Researchers are working on terminal lucidity, which shows that your mind continues to function even after death.

extremely insane and developmentally delayed, is one of the most peculiar accounts of dying that you will ever hear. Anna was rendered speechless for life as a result of meningitis, which had wreaked havoc on her brain. Nevertheless, at the same time that she passed away, this lady, who was presumed to be deaf and dumb, miraculously converted into a songbird. Death was accompanied by her. In her whole existence up until that point, Anna had never ever said a single word.

A number of the medical professionals and staff members who were there during Anna's Prayer for Death were made speechless too; some of them shed tears of amazement, while others felt as if they had seen a miracle of the soul. To be more specific, this is how Friedrich Happich, one of her physicians, recounted the event:

On a certain day, I received a phone call from one of our doctors, who is well regarded in the fields of both science and psychology. He yelled out, "Come to Kathe as soon as possible; she is passing away!" At the moment that we entered the room together, neither of us believed what we had seen or heard. Käthe, who had never uttered a single word, being utterly mentally retarded from birth on, sang death melodies to herself. Specifically, she sang over and over again, “Where does the soul find its home, its peace? Peace, peace, heavenly peace!” For half an hour she sang. Her face, up to then so stultified, was transfigured and spiritualized. Then, she quietly passed away. Like myself and the nurse who had cared for her, the physician had tears in his eyes.

We witnessed the dying of this girl with the deepest emotions. Her demise presented many questions to us. Obviously, Käthe had only superficially engaged in everything that transpired in her surroundings. In actuality, she had evidently assimilated much of it. Because, where did she know the content and the music of this song from, if not from her surroundings? Moreover, she had absorbed the lyrics of this song and utilized it effectively at the most vital hour of her life. This looked like a miracle to us.

It wasn’t until 2008—some 75 years later—that contemporary science finally established a label for what occurred to Anna Katharina Ehmer: “terminal lucidity.” German scientist Michael Nahm coined the phrase. Thanks to a new job at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany, he researches the phenomena of these astounding, spontaneous performances of inconceivable physical and mental achievements at the hour of one’s death. And for years he’s operated a website where he gives choice articles and journal papers from his studies. (Here’s a small sample of his work with terminal clarity.)

In essence, terminal lucidity is a mysterious flash of life and vitality that occurs in people just before they die. It’s particularly astonishing in those who have dementia, Alzheimer’s, meningitis, brain injury, strokes, or were in a coma. There’s no known medical explanation for where this sudden surge of vitality and functionality comes from. In large part because, as suddenly as it comes, within a few hours or even a day or two, it fades, and the person dies, taking any answers with them.

Nahm often explicitly works with the challenging theory that our brain-body connection isn’t what produces our experience of consciousness. Not exclusively. Nahm thinks there are preliminary signs our minds somehow transcend our bodies, brains, even the physical realm altogether.

“When you see terminal lucidity in the context of all the other end-of-life experiences or near-death phenomena, they all seem to point to the fact that human consciousness is not tied to a one-to-one relation to the brain physiology,” he explains. “I find that very, very interesting. This can tell us many important things about the nature of our consciousness.”

“I think if you take everything into account, it looks very much like a transition,” he says. “The question is: Can it be biochemically explained? I do have my reservations that it can be explained biochemically. So, yes, I definitely think of death as a transition no matter how you regard it. I wouldn’t expect if I die to spend my time permanently in absolute clarity and bliss. Even if the afterlife continues, it’ll likely also have distinct phases. Or maybe developments. Also, phases of increasingly hazy awareness. The afterlife, if it exists, will be immensely intricate and very difficult to fathom. The issue is: What is the soul, if it exists? Does it persist as an individual? Is it possible to dissipate into the Great Whatever? Can it rejoin the Great Consciousness that dwells in the backdrop of reality of all existence? Can it pop up again and reincarnate?”

