the oxalis was this so this machine from the 1st sign katz patients was very very devastating brain damage its breezing through the machine so their circulation could be inserted and as a medical community we redefine death not just of the heart and lung criteria not also in brain right that is what we call brain death so when your brain is death no according to medicine and according to law you are death theres nothing we can do we can decide. Thats very important and that in mind there is not much certainty when i see it asians and i and i try to get is a diagnosis it is what we call probabilistic ok it is what i think this patient hast when we say someone is death it shouldnt be probabilistic it should be riotous we dont want to get this wrong and so maybe also i can reassure the russian viewers we have these criteria says the 56 and there is never actually been a single patient where the criteria of brain dead for consciousness ok there has been diagnostic errors and medical professional errors but if you do the job correctly then brain death truly is death so i read you managed to match your brain activity and conscious patients by looking and prayed metabolise and so basically consciousness can be observed by counting how much energy. Brain is consuming but what about the future one of the possibility of brain scanning and in future what were trying to realistically be able to sing fight a human brain and train carriers. Honestly yeah you know. So sometimes we make big claims and i listen its always in lust and his company mira late whos trying to plug in. Computers into the human brain and thats great it is yes Wonderful Technology but. I think the complexity of the human brain and more importantly the human mind is tremendous. So i dont know whats going to be possible in 10 years. We dont even know what we dont know so perhaps we are just so theres 50 percent when we talk about the human brain and minds or 5 percent or 0. 005 percent so truly this is fascinating time yes we have all these things knowledge and see here grace. Machines that permit us to zoom in on the workings of the human mind but again we shouldnt be too arrogant its a complexity its currently were struggling with and sometimes is those very quickly. Sometimes you know its terribly difficult and slow like when i read the Science Fiction books of my father even my grandfather we would be driving around in slime carse its not happening were still driving around in stupid cars hes 4 wheels so its very very difficult and i think that the human mind is truly trust us. So just as the origin of matter something that at one point. Its been more than 25 years now im studying the number they gave the most of this and theres just the sort of. Spiritual. I can study. Today. And we dont know who. It was so interesting talking to you thank you very much for your dedication to this very important topic and you kept saying were actually watched all over the world not only in russia. So hopefully youll get lots of emails people sharing their near death experiences with you good luck with everything and hopefully you know little more about what consciousness is and how human brain functions in the nearest future. Is your media a reflection of reality. In a world transformed. What will make you feel safe. Isolation or community. Are you going the right way or are you being led to. Direct. What is true what is faith. In the world corrupted you need to descend. To join us in the depths. Or a maybe in the shallows. You know what i mean maybe out there see i dont think about last pectoral many grown men not me and our 4. I kind of were on the ship on course if im not big now i think its higher than our. Members of the african mafias promised them safe and quick passage to europe but once they. Leave they are enslaved they count speech util. Will not some of them leave be a mom and i couldnt you know if this unit can get it out it meant. They sold the. Least. Concord of the important because the persona that a cave in the sky. He didnt want me to. Headline stories this hour per rood box deal to cope with 19 vaccine from farmer john and. For a trial one to your in brazil lima i qs is the 1st withholding crucial data. The french government come from social media giants for a feeling to tellico all the while in hate speech but Public Opinion is somewhat divided. It is very easy to google the flame of social media and its up to a persons to decide what is problematic or not to do you should block such posts and there should be more people of moderate