Even if terminal lucidity fails to disclose proof of souls splitting at the time of death, investigating the phenomena may still give us more precise knowledge of how our body-brain-mind relationship works. We still don’t know how our “sensation of mind” comes from the mass of neuronal cells we call a brain. In reality, while many genuine scientists are striving to explain consciousness, it still eludes us. Perhaps terminal lucidity offers clues to locating where and how a mind manifests from nerve activity.

Does that mean a terminal lucidity researcher, like Nahm, is able to garner support among expert brain scientists, notable physicians and other interested biologists? (Obviously, Nahm has his critics and is faced with challenges of how to prove such a radical theory.)

“For myself, I never experienced any problems regarding my other duties or my career,” Nahm says in a matter-of-fact tone. “Regarding terminal lucidity and my occupation with that field, it’s very much a question of how you formulate the measures. So, even though, here and there, I said, ‘Yes, well, perhaps the mind is operating independently of the brain.’ In my publications, I have, first of all, tried to raise the interest of mainstream researchers into studying the phenomenon. Because I still think what we need first is more research on that. So far, mainly we have anecdotes.”

Nahm is also encouraged by the fact that he’s already has attracted an ally. “There’s one professor from the University in Vienna — he’s started a very large study on terminal lucidity. He wants to send out thousands of questionnaires to nurses and physicians, and he’s already sent out 900 — specifically here in Central Europe.”

“I’m in contact with him,” Nahm adds. “He has very interesting cases and interesting descriptive statistics. They make it possible to harden the fact that ‘yes, terminal lucidity does happen; it happens today; and it does happen most often close to death.’ This is what his data tells us. So he wants to expand on that and gather more data, to collect data from different countries.”

he’s a world-renowned researcher of terminal lucidity. For instance, he became the endowed Viktor Frankl Chair of Philosophy, Psychology, at the University of Liechtenstein, and maintains a seat at the Department of Cognitive science at University of Vienna, all because he once opted to attend a Viktor Frankl lecture. What he heard the famous researcher say made him curious. “One day, I heard Viktor Frankl lecture on death and dying, which I found very moving, and I knew that it would influence my life,” Batthyány, Nahm’s young ally, tells me via phone.

“So I wrote a letter, a thank you note to him, saying basically, ‘I’m no one. Just a student, but I wanted to thank you.’ I didn’t expect a reply. But a week later, his wife called me and said, there’s a present to be picked up in a shop nearby, next to their flat. It was a couple of books which Frankl had very kindly signed, and so on.”

What precisely about Frankl’s work motivated him so deeply?

Before he responds, Batthyány is cautious to stress that English isn’t his first language, then he adds in his immaculate English, “Frankl’s view on the human person was that the core personhood isn’t identical to physiology, not even psychology. There’s something about the human person that’s unconditioned and unconditional. Frankl held the concept that there’s something durable and irreducible in human personhood.”

Beyond Frankl’s idea of the noetic person — the irreducible germ of personhood, one’s own desire to live, so to speak — Batthyány also noted a medically inexplicable element of death that appeared to validate Frankl’s theories of life, death and personality. “What we observe with near-death experiences is that they’re enormously ordered, structured, clear-thinking, and very elaborate experiences. Which, evolutionarily speaking, they’re not very adaptive, yeah? Quite on the opposite. A near-death experience maintains a person lot more serene than maybe they should be when they’re protecting against an attacker like death.”

After Frankl, Batthyány was next inspired by the work of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, regarding grief, death and dying. “Kübler-Ross somewhere wrote, as if to herself, this little note: ‘We observed that these patients with dementia and so on, they suddenly lighten up, or they become clear again shortly before this.’ But nobody picked it up,” Batthyány explains.

He, though, decided to pick up Kübler-Ross’ trail and follow the clues. This quickly led him to Nahm. First, however, he experienced terminal lucidity himself. “I had a personal encounter in my own family with a relative who had a number of strokes, not able to talk. There was no verbal ability,” Batthyány recalls. “Then, suddenly, it was there again for a very brief time — just enough to say farewell and goodbye. A few years later, I saw the paper with Michael Nahm and [Nahm’s sometimes co-author] Bruce Greyson on terminal lucidity. It was their pioneering work that gave me the starting signal.”

I ask Batthyány what definition of terminal lucidity he’s working with in his study. “It’s the unexpected return of mental clarity and often also the verbal ability and memory of a person who otherwise you wouldn’t expect to ever return,” he answers.

“Frankl proposed that you’ve got three dimensions, so to speak—the noetic one, the mind, and the brain,” Batthyány continues. “That’s one thing I find stunning, amazing, and quite mystifying. But first, before we come to a theory of this fine-grained structure of the human person or human being, far, far, far before that, there’s one decision to be made. That’s the question of what do we consist of? By us, I mean not so much the physiological body, but we as persons.”

This central query also determines how Batthyány frames his research. “The question is: Are we the person now speaking and the person now receiving and understanding? Are we a product of our brain? Or is there something to the mind that’s above and beyond the brain? It’s an extremely tough question. Cases like terminal lucidity seem to stare at you in the face, and shout, ‘No, you’re more than your brain,’ because obviously you’ve got a very non-supportive brain that wouldn’t generate clear, consistent, coherent and reactive communication.”

Does he think he’s found a pattern of concrete physical evidence of the separation of mind from body?

“It’s hard to discuss these things in an unbiased way, because people immediately think about religion and maybe also wishful thinking. When I heard about these studies on terminal lucidity, about these reports, I just wanted to know. Therefore, we started a survey to study to see whether the phenomenon is real. Now, I do think it’s genuine. We need more evidence, but currently, much points toward the mind being more than a product of the brain."

For his current multinational European study of terminal lucidity, Batthyány has sent out a questionnaire that seeks anecdotal data from hospital staff and doctors. Beyond the obvious difficulties with this sort of research, there are layers of complexity. Due to the interpretive nature of the data, it’s hard to codify the science and study the phenomenon. For example, how much “mental return” qualifies as terminal lucidity?

That said, there has been one important finding to emerge from his data: terminal lucidity occurs for atheists and believers at the same rate. “I would’ve thought maybe religious people are more, you know, willing to see the unexpected. But the unexpected—if it does come—comes no matter who you are or what you believe,” Batthyány concludes with a satisfied lift in his voice.

So, if terminal lucidity isn’t a matter of what one believes, and if people are able to do things with their disease-destroyed brains that medicine says they shouldn’t be able to do a la Anna Katharina Ehmer, maybe the best question to ask is: Could there be an unexpected, yet universal, physical trigger for this? Have researchers investigated all the possible candidates for a physical mechanism that explains terminal lucidity? Human bodies are known to perform superhuman functions thanks to chemicals like adrenaline. Perhaps we’ve overlooked a dying compound.

To that aim, I ask Batthyány whether anybody has uncovered a chemical signature, or a cellular marker, anything left behind that reveals proof of this surge of life, a residue comparable to how investigators test for the presence of gunpowder that confirms a pistol was fired. He thinks aloud, "One thing that makes me doubt that you’d find a common denominator or common cause is that preconditions aren’t common. You’re dealing with brain cancer, brain tumors, meningitis, stroke patients, different types of dementia, and whatever else. In all of them, the diagnosis doesn’t make a difference when it comes to the phenomena. But it would make a tremendous difference when it comes to a probable physiological explanation of recovery of lucidity.”

He offers an example to help it all make clear. “If you compare an Alzheimer’s brain with another dementia brain, they look very, very, very different. It’s too early to state anything particularly definitive, but we have enough data to indicate that it appears doubtful that you’ll identify one common explanation for return to lucidity. Because, once again, the various conditions are far too different from each other.”

As we rule out physical causation, we’re left with few explanations other than the radical Cartesian notion of Dualism. Descartes argued that your mind (or, if you prefer, your consciousness) exists separately from your physical body. There’s another word for the consciousness that transcends the physical realm, too: the soul. How comfortable are modern scientists with the idea that, ultimately, they’re on the hunt for a holy spirit? “If you’re a scientist, you ask yourself, ‘What does it mean? Is this a dying brain experience, or is it an awakening sort of experience?’ We don’t know,” Batthyány says, striking both a philosophical and poetic stance.

“Unfortunately, the whole topic of the soul — if there is such a thing — is going to stay within the area of religion,” he continues. “But I’m not quite sure it belongs there. Because the further we go into the frontiers of human consciousness and human life, the better it would be if we just looked at it, and said, ‘This is unlikely, given what we do know about the dependence of the mind on the brain, but there’s a somewhat unlikely, or maybe unfamiliar, hypothesis that something might survive physical death.’”

Of course, Batthyány continues, “If you say this in a scientific conference, people will roll their eyes. They will say, ‘This isn’t science, this is religion.’ But why should it be? Why shouldn’t it be a proper research topic? A near-death experience is one area where science was forced to look at an issue that it typically didn’t.”

Struck by an unexpected memory, Batthyány momentarily stumbles into a rational minefield. “I just remembered one of my mentors, John Beloff. He was a well-known professor of psychology. But he was also doing work in parapsychology. He was, as far as I know, a strict atheist. And yet, he tended to believe that there was survival after death. This is a rational position. Survivalism, it’s called. It’s a very unusual position, but it’s a very genuine stance.

“The idea is, and I mean, I’m speculating now, but essentially, he asks, ‘If God isn’t right now in this world, very obviously, then why should He be in the next world? I mean, there’s no logic. It doesn’t follow, right? So one should separate both questions—the religion issue and the survivalism question.”

What, however, does Batthyány believe? Does he believe in souls, or consciousness that persists into death?

“The answer is I don’t know. I’m not sure. The only thing I can say is the more you look into—not necessarily the evidence, but into the stories of the ones who witness terminal lucidity—it's hard not to believe them. But really, I don’t know. I truly don’t know.”

And so, a man of science through and through, he thinks about it as much as he can while he seeks verifiable solutions. “Since I was 15, and even now, 30 years later, I’ve always wanted to understand death and dying. I’ve never wanted to have it out of sight. My instructor Mr. Frankl was once questioned by a reporter, ‘When do you think about death?’ His response was, ‘As frequently as I can.’ It’s something I really keep in mind, too.”

“When you respect death, you will respect life,” he continues. “And you will see that you shouldn’t take too much for granted. Every one of us, myself included, always assumes there will be a tomorrow. But one day, there will be no tomorrow, and there will be no next year and no next month. So to get ourselves acquainted with it, that’s not a terrible thing, yeah? Personally, I believe we can learn a lot by exposing ourselves to the concept of our mortality.”

There are, of course, a million more questions to ask regarding terminal lucidity, but the major one we’ve yet to explore is: How can individuals know they’re going to die? What tells them? A dream? A visitation? A feeling?

“How they knew, I don’t know,” Batthyány explains. “But I do know that they knew they were dying because it’s a recurring topic. Very, very many of the individuals who have terminal lucidity take the opportunity to say goodbye. I’ve never met one example when a person made arrangements for the following weekend. They say thank you to the nurse, thank you to the family, or they offer presents. Then quite frequently, very shortly after, slide into sleep and die. They do realize they’re dying. They make it extremely apparent. How they know, I have no idea.”

Because the inexplicable is always best understood by narrative, I will leave you with the account of another patient at the hospital where Anna Katharina Ehmer spent most of her life. The patient’s name was George, and he too had mental issues, but not quite as bad. For instance, he struggled to recall the names of his physicians and the staff. But the youngster could speak—he was hospitalized at age 6—and he loved to remember songs, even if he failed to comprehend what precisely the lyrics meant.

When George was 20, however, he became ill and spent a day singing death ballads to himself in his hospital bed. Odd. But maybe he’d heard them sung in the hospital before. That’d be fitting. The following day, nevertheless, as soon as George woke up, his first words were to tell to the medical personnel that he was “going to heaven” later that day. One of the medical personnel asked George if maybe he’d want to sing some songs the way he did the day before. George consented, performing one from his repertory of death ballads. But this time, when he reached a song that represented the approach of death, George halted, shook the hands of the medical personnel, laid back in bed, and died.